Judge notices Trump admin ‘creating’ a mail-in ballot ’emergency’ after ‘courts were closed,’ demands immediate answers
Justice Department lawyers filed notice on a Friday evening, “after the courts were closed,” that the U.S. Postal Service had transmitted a final rule to the Federal Register for August 26 publication with a retroactive effective date of August 21 — despite standing injunctions from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani barring implementation of Section 3 of Executive Order 14399, which she has repeatedly held unconstitutionally directed USPS to refuse to transmit mail ballots for certain voters. The League of Women Voters and the ACLU filed an emergency motion arguing USPS “flouted that order.” Talwani ordered the government to respond by Tuesday morning and noted pointedly that the defendants objected to the short turnaround “despite USPS creating the emergency by issuing a rule on a Friday evening.” Solicitor General D. John Sauer separately filed a supplemental Supreme Court brief on August 24 challenging Talwani’s reading of the rule. The First Circuit had already left the injunction in place, finding the order produced “unprecedented levels of involvement by federal officials in how states administer elections.”