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Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

23K followers 830 following 2.3K posts

NY-17 Congressional Candidate. Democracy advocate. Former political-legal journalist. Retired competitive air guitarist. Second-Best dad ever.

mikesacksforcongress.com

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Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

I mean www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22p...

November 11, 2025 at 6:00 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

And to be completist:

November 11, 2025 at 3:33 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Checks out

November 11, 2025 at 3:28 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Meanwhile

November 11, 2025 at 3:27 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

These ghouls refuse to give ordinary people a cause of action against fed officials for legit constitutional violations, but go to bat with a *retroactive* cause of action for their insurrectionist colleagues crying for being caught conspiring to overturn an election. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...

By Devlin Barrett
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department.
Nov. 10, 2025
Updated 5:01 p.m. ET
A spending package expected to be approved as part of a deal to reopen the government would create a wide legal avenue for senators to sue for as much as half a million dollars each when federal investigators search their phone records without notifying them.
The provision, tucked into a measure to fund the legislative branch, appears to immediately allow for eight G.O.P. senators to sue the government over their phone records being seized in the course of the investigation by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, into the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The provision would make it a violation of the law to not notify a senator if their phone records or other metadata was taken from a service provider like a phone company.
There are some exceptions, such as 60-day delays in notification if the senator is considered the target of an investigation.
The language of the bill states that "any senator whose Senate data, or the Senate data of whose Senate office, has been acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed in violation of this section may bring a civil action against the United States if the violation was committed by an officer, employee, or agent of the United States or of any federal department or agency."

November 10, 2025 at 10:49 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Trump DOJ tells KBJ it will still seek a stay from Judge McConnell’s SNAP funding order, but also notes that this case will moot out should Congress pass and the President sign the CR. www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

Dear Mr. Harris:
Pursuant to the Court's order from this morning, this letter confirms that the government still intends to pursue a stay in this matter and will file a supplemental brief by 4:00pm this afternoon. I also write to inform the Court about two developments relating to this application.
First, last evening, the Senate voted to begin the process for ending the shutdown and funding the government—including full funding for SNAP through the end of the fiscal year. See Jordain Carney, Senate Advances Plan to End Historic Shutdown in Bipartisan Breakthrough, Politico (Nov. 9, 2025). That proposal, if ultimately adopted by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President, would end the shutdown and moot this application.
Second, this morning, a district court in a related case issued a temporary restraining order.
That TRO purports to stay the USDA's November 8 memorandum that directed States that had processed full SNAP benefits for November without authorization to take immediate steps to undo those actions and revert to processing partial (65%) SNAP payments for November. See Order, Massachusetts, et al. v. USDA, et al., No. 1:25-cv-13165 (D. Mass., Nov. 10, 2025).
Sincerely,
D. John Sauer
Solicitor General

November 10, 2025 at 3:42 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

(Also, Judge Talwani this morning blocked Trump admin from clawing back full SNAP funds some states already sent to people)

Judge Indira Talwani: ELECTRONIC ORDER: granting in part Plaintiffs' Further Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Emergency
Virtual Hearing Request [ 80 ]. Good cause shown, the USDA Memorandum issued on Saturday, November 8, 2025, directing that "It]o the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025," they "must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025" and shall
"advise the appropriate FNS Regional Office representative of steps taken to correct any actions taken that do not comply with this memorandum[,l" see Attachment to Defendants' Third Notice to Court 4 [ 79 -1], is STAYED pending further court order. The clerk shall reset the hearing scheduled for November 13, 2025, to a remote hearing today at 3:30 p.m.(SEC) (Entered: 11/10/2025)

November 10, 2025 at 3:42 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

KBJ’s back asking “are you sure you want to keep doing this?” to Trump’s DOJ and sets a briefing schedule for her 48-hour window if they do. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

November 10, 2025 at 3:06 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

CA5 went for it and Trump 2.0 ran with it…but I think SCOTUS is gonna reject it.

November 10, 2025 at 2:59 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

This case in a nutshell

My god dude newly politicizes post-Election
Day counting of valid votes as a bad thing for his own disinformation and destabilization and all of a sudden Republican lawyers are saying that's how it always should have been because originalism
2:25 PM • 9/24/24

November 10, 2025 at 2:59 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

CA1 says Trump must comply with Judge McConnell’s order to fully fund SNAP for November from contingency funds during shutdown.

KBJ’s 48-hour stay now begins, but query whether the full SCOTUS will extend it until Congress passes the CR directly funding SNAP.

www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/fi...

RIKELMAN, Circuit Judge. Forty-two million people, one
out of every eight Americans, use monthly benefits from the federal
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to buy food for
themselves and their families. On October 24, 2025, a few weeks
into the current government shutdown, the United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA), which administers SNAP funding on behalf of
the federal government, announced it would not provide any funds
for November SNAP benefits.
The plaintiffs
in this
case -- nonprofits, local governments, a union, and a food
retailer -- sued to require USDA to provide full November benefits
using SNAP contingency funds Congress
had appropriated for this
very purpose, as well as other funds available to USDA. The
district court granted a temporary restraining order requiring the
government to provide either full SNAP payments by November 3 or
partial payments by November 5. The government elected to provide
partial benefits. On Thursday, November 6, the district court
determined that the government had failed to comply with the order
because it did not provide partial payments in a timely manner; it
thus ordered the full payment of SNAP funds for November. The
government now asks us to stay that order in its entirety pending
its appeal. We deny that request.

November 10, 2025 at 5:36 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

…and yet still infects it.

November 9, 2025 at 11:27 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

As a prosecutor and judge I dealt seriously with the unlawful influence of money on official decisions. However, Trump and his administration evidently do not share this approach. After Trump launched his own cryptocurrency, STRUMP, his Department of Justice disbanded its cryptocurrency-enforcement unit. The top 220 buyers of Trump's cryptocurrency were invited to a dinner with Trump. Sixty-seven of them had invested more than $1 million. The top spender, Justin Sun, who was born in China and is a foreign national, reportedly spent more than $10 million. Sun also reportedly spent $75 million on investments issued by a crypto company controlled by Trump's

family. It is illegal for people who are not U.S. citizens to donate to American political candidates, and the most that anyone can donate directly to one candidate is $3,500.
Ordinarily, the Department of Justice would investigate this sort of situation. There is, however, no indication that any investigation has occurred. Rather, a few months after Sun started purchasing tokens from the Trump-family cryptocurrency company, the Securities and Exchange Commission paused its fraud suit against Sun and his companies pending the outcome of settlement negotiations.
(Sun and his companies have denied any wrongdoing.)

November 9, 2025 at 4:25 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

November 9, 2025 at 4:21 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

These oil execs—and Trump’s DOJ officials who refuse to prosecute them—are gonna have starring roles in the 120th Congress’s Primetime Oversight Hearings.

The Department of Justice has evidently chosen to ignore matters it would in the past have likely investigated. Some directly involve the president. It has been reported that at a lavish April 2024 dinner at Mar-a-Lago, after executives from major oil companies
complained about how the Biden administration's environmental regulations were hurting their businesses, Trump said that if they raised $1 billion for his campaign he would promptly reverse those rules and policies. The executives raised the money, and Trump delivered on his promise. The law may be unclear concerning whether Trump himself could have been charged with

himself could have been charged with conspiracy to bribe a public official or honest-services fraud. In addition, Trump himself may have immunity from prosecution if similar payments for his benefit continued after he became president.
However, the companies that made the payments, and the individuals acting for them, could possibly be prosecuted. There is no public indication that this matter has been investigated by Trump's Department of Justice.

November 9, 2025 at 4:08 PM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Ok fine

November 9, 2025 at 5:07 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

I didn’t know about Kool & The Gang’s trifecta until tonight but

November 9, 2025 at 2:52 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Death by Lightning rules.

It makes Roscoe Conkling out to be a real scumbag, but did you know he also helped establish corporate personhood based on a lie he peddled to SCOTUS in 1882 leveraging his unrefutable authority as the 14A’s sole surviving framer?

From Adam Winkler’s We the Corporations:

November 8, 2025 at 5:07 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Doing my part to unexplode heads

November 8, 2025 at 3:40 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Accord @stevevladeck.bsky.social

November 8, 2025 at 3:34 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Judge Immergut declines to weigh in on the “regular forces” debate now before SCOTUS bc she’s bound by CA9’s current interpretation (that the en banc court or SCOTUS may soon abrogate)

Another interpretive question is the meaning of "regular forces" in 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3). In llinois v. Trump, No. 25-cv-12174, 2025 WL 2886645, at *16-18 (N.D. III. Oct. 10, 2025), the district court provided compelling reasons why "the phrase regular forces' was understood at the time of enactment to mean the soldiers and officers regularly enlisted with the Army and Navy, as opposed to militiamen." The Supreme Court awaits supplemental briefing on this issue, but Defendants have provided this Court with arguments why "regular forces" refers to federal civil officers and not the standing army. Defs. Post-Trial Br., ECF 131 at 6-10. In any event, this Court need not resolve this "thorny and complex issue[] of statutory interpretation." Illinois v.
Trump, No. 25-2798, 2025 WL 2937065, at *7 (7th Cir. Oct. 16, 2025). In Newsom, the Ninth Circuit implicitly resolved this question by equating "regular forces" with "federal officers," i.e. federal civilian law enforcement, which is binding on this Court. 141 F.4th at 1051-52.

November 8, 2025 at 1:37 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

Judge Immergut permanently enjoins Trump from deploying federalized National Guard members to Oregon

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON and the
CITY OF PORTLAND, and STATE OF CALIFORNIA,
Case No. 3:25-cv-1756-IM
FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
Plaintiffs,
v.
DONALD TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States; PETE HEGSETH, in his official capacity as Secretary of Defense; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; KRISTI NOEM, in her official capacity as Secretary of Homeland Security; and U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,
Defendants.
IMMERGUT, District Judge.
INTRODUCTION
On September 27, 2025, the President of the United States federalized 200 members of
the Oregon National Guard over the objection of Oregon's governor and deployed them to a

single federal building in Portland, Oregon. In the ensuing days, the President ordered the
deployment of 400 federalized members of the Texas and California National Guards, all to the
same federal building in Oregon. The mission of these deployments of military troops was
ostensibly to quell violent protests outside the one-block Immigration and Customs Enforcement
("ICE") building in Portland. But after a three-day trial that included the testimony of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials and hundreds of exhibits describing protest activity
outside the Portland ICE building, the evidence demonstrates that these deployments, which
were objected to by Oregon's governor and not requested by the federal officials in charge of
protection of the ICE building, exceeded the President's authority. While violent protests did
occur in June, they quickly abated due to the efforts of civil law enforcement officers. And since
that brief span of a few days in June, the protests outside the Portland ICE facility have been
predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level
violence, largely between protesters and counter-protesters. When considering these conditions
that persisted for months before the President's federalization of the National Guard, this Court
concludes that even giving great deference to the President's determination, the President did not
have a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard under 10 U.S.C. § 12406….
Unless and until the President lawfully federalizes National Guardsmen under a
statute such as 10 U.S.C. § 12406, "National Guard members serve solely as members of the

State militia under the command of a state governor." Stirling v. Minasian, 955 F.3d 795, 799
(9th Cir. 2020) (internal quotations omitted). Therefore, the President's unlawful federalization of the National Guard violates the Tenth Amendment, which "reserves to the States" any powers
not expressly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution. U.S. Const. amend. X.
In Newsom v. Trump, 141 F.4th 1032 (9th Cir. 2025), the Ninth Circuit interpreted the
provision permitting the President to call up the National Guard when he "is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States." 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3). This Court is
bound to apply Newsom. However, this case presents novel issues not addressed in Newsom.
Newsom did not discuss Section 12406(2), which permits the President to call up the National Guard when "there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States," nor did it fully delve into the meaning of "to execute the laws of the United
States," contained in Section 12406(3). In resolving these issues, this Court draws on both Newsom's reasoning and the constitutional scope of Congress's calling forth power, which defines the outer boundaries of the President's power under 10 U.S.C. § 12406. Indeed, this
Court, "as in all cases, [must] interpret the Constitution in light of its text, purposes, and 'our whole experience' as a Nation." NRB v. Noel Canning, 573 U.S. 513, 557 (2014) (quoting Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416, 433 (1920)).
After analyzing these statutory provisions, as applied to the facts in this case, this Court
arrives at the necessary conclusion that there was neither "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion"
nor was the President "unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States" in
Oregon when he ordered the federalization and deployment of the National Guard. 10 U.S.C.
§ 12406(2)-(3).

This Court acknowledges that some citizens may support these deployments as a helpful
military supplement to effectuate the President's immigration agenda. But the Founders
"embodied their profound fear and distrust of military power... in the Constitution and its
Amendments," Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 29 (1957) (plurality op.), which has lived on through
the decades as "a traditional and strong resistance of Americans to any military intrusion into
civilian affairs." Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 15 (1972). In the Supreme Court's words, "[s]light
encroachments create new boundaries from which legions of power can seek new territory to
capture." Reid, 354 U.S. at 39 (1957). This principle has been foundational to the safeguarding of
our fundamental liberties under the Constitution. See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S.
254, 271-72 (1964) (noting that under the First Amendment, "freedoms of expression are to have
the breathing space that they need to survive" (ellipses and internal quotations omitted));
Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 512(1961) (noting in the Fourth Amendment context
that illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing... by silent approaches
and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure" (internal quotations omitted)).
The "precise standard" to demarcate the line past which conditions would satisfy the
statutory standard to deploy the military in the streets of American cities is ultimately a question
for a higher court to decide. Newsom, 141 F.4th at 1051. But based on this Court's application of
Newsom to the factual findings at trial and the meaning of 10 U.S.C. § 12406 in light of history
and tradition, this Court finds that wherever this line precisely is, Defendants have failed to clear
it. Therefore, for all the reasons stated below, this Court permanently enjoins Defendants' orders
to deploy federalized members of the National Guard to Oregon.

November 8, 2025 at 1:28 AM

Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

CA1 denies admin stay from McConnell’s order that Trump pay full SNAP benefits today, and says it will issue its decision on Trump’s request for a stay pending appeal ASAP. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...