Today’s notice: A deep dive into the Freedom Caucus. Fighting about Obamacare is back. A confusing forecast for America’s weather infrastructure. But first: Trump’s weekend of legal battles over deportations.
‘Nesting Constitutional Crises’
Courts move slowly, and it’s hard to speculate where exactly Donald Trump’s legal fight to deport another group of Venezuelan men to El Salvador ends up. But one thing is clear: The administration intends to push this envelope as far as it can, and we’re breaching the possibility of “nesting constitutional crises” because of it, NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports.
Over the weekend, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a key component of the White House’s approach to deportations, which utilizes the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act to round up and deport these migrants without due process. It was not a unanimous decision — Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented — but it was a sign that despite its conservative tilt, the high court is not as quick to defer to MAGA ideas as, say, the conservative-tilted Congress is these days.
When Trump took office, it was clear that institutionalists and MAGA revolutionaries would be up against each other in the courts. We’re seeing this in the deportation flights case that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is overseeing. Boasberg is inching toward finding Trump officials in contempt of court — one potential constitutional crisis. Should he do so, Trump could then test his pardon power and protect officials from that offense — a second potential constitutional crisis.
Yep. He can do that. “Trump could kill off any prosecution attempt by issuing presidential pardons to whichever White House, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security officials were involved,” Jose writes. Some legal scholars have said the judge in the case should have sidestepped this possibility by pursuing civil contempt charges against officials, but “the judge didn’t have that option,” Jose notes, thanks to the SCOTUS ruling from April 7.
Jose traces the history of American jurisprudence that has led to this moment, including a ruling by President-turned-Chief Justice William Howard Taft allowing broad presidential pardon power. Taft’s decision, based on the idea that a president would never go this far, looks “incredibly naïve” this week, Rutgers Law School professor David Noll said.
—Evan McMorris-Santoro | Read the story.
A Freedom Caucus Free From Principle
It’s increasingly clear that the House Freedom Caucus will in some form shape Trump’s reconciliation bill in its desired image — yet another example of the conservative group having outsize influence on the Republican Party.
NOTUS’ Katherine Swartz and Ben T.N. Mause have a sweeping look at the Freedom Caucus 10 years on from its founding, with a specific eye on how the group has changed and whether members would actually sink the reconciliation bill if they don’t get their promised spending cuts.
Among the nuggets in their reporting:
- A former Freedom Caucus member sketches out the final contours of the reconciliation bill: Trump’s tax cuts extended, $50 billion a year in Medicaid cuts, the SALT cap at $30,000.
- New details about the group’s coup against former Speaker John Boehner and how a planned coup against Boehner’s successor, Paul Ryan, set the Freedom Caucus off on its pro-Trump path.
- Former member Mark Sanford saying the group has chosen loyalty to Trump over loyalty to ideals. “And that’s been to its undoing.”
- An in-depth look at how the 2017 health care bill fight is a template for the Freedom Caucus’s approach with the reconciliation bill.
- A former member saying “most” of the reason the group was founded was because conservatives saw how the Congressional Black Caucus “actually influenced Nancy Pelosi a lot.”
Front Page
- Interior Secretary Doug Burgum Is Giving a DOGE-Tied Aide the Reins: Tyler Hassen has complete control over reorganizing Interior’s contracting and personnel offices.
- How Trump’s Agenda Is Pushing Europe Away From the U.S. Defense Market: “European defense stocks have just been on a tear,” one industry analyst said.
- Byron Donalds’ Gubernatorial Race Is in Full Swing: Meanwhile, rumored challenger Casey DeSantis fights off corruption allegations.
- What Harvard’s Standoff With DHS Could Mean for International Students: The conflict could determine whether student visas are more widely at risk.
SCOTUS and the Affordable Care Act: The Sequel
The Affordable Care Act is back in front of the Supreme Court today for oral arguments, 13 years after the court ruled in 2012 that it was constitutional. The two main points in question in Kennedy v. Braidwood are whether a task force charged with requiring insurers to provide preventive health care services has the authority to do so — and if it does, whether insurers must actually offer those services, NOTUS’ Oriana González reports.
Braidwood is being represented by an anti-abortion advocate and former Trump attorney Jonathan Mitchell. The Trump administration, which inherited the case from the Biden administration, is defending the provision, but with a twist. Their argument has been less that rolling back preventive health care requirements could have dire implications, but that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. does have power over this task force.
A Weather-Tracking Fiasco
Farmers, water managers and school administrators across the U.S. are scrambling after the Trump administration let contracts for four regional weather hubs expire last week. The data from those hubs, which is used for deciding when to plant crops, assess drought conditions (to determine when farmers get federal aid) and much more, went dark, NOTUS’ Anna Kramer reports.
On Friday, one Regional Climate Center leader told NOTUS that they got word that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick signed a short extension and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration contracts would be back up this Tuesday. But another weather monitoring hub couldn’t confirm the same. The Department of Commerce didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Week Ahead
- In addition to the ACA case, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments Wednesday for Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA, a case that looks at California’s phaseout of gas-powered vehicles
- Democrats are holding a bunch of town halls this week. One we’re watching closely: Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Maxwell Frost are going to Rep. Richard Hudson’s North Carolina district Thursday (Hudson is the NRCC chair who advised House Republicans to avoid in-person town halls)
- Thursday is the deadline the Department of Education set for state education departments to sign a document that targets diversity, equity and inclusion programs
- It’s Nerd Prom Week. Parties abound in Washington. The White House Correspondents Dinner is Saturday, and will have no comedian and no president, so… hope the food’s good!
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- With echoes of Joan Rivers and Kash Patel, Eric Adams lashes out at the media in DC speech by Joe Anuta for Politico
- Travel to the U.S. from almost everywhere is falling under Trump by Anumita Kaur and Adrián Blanco Ramos for The Washington Post
- Questioning Biden’s Capacities Was Taboo a Year Ago. Now It’s Everywhere. By Annie Linskey for The Wall Street Journal
Have a Tip? Email Us.
Reach us at tips@notus.org. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts on our newsletter at newsletters@notus.org.
Thank you for reading! If you like this edition of the NOTUS newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please subscribe (it’s free!).