Derek Reinbold  //  6/20/18  //  Daily Update

President Trump, in a speech to the National Federation of Independent Business, defended his actions against border-crossing families. The Trump administration is challenging nationwide injunctions, which have halted several high-profile policies, in a sanctuary city case. A George W. Bush-appointed judge found proof of voter fraud utterly lacking, ruling against Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. The Trump administration withdrew the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council, the world’s most important human rights body. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross shorted stock in a shipping firm days after learning that reporters were preparing a negative story about his dealings with the company. A federal court ruled that the Trump administration does not need to evaluate the climate change impact of leasing federal land for coal mining.

SYMPOSIUM

Impeachment will rarely make political sense, and engaging in impeachment talk risks backfiring, writes Gillian Metzger in Take Care’s symposium on Larry Tribe and Joshua Matz’s To End A Presidency: The Power of Impeachment.

IMMIGRATION

Tort lawyers should be the first responders answering the call of vulnerable children detained at the border by the Trump administration, writes Kari Hong for Take Care.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller, once part of the D.C. fringe, are the driving forces behind the administration’s zero tolerance immigration approach (NYTimes).

The apparent lack of written policy guidance at the border should give government agents pause before implementing the Trump administration’s family-separation policy, writes Carrie Cordero at Lawfare.

• The Trump administration’s zero tolerance border policy has flooded courthouses with migrants (NYTimes).
• The family separation policy encourages immigration judges to cut corners, writes Russell Wheeler for Brookings.
• The Trump administration is not telling migrant parents when they will get their kids back (WaPo).

President Trump, in a speech to the National Federation of Independent Business, defended his actions against border-crossing families (NYTimes).

• Also in that speech, President Trump resisted calls for more immigration judges (The Hill). 

The Trump administration is challenging nationwide injunctions, which have halted several high-profile policies, in a sanctuary city case, writes Steve Vladeck for SCOTUSblog.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric works in tandem with an aggressive immigration enforcement regime to push children out of schools and into deportation proceedings, writes Laila Hlass for Crimmigration.

A growing number of governors, including some Republicans, have withheld or recalled National Guard troops from the Southern border, citing the Trump administration’s child separation policy (NYTimes).

CIVIL RIGHTS 

Treating boys and girls who are transgender like other boys and girls is the right thing to do—a federal appeals court recognized this in a decision Monday (ACLU).

DEMOCRACY

Justice Gorsuch, drawing on a brief from Professors Tom Berg and Doug Laycock, embraced a troubling “both sides” argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop, writes Jim Oleske for Take Care.

The elections clause poses a structural constraint on partisan gerrymandering of Congress, writes Richard Pildes for SCOTUSblog. 

It is difficult to see the Supreme Court’s decisions in Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone together as anything but a significant setback for gerrymandering opponents, writes John Phillippe for SCOTUSblog. 

• Instead of asking the judicial or legislative branches to come to the rescue, we need impartial third-party redistricting commissions, writes Eric Segall for NBC News.

A George W. Bush-appointed judge found proof of voter fraud utterly lacking, ruling against Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (ProPublica).

• The judge sanctioned Kobach for what she called a “well-documented history of avoiding the Court’s orders” (ImmigrationProfBlog).

JUSTICE & SAFETY

The Trump administration withdrew the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council, the world’s most important human rights body (NYTimes, WSJ).

• The withdrawal came a day after the U.N. high commissioner for human rights described as “child abuse” the Trump policy of separating children from their families at the border.
• The Trump administration cited perceived bias against Israel as the reason for the withdrawal (WaPo).

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross shorted stock in a shipping firm days after learning that reporters were preparing a negative story about his dealings with the company (NYTimes).

• The “swamp” stems from the top, writes Anne Weismann for CREW.

REGULATION

The Justice Department’s claim that the Obamacare individual mandate is unconstitutional is beyond the pale, write Jonathan Adler and Abbe Gluck in the New York Times.

After the Supreme Court’s Epic Systems decision, which upheld forced arbitration and class action waiver clauses, U.S. companies have flocked to include such clauses in their contracts, writes Vail Kohnert-Yount for On Labor. 

The Senate voted to block implementation of a settlement that would lift the ban on US technology being exported to ZTE (ARS Technica).

The Trump administration does not need to evaluate the climate change impact of leasing federal land for coal mining, ruled a federal court of appeals (The Hill).

RULE OF LAW

No one, including the president, is above the law, writes Amanda Shanor for Take Care. 

Three recent Trump presidential pardons each debased the pardon power and affronted constitutional norms, write Mark Greenberg and Harry Litman for Lawfare. 

RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE 

Former FBI Director James Comey’s response to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General exposes a curious tension, writes Bob Bauer for Lawfare.

Russian trolls are active on twitter ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, weighing in on Roseanne Barr and Donald Trump Jr. (WSJ).