Kristi Noem, Law Firms & No-Knock Warrants

What It Covers

Preet Bharara and Joyce Vance analyze the Trump administration's erratic reversal on appealing four executive orders targeting law firms, the legal weaknesses in the government's 97-page appellate brief, and DOJ's reversal of Biden-era no-knock warrant restrictions.

Key Questions Answered

• •Government appeal reversals: When the DOJ abandons an appeal with a briefing schedule already in place, it signals the solicitor general found the position legally indefensible — a genuinely unprecedented move, distinct from routine prophylactic notices of appeal that are routinely dropped.
• •Bad facts, bad law principle: Appellate lawyers strategically abandon winnable causes when unfavorable facts risk creating broadly binding precedent. Here, four district judges — two Republican-appointed, two Democrat-appointed — unanimously ruled the executive orders unconstitutional, signaling a near-certain loss on appeal.
• •Brief tone as legal strategy signal: Aggressive, contemptuous language in appellate briefs — such as characterizing four district judges' rulings as "grave error" — can invite judicial mockery and undermine credibility, particularly when the filing party had just attempted to abandon the case entirely days earlier.
• •Presidential power argument limits: The administration's core legal argument — that presidents hold unreviewable authority over security clearances and speech — fails to address threshold constitutional violations embedded in the executive orders, making the argument structurally incomplete under established separation-of-powers doctrine.