There’s no way around it, the last week has been another whirlwind for Donald Trump in America’s courts, with cases new and old shaping headlines and spotlighting the ongoing tension between presidential authority and the rule of law. I’m here to bring you right to the thick of it.

Let’s start with what’s fresh—on September 4, 2025, the District of Columbia, through Attorney General Brian Schwalb, filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump in his official capacity as president. The suit targets his decision to deploy more than 2,200 National Guard troops into Washington, D.C., for armed patrols, searches, seizures, and arrests, all under federal command and without the consent of Mayor Muriel Bowser. The District is arguing this move violates a host of federal statutes, like the Posse Comitatus Act—designed to keep the military out of domestic law enforcement—and lacks any legitimate emergency justification. Not only is Trump himself named, but so are the Department of Defense and Secretary Peter Hegseth. D.C. is seeking to regain local control and end what it says is an unconstitutional assumption of state guard command. That case, just days old, is ongoing and already at the center of a fierce debate over who really controls the nation’s capital in moments of crisis.

But that’s just one front. This past week also saw new action in the federal courts around civil rights. On September 2, a transgender woman, Jana Jensen, filed a lawsuit broadly challenging Trump’s new executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” Jensen, supported by civil rights groups, is alleging violations that threaten to impact public benefits and government services for transgender individuals nationwide. That case also remains ongoing in the District of Columbia and it could set major precedent for how executive power is held in check when it comes to individual rights.

Meanwhile, legal ripples are reaching all the way to the Supreme Court. This week, Trump administration lawyers were prepping for potential new showdowns over everything from the president’s order ending birthright citizenship to his sweeping removals of independent agency heads. SCOTUSblog noted that the administration is seeking certiorari in at least five separate cases involving guns, drugs, and, significantly, the controversial executive order on birthright citizenship. It’s clear that the Trump legal team is betting on the high court to settle the fate of some of his boldest and most divisive policy moves in the 2025-26 term.

All of this comes as lower courts continue to churn through the aftermath of executive orders. Just this past June, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the Democratic National Committee’s lawsuit challenging another Trump order on the independence of the Federal Election Commission, ruling the plaintiffs lacked concrete and imminent injury. The pattern: intense litigation

This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.