INTERNACIONAL
Latest SCOTUS leak a gift to liberals ‘salivating’ over control of high court narrative: experts
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A Supreme Court leak is giving liberals new ammunition in their long-running criticism of the emergency docket after recently published internal memos showed how the high court fast-tracks major cases, a process that critics say has served to advance key parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda in his second term.
«The liberals are salivating over this. They’re very happy because it reinforces their narrative,» South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman told Fox News Digital.
The memos, published Saturday by the New York Times, offered a rare look at how Chief Justice John Roberts pressed the court in 2016 to quickly block President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. But the immediate concern now is not about what the documents revealed about the Supreme Court’s emergency docket but rather the leak itself, according to experts, who said it was a deliberate attempt to damage the court’s credibility.
«The bigger issue is people are leaking stuff to try to hurt the court,» Blackman said. «That’s the bigger story. This was done to try to make the court look bad. Roberts, I think, doesn’t come out looking very good in this one. … I think it’s designed to hurt the chief in particular.»
THE FIVE LIBERAL COURTS THAT TIED TRUMP’S HANDS BEFORE SCOTUS CLIPPED THEIR POWER
President Donald Trump greets Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as he arrives to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The leaked internal memos appeared centered on the 5-4 decision along ideological lines in February 2016 to block Obama’s signature energy plan. The memos, written by and circulated among the justices, showed Roberts urging his colleagues to quickly intervene and halt the plan, a revelation that fueled attacks from the left on the so-called shadow docket.
«The new reporting highlights the role of this rashly issued stay in inaugurating the Supreme Court’s use of unexplained and hastily issued ‘shadow docket’ proceedings to alter major national policies,» Environmental Defense Fund general counsel Vickie Patton said in a statement Monday.
The leak incident has generated several theories in legal circles that a liberal justice or retired liberal justice, or one of their former clerks, passed the 16 pages of memos off to the New York Times to weaken confidence in high-profile emergency docket decisions, which have often favored Trump since he took office. A similar, smaller-scale leak to the same New York Times reporters occurred in 2024.
A ‘deteriorating culture at the court’
Blackman noted the person who gave the decade-old memos to the New York Times could share even more.
«This person probably kept a lot of things and decided to leak this, and there might be even more coming,» Blackman said. «I think this is absolutely partisan, and it’s done in a way to hurt and wound the court and to reaffirm this notion that the shadow docket is an evil, nefarious regime.»
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Former President Barack Obama speaks to supporters during a get out the vote rally at Essex County College gymnasium in Newark, N.J., on Nov. 1. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu)
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley echoed Blackman’s sentiments in an op-ed, saying «the controversy over the use of the shadow docket is immaterial to this story.»
Turley pointed to the Dobbs opinion leak to Politico from 2022, which was, at the time, a stunning violation of the high court’s confidentiality. Turley noted while that breach was an apparent «effort to influence the final opinion,» this latest one is about an old case and therefore «had a purely malicious purpose to embarrass or disrupt the court.»
«The leaks appear to reflect a deteriorating culture at the court,» Turley added.
The Supreme Court’s press office did not respond to an inquiry from Fox News Digital about the leaks.
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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Fox News on Monday the memos were «100%» intended to discredit the court. Hawley and his wife, Erin, a lawyer at the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, both previously worked as law clerks for Roberts.
«You can tell from the news article that builds it that way,» Hawley said. «They criticize the court for how they’re managing their docket. They say this is some big conspiracy. The only conspiracy is the multi-year effort funded by somebody to undermine the institution of the court from within, from without. … We need to find out who’s doing this.»
Shadow docket criticism
The emergency docket allows litigants to bypass lengthy court proceedings and seek immediate relief from the Supreme Court if lower courts block them through restraining orders or preliminary injunctions.
Democrats have criticized the Supreme Court for the higher frequency of emergency decisions, which often contain little explanation but have increased because of what legal experts say is a rise in executive actions in lieu of Congress passing laws. In Trump’s second term, the justices have ruled in favor of Trump on emergency decisions most of the time, clearing the way for Trump to fire masses of federal employees, cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts, move forward with aggressive immigration policies and more.
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Last week, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee, tore into the high court’s majority during a Yale Law School speech for issuing what she said were rushed, «scratch-paper musings» that advance «harmful» policies.
Ketanji Brown Jackson attends the 2026 Recording Academy Honors presented by The Black Music Collective during the 68th Grammy Awards on Jan. 29, 2026, in Los Angeles, Calif. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Upon introducing a bill to «increase transparency» of the emergency docket in December, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the Supreme Court was losing credibility by not allowing cases to first play out in the lower courts.
«The Roberts Court’s reliance on the Shadow Docket to covertly fast-track one-paragraph decisions on major cases drives tremendous mistrust toward Justices already facing record-low levels of public confidence,» Raskin said at the time.
Roberts the ‘bulldozer’
The Clean Power Plan would have involved the Obama Environmental Protection Agency imposing regulations on coal-powered plants under the Clean Air Act, a move that red states and industry groups implored the Supreme Court to quickly stop in 2016. Roberts, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote, according to the memos, that without the high court stepping in, «both the states and private industry will suffer irreparable harm from a rule that is — in my view — highly unlikely to survive.»
The New York Times described Roberts as acting like a «bulldozer.» Blackman said «it’s very clear» that Roberts stepped in to stop the EPA administrator from ramming through a plan in Obama’s last year in office that could reshape the energy sector with only the «very liberal» D.C. appellate court weighing in.
In another memo, Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, disagreed with Roberts, saying «the unique nature of the relief sought in these applications gives me real pause.»
In a matter of days, the high court issued its brief, unexplained decision along ideological lines to temporarily block Obama’s plan. The move would become a death blow to Obama’s efforts because Democrats would lose the White House later that year.
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Blackman noted that accountability for leaking the private memos, which framed Roberts as spearheading a reckless decision, would be difficult, saying any possible crime would fall outside of statutes of limitations and that, outside of the possibility of attempting to disbar the culprit for an ethics violation, there was no real recourse, especially for conservatives seeking to punish a possible left-leaning leaker.
«If a liberal leaks they’ll get a medal,» Blackman said. «They’ll become a hero. They’ll suffer zero professional consequences. In fact, they’ll probably be better off.»
supreme court, judiciary, law, federal judges, democrats senate
INTERNACIONAL
US official says JD Vance made ‘great progress’ in Iran talks, calls snub reports ‘foreign propaganda’
Vance touts agreements on open Hormuz Strait, IAEA inspections
Vice President JD Vance announces significant breakthroughs in US-Iran peace talks held in Switzerland, highlighting Iran’s agreement to readmit International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspectors. Vance also proposed using Iran’s unfrozen assets to purchase U.S. agricultural products and established a deconfliction mechanism to maintain ceasefire stability. ‘Outnumbered’ panelists raise questions about enforcement and long-term regional impact.
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FIRST ON FOX: A U.S. official involved with the U.S.-Iran peace negotiations said that Vice President JD Vance made «great progress» in the talks, adding that «foreign propaganda» spread a falsehood that the prime minister of Qatar snubbed Vance.
The U.S. official told Fox News Digital that Iranian state media originated reports of Vance being snubbed by the Qatari prime minister and Iranian leadership threatening to walk away from the negotiating table.
«The vice president and the U.S. delegation departed Switzerland today after making great progress and engaging in historic talks that lasted well into the late hours over the weekend,» a U.S. official present at the talks told Fox News Digital. «The negotiations set the framework for continued talks so that the unmatched efforts of the president can lead to a deal that’s best for the American people.»
«Those parroting foreign propaganda serve no one except the bad faith actors that want to derail negotiations,» the official added.
IRAN’S UNPRECEDENTED ‘WHOLE-REGIME’ DELEGATION AT US DEAL TALKS SIGNALS ONE GOAL: EXPERT
Vice President JD Vance speaks to members of the media after the U.S. and Iran held high-level talks aimed at advancing a deal to end the Middle East conflict at the Lake Lucerne Summit, near Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 22, 2026. (Nathan Howard / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
As Vance and White House officials deliberated a peace agreement at the Bürgenstock resort on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, a CBS poll on Sunday showed that an overwhelming 78% of Americans say that the conflict between the U.S. and Iran should come to an end.
Reports from Iranian state media created confusion about the progress of the peace talks in Switzerland, with critics alleging the Qataris snubbed Vance after Qatar’s prime minister and chief negotiator, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, walked past Vance and warmly greeted Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif instead.
«The U.S. delegation had just spent hours with the Qataris and there was no need to re-greet someone having just spent hours with,» a U.S. official said. «The decision to give statements together before the meeting was done impromptu, which is why it wasn’t a staged greeting.»
Vice President JD Vance said the Iranians have agreed to allow nuclear inspectors back into their country. (Spencer Platt/AFP via Getty Images)
TRUMP AGAIN SAYS DEAL IS CLOSE, THEN CONFIRMS A LAST-MINUTE AGREEMENT WITH IRAN, BUT DETAILS STILL SECRET
In an interview today with Qatar’s official media outlet, Al Jazeera, Al Thani denied snubbing Vance, saying he had just spent hours with Vance and hadn’t yet greeted Sharif. He blamed the media for misrepresenting the encounter. «And they just made the issue too big,» he said.
Prospects of a peace agreement have already shown signs of life in the U.S., even without a final deal. The New York Times reported oil prices dipping on Monday amid expectations Vance would secure peace during the talks in Switzerland.
Critics of Vance have been vocal in the media about the vice president’s handling of the talks, echoing a sentiment among protesters that have been supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran since the onset of hostilities earlier this year. Some critics allege that Vance is surrendering to the Iranians and that the Iranians are getting more out of the peace deal than the U.S.
The U.S. delegation, including Steve Witkoff, JD Vance and Jared Kushner, arrived in Switzerland on Sunday. (Nathan Howard/Pool/REUTERS)
FAR-LEFT NETWORK ACTIVATES TO FLY IRAN’S FLAG OVER AMERICA IN VICTORY AND WAGE A ‘SMOKELESS WAR’ ON THE US
A Fox News Digital investigation found that a network of pro-communist groups funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon living in China, supporting the Chinese Communist Party and allies, like the Islamic Republic of Iran, has been behind most of the protests that have taken place.
In April, nonprofits in Singham’s network mobilized to protest President Donald Trump’s «criminal war,» painting blood on their hands to symbolize what they called the «genocidal threats» the administration was making against Iran.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation, a self-declared pro-China communist group, communicated to its followers through its propaganda platform, «Liberation News,» to «keep up the pressure» in combatting the war.
Medea Benjamin (right) and Olivia DiNucci (center) of CodePink protest against the U.S. war in Iran. (Fox News Digital)
VANCE SAYS US-IRAN TALKS END WITHOUT DEAL AFTER 21 HOURS OF NEGOTIATIONS
In 2017, Singham married a co-founder of CodePink, Jodie Evans, and started pouring a documented $278 million into a network of groups that fuel anti-American protests in the United States, support the People’s Republic of China and now back the Islamic Republic of Iran, a strategic partner of China and a major source of its oil imports.
Despite the coordinated propaganda defending Iran, the administration has maintained its intention to rid Iran of nuclear capabilities. For more than three months, U.S.-Israeli forces have been fighting Iranian forces, a conflict which Americans have expressed concerns about.
Vance’s trip to Switzerland marks his second attempt to bring the conflict to an end. In April, he traveled to Islamabad, Pakistan, alongside Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Special Peace Envoy Jared Kushner to negotiate peace. The talks failed and Vance returned home, but he has remained a key figure in finalizing a ceasefire.
Vice President JD Vance walks with Pakistan’s Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir and Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar after arriving for talks with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, on April 11, 2026. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
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His involvement with the negotiations has also led to a surge in bettors placing wagers on the vice president winning the presidency in 2028.
In March, Kalshi showed Vance being beaten out for president in 2028 by both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and California Governor Gavin Newsom. Since Vance has been facilitating the peace deal this month, he surged to the top spot for the next presidential election cycle.
treaties, white house, war with iran, iran, jd vance
INTERNACIONAL
Estados Unidos dice que las negociaciones con funcionarios de Irán sientan las bases para un acuerdo que ponga fin a guerra
Trump no estuvo en Suiza, pero se hizo sentir en las conversaciones
Descongelar activos iraníes para comprar bienes estadounidenses
Continúan las conversaciones técnicas
Más barcos pasan por Ormuz
Los iraníes dicen que hubo avances en su tema principal
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The Senate advanced a massive, Trump-backed housing package that proponents say will prevent the U.S. from becoming a «nation of renters.»
The upper chamber sent the 21st Century Road to Housing Act to the House on Monday after months of delay. After the heads of the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee reached a deal last week, the package is on a glide path to President Donald Trump’s desk.
It’s the first major push by Congress to address housing regulations in decades, and one Trump has been calling on lawmakers to complete as the midterm elections near.
TRUMP-BACKED AFFORDABLE HOUSING OVERHAUL CLEARS SENATE, WHILE HOUSE GOP RAISES RED FLAGS
The Senate advanced a massive, Trump-backed housing package geared toward lowering the costs of homes and supercharging the housing supply. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pitched it as legislation to prevent America from becoming a «nation of renters.» (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Protect Borrowers; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Loaded with nearly 60 different provisions, the package broadly tackles rolling back some permitting regulations, launches several pilot grant programs to build, repair and push affordable housing construction, and blocks investors from buying up housing stock — a key provision pushed by Trump.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., one of the architects of the package, said the legislation was «not the federal government big footing local government,» but instead the federal government laying out tweaks to current programs and policies that «over time will make housing more affordable.»
«This is a housing package that will help increase supply and bring down costs,» Warren said. «One way is by beating back private equity, so they won’t invade your neighborhood, buy up all the houses, and turn America into a nation of renters.»
Warren said that among several things, the package increases access to manufactured housing by changing the federal definition to open up for more units to be constructed, pre-approved plan books for local governments to quickly approve new construction, and the waiving of some environmental review regulations for the construction of new homes.
BIPARTISAN HOUSING PUSH ADVANCES, BUT TRUMP-BACKED INVESTOR BAN FACES RESISTANCE
«It’s not just one piece that’s gonna solve a problem,» Warren said. »It’s a whole lot of smaller pieces that push in the same direction that’s important.»
The package also tries to turbocharge housing stock by tying federal grants and incentives sought by local governments to housing construction. And there are tweaks to mortgages, with a push for small-dollar mortgages at $100,000 and updates to lending standards for manufactured homes.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, whose provision to establish pre-approved housing designs to speed up home construction made it into the package, said the legislation «sends a signal to state and local communities, to say, ‘Hey, guys, you really have to drive down the cost of housing, and you do that by not torturing homebuilders.’»
TRUMP CAN SOLVE THE HOUSING CRISIS, BUT HE NEEDS TO GET TOUGH WITH STATES
Sen. Bernie Moreno speaks as President Donald Trump hosts Republican lawmakers and auto executives in the Oval Office to announce changes to fuel economy standards on Dec. 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
While there are several moving parts to the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, it does not tackle every facet of housing costs.
For instance, it does not allocate fresh federal funding for the issue, as Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., has lauded the package as being deficit neutral. Nor does it directly address rising costs of homeownership, given that much of the thrust is focused on building new homes and lowering the barrier of entry for Americans to get into a home.
And for some, it does not go far enough to address permitting issues.
Sen. Alan Armstrong, R-Okla., argued that the «legislation as drafted fails to meaningfully address» the issues of housing costs.
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«Instead, this legislation makes a half-hearted attempt to waive minor environmental laws while failing to address the need for permitting reform at large,» Armstrong said.
«Our permitting process deserves its own committed effort, and attaching weak slivers of those reforms to unrelated legislation undermines the work currently being done to pass comprehensive, meaningful permitting reform,» he said.
politics, congress, housing, legislation, senate elections, democrats senate
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