Court Partially Modifies Ex Parte Treasury TRO – Only Senior Officials Restored To Access
“To the extent the language of the February 8 TRO could be read to place such senior officials within the intended scope of the Order, the Court grants the motion to modify the February 8 TRO to clarify that the Secretary of the Treasury and other Senate-confirmed senior Treasury Officers are not prohibited from accessing Treasury’s payment systems.1 However, to the extent that Defendants seek to eliminate the TRO’s restriction on access by “political appointees” more broadly, Defs. Mem. at 5-6, the Court denies the motion.”
Judge Jeannette A. Vargas has issued a Memorandum and Opinion regarding the weekend ex parte TRO that, on its face, stripped all political appointees, including senior leadership, at the Treasury Department from access to key banking systems. We analyzed the impropriety of the Ex Parte TRO, Judge Issues Emergency Order Halting DOGE Access To Treasury Payment Systems.
The goverment filed an emergency motion to dissolve the Ex Parte TRO, aruing (correctly in my view) that it was “Impermissible and Anti-Constitutional”.
I’ll have more analysis soon, but here is the key portion of Judge Vargas’s ruling:
To the extent the language of the February 8 TRO could be read to place such senior officials within the intended scope of the Order, the Court grants the motion to modify the February 8 TRO to clarify that the Secretary of the Treasury and other Senate-confirmed senior Treasury Officers are not prohibited from accessing Treasury’s payment systems.1
However, to the extent that Defendants seek to eliminate the TRO’s restriction on access by “political appointees” more broadly, Defs. Mem. at 5-6, the Court denies the motion.
MORE TO FOLLOW
I don’t think this solves the problem. It’s not up to the courts to determine how the Treasury Department is run and who runs it. That’s an Executive Branch function. The government should file an emergency appeal.
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Excellent. Now stop all payment operations that haven’t come directly across the desk of the Sec Treasury. The ideological morons wanted a bottleneck so give it to them good and hard.
This is the correct answer. Trump need only issue an Executive Order indicating no payments may be processed without the express approval of either himself or the Treasury Secretary. A District Court Judge has no authority to order the president to approve something anymore than Trump enjoys the authority to order a District Court judge to dismiss a case. This would (partially) solve the problem in this case and entirely solve the problem in one of the other cases where a District Judge has ordered all grants ‘unfrozen.’ If she wants the grants paid, she can open her own checkbook.
Senior officials can access the program!
Okay, it will be a little more difficult, but DOGE can still do it’s job. Musk will have to instruct them how to extract the information without personally going there or looking at the computer himself.
Nah. Make the bureaucracy give a one slide briefing on what each payment is actually going to direction the Sec Treasury. Q&A to follow. One hour set aside for each expenditure. Set 6 of them for Friday late afternoon/evening and 12 per day Saturday and Sunday.
Malicious compliance would ensue.
Like the idiots in FEMA who signed off on giving NYC millions to house illegal immigrants in luxury hotels.
Some other embedded govt antiT idiots would try to cut off SS or other program payments T has specifically said will continue in order to blame T for THEIR actions and sabotage support for DOGE.
Head of the Treasury is assumed to have authority to allow access to Treasury records (just as the Prez is with all admin records) so do so and give the criminally corrupt judge more rope until you can get SCOTUS to do an expedited slap down of this silliness.
Too easy to short circuit those sort of shenanigans. Have Trump come on TV and issue a statement directly to the public explaining what will and won’t have to go to Sec Tres. Reassure the public that SSA, VA benefits, Federal payroll, National Parks will continue to be funded b/c.they have an explicit authorization. Then explain that all the other spending without specific authorization by Congress is under review. Use examples like $50 million for condoms in Gaza ago highlight the absurd crap being reviewed.
After that if the bureaucracy is dumb enough to try and blow up SSA payments or whatever that’s now very clearly on the ‘resistance’. They WILL pay a price in the loss of what remaining public sympathy they may still have. Doing something like that would be totally indefensible and I don’t think even legacy media would try and get in front of the public outrage to run their normal interference for gov’t BS. .
Here’s another example:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/02/its-corruption-all-the-way-down.php
Yep. All sorts of mal administration and what appear to be the wokiesta bureaucracy making payments of taxpayer dollars to ideological allies in the NGO and charity world.
If you want startling numbers go look at both Catholic Charities, Lutheran Charities, among others, receiving taxpayer dollars to literally fund the mass importation and maintenance of illegal aliens. I suspect the only effective way to put a lasting stop to this sort of thing is to get Congress to pass a statute that prohibits funding ANY/ALL NGO or ‘Charity’.
Courts have far over-stepped their bounds.
In the case of this court, 2 judges should receive attitude adjustments. Find a way to remove one or more and this crap will end.
Maybe the treasury should stop issuing their paychecks
and will continue to do so unabated until some Repub in the House grows a pair and files for impeachment
The government should file an emergency appeal.
And Conhgress should get going on impeachment proceedings. The judge is in blatant violation of his oath.
Spitting in th3 wind. It takes a 2/3 supermajority to impeach.
The process is the punishment
I used to run into obstacles a with business adversary , I usually figured out a way to make someone sorry.
Sorry, meant to upvote but hit the wrong button.
“And Conhgress should get going on impeachment proceedings.”
*****
Not worth the effort. In US history, only 13 Federal judges have been impeached and 8 convicted. The chance of getting a conviction with this Senate is 0.
IMO, better solution is to sic DOGE and the IRS on them; how many are financially clean? IMO, not many.
It’s never not worth the effort. If you just keep leaving that option on the floor, then Congress will become impotent in this matter (like they are now because they’ve seldom used it). Also, you have to do it so you can hold everyone voting against it to account in 2026.
the process is the punishment
If the Plaintiffs have not complied with FRCP Rule 65(c) then the TRO is not worth the paper it is written on.
Every one of these activist judges is asking for an audit from the IRS for the past 20 years, and every year going forward for the rest of their lives.
And their families.
And their friends.
If they want to abuse their power, they shouldn’t be surprised when it comes back at them.
Found in Article I-III are three distinct methods for removing members of each branch of Government. Impeachment is the Article II (Executive Branch) method of removal. Impeachment requires substantial misconduct (high crimes and misdemeanors).
Article III specifies “the Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour:”. Traditionally, Article II impeachment has been used to remove Article III Judges despite the “Good Behavior” clause.
However, tradition and self-serving caselaw notwithstanding, Congress via legislation or practice could remove an Article III Judge for not being on good behavior through a majority vote of both Houses and Presidential signature. Alternatively Judges found to not be on “good behavior” could be removed by the Supreme Court via a stautorily devised procedure.
There are instances that may warrant removal of a Judge that do not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.. For example, suppose an Article III Judge repeatedly refuses to recognize Bruen as binding caselaw in several decisions.
Please review the video of Andrew Branca at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMY92Sa69tw Branca discusses these ideas. He points out, there are deep ramifacations to adopting the Article III methodolgy.
This is no better than the prior order. It’s still an unelected thug in a black robe dictating how the government shall be run based upon their opinions instead of the law.
Judges have issues nearly 80 TRO’s against the administration now. It is time for SCOTUS to shut them down. Impeach them all, too.
Ya’ll aren’t going to believe this. Now, a federal judge has ordered CDC, FDA, NHS etc, to restore all website pages that were removed (I think these are the web pages related to trans and other gay agenda items). This is way beyond absurd.
https://x.com/CBSNews/status/1889376138289389749
Sorry, meant to upvote but hit the wrong button. From the CBS News story, it appears the takedown was over broad, and resulted in removing legitimate disease control information along with whatever gender ideology may or may not have been there.
This must get to the Supreme Court quickly for a decision. If the Supremes decide that they will permit the lower courts to run the Executive Branch, we ‘are back to the Third World Banana Republic status.
Frankly, I never dreamed it would be the Courts that ended the American Experiment. Guess I have been naive
This is still a judicial coup. This is Madison v Marbury V2.0. This is a Constitutional Crisis and the minor judiciary must be brought to heel.
I’ve just spent a little time reading a layman’s analysis of Madison v Marbury. I only knew the broadest conceptual strokes of it until now and now I can only claim to know as much as you can learn in 20 minutes but it’s fascinating.
As I understand things the court can only determine whether actions of the Executive are constitutionally permitted and that’s it. It can invalidate laws written by Congress if they violate the constitution, and that’s it.
Marbury also established that the power of judicial review covers actions by the executive branch—the President and his cabinet members. However, American courts’ power of judicial review over executive branch actions only extends to matters in which the executive has a legal duty to act or refrain from acting, and does not extend to matters that are entirely within the President’s discretion, such as whether to veto a bill or whom to appoint to an office.
However, I now know just enough to fill the back of a postage stamp and not enough to have an opinion worthy of sharing.
I would love to see this question of the inferior courts controlling the actions of the Executive discussed by people more educated on the subject. Doctor Jacobsen, please Sir more?
“Frankly, I never dreamed it would be the Courts that ended the American Experiment. Guess I have been naive”
Read more Jefferson!
For intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one too, which is unelected by, and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scarecrow… The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please.
–THOMAS JEFFERSON, TO SPENCER ROANE
2025… the year of lawfare.
How about making the suing party post a bond? Dan Huff’s X posts suggest it.
https://x.com/RealDanHuff/status/1888975398299435477
@DOGE
, a single district judge has issued a ruling blocking the executive branch from access to Treasury data. There’s a simple fix: DOJ should demand injunction bonds. 1/
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c), judges can issue injunctions “ONLY IF” the suing party posts a bond to cover potential damages if they’re wrong. But guess what? This rule is hardly used! 3/
When I was in the White House, in Trump’s first term, I suggested this, but DOJ didn’t make it happen. Imagine if we had applied this to the travel ban – activists would think twice before blocking policies with potentially billions at stake. 4/
As a young lawyer, I used a similar requirement to win a case in state court. A local business sued to enjoin our client from issuing an industrial bond that would have benefited the plaintiff’s competitor & broken its monopoly. In order to challenge the proposed issuance of a revenue bond, state law required plaintiff to post a bond to reimburse the issuing authority for any costs resulting from the delaying the bond issue.
The state Supreme Court reduced the substantial bond amount required by the trial court, but at my urging left a token quarter million dollar bond requirement. On the eve of trial, the plaintiffs moved the state supremes to waive the reduced bond. In a two sentence opinion the state Supreme Court reinstated the trial judge‘s original seven figure requirement.
We got a call from the plaintiffs lawyer within hours, offering to settle in exchange for mutual releases. Made my boss -who was a brilliant lawyer & a great mentor- look pretty good.
This is another low point for SDNY federal judiciary. They give a new meaning to “inferior courts.”
The you join the military you swear an oath to follow all lawful orders. In basic training they tell you not to follow obviously illegal orders. “I was just following orders.” is not a defense that will hold up, when you are on trial.
Just because an order comes from a judge, who should know the law, that doesn’t mean it is a lawful order.
It sounds like Elon can do whatever he wants as long as he has a senior treasury official in attendance