Congress passed laws creating seven agencies: the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency, and five others. A presidential executive order shut them down. The 4th Circuit said no — not because the president doesn't have power, but because these agencies were created by Congress, and the Take Care Clause means the president executes the laws Congress writes, not the ones he prefers. Bryan's frame: people misread "Take Care" as giving the president power. It's the opposite. It's a leash.
Rhode Island v. Trump (25-cv-00128) challenges an executive order that effectively shut down seven congressionally mandated federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences and the Minority Business Development Agency. The agencies were created by statute — Congress wrote laws establishing them, funding them, and defining their missions. The president issued an EO that eliminated their operations. The government appealed the district court's ruling and asked the 4th Circuit to stay the lower court injunction pending the appeal. The 4th Circuit denied the stay. The court's reasoning turned on the Take Care Clause: Article II obligates the president to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" — not that he chooses which laws he likes and executes those. When Congress creates an agency by statute, the executive branch is obligated to operate it. Bryan cited Youngstown Sheet & Tube: the president is weakest when acting against Congress's expressed will. Shutting down agencies Congress established by law is exactly that scenario. The 4th Circuit's denial of the stay is a signal that the merits are unlikely to favor the government.
Take Care Clause (Art. II, §3)congressionally mandated agenciesstatutory vs. executive abolitionYoungstown Sheet & Tube4th Circuit stay denialIMLSMinority Business Development Agency
Constitutional question: The Take Care Clause is one of the most frequently misread provisions in Article II. It does not empower the president — it constrains him. The president must execute the laws as Congress wrote them, not selectively implement preferred ones. Youngstown's three-zone framework (Jackson concurrence) is dispositive: when the president acts contrary to Congress's express or implied will, he is at "the lowest ebb" of his authority, operating only on his own constitutional powers minus Congress's objection. Shutting down agencies Congress created by statute sits squarely in Zone Three. The 4th Circuit's denial reflects that framework: the president's Article II authority to manage the executive branch does not extend to undoing Article I acts of Congress without congressional repeal.
Secretary Hegseth used Signal to plan a military strike on Yemen. Signal auto-deletes messages. American Oversight — a watchdog group — said that's a Federal Records Act violation and sued. They got a preliminary injunction. The government moved to dismiss: nothing is being deleted, everything is preserved, don't worry about it. The judge said: I'll hear that argument September 22. You're both invited. The public is also invited — here's the call-in number.
American Oversight v. Hegseth (25-cv-00883) arose from reporting that Secretary of Defense Hegseth used the Signal messaging application to coordinate military planning around a strike on Yemen. Signal has an auto-delete function; messages are programmatically destroyed after a set period. American Oversight, a government watchdog organization, filed suit alleging that use of Signal for official government communications constitutes a Federal Records Act violation — the FRA requires that official government communications be preserved. American Oversight sought and obtained a preliminary injunction preventing further destruction of records. The government filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that nothing was actually at risk of being destroyed, that all relevant communications had been preserved through other means, and that the preliminary injunction should not have issued. The judge did not rule on the motion immediately. She scheduled a public hearing for September 22 at 10:30am Eastern, with a public call-in number (833-990-9400, meeting ID 049-550-8816). Bryan noted the public nature of the hearing as unusual — the call-in information was provided in the court's public docket.
Federal Records ActSignal auto-deleteofficial communications preservationpreliminary injunctionmotion to dismisspublic hearing (September 22)
Constitutional question: The Federal Records Act is Congress's mechanism for ensuring government accountability: official communications create a record of how decisions were made, by whom, and on what basis. That record serves both oversight functions (Congress can investigate) and historical functions (future accountability). The executive branch's use of platforms designed to destroy communications implicates the constitutional structure of congressional oversight: Congress cannot oversee what doesn't exist. If executive officials conduct official business in ways that systematically evade FRA preservation requirements, the institutional checks that depend on record access — congressional oversight, FOIA requests, judicial review of agency action — are structurally undermined. The injunction preserves those oversight mechanisms while the court assesses whether violations occurred.
The court reinstated Venezuelan TPS — nationals of Venezuela are protected through October 2026. The government had a deadline of September 10 to reopen registration. Before that deadline, the government quietly removed Venezuela from the online registration portal. No announcement. Just gone. The plaintiffs found out and went back to the judge. The judge asked: did you comply? The government argued Rule 62 — automatic 30-day stay. The judge said Rule 62 explicitly doesn't apply to injunctions. Also: you wouldn't have sprinted to the courthouse for a stay if you believed Rule 62 had already paused everything. You have 24 hours. Reopen it.
TPS Alliance v. Noem (25-cv-01766) had a significant post-ruling development in the September 12 episode. After the court's ruling reinstating Venezuelan Temporary Protected Status through October 2026, the government was ordered to reopen TPS registration with a September 10 deadline. Before that deadline, the government removed Venezuela from the online registration portal — without notice to plaintiffs or the court. When plaintiffs discovered the removal, they returned to the court to compel compliance. The government's defense: Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 62, which provides for an automatic 30-day stay of court orders pending appeal. The court rejected this argument on two grounds. First, Rule 62 explicitly does not apply to injunctions — the rule's text carves them out. Second, the government's own behavior was inconsistent with its stated belief that Rule 62 applied: if Rule 62 had automatically paused everything, there would have been no reason to race to the courthouse to seek an emergency stay. The government's application for a stay proved that it knew Rule 62 didn't apply. The court's remedy: Venezuela must be restored to the online registration portal, and anyone who attempted to register between September 10 and the restoration date is deemed timely — a 24-hour window was ordered to allow anyone who missed the deadline due to the portal removal to complete registration.
TPSVenezuelan nationalsregistration portal removalRule 62 (automatic stay) inapplicability to injunctionscourt compliance24-hour remedy ordergovernment conduct inconsistent with claimed legal position
Constitutional question: The TPS case's September 12 development illustrates how injunction enforcement works when the government takes compliance actions that effectively nullify a court order without formally defying it. Removing Venezuela from a registration portal days before a court-ordered deadline is not a formal act of contempt — but it achieves the same practical effect: eligible individuals cannot register. Courts can and do look at the practical effect of government action, not just its formal characterization, when enforcing injunctions. The government's Rule 62 argument is also constitutionally significant in context: the effort to invoke a procedural rule that explicitly doesn't apply — while simultaneously requesting an emergency stay that wouldn't be necessary if Rule 62 applied — is the kind of contradictory legal positioning courts take note of when assessing compliance posture. TPS's congressional design (stable protection for a fixed period) continues to be the constitutional backdrop: Congress wrote a stability period into the statute precisely to prevent the kind of rolling back-and-forth the government has pursued.
Biden signed a rule in 2024 that lets the federal government terminate grants if they no longer meet "program goals or agency priorities." Trump used it to kill grants for DOD, Justice, Humanities, and NSF. States sued: what does "agency priorities" mean? Does it mean priorities from when the grant was awarded, or priorities today? The parties filed briefs. Then Senator Fetterman filed a petition to submit an amicus — he said: (1) the executive branch is injecting opinion into congressionally-written grants, and (2) statutes beat regulations, and the statute says something different from the rule.
New Jersey v. OMB (25-cv-11816) involves a challenge brought by a coalition of state attorneys general to a Biden-era OMB rule that permitted the federal government to terminate grants when they no longer met "program goals or agency priorities." The Trump administration used that rule to terminate grants across multiple federal departments — Department of Defense, Department of Justice, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and others. The states sued seeking clarity: the rule's phrase "agency priorities" could mean the priorities in effect when the grant was awarded (the states' interpretation), or it could mean the agency's current priorities as they evolve over time (the government's interpretation). If the government's reading is correct, any grant can be terminated whenever a new administration changes its priorities — which would render grant funding structurally unstable. The case involves a standing dispute — the government argued the states lack standing to bring the challenge. On the merits, there is a legislative history battle: what did Congress intend when it authorized the grant programs, and does the OMB rule implementing them track that intent? Senator Fetterman filed a petition to submit an amicus brief on two discrete points: (1) that the executive branch is improperly injecting policy opinion into congressional grant programs by treating agency priorities as a moving target, and (2) that the statute establishing the grant programs says something different from what the OMB rule provides — and statutes override regulations.
OMB grant termination rule (Biden 2024)"program goals or agency priorities" interpretation (static vs. dynamic)grant stabilitystandinglegislative history disputeSenator Fetterman amicus petitionstatutes trump regulations
Constitutional question: NJ v. OMB raises a structural constitutional question about the spending power and separation of powers: when Congress appropriates money for specific grant programs and writes the eligibility conditions into statute, can an executive agency regulation allow the executive branch to effectively decide which grants to honor based on current policy preferences? The Spending Clause (Art. I, §8) gives Congress the power to spend — including setting conditions on grants. Executive branch authority over grants derives from Congress's delegation, not from inherent Article II power. A dynamic "current agency priorities" reading would transform the executive's implementation role into a substantive gatekeeping role, allowing executive agencies to nullify congressional spending decisions by declaring that the agency's current priorities no longer align. Senator Fetterman's amicus point about statutes overriding regulations is a specific instance of the broader constitutional structure: the executive's grant authority is bounded by what Congress wrote, not by what a subsequent agency rule says.
