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3. After DC Circuit reinstates fired agency…

Executive Branch

After DC Circuit reinstates fired agency board members, chief justice pauses action

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 9, 2025, 9:11 am CDT

Updated: Chief Justice John Roberts has temporarily blocked reinstatement of fired board members of two independent agencies after an en banc federal appeals court ruled in their favor Monday.

On Wednesday, Roberts issued an administrative stay that paused reinstatement of Cathy Harris to the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne A. Wilcox to the National Labor Relations Board, Law360 reports.

In its April 7 order, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated a three-judge panel decision that allowed Trump to remove Harris and Wilcox.

The NLRB enforces labor laws, while the MSPB considers workplace disputes by federal employees. Boards overseeing the agencies resolve appeals following decisions by administrative law judges.

The D.C. Circuit’s en banc order revived a reinstatement order by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of the District of Columbia, Law.com reports.

The en banc court cited a 1935 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, and a 1958 Supreme Court decision, Wiener v. United States. Those decisions upheld restrictions on removal of government officials on multimember adjudicatory boards, the appeals court said.

“The Supreme Court’s repeated and recent statements that Humphrey’s Executor and Wiener remain precedential require denying the government’s emergency motions for a stay pending appeal,” the en banc majority said.

Four out of 11 en banc judges dissented.

The case is Trump v. Wilcox.

Updated April 9 at 4:17 p.m. to include information on Chief Justice John Roberts’ administrative stay.

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3. Art generated solely by AI can’t be copyrighted,…

Copyright Law

Art generated solely by AI can’t be copyrighted, federal appeals court says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 19, 2025, 11:05 am CDT

A federal appeals court has ruled against a computer scientist who sought to copyright a work of art made by his artificial intelligence system, the “Creativity Machine.”

Computer scientist Stephen Thaler is not entitled to copyright artwork made solely by AI, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday.

Reuters and Courthouse News Service have coverage of the March 18 opinion.

“The Creativity Machine cannot be the recognized author of a copyrighted work because the Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being,” the D.C. Circuit said in a decision by Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

The holding makes is unnecessary to address the U.S. Copyright Office’s argument that the U.S. Constitution also requires human authorship of copyrighted material, Millett said. The appeals court also said Thaler had waived an argument that he could obtain a copyright because he made and used the Creativity Machine.

The D.C. Circuit said its decision does not prohibit a copyright when a work is authored by a human with the help of AI.

“The rule requires only that the author of that work be a human being—the person who created, operated or used artificial intelligence—and not the machine itself,” Millett said.

Millett acknowledged that the Copyright Office has rejected some copyright applications based on the human-authorship requirement, even when a human is listed as the author.

“Line-drawing disagreements” over how much that AI contributed to a work aren’t issue in Thaler’s case, however, because he listed the Creativity Machine as the sole author, the appeals court said.

Thaler plans to appeal the decision, his attorney, Ryan Abbott, told Reuters.

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3. Trump administration invokes state secrets…

Immigration Law

Trump administration invokes state secrets privilege for deportation flights, disputes Nazi analogy

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 25, 2025, 11:02 am CDT

Government lawyers are arguing that the state secrets privilege protects the Trump administration from divulging details about deportation flights to El Salvador in Central America, and that the Venezuelans aboard weren’t entitled to notice that would give them time for a hearing.

Lawyers made those assertions Monday to a federal judge and a federal appeals court considering the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members. The deportees were taken to a prison in El Salvador, where the conditions “are reportedly parlous,” according to Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., who is overseeing the challenge to the law.

The New York Times, the Associated Press, Politico, the Washington Post, NPR and NBC News have coverage.

In a March 24 notice, the government invoked the state secrets privilege to avoid disclosing further details about flights carrying the deportees in what the New York Times termed a “stubborn response” and “a patent act of defiance.”

Boasberg had sought information about the timing of the flights to determine whether the government violated his March 15 temporary restraining order telling U.S. officials to stop or turn around the flights.

The government court filing said disclosing information about tracking of the flights “would both endanger the government personnel operating those flights and aid efforts by our adversaries to draw inferences about diplomatic negotiations and coordination” regarding the removal of “terrorists and other criminal aliens from the country.”

The New York Times said the government stance “is extraordinary in part because it is refusing to provide information to Judge Boasberg—a former presiding judge of the nation’s national security surveillance court—even privately and in a secure facility for handling classified information.”

Earlier Monday, Boasberg refused to vacate his TRO that bans the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act, last invoked during World War II, for the deportations.

The government has argued that Venezuelan gang members were acting under the direction of the Venezuelan government, a hostile nation, and their arrival in the United States was a “predatory incursion,” according to the New York Times.

Boasberg said in his opinion the government’s “unprecedented use” of the act outside wartime “implicates a host of complicated legal issues.” But there was no need to resolve the “thorny question” about the use of the act, Boasberg said, because the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the claim that they were entitled to hearings before deportations.

That issue was before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday as the government sought a stay of the TRO. According to the Washington Post, government lawyers acknowledged that the suspected gang members are entitled to hearings but said the government doesn’t have to tell them that they have been deemed to be “alien enemies” or give them time to request hearings.

D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett commented that there were no procedures in place to notify the suspected gang members.

“Nazis got better treatment,” Millett said, referring to the use of hearing boards to remove suspected Nazis during World War II.

“We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign.

The case is J.G.G. v. Trump.

See also:

Trump’s deportation push tests courts’ ability to check his power

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3. DC Circuit allows federal watchdog’s removal…

Constitutional Law

DC Circuit allows federal watchdog’s removal pending expedited appeal; US argued he had gone ‘rogue’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 6, 2025, 11:15 am CST

Updated: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to remove the leader of the Office of Special Counsel when it granted an emergency government request to stay a federal judge’s order pending appeal.

The appeals court stayed a March 1 preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia that prevented the removal of Hampton Dellinger from the Office of Special Counsel. The appeals court ordered expedited briefing and arguments in the appeal.

Politico, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, USA Today, CNN and MSNBC have coverage.

In its emergency request, the government had argued that Dellinger was advocating for fired employees and seeking stays of their terminations.

“The court should immediately stay the district court’s order and put an end to Dellinger’s rogue use of executive authority over the president’s objection,” the government brief said.

Dellinger’s office is an independent agency responsible for safeguarding whistleblowers and enforcing ethics laws, explains Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law and an ABA Journal contributor, in a Feb. 26 article for the Journal. The special counsel is not the same type of special counsel who is appointed by the U.S. attorney general to handle special investigations.

According to Chemerinsky, the Dellinger case “involves an issue of enormous significance: May a president fire anyone who works in the executive branch of government even when there is a statute limiting firing?”

A federal law provides that the special counsel “may be removed by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” The administration contends that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with a president’s ability to exercise executive powers under Article II.

Jackson upheld the law when she granted the preliminary injunction.

The case made a previous trip to the U.S. Supreme Court after Jackson granted a Feb. 12 temporary restraining order preventing Dellinger’s removal. The high court did not intervene at that point.

Dellinger announced Thursday that he is dropping his legal battle to stay in the job, the National Law Journal reports.

The case is Dellinger v. Bessent.

Updated March 6 at 3:30 p.m. to report that Hampton Dellinger is dropping the case.

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3. DOJ files complaint against federal judge…

Judiciary

DOJ files complaint against federal judge for alleged hostility against government lawyer

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 24, 2025, 12:27 pm CST

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a misconduct complaint Friday for alleged “hostile and egregious misconduct” by a federal judge presiding in a challenge to an executive order that says gender dysphoria conflicts with military troop readiness.

The DOJ filed the complaint against U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes of Washington, D.C., report Law360, the Associated Press and Reuters.

“The transcript reveals multiple instances where Judge Reyes’ misconduct compromised the dignity of the proceedings and demonstrated potential bias, raising serious concerns about her ability to preside impartially in this matter,” the complaint says.

Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, filed the complaint seeking “appropriate action” with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Reyes is an appointee of former President Joe Biden. According to Original Jurisdiction, Reyes “is an equal-opportunity benchslapper” who has also chastised “liberal legal lions.”

The Jan. 27 executive order asks the secretary for the U.S. Department of Defense to revise the military’s transgender policy in a way that is consistent with the order.

“Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” the executive order says.

The Associated Press and Law 360 report that during the hearings, Reyes:

  • Raised her voice and demanded an answer from a government attorney about whether President Donald Trump’s executive order showed animus by calling “an entire category of people dishonest, dishonorable, undisciplined.”

  • Engaged in a rhetorical exercise regarding discrimination. Reyes declared that graduates of the University of Virginia School of Law would be barred from her courtroom because they are “liars and lack integrity.” She then told the government lawyer who was a University of Virginia School of Law grad “to sit down.” According to the ethics complaint, the directive “served no legitimate judicial purpose and transformed an attorney appearing before the court into an unwilling participant in the judge’s unnecessary demonstration.”

  • Asked the government lawyer what “Jesus would say to telling a group of people that they are so worthless, so worthless that we’re not going to allow them into homeless shelters? Do you think Jesus would be, ‘Sounds right to me’?” she asked. The complaint says the question “placed DOJ counsel in an untenable position of either appearing unresponsive or speculating about how an incoherent hypothetical aligns with Judge Reyes’ personal religious beliefs.”

The plaintiffs challenging the order are six transgender people who are active-duty service members and two others who want to enlist.

Reyes is not the only federal judge feeling the heat while presiding over challenges to Trump administration policies. Republican lawmakers have introduced articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York after he barred Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s representative from accessing information from the Department of the Treasury, report Bloomberg Law and Axios.

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3. Federal appeals judge, 97, loses bid to unseal…

Judiciary

Federal appeals judge, 97, loses bid to unseal documents about her suspension

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 4, 2025, 9:30 am CST

Federal law does not permit a 97-year-old federal appeals judge to unseal documents about her suspension absent consent of the chief judge of her circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Monday.

Judge Pauline Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit wanted to unseal the documents in an appeal of a federal judge’s July ruling dismissing her challenge to the disability law governing her case, Law360 reports.

Newman was suspended in September 2023 for refusing to participate in medical evaluations to determine her mental fitness.

Newman had told the D.C. Circuit that the only confidential information in the documents concern her medical history, Law360 reported. The Federal Circuit countered that the documents were of “questionable relevance” and will soon be released with redactions.

Newman was investigated after evidence was said to show “troubling signs” of her cognitive decline. Her expert, an editor of the principal neurosurgery textbook, said Newman had an “extraordinarily high level of cognitive ability” and appears to be a “super-ager.”

The D.C. Circuit said the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act generally does not permit disclosure of records related to investigations unless written consent is obtained from the judge under investigation and the chief judge of the relevant circuit.

See also:

97-year-old federal appeals judge should be suspended another year for exam refusal, panel says

Federal appeals judge, 97, who refused to cooperate in fitness probe loses challenge to disability law

Investigations of federal judges are rare and should happen more, former clerk says

Federal appeals judge, 96, fails to overturn suspension order for refusing to cooperate in fitness probe

Speaking at ABA meeting, federal appeals judge, 96, doesn’t address her suspension but mentions opinion pace

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3. Who may be on Trump’s Supreme Court short…

U.S. Supreme Court

Who may be on Trump’s Supreme Court short list? Senate win aids judicial picks

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 6, 2024, 3:12 pm CST

President-elect Donald Trump could get a chance to appoint two U.S. Supreme Court justices if Justice Clarence Thomas, 76, and Justice Samuel Alito, 74, decide to retire.

“With two more appointees,” Law360 reports, “Trump could single-handedly cement the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority for decades to come.”

These judges and lawyers are potential nominees, according to Law360, an op-ed in the New York Times by the editor of a liberal blog, Fox News and a Bloomberg Law story on potential Asian American and Pacific Islander picks.

  • Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. He is the former general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He was in the news in January 2020 for an opinion in which he refused to refer to a transgender inmate by her preferred female pronouns. (Law360, Fox News, the New York Times)

  • Judge Andrew S. Oldham, the 5th Circuit at New Orleans. He is former general counsel for Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbot. (Law360, Fox News)

  • Judge James C. Ho, the 5th Circuit at New Orleans. He is a former Texas solicitor general. In 2022, he said he won’t be hiring future Yale Law School grads as clerks because the university cancels conservative views. (Law360, Fox News, the New York Times, Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Amul Thapar, the 6th Circuit at Cincinnati. He is a former Williams & Connolly lawyer. He has suggested that conservatives withhold donations to law schools that don’t teach originalism. (Law360, Fox News, Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Joan Larsen, the 6th Circuit at Cincinnati. She was formerly a Michigan Supreme Court justice. (Fox News)

  • Judge Gregory G. Katsas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is a former Jones Day lawyer and a former deputy counsel in the Trump White House. (Law360, Fox News)

  • Judge Neomi Rao, the D.C. Circuit. She was the administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Trump administration. (Fox News, Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Lawrence VanDyke, the 9th Circuit at San Francisco. He is a former Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher lawyer and a former solicitor general in Nevada and Montana. He received a “not qualified” rating by the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which cited an “entitlement temperament.” (Law360, Fox News, the New York Times)

  • Judge Patrick Bumatay, the 9th Circuit at San Francisco. He was the first openly gay judge to serve on the 9th Circuit. (Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Kenneth Lee, the 9th Circuit at San Francisco. He wrote an opinion finding that a ban on gun advertising that appeals to minors was likely unconstitutional. (Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge Barbara Lagoa, the 11th Circuit at Atlanta. She is a former Florida Supreme Court justice and former Greenberg Traurig lawyer. (Fox News)

  • Judge Britt Grant, the 11th Circuit at Atlanta. She is a former Georgia Supreme Court justice. (Fox News)

  • Judge Kevin Newsom, the 11th Circuit at Atlanta. He was formerly the Alabama solicitor general. (Fox News)

  • Judge Michael Park, the 2nd Circuit at New York. He formerly was a lawyer at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr; Dechert; and Consovoy McCarthy Park. (Bloomberg Law)

  • Judge David Stras, the 8th Circuit St. Louis. He is a former Minnesota Supreme Court justice. (Fox News)

  • Judge Allison Jones Rushing, the 4th Circuit at Richmond, Virginia. She was a Williams & Connolly lawyer. (Fox News)

  • Kate Comerford Todd, a former deputy counsel in the Trump White House. (Fox News)

  • U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Southern District of Florida. She dismissed the classified documents case against Trump. (Law360)

  • U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick, the Western District of Oklahoma. He was formerly an Oklahoma Supreme Court justice. (Fox News)

  • Kristen Waggoner, CEO and general counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom. (Law360, Fox News, the New York Times)

  • Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. (Fox News)

  • Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. (Fox News)

  • Morse Tan, the former dean of the Liberty University School of Law, who is now the senior executive director of Liberty University’s Center for Law & Government. (Bloomberg Law, the New York Times)

  • Former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin, founding dean of High Point University’s law school. (The New York Times)

Confirmation of Trump’s judicial nominees will be easier when Republicans take control of the U.S. Senate, Law360 reports.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa intends to reclaim his position as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will consider Trump’s choices, a Grassley spokesperson told Law360.

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3. DC Circuit allows trespassing charge used…

Criminal Justice

DC Circuit allows trespassing charge used to prosecute more than 1,400 Jan. 6 defendants

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 23, 2024, 1:39 pm CDT

Prosecutors don’t have to show that a Jan. 6, 2021, trespassing defendant was aware that the U.S. Capitol grounds were restricted because of the presence of then-Vice President Mike Pence, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The federal trespassing charge at issue has been used in the prosecutions of more than 1,400 Jan. 6 defendants, Politico reports. About 95% of the Capitol riot defendants were charged under the law, according to Reuters.

The federal law bans unauthorized members of the public from entering safety zones that protect people guarded by the Secret Service.

The defendant, Couy Griffin, is the founder of Cowboys for Trump. He led a group of Capitol protesters in prayer, according to briefs cited by Law.com. He was convicted for knowingly entering a restricted building or grounds.

Griffin had argued that he did not “knowingly” violate the law because there was no showing that he knew that the area was restricted because of the presence of Pence, a Secret Service protectee. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed in a 2-1 decision.

“We hold that knowingly breaching the restricted area suffices, even without knowing the basis of the restriction—here, the presence of Vice President Pence at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” wrote Judge Cornelia Pillard for the majority.

Pillard is an appointee of former President Barack Obama. Judge Gregory Katsas, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, dissented.

The majority’s interpretation “ensnares a hotel guest who walks past an ‘area closed for private event’ sign in search of an open bar if, unbeknownst to the thirsty interloper, the first lady is expected to attend,” Katsas said. “Likewise, it ensnares an individual who stepped over temporary plastic fencing just outside the Capitol grounds on Jan. 5, 2021, to save a few steps on a walk home from work, even if he was unaware of the impending arrival of the vice president.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is more likely to agree to hear the case given Katsas’ dissent, according to Politico.

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3. Paul Weiss partner, ‘a skilled handler of…

Careers

Paul Weiss partner, ‘a skilled handler of high-ego politicians,’ is helping Harris with debate prep

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 10, 2024, 11:10 am CDT

A partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison helped Vice President Kamala Harris prepare for Tuesday’s presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, even as she prepared as lead attorney for Google in an antitrust trial based on alleged online advertising dominance.

Since 2008, partner Karen Dunn has helped prepare Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates for debates, the New York Times reports. She helped Harris prepare for her 2020 debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence. And she also helped former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama prepare for presidential debates.

Dunn “is described by candidates she has coached and other people who have worked with her as a skilled handler of high-ego politicians,” according to the New York Times. “By all accounts, she possesses the rare ability to tell them what they are doing wrong and how to fix it—and how to inject humor and humanity to sell themselves to voters watching the debate.”

Dunn, co-chair of the Paul Weiss litigation department, is one of the attorneys who obtained a verdict for injured plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. A graduate of Yale Law School, she is a former clerk for now-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland when he was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and a former clerk for then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

The New York Times credits Dunn for spurring Clinton during a 2016 debate to bring up a Trump comment disparaging a beauty pageant contestant’s weight. Here is a portion of the debate transcript published by the New York Times:

Clinton: “And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman ‘Miss Piggy.’ Then he called her ‘Miss Housekeeping’ because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.”

Trump: “Where did you find this? Where did you find this?”

Clinton: “Her name is Alicia Machado.”

Trump: “Where did you find this?”

Clinton: “And she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet … ”

Trump: “Oh, really?”

Clinton: “ … she’s going to vote this November.”

Trump: “OK, good. Let me just tell you … ”

(Applause)

In a 2019 interview with the New York Times, Dunn said debate contestants have to engage the other person in a way that challenges them if they want to win the debate.

“If somebody comes after you and you counterpunch effectively, you can win that moment,” Dunn said.

Dunn was in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Monday representing Google in a Department of Justice suit alleging that the online search company’s acquisition of DoubleClick, an advertising software company, gives it dominance in technology that auctions off online ads, allowing Google to crush the competition. Dunn countered that Google is “one big company among many others” that also sell advertising, the New York Times reports.

Critics have alleged that Dunn’s debate preparation creates a conflict of interest because helping Harris would make the presidential candidate reluctant to stand up to Big Tech, the New York Post reports.

But ethics experts who spoke with the New York Times and Law.com said there was no ethics problem.

“Of course, Ms. Dunn cannot reveal confidential client information concerning Google to anyone. But she is not precluded from giving Ms. Harris advice about how to conduct herself in the debate,” said Leslie Levin, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, in an interview with Law.com.

“Lawyers in private practice volunteer on political campaigns all the time,” said Steven Lubet, a professor emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, in an interview with the New York Times. “There’s no conflict between coaching debate prep and representing a client in a case opposed to the government.”

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3. Did DC Circuit ‘put an asterisk next to’…

Constitutional Law

Did DC Circuit ‘put an asterisk next to’ decision denying Trump immunity? Court keeps case on speedy path but implies limits

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 7, 2024, 12:49 pm CST

The prosecution of former President Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election could stay on a speedy path as a result of deadlines set Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The appeals court said Trump must file any request for a stay of its immunity decision with the U.S. Supreme Court by Feb. 12, report the Washington Post, CNN, Just Security and the New York Times.

If Trump instead seeks a hearing before the full appeals court, the case can still return to the trial judge after Feb. 12, the appeals court indicated.

The appeals court’s Feb. 6 opinion held that Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election were not part of his official duties, and he did not have immunity.

“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power—the recognition and implementation of election results,” the D.C. Circuit said. “Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.”

The appeals court concluded that the interest in criminal accountability outweighs the potential risks of chilling presidential actions. The D.C. Circuit cautioned, however, that its analysis “is specific to the case before us.” In the eighth footnote, the appeals court added, “We do not address policy considerations implicated in the prosecution of a sitting president or in a state prosecution of a president, sitting or former.”

A columnist for the Washington Post noted the “specific to the case” wording and concluded that the appeals court is “trying to put an asterisk next to its ruling. It is hinting—as the Supreme Court hinted in Bush v. Gore—that this is an extraordinary case and that in other cases, the same logic might not apply.”

The per curiam opinion was written by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, and two appointees of President Joe Biden, Judge J. Michelle Childs and Judge Florence Y. Pan. Biden had once considered Childs for a Supreme Court nomination.

If Trump asks the Supreme Court to hear the case, and the high court agrees, the Supreme Court could act quickly, or the justices could take their time, the New York Times reports.

One possibility is for the Supreme Court to grant the stay, with or without limitations. If there is no time limit, Trump would have 90 days to file a cert petition, according to Just Security. Or the Supreme Court could place a time limit on the stay, which would dissolve unless Trump files a cert petition within the time period.

Another possibility is for the Supreme Court to treat a stay application as a petition for certiorari and grant immediate review.

“We consider this a more likely option,” according to Just Security.

If the Supreme Court requires expedited briefing, oral arguments could be in March, and an opinion might be issued a month later, the blog said.

If Trump loses and a trial happens in July, it could conclude by October.

“Of course, it is within the Supreme Court’s power not to enforce an expedited appellate schedule,” Just Security pointed out. “If so, they could conceivably wait until the end of this year’s term in late June to issue its decision. Under that approach, the trial would not begin until approximately Oct. 1 and would not conclude until around Jan. 1, 2025.”