https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts Courts en-US Mon, 12 Oct 2026 14:26:51 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/judge-order-east-potomac-tree-removal-holiday-weekend Mara Hoplamazian, Reese Gorman, Todd Ruger A federal judge said the Interior Department cannot cut down more trees until at least Tuesday. Mon, 12 Oct 2026 14:26:51 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/judge-order-east-potomac-tree-removal-holiday-weekend A federal judge ordered the Interior Department on Monday to temporarily stop cutting down trees at the East Potomac Golf Course and explain why it cut down hundreds over the weekend.

In a heated four-hour hearing, Judge Ana C. Reyes said she was “thoroughly unamused” that officials gave notice at 4:55 p.m. Friday — minutes before courts closed for the holiday weekend — that the National Park Service would begin razing trees the next day.

“I do not know how I could have made it any plainer I did not want what happened to happen,” she said, adding that the incident had “cost the government all of its credibility” in the case.

Reyes extended a temporary restraining order to block any more trees from being cut down before 2 p.m. Tuesday, and said the government must give 72 hours’ notice for any work on East Potomac Golf Links.

She said she wants a senior official at the Interior Department to testify under oath so she can figure out “whether or not I've been lied to.” Reyes vowed to hold contempt hearings if her order is violated by “two seconds.”

“Because we are talking now with potential multiple misrepresentations to the court,” Reyes said, adding that “the only reason” she wasn’t moving to contempt proceedings was that she had not made a formal order previously, a decision she said she is now “regretting.”

The judge had previously told the government that it needed to notify the court before taking irreversible action on renovation and construction.

After alerting the court of its plans on Friday, the government began cutting down trees on Saturday, including healthy and mature oaks and maples, according to an emergency motion filed Sunday by the D.C. Preservation League.

The Trump administration told the group's lawyers over the weekend that the operation was proceeding faster than anticipated, and that 529 trees had been destroyed Saturday and hundreds more would be cut down imminently, the D.C. Preservation League filing states.

On Monday, lawyers for the government said approximately 430 trees have been cut down so far, and there are plans to cut about 299 more.

“On what universe did anyone in your office think that was acceptable?” Reyes asked the government.

“Your honor, we did our best,” a government attorney replied, before the judge interjected.

“No you did not do your best! You did your absolute worst,” she said.

Reyes spent the majority of the hearing trying to get to the bottom of who gave the order to take down the trees and when it was given.

She summoned Kevin Griess, the superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks, who told the court in a declaration filed Friday that the trees do not contribute to the historic landscape and were being removed as part of an older rehabilitation project.

"No healthy trees that are contributing to the historical golf course (such as healthy, historic cherry trees) will be removed as part of this project," Griess said in that filing.

Greiss testified Monday that the decision was made last Wednesday to move forward with the tree maintenance. Reyes pressed him to say who gave that order, then summoned that official — Frank Lands, a National Parks Service deputy director — to testify, which he did from a parked car.

Lands told the court that Gregory Wischer, the deputy chief of staff for the Interior Department, gave him the order Oct. 5 to go ahead with the tree removal.

Wischer is overseeing the East Potomac Golf Links renovation for the Department of Interior, according to a source familiar with the efforts.

Reyes attempted to call Wischer to testify Monday, but government lawyers said they were unable to contact him on the federal holiday.

“Someone is going to be under oath explaining that to me,” she said, referring to the urgency of the tree cutting, “because this is totally, totally beyond the pale.”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller publicly objected to Reyes’ order.

“I missed the part of the Constitutional Convention that put federal judges in charge of golf course maintenance,” Miller posted on X. “The Left is endlessly enraged that, after allowing DC to decay for decades, the Trump Administration is making it safe, clean and beautiful.”

This article has been updated with additional comments from the hearing.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/immigration/visa-screening-trump-fingerprints-judge Gavin J. Quinton Many detained immigrants were trapped in a policy loophole that prevented them from achieving legal status. Thu, 08 Oct 2026 01:11:23 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/immigration/visa-screening-trump-fingerprints-judge A federal judge in Washington blocked a Trump administration policy that prevented detained immigrants from completing the fingerprint screenings required to apply for legal status.

In his ruling Wednesday, Judge Amir H. Ali called the December policy “arbitrary and capricious” and ordered the government to resume collecting biometric information from detainees with pending applications while the lawsuit proceeds.

Amir said that the government, without any explanation, “effectively denies immigration relief to a whole category of people irrespective of their eligibility for the status they have applied for.”

A group of detained immigrants filed the class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration in April, claiming the Department of Homeland Security intentionally blocked them from legal status by denying them the required screenings. Some of the plaintiffs involved had already been held in detention centers for over a year, and many are proven survivors of “child abuse, domestic violence and human trafficking,” the ruling says.

The group’s claim that the policy was unlawful is likely valid, Ali wrote, because Justice Department officials had not offered a “rational explanation” for implementing new biometrics rules.

The administration said the policy deters the filing of “frivolous claims and provides operational consistency.” But the court agreed with the plaintiffs that the rule largely blocked legitimate applicants, adding that collecting biometrics helps officials verify identities and conduct background checks.

When the judge asked government lawyers during a hearing how the policy served its stated goals, an attorney responded: “That’s a good question. I don’t have an answer to that right now,” the ruling states.

Ali’s order suspends the policy for any detained immigrants with pending U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services applications — rejecting the administration’s argument that relief should apply only to those named in the initial legal complaint.

The ruling does not grant anyone a visa or resolve the case. Ali declined to issue a separate preliminary injunction to that end, finding that suspension of the policy was sufficient for now.

The administration must report back to the court concerning compliance with the injunction by Oct. 21.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/judge-trump-truth-posts Domonique King The platform is charging up to $100,000 a month to get 50-millisecond early access to the president’s posts. Wed, 07 Oct 2026 23:52:47 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/judge-trump-truth-posts A federal judge questioned Wednesday whether he should block President Donald Trump and the White House from posting official announcements on Truth Social when the social media platform is selling early access to his posts.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken, at a hearing in New York, dove into whether a 50 millisecond head start for corporate clients and high-frequency trading firms who pay up to $100,000 a month for the Truth API feature made enough of a difference for the courts to step in.

"That suggests that whatever the time difference is, it's valuable," Oetken said. But he also suggested 50 milliseconds is a "negligible delay to any human."

And Oetken also asked whether Trump’s ties to Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, are enough of a connection to justify a preliminary injunction against the White House.

"There is an extremely close symbiotic relationship that is unusual," the judge said.

In August, left-leaning news organization The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation sued the president and argued applying a paywall to public statements violates the First Amendment.

David Schulz, an attorney arguing for those plaintiffs, told Oetken that the API feature puts journalists at a disadvantage because they are behind on ways that alert them about Trump’s posts early enough to get to a story first.

The plaintiffs say the president and top aides use the platform to declare military attacks, fire agency heads and announce major domestic policies — communications that frequently rouse market rallies.

“It's significant enough for people to pay more than $1 million annually to get that information quicker,” Schulz said at the hearing.

Schulz said Trump had “outsourced the White House press office to Truth Social” and the administration had never identified any legitimate government interest in providing better access for those willing to pay.

Brantley Mayers, a Justice Department attorney defending the administration, told the judge that presidents choose their way of communicating with the public, and compared Trump’s social media posts to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats and John F. Kennedy’s televised speeches.

The amount of time between when API subscribers receive an alert and when Trump’s posts are made public — the 50 milliseconds — does not cause significant harm to journalists, Mayers said.

Oetken pressed Mayers on how there hasn’t been anything like this situation, where Truth Social is a private company but Trump is the largest shareholder, has exclusive agreements about use of his image and was described by the CEO as the man “on the other end of the phone”

Mayers said there is no evidence that Trump was involved in the creation of the Truth API. "That's the missing piece here," Mayers said.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/trump-judge-ice-accused-fabrication-illegal-arrests Michelle Del Rey The Trump-appointed judge wrote that the agents’ testimony bears “all the hallmarks of coordinated fabrication.” Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:38:45 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/trump-judge-ice-accused-fabrication-illegal-arrests A federal judge in New York this week accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of falsifying records to cover up a pair of erroneous arrests, including one that resulted in significant injury to a U.S. citizen.

Judge Gary R. Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued the scathing reprimand Monday, condemning the agents’ actions when they apparently misidentified a pair of men they arrested in New York City earlier this year — then allegedly covered their tracks by falsifying official paperwork.

“The evidence suggests that ICE attempted to support their unsupported misidentification argument through false or misleading documentation and testimony,” Brown, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, wrote in a 28-page ruling, determining that the “arrest and detention of petitioner were illegal.”

The petitioner, Angel Jesus Almonte, a 26-year-old undocumented immigrant, alleges ICE agents arrested him based on a physical description despite the fact that he’s five inches shorter and 80 pounds lighter than their intended target, the filing says.

In June, Almonte filed an emergency habeas petition challenging his arrest, detention and the conditions of his confinement, the filing says.

During cross-examination, the ICE team leader acknowledged, “It’s very easy to see they’re two different people.”

Following the arrest, Brown determined that the paperwork filed by agents contained false information, as did testimony provided by the officials.

The case stems from a May 6 ICE operation in which three officers were involved: team leader John Katepodis, deportation officer Kevin Brodowsky and deportation officer Zamir Yassin, all relatively new to their jobs, Brown wrote.

At the time of the arrests, the agents said they were searching for an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record, as well as a second person without any known convictions. They claimed to have spotted Almonte — whom they mistook for one of their targets — conduct a drug deal outside of a building in the Bronx, though officers also wrote in a report that Almonte was not in possession of drugs or money at the time of his arrest.

Brown later determined that agents had falsified a warrant following the arrest to justify their apparent instance of mistaken identity, and only after detaining Almonte did they determine he was in the country illegally.

“ICE agents prepared a substantially false administrative warrant in an attempt to rationalize their actions,” Brown wrote, adding that the agents’ claim that they had witnessed a drug transaction “bear all the hallmarks of coordinated fabrication.”

The agents then made another arrest on the same block, claiming to have found their second target. That man, 19-year-old Jeury Concepción, is a U.S. citizen who said officers did not ask to see his identification before taking him to the ground. He was injured during the encounter and received stitches for a deep cut he sustained on the side of his head.

The agents also claimed that the incident was a case of mistaken identity.

Joshua Dayan, a lawyer for Concepción, told The New York Times that he planned to sue ICE and the agents involved.

“What happened to him should not happen to anybody … let alone a U.S. citizen,” Dayan said. “All they did was run up to Jeury and attack him.”

Trump nominated Brown to the court in 2018, and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote the following year. A former federal magistrate, Brown was first appointed to the Eastern District of New York in 2015 by then-President Barack Obama but never confirmed by the Senate before his nomination expired.

Brown has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

In a 2025 ruling reported by Courthouse News Service, Brown threatened the Department of Homeland Security with contempt after the department refused to provide his court with photos of a Long Island holding room, which he said had been maintained “in a manner that shocks the conscience.”

In Monday’s ruling, Brown ordered ICE to explain what disciplinary procedures it would hand down to the agents and any steps it plans to undertake to prevent any similar incidents in the future. He also left open the threat of penalties, including contempt charges, for agency officials.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/judge-orders-kennedy-center-renovation-documents-unsealed-joyce-beatty-trump Torrie Herrington The documents were used by the center’s board during an August meeting about whether to close the center’s main building. Wed, 07 Oct 2026 18:52:20 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/judge-orders-kennedy-center-renovation-documents-unsealed-joyce-beatty-trump A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to make public a presentation used by Kennedy Center officials as they considered closing the building for two years, while allowing the government to propose limited redactions to a separate 163-page renovation plan.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the “Delta Construction Group PowerPoint” unsealed in full and said the administration must propose narrowly tailored redactions to the “JLL Plan” by Oct. 14. Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex officio Kennedy Center board member who is seeking to halt the center’s closure, will have until Oct. 19 to respond to the proposed redactions.

The documents were used by the Kennedy Center board during an Aug. 13 meeting about whether to close the center’s main building for renovations.

The administration had argued that the JLL Plan contained sensitive information, including floor plans, structural schematics, entrances and exits, and restricted-access areas that could pose a security risk if released publicly.

But Cooper said the government had not overcome the strong presumption of public access to court records. He noted that news organizations had already reported portions of the plan and that the administration itself is relying on it in the case.

The ruling is the latest development in Beatty’s lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s control of the Kennedy Center. Beatty has also sought documents and testimony concerning Trump’s involvement in decisions surrounding the center, while the Justice Department has fought her discovery requests.

The Delta presentation is expected to become public sometime this week. The JLL Plan will follow after the court reviews the administration’s proposed redactions.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/us-news/angela-paxton-leads-the-push-to-overturn-citizens-united Paul Kane The Texas state senator and other state legislators see the 2026 elections as a “tipping point” toward ending dark money. Wed, 07 Oct 2026 09:29:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/us-news/angela-paxton-leads-the-push-to-overturn-citizens-united Angela Paxton is not the likeliest figure to lead the movement against big spending by special interests in elections across the nation.

Paxton is a conservative state senator from Texas, whose estranged husband is benefiting from close to $200 million in unlimited, hard-to-trace spending in his Senate race. She even appeared in a super PAC ad last weekend asking Texans to “vote the ticket” and support Ken Paxton, despite what she considers his moral failings in their marriage.

But Angela Paxton came to Washington last week as part of a bipartisan delegation of state legislators preaching the gospel of barring big money in elections, particularly those undisclosed donations that might be coming from overseas or other nefarious interests.

This fall’s elections, particularly in her home state, are so overwhelmed by outside money that Paxton believes Americans are finally ready to pass a constitutional amendment that would overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that set the stage for today’s politics.

“We may be at a tipping point. I hope we are, because the fundamental issue is each state should be able to design [campaign laws] for itself. That's how the system was built. The courts have moved us away from that, and this will restore it,” Paxton told The Washington Sun in an exclusive interview.

The group of state legislators is working with American Promise, a nonprofit that is leading an underdog effort to allow states and Congress to rewrite laws regarding how political campaigns are financed.

The plan is to take an outside-in approach to changing the Constitution that would demonstrate to Capitol Hill that three-fourths of states (38) stand ready and willing to approve what would be the 28th amendment to the nation’s founding charter. The leaders of this movement want to demonstrate to Washington that the support is out there if they have the courage to move on the issue.

The concept, laid out in barely two pages of legislative text, is either incredibly naive — considering it’s been more than 50 years since this polarized nation approved a new amendment — or perfectly simple in its appeal to conservatives, centrists and liberals alike.

“I think that as a nation, collectively, we're tired right now. We're exhausted,” Republican Utah state Rep. Jason Thompson, who’s facing an onslaught of direct mail financed by out-of-state liberals in his reelection bid, told The Sun in between meetings with Utah’s delegation in the Cannon Office Building.

“We the people are tired,” he said. “We're tired of how Washington is spending money. We're tired of how money is being used to influence our votes, and I think that's what's led to a huge increase in overall frustration by both parties.”

So far, American Promise has helped organize resolutions of support in 25 state legislatures, running the ideological gamut from Utah to Vermont.

Other states are moving in that direction as well, such as Texas, where Paxton is vice chair of the committee charged with writing election law and has already introduced a resolution supporting the constitutional amendment. She expects to try to move quickly once the Legislature comes back into session in January, arguing that this is a states’ rights issue at the core of the conservative movement.

“The idea that Texas should decide for Texas, that's all this is,” she told The Sun. “It's not saying we should have this campaign finance law or this campaign finance law.”

Paxton's support for the constitutional amendment only grew when federal courts ruled against portions of a Maine referendum, passed with about 75% support in 2024, to limit dark money and foreign donations — the sort of judicial meddling that led her to join this movement.

Her message to fellow conservatives receiving big support from outside money — such as Ken Paxton and other Texas Republicans — is that they will fare better.

“Even a candidate who's getting a lot of money from a super PAC, if you put them on the spot and say, ‘Do you believe we should allow foreign money in our elections?’ No Republican is going to be able to stand on a policy like that,” she said.

Should the outside movement gather up 38 states ready to support the amendment, Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Michigan) has already written a bill to add it to the nation’s founding document.

“Free speech and competitive campaigns are essential to our democracy, but our elections should not be determined by elite megadonors,” Barrett said in introducing the measure.

But the issue hasn’t gained much traction inside Congress, as Barrett has just one co-sponsor: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif).

And for more than 15 years, the Supreme Court has been increasing the ability of big money to influence campaigns, including this year’s decision, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, that weakened the separation between candidates for federal office and allied party campaign committees, allowing them to coordinate expenditures they hadn’t been able to discuss before.

Kavanaugh wrote that the “fullest and most urgent” application of the First Amendment applied to the “conduct of campaigns” for public office. “Spending money on one’s own speech must be permitted,” he wrote.

That’s a view that Republicans like Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have been pushing for 25 to 30 years, helping to create a system of super PACs taking unlimited donations that have often spent more money than parties’ actual candidates.

Democrats, after denouncing such spending, have also engaged in this political arms race and have their fair share of super PAC allies who will spend hundreds of millions of dollars this fall, albeit nothing that can match the likes of Elon Musk, who spent more than $200 million in 2024 helping Trump.

Paxton, who isn’t up for election this year, spent a relaxing few days in Washington away from the airwaves of Texas, where it’s not just the Senate and governor’s races that are dominant. State senators there represent over 1 million people — more than a member of the U.S. House — and Paxton estimates that in her first campaign, in 2018, she spent $3.5 million.

Opposition to this flood of money has gained surprising resonance in some of the most rural, conservative states like Utah and Wyoming, where once-quaint state and local elections are turning into highly financed battles resembling the uglier races for Congress.

Republican Wyoming state Rep. Andrew Byron recalled that where a campaign for a “really competitive” seat representing about 9,500 people once cost about $5,000, that same seat now “can easily go into six figures.”

The weapon of choice in these low-population states has been direct-mail pieces, not the highly produced TV ads dominating national contests.

Candidates for state legislature used to produce a few pieces each election, mostly touting their own views and critiquing their opponent. Byron estimates 100 pieces of mail flooded his home ahead of the state’s unusually competitive primary elections this summer.

“I bet 80 of those or 90 of those don't have any ties to any entity in Wyoming,” he told The Sun.

His travel companion to Washington last week, state Sen. Mike Gierau, one of two Democrats in Wyoming’s upper legislature, said these direct-mail pieces often aren’t even about local issues that the Legislature handles.

“The representative is driving illegals across the border, picking up fentanyl, and then, you know, dropping off that with the pornography at the local library,” Gierau said, mocking the extreme content. “It plays to these national hot-button issues.”

He works with Republicans out of necessity, and his argument for them to support the constitutional amendment comes down to how cheap elections are in Wyoming, relative to larger population states, and the damage that big money could do there.

“A group of people, a small group of people, can sit in their room and say, "I can turn the tide of an entire state election with less than $1 million. I can actually buy a legislature for that,” Gierau said.

In Utah, Thompson watched with horror when about $50,000 in dark money — he believes it was from liberals in the Jackson Hole region — poured into a local mayor’s race to impact the outcome. He is bracing to face up to $175,000 worth of outside super PAC money in his November election campaign.

“Which means I have to go then fundraise that much more money,” Thompson lamented.

These state lawmakers, especially the Republicans, believe that the first law they would pass, if they could, would be to mandate immediate public disclosure of big donations along with banning foreign contributions.

Paxton wants the key connection to be between candidates and voters, not candidates and donors.

“What we have is our candidates spend all their time raising money,” she said. “What we really want is them interacting with voters, so people can get to know them.”

This story was updated to add details about Maine.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/kennedy-center-doj-discovery-motion Jenna Monnin The Justice Department implored a federal judge to “immediately” reject the motion to compel the government to provide communications between Trump and Kennedy Center officials. Tue, 06 Oct 2026 23:34:28 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/kennedy-center-doj-discovery-motion The Department of Justice on Tuesday asked a federal judge to reject Rep. Joyce Beatty’s attempt to compel the government to provide documents about President Donald Trump’s role in the Kennedy Center’s planned two-year shutdown.

Government attorneys asserted in a response filed to U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper that Beatty’s discovery request for documents is unnecessary, saying the information already before the court supports the Kennedy Center board’s vote to shutter the center.

“Enough is enough,” the DOJ lawyers wrote. “The Court should not entertain Plaintiff’s and counsel’s efforts to mire this litigation in unnecessary and massively burdensome discovery simply because Plaintiff and her counsel believe something must be wrong with the Board’s well-supported decision to take an action with which Plaintiff, for undefined reasons, evidently disagrees.”

Beatty’s lawyers filed a motion on Monday accusing the Trump administration of improperly shielding evidence behind presidential privilege, saying it “stonewalled discovery” by withholding communications between the president and Kennedy Center officials.

“Absent the Court’s intervention, Defendants will be allowed to curate the record and hide the truth from the Court,” the Ohio Democrat’s legal team wrote.

Government lawyers asked the court to “order discovery closed immediately” and decline to reopen the process if the Oct. 9 discovery deadline passes before the judge can rule on the DOJ’s request.

The attorneys later said the Trump administration had already complied with the “Plaintiff’s requests for information” under a “severely expedited discovery timeline” in the case — and strongly rejected Beatty’s claims that communications revealed in discovery would reveal any misconduct by the Trump administration.

“None of the voluminous evidence provided to her thus far supports her unfounded theories of impropriety,” the DOJ attorneys argued, describing Beatty’s motion as a “desperate efforts to seek additional discovery.”

Beatty’s lawyers fired back with a reply filing Tuesday night. They pushed back against the DOJ’s claims that the evidence-gathering process has been dragging on and reemphasized the need to uncover new information, “particularly in light of the information that Plaintiff has uncovered in discovery in the short period available and despite Defendants’ apparent stonewalling.”

The Ohio congresswoman, who serves as an ex officio board member, has continued to challenge Trump’s push to reshape the institution since he took control of its board and leadership. The president has said that the iconic D.C. landmark is in a “virtual state of collapse” and asserted that only a complete shutdown of the main building, in addition to a more than $250 million renovation project, can save the performing arts center.

Trump has also taken specific issue with Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee, blocking the addition of his name to the building’s facade under President John F. Kennedy’s name. Trump threatened to halt planned construction for the center after it closed on Sept. 15 unless he is allowed to add his name.

In a Time magazine interview published last week, Trump declined to rule out demolishing the Kennedy Center if his name isn’t added to it, with or without congressional approval.

“I’m not committing to anything,” Trump said.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/defense/federal-judge-denies-stars-and-stripes-ombudsmans-reinstatement-request Kendall Staton Jacqueline Smith’s case, which alleges the Pentagon violated her First Amendment rights, remains open. Tue, 06 Oct 2026 19:26:54 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/defense/federal-judge-denies-stars-and-stripes-ombudsmans-reinstatement-request A federal judge denied fired Stars and Stripes ombudsman Jacqueline Smith’s request to be swiftly reinstated to her job in an opinion released Tuesday — but did not outright dismiss her case, which claims her firing was a violation of her First Amendment rights.

The Pentagon fired Smith in April from her position as the military newspaper’s ombudsman, a role charged with safeguarding the paper's independence.

Smith sued the Pentagon earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Washington, claiming retaliation for publishing an opinion piece that criticized Pentagon officials for axing comics from the paper. Another federal judge declined to block the department from firing three other staff members last month.

Judge Amit Mehta denied Smith’s petition for reinstatement, saying her speech as a public employee was only protected while speaking “as a citizen” and not as part of her ombudsman duties.

Mehta declined to dismiss the case outright, questioning whether the same legal precedent that did not protect Smith’s speech while working for the paper would also mean that she “therefore enjoys no First Amendment protection from an adverse employment action.”

The Justice Department’s justification for dismissal relies on an argument that “would mean the First Amendment is but a hollow promise for Stars and Stripes journalists — and perhaps its Ombudsman,” Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote.

The judge gave the Department of Defense until Oct. 20 to renew its motion to dismiss or respond to Smith’s complaint.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/supreme-court-rejects-subscriber-request-paramount-warner-bros Gavin J. Quinton The deal for Paramount to acquire Warner Bros. closes Tuesday. Tue, 06 Oct 2026 01:44:35 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/supreme-court-rejects-subscriber-request-paramount-warner-bros The Supreme Court denied a last-minute bid by streaming subscribers seeking to block Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. just hours before the megamerger was expected to close on Tuesday.

Monday’s longshot emergency application, addressed to Justice Elena Kagan, sought to keep the companies separate while the court considers reviewing a challenge filed by a group of Paramount subscribers. Without the high court’s intervention, the merger is expected to continue, solidifying the two film studios — as well as CNN, CBS News, TBS, HGTV, Paramount+ and HBO — under one company.

“Closing will not merely change a stock ledger,” the applicants wrote in their request. “Once independent pricing, programming, release, newsroom, technology, employment and investment decisions are centralized, later relief cannot restore the period of competition that was lost.”

Within a matter of hours, Kagan denied the emergency appeal without comment.

The lawsuit, initially filed in April, alleged that the acquisition would eliminate competition between businesses that currently vie for consumers’ money and attention. In their Monday filing, the consumers pleaded with the Supreme Court to review their case, arguing that U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin overlooked evidence already in the record, including Paramount’s own plans to lay off employees.

Lower courts had already tossed other efforts by consumers to slow the deal. Last week, Martinez-Olguin approved a settlement agreement between Paramount, the Writers Guild of America and 12 states challenging the acquisition, resolving the monthslong deadlock over the merger.

In exchange for letting the deal move forward, Paramount Skydance must spend at least $1.5 billion domestically to produce a minimum of 30 film releases each year. The settlement also includes protections for editorial independence at CNN and CBS News and creates safeguards against writer layoffs.

Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair under President Joe Biden, said that such fail-safes in high-stakes antitrust cases often fall short of protecting the markets.

“Behavioral remedies routinely fail, and the stakes here are particularly high given that a strong democracy requires open markets for sound journalism and creative expression,” she wrote on X last month.

According to a Paramount filing, layoffs will soon hit workers in Hollywood. The company is mostly looking at nonunion corporate and desk jobs where duties overlap, but officials said they also plan to cut production for some film and television titles.

The newly merged company will be named Skydance, led by David Ellison alongside co-CEO Ynon Kreiz. Paramount has already projected more than $6 billion in savings and approximately $79 billion in net debt, while the younger Ellison has argued that combining streaming operations would strengthen competition with Netflix.

Kriez said Monday that the merger will make Skydance the leader in the global media market by building “the most technologically capable media company” and “capitalizing on our scale, assets and global reach.”

The transaction also carries political stakes: President Donald Trump, who shares close ties with the Ellison family, has publicly demanded new ownership for CNN, a network he frequently assails for critical coverage. Trump recently barred CNN reporters from accessing the White House.

"I think the people that have run CNN for the last long period of time are a disgrace. I think it's imperative that CNN be sold,” Trump told reporters in December. “I don't think the people that are running that company right now and running CNN — which is a very dishonest group of people — I don't think that should be allowed to continue."

Trump’s Justice Department closed its merger investigation in June, concluding that the deal was “unlikely to harm” competition or consumers.

Paramount announced Monday that CNN chief Mark Thompson would remain in charge of the network as the company prepares to bring it under the same ownership as CBS News.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/supreme-court-rejects-lets-go-brandon-case The Associated Press Lower courts found the prohibition on the veiled vulgarity didn't violate the First Amendment. Mon, 05 Oct 2026 22:58:46 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/courts/supreme-court-rejects-lets-go-brandon-case By Lindsay Whitehurst

The Supreme Court won't hear a challenge to a school district's ban on shirts with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon.”

The phrase is a jab at former President Joe Biden with a coded reference to profanity. A Michigan mother of two says the school's ban is a First Amendment violation.

The school told her sons to take off the sweatshirts she bought them for Christmas in 2022.

Lower courts upheld the ban, finding the veiled vulgarity of the phrase allows schools to ban it. It functions as a stand-in for “F-— Joe Biden."

The woman's attorneys argued that the decision wrongly gives school officials wide latitude to squelch political speech based on their personal ideas of what is vulgar. The phrase itself doesn't contain any swear words or sexual implications, they said.

The school district urged the justices to reject the case, arguing that messages with lewd implications have no place in school, even if they touch on political topics. There has been evidence that some students wore clothing that read “Make America Great Again” or had messages supporting President Donald Trump, a Republican who lost the 2020 election to Biden, a Democrat.

The phrase originated in 2021, when people in the crowd at a NASCAR race chanted the obscenity directed at Biden and a TV sports reporter said they were calling out “Let’s Go, Brandon," apparently believing they were chanting for driver Brandon Brown, who had just won a race.
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