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These numbers are especially striking because the cases are at a preliminary stage, when the hurdles are high for those seeking to block an admin action.

With 6 emergency petitions challenging 4 different #Trump admin policies now before #SCOTUS, the coming days should provide a better sense of how Trump will fare there. The early indications are not good for the admin: the Court effectively rebuffed a request for emergency intervention involving #USAID, albeit by a vote of 5–4.

In another case, a challenge to #Trump’s order restricting #BirthrightCitizenship, #SCOTUS set a briefing schedule so languid—those opposing the admin’s position were given 2 full weeks to respond—as to send the unmistakable message that the Justices did not share Trump’s view on the urgency of the situation.

These stats don’t merely indicate that the #Trump admin is on the wrong side of the #law. They also reflect bad lawyering. The admin’s hyper-aggressive litigation strategy combines maximalist [abusive] assertions of the scope of #PresidentialPower w/the insistence that any potential intrusion on executive authority necessitates emergency relief. It is belligerent in tone, treating federal judges like junior associates at law firms, when not asserting that they are biased partisans.
#law #felon47

#Trump dispatches attys like so much legal cannon fodder, to defend the admin’s actions w/little or incorrect information about the underlying facts. It is grudging, if that, on compliance w/court orders, all but inviting judges to find the admin in #contempt of court. Add…Trump’s out-of-court behavior, which has included assailing a respected district-court judge as a “radical left lunatic,” calling for his impeachment, & going after #BigLaw w/blatantly #unconstitutional executive orders.

An admin that is going to want the vote of #SCOTUS Chief Justice #JohnRoberts might do well to recall that Roberts spent years in private law practice.

One lawyer leading the anti-#Trump advocacy surmised that the #DOJ is “trying to play to #Trump, & #StephenMiller,” the deputy White House chief of staff. “It’s a very bad strategy,” the attorney added. “We’re by the day gaining more credibility with the Supreme Court by just not being crazy about court orders & judges.”