Jackson Sounds the Alarm on Trump SCOTUS Wins

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has warned that the Donald Trump administration’s back-to-back wins in the Supreme Court send a “troubling message” that the court is deviating from its basic legal standards for the administration. Earlier in June, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration and reversed two lower court rulings that intended to hinder the current government’s policies. Knewz.com has learned that the conservative majority of the Supreme Court lifted a federal judge’s order blocking the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing sensitive data in the Social Security Administration’s systems. In a simultaneous emergency ruling, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court order that would have forced the department to hand over internal documents as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

‘Particularly Startling’

“It is particularly startling to think that grants of relief in these circumstances might be (unintentionally) conveying not only preferential treatment for the Government but also a willingness to undercut both our lower court colleagues’ well-reasoned interim judgments and the well-established constraints of law that they are in the process of enforcing,” Justice Jackson wrote. “It says, in essence, that although other stay applicants must point to more than the annoyance of compliance with lower court orders they don’t like, the Government can approach the courtroom bar with nothing more than that and obtain relief from this Court nevertheless,” she added.

The Social Security Case

The Social Security case centered on whether DOGE was allowed to legally access the Social Security Administration’s systems, which contain highly sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, medical and mental health records, bank records and earnings data. Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander had previously ruled that DOGE employees could only access redacted or anonymized data after undergoing specific training for those systems. However, the majority of the Supreme Court sided with DOGE and lifted Judge Hollander’s order, although they did not explain the reasoning. The Court only said that the “SSA [Social Security Administration] may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency record” under the present circumstances. Solicitor General D. John Sauer had argued that the initial ruling by Judge Hollander “undermined” DOGE’s objective to eradicate “waste and fraud” and streamline and modernize the government. Simultaneously, the Supreme Court also reversed U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s order that would have required DOGE to turn over internal documents and submit its acting administrator, Amy Gleason, for deposition in a FOIA lawsuit.

Justice Jackson’s Dissent

Joined in dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Jackson stated that the Trump administration failed to meet the court’s high bar for emergency relief and criticized her colleagues for “jettisoning careful judicial decision-making.” Wrote Justice Jackson, “The Court is thereby, unfortunately, suggesting that what would be an extraordinary request for everyone else is nothing more than an ordinary day on the docket for this Administration. … I would proceed without fear or favor to require DOGE and the Government to do what all other litigants must do to secure a stay from this Court.”

Similar Issues

Justice Jackson raised a similar issue when the Supreme Court ruled on May 30 that the Trump administration can revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans living in the United States. She wrote at the time that the conservative majority undervalued “the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”

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