SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
judiciary
By Keeping Climate Funds on Ice, the DC Circuit Is Complicit in Trump’s Overreach
By refusing to act, the DC Circuit has turned oversight into obstruction, procedure into punishment, as it helps the executive hollow out Congress’ most basic power.
Sep 03, 2025
On September 2 the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that $16 billion in climate grants will remain frozen. The case, Climate United Fund v. Citibank and Environmental Protection Agency, grew out of the Trump administration’s February decision to halt the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The order was only a few lines long, a clerk’s note that the mandate would be withheld until rehearing petitions were resolved. In appellate procedure, withholding the mandate means the decision below is not yet enforceable. The court could have allowed the money to move while review continued. It chose not to.
This is not paperwork. This is power. Power in this case means leaving billions locked in a Citibank vault while families ration air conditioning, patch storm-wrecked homes, and haul water across dry land.
The money is real. Congress appropriated it. Treasury obligated it. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded it. Projects were ready. Tribal governments had contractors lined up to install solar pumps. Rural co-ops had bids in hand to replace cracked water lines. Community lenders had retrofits prepared for families who spend half their paychecks on electricity. Yet the funds remain frozen, generating interest for a bank that once needed a taxpayer bailout and still bankrolls oil expansion.
Judges call this a pause. A pause in Washington is a crisis everywhere else.
Maria Ortega in Phoenix knows it. She is 76, widowed, living on a fixed income in a house that traps the heat. Phoenix endured its fourth hottest summer on record, with 12 days at or above 110°F this July. Maria shut off her air conditioning most afternoons to avoid a $287 bill, half her Social Security check. The thermostat read 98°F. She sipped water slowly, blinds drawn, a box fan pushing hot air. At night she ran the AC for three hours so she could sleep. She asked a question no one should face: Is surviving this month worth going hungry next month?
Daniel Robinson outside New Orleans knows it too. Another September storm peeled shingles from his roof. He was 19 when Katrina came. He rebuilt, married, worked double shifts. He was told resilience would come. But this fall he found himself again hammering blue tarps while his kids carried buckets. Federal funds exist for stronger roofs and elevated homes. They were approved, obligated, ready. But they remain locked in limbo.
And Sarah Begay on the Navajo Nation knows it as well. She drives every other day to a community well, filling barrels for her livestock. The dirt tanks her father used have been dry for years. Gas prices climb, the miles wear down her pickup. She was told federal money was coming for solar pumps. Instead she is told to wait.
Three people, three regions, one reality: Delay is not neutral. It kills.
Maria is not waiting for abstractions. She is waiting for a power bill she can pay.
Judges insist they are bound by law, not outcomes. But law already spoke. Congress passed the appropriation. Treasury obligated it. EPA awarded it. The Constitution gives Congress the purse for a reason. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 codified that a president cannot cancel or withhold funds Congress has approved. President Richard Nixon tried, and Congress stopped him. What this administration has done—freezing appropriations indefinitely under the language of review—is a backdoor impoundment. And by withholding the mandate, the DC Circuit has not merely tolerated this maneuver. It has validated it.
This is the judiciary’s quiet habit: Retreat into formalism while people pay the price. Courts claim neutrality but exercise discretion constantly—choosing when to grant stays, when to expedite review, when to let money flow. To call delay neutral is a fiction. Delay is a ruling in all but name. The choice to freeze funds is as consequential as striking them down.
The consequences reach far beyond climate. If this precedent stands, any appropriation can be stalled. Veterans’ healthcare, housing aid, disaster relief—all can be frozen at a president’s discretion so long as courts are willing to play along. Congress will hold the purse only on paper. In practice, presidents will wield the choke chain, and judges will provide cover.
Every day of delay bleeds value. A retrofit not installed means another summer of unbearable bills. A pump not delivered means another year of hauling water. A roof not secured means another tarp, another moldy wall, another child growing up in a house that never dries. A dollar spent today prevents five dollars in damage tomorrow. A dollar withheld compounds harm. The storm does not wait for petitions. The fire does not wait for oral arguments. The flood does not wait for a court’s sense of timing.
Judicial restraint here is not harmless. It is complicity. By refusing to act, the DC Circuit has turned oversight into obstruction, procedure into punishment. It has helped the executive hollow out Congress’ most basic power. It has reduced law to theater while real life burns.
Maria is not waiting for abstractions. She is waiting for a power bill she can pay. Daniel is not waiting for legal formalities. He is waiting for a roof that will hold. Sarah is not waiting for judicial review. She is waiting for water that flows.
The storm will not wait. The fire will not wait. The flood will not wait. Politicians will still gather in front of cameras to praise oversight and congratulate themselves on restraint. Judges will polish their dockets and write opinions about consistency.
But history will record something else. The money was there. The need was there. The chance was there. And power chose not to use it. That is not oversight. That is abdication. It is not neutrality. It is complicity. And it is a verdict that will damn the judiciary as much as the executive.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Unfit and Unqualified': Senate GOP Confirm Pro-Trump 'Attack Dog' Jeanine Pirro as US Attorney
"By confirming Pirro," said one critic, "Senate Republicans made one thing clear: they care more about pleasing Donald Trump than honoring their constitutional duty to advise and consent on presidential nominations."
Aug 03, 2025
The far-right former Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Saturday night in a strictly party-line vote to become the next U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, a position progressive critics and Democratic opponents warn she is deeply unqualified to hold.
Pirro, who has been serving as the acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. since May, has a long history of spewing far-right conspiracy theories on air and throwing facts to the wind when it comes to lining up behind President Donald Trump. Pirro was a prominent figure when Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for defamation over the outlet's coverage of the 2020 election and she was a vocal proponent of Trump's "Big Lie" that the voting was rigged against him.
Christina Harvey, executive director of the pro-democracy group Stand Up America, condemned Pirro's confirmation.
"Republicans have handed the keys to our nation's capital to a Trump loyalist with zero credibility and a track record of unhinged extremism," warned Harvey. "Keanine Pirro isn't a serious prosecutor—she's a partisan attack dog who's made a name for herself by promoting conspiracy theories and threatening to criminally investigate January 6 prosecutors in the office she was just confirmed to oversee. A Fox News producer once called her a 'reckless maniac.'"
"By confirming Pirro," added Harvey, "Senate Republicans made one thing clear: they care more about pleasing Donald Trump than honoring their constitutional duty to advise and consent on presidential nominations. Qualifications, independence, integrity—none of it matters. Just blind loyalty."
The vote in the Senate was 50-45, with every Republican voting for Pirro and every member of the Democratic caucus voting against. Five senators did not cast a vote.
Congressional Democrats voiced their contempt for Pirro both leading up to the vote and following it.
"Pirro should never be a permanent U.S. Attorney," declared Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, just after the vote was finalized. "She endorsed the firing of January 6 prosecutors. She recklessly spread the Big Lie to the point her *own producers* had to tell her to cool it. Ultimately, she’s a rubber stamp for Donald Trump."
Ahead of the vote, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) explained his opposition to her confirmation, saying Pirro was "deeply unfit and unqualified" and describing her as "a loyal acolyte and sycophant" of Trump.
"She is not objective, she is not independent," said Blumenthal. "Instead she has made her mark spreading damaging, offensive conspiracy theories."
Jeanine Pirro is deeply unqualified & unfit to be the United States Attorney for DC. She is simply a loyal acolyte & sycophant of the President. She is not objective, she is not independent. Instead she has made her mark spreading damaging, offensive conspiracy theories. pic.twitter.com/H8cmQ6ZzvD
— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) August 2, 2025
Last week, Rep. Jeremy Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Senate leadership urging against Pirro's confirmation, calling her a threat to the government's independent judiciary and unfit to run the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C., the largest of its kind in the nation.
"Over the past decade, Ms. Pirro has consistently demonstrated that her loyalty lies with Donald Trump the person, not with the Constitution or the rule of law," said Raskin in a letter addressed to Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
"Her blind loyalty to Donald Trump at the exclusion of other principles, her embarrassing support of the 'big lie' that the 2020 election was rigged in the face of all evidence to the contrary and 60 federal and state court decisions rejecting such claims, her unswerving defense of convicted January 6th rioters, and her incendiary rhetoric that urges President Trump to seek retribution against his alleged enemies," continued Raskin, "all make it clear that she lacks the intellectual honesty, personal principles, temperament, integrity, and fundamental constitutional fidelity required to lead this important office."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Cowardice': Senate GOP Brushes Whistleblowers Aside to Confirm Trump Loyalist Emil Bove
"Bove, facing a wave of damning allegations that the overwhelming majority of Republican senators refused to take seriously, has been confirmed for one reason only: obedience to Trump."
Jul 30, 2025
Nearly every Senate Republican on Tuesday voted in favor of confirming Trump loyalist Emil Bove to a lifetime federal court seat, brushing aside whistleblowers who alleged that the Justice Department official expressed support for defying court orders and lied during his sworn judiciary committee testimony.
The final Senate vote on Bove's confirmation to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit was 50-49, with every member of the Democratic caucus voting no. Just two Republicans—Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—opposed Bove's confirmation.
Maggie Jo Buchanan, interim executive director of the advocacy group Demand Justice, said the vote "represents some of the worst aspects of far too many elected to office in Washington—cowardice and political expediency over duty to constituents."
"The American people want and deserve judges who are independent and fair, not ones who have done nothing to hide their political loyalties," she added. "Bove, facing a wave of damning allegations that the overwhelming majority of Republican senators refused to take seriously, has been confirmed for one reason only: obedience to Trump."
Tuesday's vote came hours after The Washington Post reported that a third whistleblower had shared evidence with senators suggesting that Bove "misled lawmakers about his handling of the dismissal of public corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams."
Democratic senators demanded an investigation into the allegations before the final vote to confirm Bove, but Republicans rushed ahead with the vote anyway.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in a statement following Tuesday's vote that "this sham, hide-the-ball confirmation process is a new low for subservient Senate Republicans."
"Even as the lawless Emil Bove appears to have misled the committee about multiple, credible, backstopped allegations of misconduct, this body has sunk to simply being a partisan rubber stamp for President Trump," said Whitehouse. "Republicans have ignored whistleblower after whistleblower who bravely came forward to corroborate evidence of Bove's misconduct."
"Bove's confirmation sets the stage for the president and his allies to seek out favorable rulings, no matter how unconstitutional their actions may be."
Whistleblower Aid, a group representing one of the Bove whistleblowers, said prior to Tuesday's vote that Trump's Justice Department claimed to have lost a complaint "documenting Emil Bove's contempt for the rule of law" before finding it again on Monday.
The group noted that the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General "received an online copy of the complaint from Whistleblower Aid on May 2 and signed in a couriered copy three days later." The complaint, according to Whistleblower Aid, "provided documentary evidence that Bove and other senior DOJ officials instructed department lawyers to violate a court order relating to the Trump administration's immigration deportation policies."
"They also directed DOJ lawyers to commit perjury in federal court to cover up the violation, the evidence shows," according to the group. "Yet the office now says the documents were lost and refound only after Whistleblower Aid presented proof of submission and receipt. Evidence relevant to the Senate's final vote on the Bove nomination has thus sat unacknowledged for almost three months, foreclosing the possibility of any meaningful investigation into a lifetime judicial appointment."
Last month, The New York Times reported that one whistleblower—a DOJ lawyer who has since been fired—alleged that Bove said earlier this year that the Justice Department "would need to consider telling the courts 'fuck you'" if they ruled against the Trump administration's attempts to deport immigrants without due process.
Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said Tuesday that Bove's confirmation "should send a chill down the spine of every American."
"Bove has shown total loyalty to Trump above the American people; refused to commit to recusing himself on cases involving the president; and is the subject of multiple whistleblower complaints," said Ciccone. "His extreme ideological record and ethical lapses have raised grave concerns about his integrity, but that didn't stop Republican senators from ramming his confirmation through, falling in line with Trump's scheme of hand-selecting judges who vow personal loyalty over the rule of law."
"Bove's confirmation sets the stage for the president and his allies to seek out favorable rulings, no matter how unconstitutional their actions may be," she warned. "And that is a threat to fundamental freedoms everywhere."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular