Geidner: The "contract case" wrench that SCOTUS conservatives gave DOJ to defend Trump

[Nevilledog]

https://www.lawdork.com/p/the-contract-case-wrench-that-scotus

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday blocking the Justice Department from cancelling several DOJ grants administered by the American Bar Association‘s Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence. In his opinion, Cooper found that the cancellations were likely unconstitutional retaliation by DOJ under the First Amendment for the ABA suing the the Trump administration.

As Cooper, an Obama appointee, put it, this was not especially difficult to conclude regarding the grants cancelled by the Justice Depart’s Office on Violence Against Women.

Beginning with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s April 9 memorandum — previously published at Law Dork — barring Justice Department lawyers from, as Cooper put it, “participating in events sponsored by the American Bar Association (“ABA”) on official time,” he continued:

The reason, Blanche candidly explained, was that the ABA had recently joined a lawsuit against the Trump Administration. The next day, DOJ cancelled a series of grants with the ABA that funded services to victims of domestic and sexual violence. The only explanation offered for the cancellation was a terse statement indicating that the grants “no longer effectuate[] . . . [DOJ] priorities.” Connecting these two rather large dots, the ABA promptly filed suit.

As Cooper later noted in his opinion, “The government has offered no nonretaliatory explanation for why it continues to fund these other OVW grantees after terminating the ABA’s grants, or why these other grantees’ projects still effectuate DOJ’s priorities while the ABA’s do not.”

As such, and after considering the relevant preliminary injunction factors, Cooper granted a preliminary injunction on the ABA’s First Amendment retaliation claim.

*snip*