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JOHN YOO: The left’s war on the Supreme Court just hit a terrifying new low
Last week, the New York Times divulged a fresh trove of confidential internal memoranda between the Supreme Court justices. The documents allegedly show that Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative colleagues have abused the Court’s technical procedures to block the agenda of Democratic presidents and to favor Republicans. While this accusation can only succeed by ignoring the broader context of the Court’s work, it heralds the latest progressive attack on the Court as a stabilizing institution in our national politics.
In February 2016, the Court temporarily blocked the Obama administration from enforcing its “Clean Power Plan.” While the Court would eventually strike down the grand plan to rewire America’s energy grid when it reappeared in its Biden guise, in February 2016 the justices only issued an emergency stay to freeze the government plan before lower courts could rule.
The order, which prompted dissenting votes from the liberal justices, garnered little attention at the time but allegedly marked the birth of the “shadow docket.” Using this new procedure, the Court now intervenes quickly to issue emergency orders that can halt executive action before lower court review, which can effectively stop liberal presidents’ agendas in their tracks.
The New York Times alleges that secret memos show this 2016 decision came about not because of concerns over the Obama administration’s abuse of power, but because of Chief Justice Roberts’ campaign against a liberal president. The report claims that Roberts “acted as a bulldozer in pushing to stop Mr. Obama’s plan to address the global climate crisis” and that the memos show the chief justice to be “angry” and “irritated” with the government.
The Times report leaves out many important facts in order to portray the Court as using the shadow docket to pursue a partisan agenda. It claims the order represented a sharp break from Court practice, when in fact the justices regularly use this procedure to review capital executions and even granted such a stay in the Little Sisters of the Poor’s challenge to Obamacare just a few years earlier. The Times suggests that the conservative Roberts Court uses these stays to stop Democratic presidents. It does not provide examples of the Court’s use of the same emergency stays to frustrate parts of President Trump’s agenda as well. The Court, for example, has issued stays against Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans and against his dispatch of federal troops to inner cities.
The emergency stays do not represent an unprecedented weapon wielded by a conservative Court, but rather a response to executive branch regulations that seek to achieve their objectives before courts can intervene. In the Clean Power Plan case itself, the Obama administration hoped that its regulations would force the energy industry to decide on the massive investments required before the case could reach the Supreme Court.
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But the Times report represents a greater affront than just a leak about procedural tussling within the Supreme Court. Last week’s leak of the Court’s memos represents the third breach of the Court’s confidential deliberations in the last four years. It began with the leak — for the first time in American history — of a draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade. It continued with a 2024 New York Times story based on documents and interviews that detailed the deliberations behind Trump v. United States, which held the former president immune from federal prosecution for his official acts.
These leaks represent the latest escalation in the use of political tactics against the Court. The Court has never had a draft opinion leak to the press; indeed, it is difficult to recall any leak of an opinion occurring at any federal court, ever. But leaking is all too common at the White House, cabinet agencies and Congress, even of the most sensitive, classified information. The Dobbs leak itself triggered harassment of the conservative justices at their homes and culminated in an assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the hopes it would change the outcome of the vote.
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These leaks and the accompanying political pressure undermine the independence and integrity of the federal courts under our Constitution’s separation of powers. While liberals once defended the judiciary as an engine for social change in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, which struck down racial segregation, they have recently turned against the Supreme Court as Republican presidents have sought to appoint judges committed to originalist principles. Conservatives, meanwhile, have held a far more skeptical attitude toward the Court’s claim of supremacy in interpreting the Constitution. Nevertheless, the Court deserves a robust defense not because of its view on abortion, but because it stands as a valuable institutional limit on simple majority rule.
Progressives are taking unprecedented measures against the justices because of their specific votes on abortion, transgender rights or presidential power, regardless of the logic or reasoning of their opinions. Liberals support or attack the Court based on how decisions affect the interests of the groups — minorities, women, environmental organizations — that compose their political coalition. The only difference between a judge and a politician is that politicians don’t get to wear robes.
Progressives find law and facts to be mostly smoke and mirrors. Courts should not reach correct outcomes by interpreting the law; instead, progressives say, they should make policy due to the inherent malleability of language and the rapid changes in society and the economy. To them, judges enjoy raw political power in determining society’s winners and losers.
These leaks threaten the careful line between law and politics. They make the Court an object in the arena of electoral politics. They also threaten to turn the Court into a political actor internally. If leaks become the norm in important cases, clerks could begin disclosing the Court’s internal arguments and votes, the changing coalitions around different drafts, and even the thought processes of individual justices. Justices might take explicit political factors into account in their decisions.
For progressives who claim they are defending our institutions from a renegade president, their attacks on the Court deliberately undermine one of the core elements of our constitutional order.
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Barricaded suspect faces murder charges after 2 doctoral students vanished from campus, 1 body remains missing
The towel-wearing suspect who barricaded himself inside a home amid an intense SWAT standoff following the disappearance of two University of South Florida doctoral students was charged Saturday with two counts of murder.
Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, “is additionally facing two counts of murder in the first degree with a weapon (premeditated) in the deaths of Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy,” the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Saturday.
“Evidence was presented to the State Attorney’s Office, resulting in further charges against Abugharbieh. To protect the integrity of the investigation, we will not be commenting on the findings in the case,” the sheriff’s office said.
“At this time, the search for Bristy continues,” the update added. “Anyone with information regarding her disappearance is asked to contact the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office at (813) 247-8200.”
Abugharbieh was initially arrested on Friday on charges of unlawfully holding or move a dead human body in unapproved conditions, failure to report death to medical examiner or law enforcement (intent to conceal), tampering with physical evidence, false imprisonment, battery.
Authorities discovered human remains near the Howard Frankland Bridge. They were positively identified Friday as belonging to Limon. Bristy’s body remains missing as of Saturday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Gal Gadot is ready to part with her oceanfront home.
The 40-year-old actress has placed her Malibu, Calif. home on the market for $8.75 million, and it is listed by Benjamin Illulian of Illulian Realty.
According to Realtor.com, Gadot purchased the three-bedroom and three-bathroom home with her husband, Jaron Varsano, in December 2020 for $5 million.
The 1,956-square-foot home boasts an open floor plan and seamless indoor/outdoor living, as the living room opens up to an outdoor balcony with picturesque views of the Pacific Ocean.
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In addition, the home features direct beach access, 80 feet of frontage on Carbon Beach and a two-car garage with an additional eight parking spots for guests. It is also located next to Nobu, Soho House Malibu and the Malibu Pier.
Gadot and her husband first met in 2006 at a yoga retreat in Israel, when the actress was 21 years old, and later tied the knot in 2008.
In their time together, the couple have welcomed four daughters; Alma, 14, Maya, 9, Daniella, 4, and Ori, 1.
Most recently, Gadot starred in the live-action remake of the animated Disney classic, “Snow White,” which was released in March 2025. The movie ultimately grossed $205 million worldwide, falling short of its reported $270 million budget.
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The Israeli actress said in an August 2025 interview on Israel’s Channel Keshet 12 program “The A Talks,” that she believes the Israel-Palestine conflict played a role in the movie’s failure.
“I was sure that this movie was going to be a huge success, and then October 7 happened — and what’s happening in all kinds of industries, and also in Hollywood — is that there’s a lot of pressure on celebrities to speak out against Israel,” Gadot said.
Later in the interview, she added that no matter how hard one tries “to give people in the world context” and try to get them to understand “what the reality is here,” people will ultimately make their own decisions, and she “was disappointed that the movie was greatly affected by that and didn’t do well at the box office.”
Also in August 2025, Gadot visited Israel and met with the families of those who had been taken hostage by Hamas, and had been held in captivity for nearly two years.
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“We were deeply moved by Gal Gadot’s visit to Hostages Square today,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement to Fox News Digital at the time. “She chose to spend real time with us, sitting with the families and Hamas captivity survivors, listening with patience and empathy, and sharing in our pain. For families who have endured nearly two years of fear and uncertainty, her presence was a rare moment of comfort and strength.”
President Trump is attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday for the first time as commander-in-chief — after boycotting the annual event last year and each year during his first term.
The dinner will take place on Saturday, April 25, at the Washington Hilton.
“The White House Correspondents Association has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year’s Dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924, under then President Calvin Coolidge,” Trump posted on his Truth Social last month, adding that it would be his “Honor to accept their invitation.”
The White House Correspondents’ Association’s president, Weijia Jiang said that they were “happy” with the president’s decision to attend.
“For more than 100 years, the journalists of the White House Correspondents’ Association have enjoyed an evening with the president,” Jiang said in a statement last month. “We’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him.”
DAN RATHER AMONG 200 JOURNALISTS DEMANDING TRUMP BE CALLED OUT AT WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER
The president had skipped the event in years past, saying that decision was due to the press being “extraordinarily bad” to him.
Despite the annual invitation and Trump’s acceptance, hundreds of journalists are going after the president, having signed an open letter urging the White House Correspondents’ Association to call out the president and “forcefully demonstrate opposition” to his “efforts to trample freedom of the press.”
“The dinner has long served as a symbol of the vital and irreplaceable role of a free press in American democracy and a celebration of the First Amendment and the journalists who uphold it. President Trump’s systematic, sustained, and unprecedented attacks on the free press… render his presence at such an event a profound contradiction of its purpose,” the open letter reads.
“The collective weight of the administration’s actions — retaliatory access bans, coercive regulatory investigations, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists, personal verbal attacks on reporters, assaults on the media in official White House press releases and social media posts, the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press — represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president.”
Notable signatories on the letter are former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, former ABC News White House correspondent Sam Donaldson, former NBC News anchor Ann Curry and PBS NewsHour correspondent Stephanie Sy.
A spokesperson for the White House simply pointed to Trump’s Truth Social post announcing he was attending the dinner when previously asked about the open letter.
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Trump did attend the event as a private citizen in 2011 during the Obama administration. Then-President Barack Obama made a joke about Trump during that event saying: “Say what you will about Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let’s see what we’ve got up there.”
Obama then featured an image of the White House with a neon sign that said “Trump White House Hotel Casino Golf Course” with gold columns and a chandelier.
But during his second term, Trump has actually taken to remodeling the White House— with a new ballroom under construction and his addition of gold molding to the Oval Office.
Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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