December 2, 2025 — SCOTUS AM

Bryan reported that Judge Bosberg issued a short but important order since the pre-Thanksgiving hearing where he had "opened the door" on contempt. The order confirmed two things: first, the government had identified Kristi Noem as the official responsible for the decision to allow the deportation flights to proceed; second, everyone involved in that decision was ordered to submit a declaration by Friday describing exactly what their role was. Bryan then addressed the government's continuing legal argument — that they didn't have to comply with Bosberg's original order because the Court of Appeals later overturned it, meaning they were vindicated. Bryan used Walker v. Birmingham (1967) to explain why this argument fails: the Supreme Court held in that case that even if a court order later turns out to be unconstitutional, you still cannot unilaterally decide to ignore it while it's in effect. Bryan quoted: "No man can be the judge of his own case, however exalted his station, however righteous his motives." The damage is already done once you've taken your battle to the streets — or, here, once you've already launched the planes.

Maryland federal courts had been receiving so many emergency habeas corpus applications from people being deported before courts could review their cases that they instituted an administrative rule: every habeas petition in Maryland would automatically be stayed for 24 hours to give clerks time to process it. The Trump administration sued the judges themselves to challenge this rule — Bryan noted this was never going to go well — and lost badly in the district court. They filed a notice of appeal to the Fourth Circuit but never followed up with required filings. The Fourth Circuit notified DOJ that the appeal was going to be dismissed for failure to prosecute. DOJ still didn't respond. The Fourth Circuit then sent a follow-up to that follow-up — and the case was finally dismissed. The government's chance to challenge the rule had lapsed entirely through its own inaction. Bryan's summary: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

First Choice Women's Research Center, a faith-based non-profit, was investigated by the New Jersey Attorney General as part of routine oversight of organizations that solicit donations from the public. The AG subpoenaed the organization's donor list. The organization refused to comply and the court never enforced the subpoena. The non-profit then sued under the First Amendment. Every court had dismissed the case so far on ripeness grounds: no subpoena had been enforced, so there was no actual harm yet — the case was purely theoretical. Bryan explained that technically this was the procedural posture before the Supreme Court — a narrow ripeness question, as he put it, "snoresville." But the Court, he suspected, hadn't taken this case to resolve a dry procedural issue. Bryan, drawing on his prior work defending non-profits against AG investigations, argued that state AG oversight of non-profit donor lists was important: there are genuinely shady non-profits draining people. He noted that super PACs are also non-profits, and protecting their donor lists serves specific political interests. He flagged NAACP v. Alabama (1958) as the key precedent — the Court had protected NAACP's membership list from Alabama — and raised the open question of whether a donor list is legally equivalent to a membership list. He also noted that Josh Hawley's wife was arguing on behalf of the non-profit.