The Shadow Docket's been in the news. Chief Justice John Roberts has abused it and misused it. Kathryn Rubino (ABOVE THE LAW) reports:
The New York Times dropped a bombshell on Saturday. Reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak obtained 16 pages of leaked internal memos from six Supreme Court justices, showing — in their own words, (mostly) on their own letterhead — exactly how Chief Justice John Roberts led the Court to invent what we now call the shadow docket. The memos, exchanged over five days in February 2016 as the justices scrambled to kneecap President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, are a remarkable window into how this institution actually works. Or rather, how sloppily it works when it wants to reach a predetermined result.
The documents are damning. Georgetown law professor and shadow docket chronicler Steve Vladeck — who wrote just two months ago that we’d “never know (at least, until our grandkids can read the justices’ internal papers)” how the shadow docket was born — put it plainly in his newsletter: Roberts applied the wrong legal standard, ignored the other side of the equities entirely, cited a BBC interview and a blog post as his “facts,” and then steamrolled his colleagues when Justices Breyer and Kagan proposed reasonable compromises. The deliberation was, in Vladeck’s words, “utterly impoverished.”
[. . .]
The NYT’s shadow docket documents reveal something straightforwardly important: the birth of the modern emergency docket was sloppier, more ideologically driven, and less legally rigorous than the Court’s defenders have ever admitted. This isn’t speculation anymore… we’ve got it in the justices’ own words.
Roberts argued for blocking Obama’s Clean Power Plan using the wrong legal standard — he cited cases about staying lower court rulings pending appeal, but what was actually requested was staying executive agency action pending all judicial review, something the Court had never done before. He never acknowledged the novelty of what he was proposing. He cited a BBC interview and an EPA blog post — not exactly the vetted record one might hope for — as his factual basis. He reframed “irreparable harm” from its legal meaning into vague claims about “substantial and irreversible reordering of the domestic power sector,” while completely ignoring the irreparable harm the government and the environment would suffer from the Court’s intervention.
Justices Breyer and Kagan both proposed workable compromises. Roberts brushed them aside. Kennedy, apparently having decided that a stay was inevitable anyway, provided the fifth vote. And the rest is history — an unsigned, one-paragraph order issued on a February night. As Elbert Lin, West Virginia’s solicitor general at the time, told the Times: “This had never been done.”
The memos also demolish the conservative talking point that internal deliberations over emergency applications are rigorous and substantive. They aren’t. This was five days of brief memos, which included a weekend, with no in-person debate and no serious grappling with the novelty of what was being proposed. The memos are written in “the distinctive voice of the Justices,” as Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston and Volokh Conspiracy contributor, noted, which is the one thing he got right before going off the rails. What they reveal is not rigor. It’s a small club of powerful people moving fast and breaking things.
[. . .]
Today the Court “routinely opts to enter the fray, and it fails to acknowledge the harms that follow when the Supreme Court of the United States consistently and casually divests the lower courts of their equitable authority.” Unsigned, unexplained orders that reshape national policy — on immigration, on the environment, on federal workforce policy — issued after a few days of memo-trading. With no oral argument. Often with no reasoning at all.
The memos show that this was always the plan. Roberts, in 2016, decided that protecting conservative policy goals from an Obama regulation was worth blowing up the Court’s procedures. He did it with sloppy reasoning, cherry-picked facts, and a complete indifference to the harms on the other side of the ledger. *That* is the scandal. That has always been the scandal. The leak is just how we found out about it.
The Crooked Court. The Supreme Court that John Roberts destroyed. The public no longer trusts The Crooked Court and it's because it does not follow the law.
"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Paramount, ABC, Meta, X indicated that they have no explanation or are unwilling to share information about where millions in settlement money have gone — or where it will go
As much as $63 million in settlement payments to Trump Presidential Library slush fund missing
“These are troubling answers…particularly given the vast tide of corruption and self-enrichment that has occurred during your Administration, and your ongoing attempts to seek massive personal payments from the federal government.”
Paramount Response (PDF) ABC Response (PDF) Meta Response (PDF) X Response (PDF)
Washington, D.C. – In new responses to U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), Big Tech CEOs indicated that they have no public explanation for where as much as $63 million in settlement money to Donald Trump’s now-dissolved Presidential Library fund has gone. The lawmakers released these responses today and sent a new letter to President Donald Trump pressing for answers to solve the ongoing mystery of the missing millions.
“These are troubling answers…particularly given the vast tide of corruption and self-enrichment that has occurred during your Administration, and your ongoing attempts to seek massive personal payments from the federal government,” wrote the lawmakers.
The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, Inc. was incorporated in late 2024 with a stated purpose “to preserve and steward the legacy of President Donald J. Trump and his presidency.” From late 2024 to mid-2025, four Big Tech companies — Paramount, ABC, Meta, and X — contributed as much as $63 million in settlement payments to President Trump's future presidential library." But in September 2025, the Fund was administratively dissolved for failure to submit a mandatory annual report, and in December, the incorporator filed articles of dissolution — with no explanation.
The lawmakers wrote to the four companies in March 2026, seeking answers about the funds. Key points from the companies’ responses include:
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ABC reported that its “parent company made a payment by wire on December 19, 2024, to . . . the escrow account established by the Plaintiff’s counsel” and that “[i]n response to our recent ask for a status update, Plaintiff’s counsel, on Thursday, March 19, 2026, provided written notice to us that the IRS has recognized the 501(c)(3) status of ‘The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc.,’ and requested that we provide written authorization for release of the funds to that entity.” This response appears to indicate that ABC had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the contents of the Fund in the immediate aftermath of its dissolution, and the response still fails to provide clarity on whether the ABC settlement has been transferred to the Foundation.
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Paramount noted that it made a payment of $16 million and that “[w]ith respect to your questions regarding the disposition of funds and subsequent developments concerning the presidential library fund, the Company’s involvement was limited to making the payment as specified in the Settlement Agreement” — providing no answers about the disposition of funds following the dissolution of the Foundation.
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Meta confirmed that it paid $22 million “to support a presidential library for President Trump . . . for the purpose of settling the pending claims” but refused to provide further “confidential” details.
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X likewise confirmed that it paid $10 million in a group settlement that included President Trump but refused to comment further on “confidentiality” grounds.
“The companies do not know or are unwilling to share their information about what happened to the millions of dollars given to the Fund,” wrote the lawmakers. “This leaves the public completely in the dark about what happened to the Fund, whether there was any money in it when it was dissolved, what happened to that money upon the Fund’s dissolution, and why a second entity with the same purpose as the Fund was created in the first place.”
There have been no disclosures about the Fund’s disposition of any funds, and the White House press office has not responded to requests for comment. There appears to be no individual taking responsibility for the closure of the Fund and disposition of its money: no Fund board members were ever appointed, and the only person to sign any of its public documents has minimized his role.
In May 2025, a second nonprofit, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation Inc., was incorporated with the same stated purpose as the Fund. Questions remain as to why the Foundation was formed when the Fund already existed and whether any money held by the Fund was transferred to the Foundation once the Fund was dissolved.
“You owe the public an explanation,” wrote the lawmakers to President Trump, requesting answers to a series of specific questions by May 1, 2026.
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Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Trump’s embattled labor secretary, stepped down on Monday as multiple scandals and investigations closed in on her.
“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the Administration to take a position in the private sector,” Steven Cheung, a White House spokesman, posted on social media. He said Keith Sonderling, the deputy secretary of labor, would serve as acting secretary.
Pressure on Ms. Chavez-DeRemer had mounted in recent weeks, as investigators and congressional leaders homed in on questions about her conduct in office, and that of her aides and members of her family.
The Labor Department’s inspector general’s office is nearing the end of a monthslong investigation into a whistle-blower’s allegations of professional misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her closest aides. The claims include that she was having an affair with a member of her security team and used department resources for personal trips. Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was expected to be interviewed in the matter in the coming days.
Her husband was banned from Labor Department grounds after he allegedly assaulted two female staffers.
The writing may have been on the wall for Chavez-DeRemer. After unceremoniously firing ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump was apparently on the warpath against his own Cabinet. An administration official anonymously told Politico at the start of the month that Trump was “very angry” with his advisers and was looking to move some of them around or even axe them entirely.
Chavez-DeRemer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were at risk of losing their jobs “imminently,” three anonymous sources told Politico at the time.
Hegseth has made deep cuts in funding, personnel for civilian harm mitigation programs
More than 1,700 civilian deaths, strikes on more than 30 schools, health care facilities since the start of President Trump’s illegal war in Iran
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) led nine senators in opening a new investigation into Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s role in weakening civilian harm prevention programs and the catastrophic civilian impacts of President Trump’s war in Iran.
“The high human toll of this war reflects the administration's broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm,” wrote the lawmakers. ”We call on the administration to immediately end the war in Iran and fully restore Congressionally authorized programs and staffing to mitigate civilian harm.”
Since the start of President Trump’s illegal war in Iran, attacks on civilian infrastructure have led to more than 1,700 civilian deaths, along with strikes on more than 20 schools and a dozen health care facilities.
“We are concerned that these were all preventable tragedies…This is a concerning pattern and raises questions about whether the administration is upholding international law and the laws of war,” wrote the senators. The Senators called on DoD to answer questions about reported attacks on two separate elementary schools in Iran that killed more than 170 people, most of them children.
Prior to the war, Secretary Hegseth made deep cuts to the military’s civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR) programs, fired personnel at DoD’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, and slashed CHMR staff at the U.S. combatant commands “by more than 90 percent.” All the cuts were reportedly made over the objections of veterans organizations and top military officials, including admirals, generals, and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We are also concerned that your leadership is further harming the credibility of our armed forces, exacerbating threats to civilians and U.S. servicemembers alike,” wrote the senators.
Secretary Hegseth has mocked “stupid rules of engagement” and threatened to offer “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” in Iran, which would violate international law and the military’s own Law of War Manual.
“These statements not only harm civilians and undermine established standards, but also endanger U.S. servicemembers with greater risk of reciprocation and erode good order and discipline,” warned the senators.
Senior military officials in the Trump administration agree that mitigating civilian harm is vital for national security. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby wrote to Congress that, “it is in the U.S. national interest, as well as morally right, to seek to reduce civilian harm to the degree possible.” During his confirmation, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine said that combatant commanders who incorporated CHMR personnel into planning “see positive impacts from the program.”
“Your attempts to gut DoD’s civilian harm institutions contradicts more than a decade of bipartisan consensus and DoD-led reforms, initiated during the first Trump administration,” noted the senators.
“The importance of protecting civilian life to the greatest extent possible is central to effective military operations and differentiates the United States from our adversaries…We call on the administration to immediately end the war in Iran, fully restore Congressionally authorized programs and staffing to mitigate civilian harm,” concluded the senators.
The lawmakers asked Hegseth to explain the cuts to civilian harm programs and explain what steps the Pentagon is taking to protect civilian lives in Iran by May 4, 2026.
Senators Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) joined in signing the letter.
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