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Trump-Appointed Judge Rules White House Can't Retaliate Against AP Over Gulf of Mexico Dispute
A spokesperson for the news agency said the ruling "affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation."
Apr 08, 2025
A federal judge appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term ruled Tuesday that the White House cannot cut off The Associated Press' access to the Republican leader because of the news agency's refusal to use his preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico.
"About two months ago, President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press did not follow suit. For that editorial choice, the White House sharply curtailed the AP's access to coveted, tightly controlled media events with the president," wrote Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who is based in Washington, D.C.
Specifically, according to the news outlet, "the AP has been blocked since February 11 from being among the small group of journalists to cover Trump in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One, with sporadic ability to cover him at events in the East Room."
The AP responded to the restrictions by suing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, "seeking a preliminary injunction enjoining the government from excluding it because of its viewpoint," McFadden noted in his 41-page order. "Today, the court grants that relief."
The judge explained that "this injunction does not limit the various permissible reasons the government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events. It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the president or nonpublic government spaces. It does not prohibit government officials from freely choosing which journalists to sit down with for interviews or which ones' questions they answer. And it certainly does not prevent senior officials from publicly expressing their own views."
"The court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," he stressed. "The Constitution requires no less."
McFadden blocked his own order from taking effect before next week, giving the Trump administration time to respond or appeal. Still, AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said Tuesday that "we are gratified by the court's decision."
"Today’s ruling affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation," Easton added. "This is a freedom guaranteed for all Americans in the U.S. Constitution."
NPRreported that "an AP reporter and photographer were turned back from joining a reporting pool on a presidential motorcade early Tuesday evening, almost two hours after the decision came down."
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Pro-Voter Coalition Sues Over Trump Trying to 'Declare Election Rules by Executive Fiat'
"This executive order, based on nothing but years of disinformation, is blatantly unlawful and a naked attempt to suppress the votes of targeted communities," said LULAC's national president.
Mar 31, 2025
A pro-voter coalition on Monday sued to block U.S. President Donald Trump's recent executive order that critics warn would make it harder for tens of millions of eligible citizens to cast their ballots in state and federal elections.
The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and State Democracy Defenders Fund (SDDF) sued the executive office of the president and members of Trump's administration in a Washington, D.C. federal court on behalf of three advocacy groups: the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Secure Families Initiative (SFI), and Arizona Students' Association (ASA).
"The president's executive order is an unlawful action that threatens to uproot our tried-and-tested election systems and silence potentially millions of Americans. It is simply not within the president's authority to set election rules by executive decree, especially when they would restrict access to voting in this way," said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at CLC.
"Donald Trump is attempting to wrongfully impede voting by millions of Americans with this latest unlawful executive order."
As the complaint puts it: "Under our Constitution, the president does not dictate election rules. States and Congress do... Through the order, the president attempts to exercise powers that the Constitution withholds from him and instead assigns to the states and to Congress. The order violates and subverts the separation of powers by lawlessly arrogating to the president authority to declare election rules by executive fiat."
Trump's order includes provisions enabling the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Department of Homeland Security to subpoena voting records for "list maintenance," restricting mail-in voting, and requiring the Election Assistance Commission to include documentary proof of citizenship on the federal voting form.
"Donald Trump is attempting to wrongfully impede voting by millions of Americans with this latest unlawful executive order. But it will not work. In America voters get to pick their president—presidents don't get to pick their voters, declared SDDF co-founder and executive chair Norm Eisen. "We are proud to stand up for the ability of every American voter to cast their ballots freely and fairly through this litigation."
Advocacy group leaders detailed how provisions in Trump's order would impact various communities if the directive isn't struck down.
"Military families, veterans, caregivers, and overseas voters deserve secure access to the very democracy we serve to protect—no matter where we're stationed or how we serve," said SFI executive director Sarah Streyder. "This new order would mean that the veteran who is a full-time caretaker at home, who has done everything right, may now be shut out of the ballot box due to outdated paperwork."
"This new order would mean that the military family stationed on the other side of the world from home, who crossed every t and dotted every i—their military ID will no longer suffice, and due to mail delays outside of their control, their ballot will never count," Streyder warned.
Roman Palomares, LULAC's national president, declared that "this executive order, based on nothing but years of disinformation, is blatantly unlawful and a naked attempt to suppress the votes of targeted communities—disproportionately impacting the Latino community."
"We are proud to join this coalition seeking to stop the effort to silence the voice and votes of the U.S. electorate—and particularly of voters of color," Palomares continued. "Our democracy depends on all voters feeling confident that they can vote freely and that their vote will be counted accurately."
Trump orders states to open voter files to Musk. Exec Order will cost 21 million their vote. ▶️ Get the full story: www.gregpalast.com/trump-execut...
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— Greg Palast (@gregpalast.bsky.social) March 30, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Kyle Nitschke, co-executive director of Arizona Students' Association, highlighted that some states have imposed voter suppression laws similar to Trump's executive order (EO).
"The Arizona Students' Association has seen firsthand what these egregious citizenship requirements really are, an attempt to suppress the vote. In Arizona we have a dual-track federal registration system, and the voters being affected by citizenship requirements are college students registering to vote for the first time, unsheltered voters, and Native voters, Nitschke said. "There are already extensive citizenship checks in place when registering to vote, Trump's EO is a clear attack on our voting rights. Our student members believe we should live in a country where it's accessible and convenient to be a part of democracy."
The Associated Pressnoted that "Monday's lawsuit against Trump's elections order could be just the first of many challenges. Other voting rights advocates have said they're considering legal action, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Democratic attorney Marc Elias. Several Democratic state attorneys general have said they are looking closely at the order and suspect it is illegal."
Monday evening, the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Governors Association, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) announced that they also filed a suit against the order in the D.C. court. They are represented by Elias Law Group.
"This executive order is an unconstitutional power grab from Donald Trump that attacks vote by mail, gives DOGE sensitive personal information, and makes it harder for states to run their own free and fair elections," they said in a joint statement. "It will even make it harder for military members serving overseas and married women who have changed their name to have their votes count."
"Donald Trump and DOGE are doing this as an attempt to rationalize their repeatedly debunked conspiracy theories and set the groundwork to throw out legal votes and ignore election outcomes they do not like," they added. "It's anti-American and Democrats are using every tool at our disposal—including taking Trump to court—to stop this illegal overreach that undermines our democracy."
The pro-voter lawsuits are also among several legal challenges to Trump's long list of executive actions since January 20. As Common Dreamsreported earlier Monday, the National Treasury Employees Union filed a federal suit in the same D.C. court over Trump's recent order that aims to strip collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of government workers.
It's not just the Trump administration that's working to make it more difficult for Americans to participate in democracy. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are also planning to hold a vote on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act this week.
"If the bill passes, more than 21 million Americans could be blocked from voting," the Brennan Center for Justice warned on social media Monday. "The SAVE Act would be the first voter suppression bill ever passed by Congress. Lawmakers should be protecting the freedom to vote—not restricting it. We urge Congress to reject the SAVE Act."
This article has been updated to include the Democratic lawsuit.
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What Would the Founders Make of Trump’s Authoritarianism?
The Founders imagined the president as an administrator, not a policymaker, and definitely not an imperial unitary executive.
Mar 26, 2025
The U.S. Constitution is very specific about the powers of Congress and very vague about the powers of the president and the judiciary. While the authors of the nation’s founding documents were explicit that power had to be divided between three coequal branches, the legislative, executive, and judicial, they did not anticipate the authoritarianism of President Donald Trump, the cowardice of congressional representatives beholden to a populist demagogue for endorsements and campaign funds, nor the reactionary ideology of a right-wing Supreme Court. It is not fair to blame the founders for events 250 into the future, with the United States in the midst of a major constitutional crisis.
In 1787, Benjamin Franklin placed the responsibility for upholding the Constitution on future generations when he warned that the new government is “A republic, if you can keep it.” Abraham Lincoln recognized the difficulty of maintaining a country based on this one’s founding principles in his Gettysburg Address over 150 years ago when he told the assembled, “We are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
The Constitution assigns the president an undefined executive power with some very specific tasks. The president represents the country in talks with other countries and can negotiate treaties, but the treaties must be approved by the Senate; the president can veto or sign bills approved by both houses of Congress, and then they are responsible for enforcing the laws; and the president acts as Commander-in-Chief of the military during a war, nominates judges and ambassadors pending Senate approval, and grants pardons.
The Trump claim for a unitary executive and virtually unlimited executive power undermines everything they were trying to create.
There is no mention in the Constitution of political parties or of Cabinet members. Departments and Cabinet positions were created by Congress later to make the government run more smoothly. Executive orders are not mentioned in the Constitution either, and they do not carry the power of law, but every president since George Washington has issued executive orders as instructions to heads of the different federal departments about how to carry out their duties. The Constitution does not give the president the authority to issue executive orders that overturn or ignore laws passed by Congress or decisions made by the Supreme Court.
Since George Washington’s presidency, different presidents have interpreted their powers and responsibilities as chief executive in different ways. President Trump embraces the modern unitary executive theory, which claims that the president has sole authority over the executive branch of the government. According to this theory presidential power can only be restrained if a president is impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate, something that it so difficult that it has never happened in United States history.
Without restraints, Trump argues he can summarily fire without cause any employee of the executive branch including Cabinet members approved by the Senate, he can decide not to spend money allocated by Congress, and he can ignore laws he does not agree with even though they were passed by Congress and signed by a previous president. The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court seems inclined to support Trump’s view of executive power. In 2020, during Trump’s first presidency, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled 5-4 that “the entire ‘executive power’ belongs to the president alone,” although it never actually explained what executive power means.
Three of the nation’s founders, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, addressed the allocation of power in the new government and explained why power had to be divided. Thomas Jefferson was not at the Constitutional Convention, but he did address the separation of powers in his 1784 Notes on the State of Virginia, with ideas that helped shape the Constitution. While Jefferson was more concerned with the legislative branch assuming too much power, he was very clear that “all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body,” but “concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government... An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.” Jefferson warned, “The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.”
James Madison, who was the secretary at the Constitutional Convention, explained how separation of powers should work in essays he wrote during the debate in New York State over ratification of the Constitution. In Federalist Papers 47-50, he explained the importance of separating powers and how the principle was applied in the Constitution. He also addressed concerns about how the system would work. An underlying principle of the new government was that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” balancing power among the branches of government to protect individual rights and prevent tyranny. Madison famously wrote in Federalist Paper 51, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Alexander Hamilton, an active participant in the Constitutional Convention, wrote in favor of a strong executive and is used to justify the unitary executive theory; however, Hamilton was not discussing unlimited executive authority but was disputing the idea of a presidential council. Hamilton explained the specific powers assigned to the president and did not anticipate claims that a president would be virtually unchallengeable. According to Hamilton, “The only remaining powers of the executive are comprehended in giving information to Congress of the State of the Union; in recommending to their consideration such measures as he shall judge expedient”; and “faithfully executing the laws.” He was very careful to distinguish between the president as an elected executive subject to impeachment and the power of a hereditary monarch.
I think the Founders imagined the president as an administrator, not a policymaker, and definitely not an imperial unitary executive. Their bigger fear was that congressional majorities would attempt to usurp the executive’s responsibility to administer laws in order to benefit special interest groups. For the same reason they wanted an independent judiciary to prevent the politically motivated administration of justice. The Trump claim for a unitary executive and virtually unlimited executive power undermines everything they were trying to create.
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