(AlterNet)—Donald Trump fought a variety of legal battles during his first presidency, and he faced four criminal indictments when former President Joe Biden was in the White House — one of which resulted in him being convicted on 34 felony counts.
Now more than 100 days into his second presidency, Trump is dealing with a new set of legal battles. Politico’s Ankush Khardori, a former federal prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), focuses on two of them in an article published on May 1.
“In less than two weeks,” Khardori explains, “two extraordinary elements of the Donald Trump legal saga will collide — the battle to bring down Trump’s tariffs, and the Trump Administration’s fight to prevent judges from blocking his policies across the country. The Court of International Trade is set to hold oral argument on May 13 in one of the growing number of cases that challenge the bulk of the Trump tariff regime.”
The former DOJ prosecutor continues, “The lawsuits, which are strong on the merits, argue that the tariffs are not legally authorized under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, the law that Trump has invoked.”
On behalf of VOS Selections — a New York-based alcohol importer/distributor — and four other businesses, The Liberty Justice Center, filed a motion for a nationwide injunction against Trump’s tariffs.
“Just one wrinkle: Two days later, the Supreme Court will consider whether to crack down on judges’ power to check the (Trump) Administration in precisely this way,” Khardori notes. “The justices will hear oral argument in the Trump Administration’s request to overturn a series of nationwide injunctions currently halting Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship.”
Khardori continues, “Trump and advisers like Stephen Miller have been enraged by the ability of a single lower court judge to issue injunctions that hamstring the president’s agenda across the country. The (Trump) Administration has asked the Supreme Court to ‘prevent universal injunctions from becoming universally acceptable,’ so the Court’s handling of the issue is being closely watched by lawyers across the country — including those handling the tariff cases.”
If the High Court “does end up striking down nationwide injunctions,” according to Khardori, “it could pose a huge hurdle to those who oppose” Trump’s tariffs.
Interviewed on condition of anonymity, an attorney in a tariffs-related lawsuit that is separate from the Liberty Justice Center/VOS Selections case told Politico, “Obviously, if they were to find that nationwide injunctions are unconstitutional or somehow not allowed, that would be bad for our lawsuit.”
The Trump Administration, according to Khardori, “has urged the justices to ‘declare that enough is enough’ and rule that lower courts can issue injunctions that apply only to the parties in the cases before them.”
“That would cause implementation of the tariffs, as well as the tariff litigation, to become more fragmented and chaotic,” Khardori observes. “Certain businesses would be spared the costs of the tariffs, while others would not.”