Trump asks appeals court to reconsider overturning $5 million E. Jean Carroll verdict
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(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump is asking a federal appeals court to reconsider overturning a jury’s verdict that found he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and awarded her $5 million in damages.
After the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined last month that Trump failed to prove he deserved a new trial, lawyers for Trump on Tuesday requested an en banc hearing, in which the full court would hear the case rather than a select panel.
A New York jury in 2023 awarding Carroll $5 million in damages after it found Trump liable for sexually abusing her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and for defaming her in 2022 when he denied the allegations.
Last year, another jury ordered Trump to pay an additional $83 million in damages for his defamatory statements about Carroll.
Trump argued the trial court in 2023 erred when it allowed two women to testify about Trump allegedly assaulting them, as well as permitting Carroll’s lawyers to show the jury part of the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted about grabbing women.
“To have any chance of persuading a jury, Carroll’s implausible, unsubstantiated allegations had to be — and repeatedly were — propped up by the erroneous admission of highly inflammatory propensity evidence,” wrote Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, and D. John Sauder, who have all been picked by Trump for top Justice Department posts in his incoming adminstration.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial court’s decisions, if left uncorrected, could set a damaging precedent of allowing “inflammatory propensity evidence in a wide range of future cases.”
Trump’s request for an en banc hearing is his final appellate option before possibly turning to the Supreme Court.
(WASHINGTON) — After the Trump administration offered two million federal employees buyouts on Tuesday, Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and the architect of Trump’s effort to reduce the size of the government — took to his own social media platform to boast and joke about the offer, leaving some federal employees who spoke to ABC News dismayed.
By replying to an email sent out Tuesday, all full-time federal employees — with the exception of military personnel and postal workers — have the option to get eight months’ salary if they agree to leave their jobs.
“The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work,” the email sent to employees said, offering them what it called a “deferred resignation” from their positions.
Commenting on X, Musk laughed at a specific aspect of the offer, writing, “Hit ‘Send,'” accompanied by a screenshot of the letter to employees describing how to submit their resignation via email.
Musk’s attitude as he works to enact sweeping changes across the federal government — potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of career employees who have spent their lives working behind the scenes — is not lost on some workers, who told ABC News that the Trump administration and Musk’s tone have been “cruel” and “demoralizing.”
“It feels like the new administration thinks we are dirt and do nothing for the country,” said one 20-year federal employee who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution. “This is heartbreaking.”
According to a copy of the resignation letter posted by the Office of Personnel Management, federal employees have to acknowledge that the positions they vacate could be eliminated or consolidated, and their response to the buyout email may be used “to assist in federal workforce reorganization efforts.”
While employees are not expected to work during their deferred resignation period, resigning workers need to commit to a “smooth transition” out of their roles.
Bolstered by an executive order that would make it easier to fire career government employees, administration officials said they expect the reduction of the government workforce from the buyout and other executive actions to be “significant.”
Unprecedented in its scope and nature, the buyout appears to be one part of Trump’s sweeping approach to reducing the size of the government — using an approach that mirrors tactics used by Musk in the past. When Musk took over Twitter in November 2022, he similarly sent a company-wide email that gave workers an ultimatum: work harder or leave with severance. Yesterday’s email shared the same subject line — “A fork in the road” — that Musk used in his email.
As federal employees were digesting the terms of the buyout Wednesday, it was unclear exactly who was eligible for it and whether there would really be severance payments, which could be delayed by litigation.
Max Alonzo, national secretary-treasurer for the National Federation of Federal Employees, expressed skepticism about the terms of the resignations.
“Absolutely do not resign. There is nothing that says that the day that you resign, that they can’t just let you go. They don’t have to pay you — there’s nothing that says they have to pay you till September 30,” he said. “This is nothing that has been done before. This is not in our regulations. There’s no regs about it. We’re not even sure if it’s actually legal. This is about trying to cut the federal workforce down, really kind of just breaking down these pillars of democracy.”
Foreign service officers within the State Department received the “fork in the road” email, but so far, State Department officials have been unable to provide their 16,000-person workforce a clear answer on whether they’re eligible to take it, according to an official familiar with the matter. Even if staffers are deemed eligible for the buyouts, there’s concern that — if enough of them take the federal government up on its offer — it will have an impact on national security because of the sudden, drastic downsizing.
“The implications could be really scary,” said the official, who also asked not to be identified. “This could really do some damage.”
The sweeping approach appears to be one of the first monumental steps to reshape the government by Musk, who supported Trump’s election with $250 million in contributions and became one of Trump’s closest advisers.
When Trump first announced his plans to establish the “Department of Government Efficiency” in November, he framed it as an outside group that would advise the White House on how to make government more efficient. Two months later, when Trump actually established DOGE through an executive order, he took a different approach, giving Musk control of what used to be known as the United States Digital Service, a unit within the Executive Office of the President tasked with improving government websites.
In an executive order signed the same day, Trump also tasked the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to work with DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management to “submit a plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition.”
In addition to helming DOGE, Musk has extended his influence in the federal government by having his former employees and DOGE loyalists take on critical roles in other parts of government. Scott Kupor — Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Personnel Management. — thanked the president for the “opportunity to serve” the country by helping Musk, and OMP’s chief of staff Amanda Scales worked for Musk’s AI company as recently as this month.
To run the Office of Management and Budget, Trump tapped Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, who shares Musk’s desire for historic spending cuts and workforce reductions. Vought was a central figure in Trump’s attempt to categorize thousands of civil servants as political appointments, making it easier to fire employees without the protections given to civil servants. As one of his first acts in office, Trump signed an executive order to strip thousands of government workers of their employment protections.
The new hirings and executive orders represent the first steps in Musk’s plan for “mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy,” as he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in November.
“DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions,” wrote Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently departed DOGE to run for public office.
(WASHINGTON) — The Venezuelan migrants removed by the Trump administration to El Salvador last week deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, a federal judge ruled Monday morning.
In a ruling denying the Trump Administration’s request to dissolve his order blocking the deportations, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that Trump’s “unprecedented use” of the Alien Enemies Act does not remove the government’s responsibility to ensure the men removed could contest their designation as alleged gang members.
Trump last week invoked the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process — by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the U.S.
“The Court need not resolve the thorny question of whether the judiciary has the authority to assess this claim in the first place. That is because Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all,” Judge Boasberg wrote in his ruling Monday, adding the men were likely to win their case.
Judge Boasberg acknowledged that the use of the Alien Enemies Act “implicates a host of complicated legal issues” but sidestepped the larger question of whether the law was properly invoked, instead focusing on the due process deserved by the men. He added that the men have been irreparably harmed by their removal to an El Salvadoran prison where they face “torture, beatings, and even death.”
“Federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” he wrote.
Judge Boasberg also cast doubt on the Trump administration’s allegation that the decision risks national security, noting that the men would still be detained within the United States if they had not been deported. During a court hearing on Friday, DOJ lawyers acknowledged that the men deported on the Alien Enemies Act have the right to a habeas hearing — where they could contest their alleged membership in Tren de Aragua — but declined to vow that each man would be given a hearing before they were removed from the country.
Boasberg’s ruling comes as a federal appeals court prepares to hear arguments Monday over the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act for last week’s deportations.
If the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Boasberg’s blocking of the president’s use of the centuries-old wartime law, the Trump administration could exercise the authority to deport any suspected migrant gang member with little-to-no due process.
Lawyers representing the Venezuelan men targeted under Trump’s proclamation have argued that the president exceeded his authority by using the Alien Enemies Act against a gang — rather than a state actor — outside of wartime.
“The President is trying to write Congress’s limits out of the act,” the plaintiffs argued, adding that U.S. presidents have used the law three other times during or immediately preceding a war.
But the Trump administration has argued that the judiciary does not have the right to review the use of the Alien Enemies Act, alleging the deportations fall under the president’s Article II powers to remove alleged terrorists and execute the country’s foreign policy.
“The President’s action is lawful and based upon a long history of using war authorities against organizations connected to foreign states and national security judgments, which are not subject to judicial second guessing,” DOJ lawyers have argued in court filings.
Last week, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the president’s use of the law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members with no due process, calling the removals “awfully frightening” and “incredibly troublesome.” An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subsequently acknowledged in a sworn declaration that “many” of the noncitizens deported last weekend under the Alien Enemies Act did not have criminal records in the United States.
The Trump administration is asking the appeals court to overturn Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking the deportations, while Judge Boasberg continues to examine whether the Trump administration deliberately defied his order by sending the men to an El Salvadoran prison rather than returning them to the United States as he directed.
“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order and who ordered this and what’s the consequence,” Boasberg said on Friday.
With deportations under the Alien Enemies Act temporarily blocked, the Trump administration has vowed to use other authorities to deport noncitizens. Over the weekend, Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez announced that the country had reached an agreement to resume repatriation flights of Venezuelan migrants from the U.S.
“We’re going to keep targeting the worst of the worst, which we’ve been doing since day one, and deporting from the United States through the various laws on the books,” border czar Tom Homan told ABC’s Jon Karl on Sunday.
The three-person panel hearing today’s arguments includes two judges nominated by Republican presidents, including one nominated by Trump himself. The D.C. Circuit is the last stop before the Trump administration could take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Trump nominated three judges during his last term, solidifying the court’s conservative majority.
(SEATTLE) — A federal judge in Seattle has signed a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour on Thursday heard a request made by four Democratic-led states to issue a temporary restraining order against the executive order signed by Trump that purports to limit birthright citizenship — long guaranteed by the 14th Amendment — to people who have at least one parent who is a United States citizen or permanent resident.
“I have been on the bench for over four decades,” said Judge Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as it is here. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
“In your opinion, is this executive order constitutional?” he asked DOJ attorney Brett Shumate.
“Yes, we think it is,” Shumate said, drawing the judge’s rebuke.
“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar can state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It boggles my mind,” Coughenour said. “Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”
Shumate implored Coughenour to hold off on blocking the order, saying that it does not take effect until Feb. 19.
“It’s enough to say there is no imminent harm that the states will incur as a result of this order,” Shumate said. “We urge the court not to grant any temporary order today on the merits. What makes sense is to have a full briefing on the preliminary injunction.”
“Births cannot be paused while the court considers this case,” said Lane Polozola, an attorney representing the state attorneys general, who said Trump’s executive order attempts to change a part of the Constitution that is “off limits” after being settled across a century of legal precedent.
Judge Coughenour appeared convinced, ending the hearing by saying that he signed the temporary restraining order and that he would consider whether to grant a long-term injunction over the coming weeks.
Coughenour’s order temporarily enjoins Trump and any federal employee from enforcing or implementing the executive order.
“The Plaintiff States have also shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief,” Coughenour wrote, citing the costs of medical care, social services, and administrative work encountered by the four states who sued Trump.
“The balance of equities tips toward the Plaintiff States and the public interest strongly weighs in favor of entering temporary relief,” the order said.
Thursday’s ruling was the first legal test of Trump’s executive order reinterpreting the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, which Trump long promised on the campaign trail. The executive action is expected to spark a lengthy legal challenge that could define the president’s sweeping immigration agenda.
Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and two cities have sued Trump over the executive order, and the president faces at least five separate lawsuits over the policy.
In an interview with ABC News after the hearing, Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown said he plans to continue fighting the executive order if the Trump administration appeals to a higher court.
“I don’t think it ends here,” Brown said. “First and foremost, there are other cases being brought across the country, and so those cases will continue to move forward, and this president and this administration certainly has a propensity to keep these fights going, and so I anticipate that will happen moving forward.”
Coughenour scheduled Thursday’s in-person hearing in the case brought by the attorneys general of Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Illinois. In a federal complaint filed on Tuesday, the four attorneys general argued that Trump’s policy would unlawfully strip at least 150,000 newborn children each year of citizenship entitled to them by federal law and the 14th Amendment.
“The Plaintiff States will also suffer irreparable harm because thousands of children will be born within their borders but denied full participation and opportunity in American society,” the lawsuit says. “Absent a temporary restraining order, children born in the Plaintiff States will soon be rendered undocumented, subject to removal or detention, and many stateless.”
The lawsuit argues that enforcement of Trump’s executive order would cause irreparable harm to the children born from undocumented parents by preventing them from enjoying their right to “full participation and opportunity in American society.”
“They will lose their right to vote, serve on juries, and run for certain offices,” the complaint says. “And they will be placed into lifelong positions of instability and insecurity as part of a new underclass in the United States.”
Lawyers for the Department of Justice, now under new leadership, opposed the request for a temporary restraining order in a court filing Wednesday.
Intended to take effect next month, Trump’s executive order seeks to reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship by arguing a child born in the United States to an undocumented mother cannot receive citizenship unless his or her father is a citizen or green card holder.
While most countries confer a child’s citizenship based on their parents, the United States and more than two dozen countries, including Canada and Mexico, follow the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil.”
Following the Civil War, the United States codified jus soli through the passage of the 14th Amendment, repudiating the Supreme Court’s finding in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans were ineligible for citizenship.
“President Trump and the federal government now seek to impose a modern version of Dred Scott. But nothing in the Constitution grants the President, federal agencies, or anyone else authority to impose conditions on the grant of citizenship to individuals born in the United States,” the states’ lawsuit argued.
The Supreme Court further enshrined birthright citizenship in 1898 when it found that the San Francisco-born son of Chinese immigrants was an American citizen despite the Chinese Exclusion Act restricting immigration from China and prohibiting Chinese Americans from becoming naturalized citizens.
By seeking to end birthright citizenship, Trump’s executive order centers on the same phrase within the 14th Amendment — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — that the Supreme Court considered in 1898. Trump’s executive order argues that text of the 14th Amendment excludes children born of parents who are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, such as people who are unlawfully in the U.S.
While legal scholars have expressed skepticism about the legality of Trump’s executive order, the lawsuit could set the stage for a lengthy legal battle that ends up before the Supreme Court.
