High court takes up census case, as other count issues loom
FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2020, file photo an American flag waves in front of the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments over whether the Trump administration can exclude people in the country illegally from the count used for divvying up congressional seats. It's the latest, and likely the last, Trump administration hard-line approach to immigration issues to reach the high court. Will the quality of the census data be hurt by a shortened schedule, a pandemic and natural disasters? Will a lame-duck Senate pass legislation that could extend deadlines for turning in census numbers?
Trump wants #SCOTUS OK to block critics on @realdonaldtrump
President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to allow him to block critics from his personal Twitter account. The federal appeals court in New York ruled last year that Trump uses the account to make daily pronouncements and observations that are overwhelmingly official in nature. It held that Trump violated the First Amendment whenever he blocked a critic to silence a viewpoint. Two Trump appointees, Judges Michael H. Park and Richard J. Sullivan, were the only members of the court to side with the president. The Supreme Court extended its deadline to file an appeal from 90 days to 150 days when it shut the building to the public and abandoned in-person meetings in favor of telephone conferences because of the virus outbreak.
Appeals court seems wary of ordering dismissal of Flynn case
WASHINGTON A federal appeals court in Washington appeared inclined Tuesday to let a judge decide on his own whether to grant the Justice Department's request to dismiss the criminal case against former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn. A ruling against Flynn would not undo his guilty plea or end the case but simply return it to Sullivan for a hearing on the government's request to dismiss. The entire court took up the matter after a three-judge panel, in a 2-1 ruling, ordered Sullivan to dismiss the case. Those concerns prompted alarm within the FBI because White House officials had stating publicly that Flynn and the ambassador had not discussed sanctions. Flynn was awaiting sentencing when the Justice Department announced in May that it was abandoning the case following an internal review.