Learn About Even More Trump Wins Against Lawfare
The Trump Administration keeps notching wins in court, while the set backs get all of the news
Every time a leftist judge issues any ruling against the Trump Administration, the Fake News Media hyperventilates reporting about it. Yet, when the Trump Administration prevails in federal court, even when leftist district judges get rebuked by higher courts, the Fake News Media’s reporting is much more subdued. Team Trump notched several more court victories of late. I wrote about several of these victories in previous articles. Here are a couple more.
THE DEI GRANT CANCELLATION CASE
President Trump and his Administration made ending Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (i.e., racist, sexist and discriminatory) programs and policies a high priority. President Trump’s Executive Order on this issue instructed federal agencies to terminate any programs pushing DEI discriminatory policies and to conform grants, contracts and employment practices to comply with the new policy directed at promoting merit rather than discriminating on the basis of race, sex, etc….
The United States Department of Education, in conformity with the President’s Executive Order, terminated grants awarded under the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant Program on the grounds the grants promoted DEI contrary to the new Administration’s policies. The action terminated grants in excess of $600 million.
Eight states (all with Democrat Attorneys General) filed suit in federal district court in Massachusetts (shopping for a liberal judge, no doubt) on March 6, 2025 seeking to stop the U.S. Department of Education from terminating the grants.
The states made various claims, chief among them were claims the Trump Administration’s actions violated the Administrative Procedure Act or APA. The APA provides rules and procedures for how federal agencies create and implement regulations. The APA allows, in some instances, parties to challenge these rules and the actions of the federal agencies enforcing the rules. The APA allows challenges to what is known as final agency action. As we will see, the APA affords these Plaintiffs no relief.
A New, Leftist District Judge Rules Against the Administration
By March 10, 2025, U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun, a Biden appointee who received his commission in July 2023, granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in favor of the Plaintiff States prohibiting the U.S. Government from terminating the grants. TROs are only allowed for 14 days under the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65, subject to an extension for 14 more days. (I wrote about federal injunctive relief in another article for anyone interested in more information on this topic.) The judge extended the TRO pending a hearing on a Motion for Preliminary Injunction.
The Trump Administration immediately sought a stay of the lower court’s order pending appeal. The First Circuit Court of Appeal refused to grant a stay, prompting the Trump Administration to file an Emergency Application for a Stay with the United States Supreme Court.
SCOTUS Steps in and Sets Things Right
On April 4, 2025, the United States Supreme Court granted the Government’s Motion for a Stay Pending Appeal, thereby allowing the Trump Administration’s termination of the Department of Education grants to remain in effect (preventing the states from gaining access to the money). Stated in layman’s terms, the Trump Administration won.
The Supreme Court found the Government was likely to prevail on its claim the lower court had no jurisdiction to award money under the Administrative Procedure Act. The Court stated:
Essentially, the Supreme Court recognized the fatal defect in the Plaintiffs’ claims. The Plaintiffs sued under the Administrative Procedure Act, however, that Act does not generally authorize a federal district court to order the payment of money on contract claims. Claims for the payment of money based on “express or implied contracts” with the USA must be brought in the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act.
Thus, the federal district court had no jurisdiction over these claims against the USA for money. Pay close attention to this issue because it looms large in the next case addressed in this article.
THE BIDEN REGIME GREEN ENERGY 20 BILLION DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE
In the waning days of former President Biden’s term of office, the Biden Regime sought to give $20 billion in grants to eight separate (apparently unqualified and, in some cases, brand new) allegedly non-profit Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The Trump Administration came into power and worked to stop the giveaways. Here is what happened.
Through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) (created by Biden’s ill-named “Inflation Reduction Act”), Congress gave the Environmental Protection Agency $27 billion dollars to dole out for “green energy” projects. The GGRF consists of three grant programs. Two of those programs, the “Clean Communities Investment Accelerator” (CCIA) and the “National Clean Investment Fund” (NICF), hold the lion’s share of the funds, some $20 billion.
Rather than fund the grant distributions directly through the United States Treasury, the Biden Regime’s EPA selected Citibank to hold $20 billion of the funds for allocation under the programs to be distributed to grant recipients. In the latter days of the Biden Regime in 2024 and even into the final days of Biden’s term in January 2025, the EPA entered into and amended massive, multi-billion dollar grant agreements to a handful of NGOs.
When the Trump Administration took over in January 2025, and the new EPA Director, Lee Zeldin, was confirmed, he and his office immediately began scrutinizing these massive grants. The new EPA leadership initially paused, then terminated the grants in March 2025. As EPA Director Zeldin stated in a statement on March 11, 2025:
Criminal investigations by the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were initiated into the “process that led to these grants and the grant modifications,” according to the Government’s court filings.
When the grants were terminated in March 2025, the NGOs promptly sued in federal district court in Washington, D.C., with the first such complaint filed on March 8, 2025.
Judge Chutkan Strikes Again
The cases wound up being assigned to the notorious anti-Trump Judge Tonya Chutkan. Judge Chutkan was the judge assigned to the illegitimate indictment of President Trump in DC, who promoted Democrat talking points about J6 and promptly issued ruling after ruling against President Trump (only to be rebuked by the Supreme Court on Presidential Immunity). Given Judge Chutkan’s history of anti-Trump and anti-conservative statements and endless rulings against Trump, most legal analysts expected her to rule against the Trump Administration. She did exactly as expected.
Judge Chutkan is a rare breed of judge who is apparently oblivious to being reversed by higher courts. As noted above, she was egregiously wrong about Presidential Immunity and was corrected by the High Court for the manner in which she handled the case and given explicit instructions by the Supreme Court to provide a course correction on her future handling of that case. Additionally, as I wrote in a recent article involving the “DOGE Doxxing Case,” the DC Circuit recently shut down Judge Chutkan’s effort to expose the identities of DOGE personnel. Undaunted by those setbacks, she set herself up for more failure in this case.
By March 18, 2025, Judge Chutkan granted the Plaintiff's request for a Temporary Restraining Order and stopped the Trump Administration from terminating these dubious, massive multi-billion dollar grants.
SCOTUS Decision in the DEI Grant Case Should End This Case
Importantly, the Plaintiffs in the Green Energy 20 Billion Dollar Boondoggle case alleged, among other claims, that the cancellation of the grants violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Readers will note, these are the precise claims brought by the plaintiffs in the DEI Grant Cancellation Case discussed above, where the United States Supreme Court granted a stay while noting the APA does not provide jurisdiction to the district court to reinstate the grants as that is an obligation to pay money. (Those claims must be brought in the Federal Court of Claims, not federal district court.)
As the Trump Administration noted in one of its pleadings in the case, the grants in both the DIE Grant Cancellation and the Green Energy case were terminated using the same federal regulation:
Despite the fact the Supreme Court’s April 4, 2025, decision in the DEI Grant case noted trying to undo the termination of a grant is actually a command to pay money and that federal district courts have no jurisdiction over such claims and despite the fact the same federal regulation was used to cancel or terminate the grants in both cases, Judge Chutkan remained undeterred.
By April 15, 2025, Judge Chutkan granted the Plaintiff's preliminary injunction and denied the Trump Administration’s request for a stay of the court’s order. Judge Chutkan ordered the grant recipients must all be able to access the billions of dollars of grant funds and the EPA could do nothing to obstruct them from getting the money.
Media promptly reported Judge’s Chutkan’s decision. The Hill published the following report on the ruling:
The Trump Administration promptly filed an Emergency Motion for Stay Pending Appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Court of Appeals Steps in
The very next day, on April 16, 2025, the Court of Appeals granted a partial administrative stay as follows:
This stay is not a ruling on the merits and does not do away with the case, but it does keep the U.S. Government’s money from being distributed to the NGOs for the time being. The granting of a stay the very day after Judge Chutkan issued the injunction is also not a good look for her.
This case is not over, but Judge Chutkan worked hard to try to get these billions of dollars to the leftist NGOs and refused to stay her orders pending appeal. The “jury is out,” so to speak, on the final result in the case, however, for now chalk up another win for Team Trump.
Conclusion
The massive amount of lawfare being waged against the Trump Administration and the willingness of activist, leftist federal judges to facilitate what in many cases are illegitimate, frivolous efforts to frustrate President Trump’s agenda are concerning. Efforts are underway in Congress to rein in some of the radical injunctions issued by leftist courts (I wrote about this and other ways to challenge the out-of-control federal judiciary in an article in March 2025). Additionally, the United States Supreme Court recently agreed to hear three cases involving President Trump's birthright citizenship Executive Order. One of the issues for SCOTUS to review in those cases is the propriety of nationwide injunctions being issued by district courts. (I also previously wrote about birthright citizenship for anyone interested in more on that subject.) Progress is slowly but surely being made on this front.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration continues to score wins in the litigation. (In fact, I plan to write about several more wins by the Trump Administration in future articles.) Those wins are strengthening the Presidency and the Trump Administration’s ability to implement policy. And the wins will keep coming, make no mistake about it.
(My newest book Fake News Exposed: 25 of the Worst Media Lies about Conservatives, Guns, COVID and Everything Else is available at Amazon. You may also pick up a copy of one of my other books at Amazon as well.)