Judge Cooper finds a middle path with the Kennedy Center cases, barring the center from being renamed after Trump, but declining to prohibit any major renovations. He rules that it's less than clear, at least right now, that any plan is in the works to demolish or totally remake the building.

BREAKING: Judge Leonie Brinkema bars the Trump administration from setting up or operating the $1.8 “lawfare” slush fund until a hearing she sets for June 12

NEW: When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism. We found that the request came directly from the White House.

BREAKING: I'm suing Todd Blanche and the DOJ to STOP the $1.8B slush fund. The Justice Department violated the Administrative Procedures Act when it established the fund, and it must be set aside. You can read my complaint here: www.muellershewrote.com/p/breaking-i...

New: Federal agents pulled a gun on neighbors observing an arrest in Washington DC on Tuesday. Witnesses say the agents (from several agencies) were arresting a man for having an open beer. "There's a whole surge, right, that's coming out of the President's office," one agent is heard explaining.

Overnight, Judge Carl Nichols declined to step in on Trump's mail-in ballot EO, finding that the Postal Service had not yet implemented any changes and that the state voter lists that the administration has vowed to distribute to state election officials have not yet materialized

NOTABLE: The SPLC alerts a federal judge in a footnote of its vindictive prosecution motion to the Trump Justice Department's grand jury misconduct in the Broadview Six case, arguing that it's another reason for sunlight on the sealed transcripts.

A judge in Delaware, where many big U.S. companies are incorporated, today ruled that a small beach town was not diluting human votes by allowing companies ​and other legal entities that own property to cast votes in municipal elections. @tomhals.bsky.social www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Earlier today, senior official at USCIS says in a declaration that DHS is still figuring out whether the agency can compile the state voter lists Trump ordered in a way that complies with federal privacy law. Says no lists have been created so far.

More here

NEW: Trying a new tack against the $1.8 billion slush fund, a group that includes the city of New Haven and a former AUSA who was fired for working on Jan. 6 cases, filed a lawsuit saying they were targeted by a weaponized federal government (Trump's) but won't be getting a payout.

I don't think we in the legal community are giving sufficient attention to just how unlawful, corrupt and unenforceable this document is. It's so absurd--and was, until now, so unimaginable--that I wouldn't have even considered using it as a law school exam hypo. static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics...

Judge Nichols seems hesitant to step in on the reflecting pool — so much so that he seemed more inclined to order the whole paint job removed if he ended up ruling for the plaintiffs on the merits

HOLY SHIT prosecutors kicked off grand jurors and then re-presented the case against the Broadview 6, then altered the grand jury transcripts to hide it from the judge. www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

DEEP DIVE INTO SLUSH FUND! Read @annabower.bsky.social and me in @lawfaremedia.org as we explore what it is, where it come from, and what can be done about it. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

BREAKING: Sen. Ed Markey calls for Trump's impeachment.

Strange answers here from Trump re: IRS/weaponization deal. Trump: "I wasn't involved in the settlement. I could have been involved but I didn't choose to be. So, they made a settlement." Who the heck is is "they?" www.politico.com/news/2026/05... x.com/cspan/status...

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz did something unusual in 2024: He appointed two justices with extensive experience as public defenders. They can each seek a full term this year.

Is there a way to rescue standing? Possibly, but again a long shot. In their complaint, the officers emphasize that they are public speakers about the truth of the Jan. 6 riot. They also twice reference the chilling effect of Trump's slush fund. So why not wrap a chilled speech c/a in here?

Another day, another request by federal prosecutors in Minnesota to throw out another of the criminal cases they filed during the past year. This one is an immigration offense for which they obtained an indictment during Trump's surge into Minneapolis this year.

Let’s put it in simple terms. Men and women who attacked our Capitol, injured over 140 police officers and attempted to overthrow the results of a presidential election are going to be paid by Trump’s lackeys for their services on J6 with our tax dollars.

The Trump/Blanche "settlement" fund purports to be challengeable only by those who colluded to create it. ... 1/5 www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...

What’s happening to science in the US now? In the future? 20% fewer grad students at MIT sums it up well Our future is fewer scientists, patents, cures, discoveries Less growth, less progress, less knowledge

There has been a LOT of research on misinformation over the last decade. In a new paper (for Annual Review of Psychology), @dgrand.bsky.social and I attempt to distill the key points of consensus, highlight major disagreements, and point to future directions. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

New at Can We Still Govern? Trump is relocating more federal employees, this time for the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees SNAP. The rationale is to bring services closer to the public. But that is not what the data shows, says Jon Schwabish. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/why-is-tru...

As @alexabdo.bsky.social said when the briefs were filed: “One of the proudest traditions in our legal system is that of lawyers standing up to oppose unlawful acts by the government. These executive orders are an unconstitutional attack on that tradition and on the rule of law.”

"From one petty bitch to another: beautifully done." I'm going to miss this trial and all the ridiculousness that it unearthed, and @lopatto.bsky.social's commitment to petty gossip. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Claude repeated false claims 15% of the time when asked about pro-Kremlin falsehoods, citing Russian state-affiliated media every time. This increase in citations suggests that, in recent months, Claude has become more vulnerable to disinfo campaigns. www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/claudes-fo...

DOJ's position on the "state citizenship lists" Trump ordered sent out ahead of elections this year is that the lists will inevitably be flawed and it's up to state officials to decide whether or not to start purging voter rolls based on what they receive. "No list is ever going to be perfect.”

‪Today in the 9/11 case we expect to hear from the lawyer for Mustafa al Hawsawi on why his participation in FBI interrogations in 2007, during his second time as a detainee at Guantánamo, was involuntary. Prosecutors want to use what he said against him; he says it was derived from torture.‬

EXCLUSIVE: We obtained dozens of hours of never-before-seen audio and video recordings from the investigative file in the Fulton County election interference case against Trump. Read, listen, or watch: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/new-...

10th Cir. holds that a white employee who objected to a DEI training before resigning his public employment did not plausibly allege a hostile work environment for white people. This was his fourth version of the complaint. www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/f...

"That’s the real danger: making it so FOIA evasion is only a crime if the administration has a score to settle," writes @laurenleharper.bsky.social, @freedom.press’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy.

"LLMs are approaching (or may already have reached) the knowledge needed to create and release [biological weapons] end-to-end, [which] could cause millions of deaths if a determined effort was made to release them for maximum spread." [1] www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-ad...

Google said that it had identified, for the first time, hackers using A.I. to discover an unknown bug. The attempted attack represents “a taste of what’s to come,” one expert said.

Cole Tomas Allen this morning entered a plea of not guilty to all charges. Lawyers still pushing for Todd Lyons and Jeanine Pirro to step away from any involvement in the case, given the possibility that they were potential targets.

'Faced with Trump and Putin, the war in Ukraine is acting as a catalyst for Europe's autonomization'

Judge Howell rules that a memo from Todd Lyons in January giving ICE agents freer rein to make warrantless arrests in DC is at odds with the preliminary injunction she granted last year. Sides with immigration groups who argued there has been no real improvement in immigration stops in the meantime.

Judge Beryl Howell grants extra discovery in the case over warrantless arrests in DC. Lawyers suing DHS had said the Trump administration turned over just 11 pages of records about the underlying decisions about arrests and quotas. DHS denies any policy shift happened, and thus not much to provide.

@stevevladeck.bsky.social rebuts Justice Amy Coney Barrett's claim that the media makes #SCOTUS look more partisan through post hoc tinkering with which cases are 'big' ones open.substack.com/pub/stevevla...

"There is a ​way that a grant is a contract," Judge Talwani told a lawyer for the Trump administration defending a key tool it has used to cancel federal grant funding it disfavors. "And the United States honors its contracts." www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Just got the following email from the NYC bar association: "Update: All attorneys from the United States Attorney's Offices have withdrawn from participating in this year's White Collar Crime Conference."

EXCLUSIVE: My latest story for @theatlantic.com : www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Happening now, in the lawsuit over the CBP One app: Lawyers representing some migrants who entered using the Biden-era app are telling Judge Allison Burroughs this afternoon that DHS never restored their clients’ parole, ignoring an earlier order. Judge Burroughs calls DHS’s actions “so unsavory”

NEW: The Dept. of Justice says that it has concluded a year-long investigation into UCLA's medical school that found alleged illegal use of race in admissions: www.latimes.com/california/s...

JUST IN: A federal grand jury has indicted Cole Tomas Allen, four counts, adding charge of assault on a federal agent. Before this weekend, DOJ had previously waffled on whether a secret service agent injured at the WHCD dinner was hit after Allen allegedly discharged a shotgun.

Even some of Trump's own voters believe that he staged the WHCD assassination attempt to get his ballroom. My latest False Flag for @thebulwark.com: www.thebulwark.com/p/meet-the-t...

The New York Times won three Pulitzer Prizes, for investigative reporting, opinion writing and breaking news photography. The Athletic, the sports site owned by The New York Times Company, won for audio. The Washington Post won the prestigious public service prize. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/b...