Trump’s push to weaken federal judges

05:01 |

The Daily Docket

A newsletter by Reuters and Westlaw

By Caitlin Tremblay

Good morning. Today we have a look at how President Trump is pushing the U.S. Supreme Court to weaken federal judges. Plus, SCOTUS is expected to issue orders; the 9th Circuit will weigh the $4.7 billion jury verdict in the NFL "Sunday Ticket" antitrust trial; Trump's SEC gave companies more power over investors but lawsuits pushed them back; and employment in the U.S. legal sector continued to grow last month. It's Monday again. Here are some unusual photos to kick off your week.

How Donald Trump is pushing the Supreme Court to weaken federal judges

REUTERS/Ken Cedeno

The Trump administration has paired sharp public attacks on the judiciary with a sweeping legal strategy aimed at curbing judges' power. Here's what to know:

The administration has filed an unprecedented wave of emergency U.S. Supreme Court requests since February 2025, 97% of them arguing judges improperly interfered with presidential authority.
By contrast, in four years, just 26% of the Biden administration's emergency requests suggested judicial interference with presidential authority.
In these filings, Trump's lawyers increasingly challenge judges' jurisdiction and their ability to block executive actions, framing judicial review itself as an overreach.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority has largely sided with Trump in fast‑tracked cases, allowing major policy moves while offering little explanation for its rulings.
Legal experts warn the strategy reflects a bid for expanded unilateral presidential power, risking erosion of checks and balances as the administration portrays judicial limits as "power grabs."
Andrew Chung has more analysis here.

Coming up today

SCOTUS: The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue orders in pending appeals.
Antitrust: The 9th Circuit will hear an appeal in a major antitrust class action alleging the NFL overcharged subscribers of its "Sunday Ticket" telecasts. A jury in 2024 found the NFL owed more than $4.7 billion in damages but U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez in Los Angeles threw out that verdict saying it was unjustified and the result of a "runaway" jury. Read that ruling here.
Government: Leading Democratic U.S. senators will introduce a bill to extend the amount of time prosecutors ‌have to file foreign bribery charges to 10 years, a warning to companies that they may still be held accountable for potential wrongdoing despite a Trump administration enforcement pullback.

Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.

More top news

Industry insight

The Trump administration asked a federal appeals court on Friday to revive his executive orders that sought to punish four major ‌U.S. law firms, arguing that federal judges overstepped their authority by blocking directives that rest within core presidential powers.
Employment in the U.S. legal sector continued to grow in February, new data released Friday by the Labor Department showed, even as the broader economy shed jobs and the unemployment rate increased. Read more about the numbers.
A New York nonprofit seeking to expand legal assistance to poor people cannot evade a state law barring non-lawyers from giving legal advice, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled. Read the decision.

"Companies have to decide: Do you want to have a good relationship with your shareholders, or do you want to pay your corporate attorneys millions?"

—Shareholder activist group As You Sow CEO Andy Behar. Activist groups say a new federal approach giving U.S. companies more say over which proposals shareholders can vote on at their annual meetings is creating regulatory uncertainty and leading to litigation.

63 million

That's how many books a group of publishers alleged prominent "shadow library" Anna's Archive has pirated and provided to companies for AI training. The publishers, including Hachette, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon and Schuster, filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to shut down the shadow library. Read the complaint.

In the courts

Tariffs: The U.S. customs agency is readying a system within 45 days to process refunds on President Trump's tariffs that were struck down as illegal, a customs official said in a court filing on Friday. In a subsequent filing, U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton said he was amending a March 5 order to no longer require "immediate compliance," and appeared to be giving CBP time to carry out the new system. Read more here.
Betting: Prediction market Kalshi was sued for a failure to pay out $54 million to people who bet that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would leave office before March 1, 2026, according ‌to a class action lawsuit. Read the complaint.
Press freedom: U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in D.C. appeared likely to block a restrictive press policy adopted by the Department of Defense last year, saying it could stifle traditional newsgathering methods. Read more about the two-hour hearing in a lawsuit filed by The New York Times.
Litigation: The 3rd Circuit ruled that New Jersey's higher bar for discrimination lawsuits by members of majority groups, such as white people and men, is invalid after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an identical test under federal law. Read the opinion.
Energy: U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle in Tyler, Texas, sided with 15 Republican-led states and a national home builders group in finding that minimum energy standards for federally funded housing set by the Biden administration were unlawful. Read the decision.
Finance: The New York Stock Exchange agreed to pay a $9 million civil fine to settle SEC charges over a computer glitch that disrupted the stock market's open in January 2023, causing wild swings in prices of blue-chip stocks.

Attorney Analysis

Sterne Kessler's Sasha Rao and Todd Hopfinger examine Section 112(a) challenges for AI patents. Read today's Attorney Analysis.

Corrections: Last Thursday's Afternoon Docket misspelled Snell & Wilmer new hire Daniel Daines' name as well as Greenspoon Marder.

Contact

Caitlin Tremblay

caitlin.tremblay@thomsonreuters.com

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