"A Flailing president"

It’s been a summer of profound discontent for Donald Trump. As his poll numbers keep dwindling and he flounders in his war of choice in Iran, he continues to suffer a series of body blows in the courts, hampering his attempts to break the law, weaponize his power to punish the innocent, and use the government as a personal piggybank.... 

Perhaps the most embarrassing flop has been right in Trump’s backyard, where the Reflecting Pool fiasco continues. We at Democracy Defenders Fund, along with our co-counsel Washington Litigation Group and Steptoe LLC, represent Davey Hearn, the decorated Olympian who was falsely blamed for damage at the Reflecting Pool.

The Department of Justice charged Davey with a felony, threatening him with jail for doing nothing wrong. The case was finally dismissed last week, after Jeanine Pirro admitted they didn’t have evidence to support the charges and that the damage to the pool was because of contractor failure — a contractor selected by the Trump administration without the normal competitive bidding process.

But even after the case was dismissed, Trump and his acolytes, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, have continued to bash our client and promote the false narrative that vandalism, rather than shoddy construction work, is to blame for the mess. And this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice is looking into potentially bringing new charges against Davey. 

So, on Thursday night, we filed our latest brief, further demonstrating why the court needs to dismiss these charges with prejudice. If the case is dismissed without prejudice, as the government wants, that leaves open the possibility that the government could bring this case back, even after its damning admissions. 

As we said in our brief, “The record in this case demonstrates a substantial and specific risk that, if the indictment is dismissed without prejudice, Mr. Hearn will face renewed charges, however meritless, driven by political pressure rather than the evidence.”

That’s why Norm Eisen and I, along with our colleagues representing Davey, will be back in court in Washington, D.C., on September 4 fighting to make sure this case is closed for good.

This tussle comes on the heels of two other seminal victories that we, with our partners, secured against Trump at the Supreme Court this term: his unconstitutional attempt to outlaw birthright citizenship and his illegal endeavor to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Trump’s effort to unconstitutionally rewrite the 14th Amendment by fiat and eradicate our nation’s bedrock principle of birthright citizenship was one of the central missions of his administration. He signed an executive order purporting to outlaw birthright citizenship on day one of his second term.

But, just minutes later, we were in court with our wonderful colleagues to defend this essential constitutional protection. We immediately secured an injunction to prevent the order from going into effect, and after a winding road, with Trump fighting vigorously for this cruel and unlawful policy, we argued the case before the Supreme Court — and won. The court affirmed that the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause puts “the question of citizenship ‘once and forever [to] rest.’”

But, failing to take the hint, Trump has come back with another EO targeting birthright citizenship. And within moments, we went right back to court to stop that dead in its tracks and ensure that the protections currently in place — which the Supreme Court just affirmed — continue to protect all our clients and babies born in the United States.

And finally, after our second Supreme Court victory against Donald Trump this term, in which the court ruled that Trump could not peremptorily fire Cook, a letter from the White House last week indicated that the president was “considering” trying to remove her from her role again. 

As Norm said in a statement with our co-counsel representing Cook, Abbe Lowell: “These allegations are as baseless now as they were a year ago when President Trump tried to remove Governor Cook and interfere with the independence of the Federal Reserve. 

No matter what President Trump tries to do next, this much is clear under the facts and Supreme Court precedent — there is no valid cause for removing Governor Cook. As we did before, we will challenge this latest pretext and preserve her position and the historic role of the Fed.”

All told, this paints a picture of a flailing president, unable to accept defeat, making futile attempts to revive his dead darlings. But his losses, which aren’t just limited to these three cases, continue to pile up. And no matter how often he tries to come back, with your support, we will be there to stop him. Your paid subscriptions help us fight these battles... 

-Joshua Kolb, The Contrarian