Lyle Denniston

Aug 28 2026

Can the Supreme Court be changed? How?

If a part of the national government has the confidence of only one out of every four Americans, has the time come to change it – in big ways or small?  The U.S. Supreme Court now faces that dismal rank in the latest poll, and the demand for change might be as high as at any… Read More

Aug 28 2026

Trump mail-in voting challenge blocked

One day after the U.S. Postal Service put into effect President Trump’s new limits on mail-in voting, a federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the rules late Thursday night, finding that they are  probably unconstitutional.  The two-week delay will allow that judge to consider adopting a more lasting order. With only 68 days remaining before… Read More

Aug 24 2026

Trump mail-in ballot challenge allowed — for now (UPDATED)

UPDATE:  By the end of the day Monday, the Justice Department asked the federal judge in Boston to swiftly nullify the prior preliminary order that was similar to the one at issue in the Supreme Court ruling earlier in the day.  The six-page motion, seeking action by Tuesday afternoon, did not explore fully the fact… Read More

Aug 17 2026

Trump v. Jean Carroll:  What’s next? (UPDATED)

UPDATE 7 p.m.  Monday:  Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll, citing today’s Supreme Court order, argue in letter to 2d Circuit that the order makes moot the Trump effort to undo the payment of the $5.6 million verdict to Carroll.  They claim the Trump appeal depended on getting rehearing in the Supreme Court. —————————————————– The Supreme… Read More

Aug 17 2026

Trump loses to Jean Carroll, again

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down, for the second time this year, a plea by President Trump to nullify a New York jury’s verdict of more than $5 million for a woman writer who sued him for sexual assault. The Court issued a brief order as part of a list of routine legal actions… Read More

Aug 9 2026

Can Trump limit U.S. citizenship?

President Trump is claiming the power to bar foreign women from entering the U.S. to have babies; he wants to make sure their children can’t become American citizens.  He seems convinced that a recent Supreme Court ruling against him on that constitutional point is not a problem. A new Executive Order signed by the President last week… Read More

Aug 5 2026

Trump’s triumph over January 6

President Trump has now won, from an extremely reluctant federal judge, a final victory over all of the criminal cases against his political allies who staged a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol more than five years ago. In a 15-page decision issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, D.C., granted Trump’s… Read More

Aug 3 2026

Trump Fund’s status: as of today

The ever-changing $1.8 billion fund deal that President Trump and his Cabinet put together to benefit his political allies got a new revision Sunday night – but maybe only as a political document.  Its legal status is still in doubt. Trump’s plan to transfer the huge sum of U.S. Treasury money to hundreds of his followers… Read More

Aug 1 2026

Politics, the Constitution and Trump’s $1.8 billion fund

Official Washington was absorbed on Friday in the politics surrounding President Trump’s highly controversial $1.8 billion fund for payoffs from the U.S. Treasury to his allies.  In a federal court in Florida – also on Friday — it became clear that the legal feud over the fund is becoming a major constitutional controversy, too. Since the… Read More

Jul 29 2026

Trump, DOJ team up against Jean Carroll

President Trump returned to the Supreme Court Tuesday night, seeking new clarity on how far the Court will go to protect him when he is found to have broken the law.  The appeal is an attempt to elevate to constitutional dignity the sordid scandal of a sexual assault accusation that led to jury verdicts against him,… Read More

Lyle Denniston continues to write about the U.S. Supreme Court, although he “retired” at the end of 2019 following more than six decades on that news beat. He was there for three revolutions – civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights – and the start of a fourth, on transgender rights. His career of following the law began at the Otoe County Courthouse in his hometown, Nebraska City, Nebraska, in the fall of 1948. His online, eight-week, college-level course – “The Supreme Court and American Politics” – is available from the University of Baltimore Law School, and it is free.

Recent Posts

  • Can the Supreme Court be changed? How?
  • Trump mail-in voting challenge blocked
  • Trump mail-in ballot challenge allowed — for now (UPDATED)
  • Trump v. Jean Carroll:  What’s next? (UPDATED)
  • Trump loses to Jean Carroll, again
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