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The DOJ unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies, such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University, has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters. Here's what to know: |
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- Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the DOJ's Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left since President Trump's election or have announced plans to leave.
- The tally has not been previously reported. Reuters verified the names on the list through court records and LinkedIn accounts. Reuters spoke to four former lawyers in the unit and three other people familiar with the departures.
- The seven lawyers who spoke with Reuters cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies many felt were not legally justifiable.
- Three of them said career lawyers feared they would be pressured to misrepresent facts or legal issues in court, a violation of ethics rules that could lead to professional sanctions.
- The Trump administration has broadly defended its actions as within the legal bounds of presidential power, winning several early victories at the U.S. Supreme Court. A White House spokesperson told Reuters that Trump's actions were legal.
- Andrew Goudsward has more on the departures here.
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- The 9th Circuit will consider photographer David Sedlik's bid to reverse a jury verdict that a tattoo inked by celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D made fair use of his photo of jazz legend Miles Davis. Sedlik argues that the tattoo was an unauthorized "derivative work" of his photo, and that the lower court judge should have ruled against fair use before the case went to the jury. The case could have far-reaching implications for the tattoo industry. Read the appeal.
- AbbVie's Allergan unit will take rival Revance Therapeutics to trial over allegations that Revance's anti-wrinkle injection Daxxify infringes patents related to Allergan's blockbuster Botox. The trial is set to last for one week.
- Roman Storm, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash will go on trial in New York starting today on charges the company laundered more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds, including for North Korea's government. The trial is continuing even though the Trump administration's Treasury Department has lifted sanctions on Tornado Cash.
- Christopher Kamon, the former CFO of convicted California attorney Tom Girardi's law firm, is set to be sentenced for his role in the misappropriation of more than $3 million in client funds owed to families of the victims of a 2018 Boeing crash in Indonesia. Kamon is already serving a 121-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to similar charges in California. Kamon was scheduled to be sentenced in Chicago last week, but it was delayed until today.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes. |
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Senate to vote on Trump's 6th Circuit pick |
- Hermandorfer, 37, faced scrutiny from lawmakers during a June Senate hearing, where Democrats questioned her youth and her support for Trump's order curtailing birthright citizenship.
- Republican senators appeared poised to advance her nomination to the full Senate, despite Democratic concerns about her positions on key issues and her experience just a decade out of law school.
- Hermandorfer has clerked for three conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices: Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.
- In Tennessee, Hermandorfer heads a strategic litigation unit under Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, where she has defended the state's near-total abortion ban and challenged a Biden-era rule prohibiting discrimination against transgender students.
- Hermandorfer would be President Trump's first judicial confirmation of his second term, as the White House continues efforts to reshape the judiciary.
- During his first term, Trump shifted the ideological balance of the judiciary to the right with a near-record 234 appointments, including three members of the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority.
- In May, Democrats criticized the Trump administration's decision to end the ABA's decades-long role in vetting judicial nominees as part of its ratings process.
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That's how much Meta shareholders want CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other defendants to reimburse the company in an unusual trial that kicks off this week, where Zuckerberg is accused of operating Facebook as an illegal enterprise that allowed users' data to be harvested without their consent. The amount stems from fines and other costs paid by Meta after the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light. Read more. |
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- A divided D.C. Circuit refused to allow Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks, and two of his co-defendants to plead guilty under agreements that would have spared them the death penalty. Read the ruling.
- Chief U.S. District Judge Sean Cox in Detroit declined to approve $94 million in new compensation for attorneys who represented vehicle owners and others that won more than $1.2 billion in damages in a lawsuit accusing manufacturers of charging inflated prices. Read the ruling.
- U.S. District Judge Richard Andrews in Delaware ruled that Novartis cannot block MSN Pharmaceuticals from launching a generic version of its blockbuster heart-failure drug Entresto before its patent expires late next year. Read the decision.
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Skadden's Michelle Gasaway, David Eisman and Blake Bainou examine how music royalty securitization became one of the hottest growth areas in the legal industry. Read today's Attorney Analysis. |
Additional writing by Shruthi Krishnamurthy. |
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