The “far-right” U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has emerged at the center of a series of “destabilizing” decisions in recent days, decisions that journalist Chris Geidner suggested may be part of a coordinated effort to “run the United States” on behalf of conservative interests.
“Regardless of what the Supreme Court ultimately does, the Fifth Circuit’s actions can be (and are often intended to be) extremely destabilizing in the interim,” Geidner wrote in an analysis published Sunday on his Substack.
For instance, the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling last Friday that halted the mailing of an abortion drug nationwide, despite the court’s jurisdiction encompassing only three states: Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Last Thursday, the Fifth Circuit enforced a subpoena that had been filed in the court “secretly” by the Justice Department to enforce a prohibition of “gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors” at a hospital in Rhode Island, again, far outside the court’s jurisdiction.
The Fifth Circuit’s favorability to the Trump administration’s agenda, Geidner argued, was also central to the supposed plan to have the court extend its influence across the nation.
“The Justice Department, apparently not wanting to challenge Rhode Island Hospital’s alleged noncompliance in Rhode Island or D.C., went to the next most obvious place: The Northern District of Texas, and, specifically, to the Fort Worth Division, where the petition was almost certain to be assigned to U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, an extremely right-wing George W. Bush appointee, or U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee,” Geidner wrote.
“It went to O’Connor, who has a long history of anti-LGBTQ rulings, and he came through. The same day the petition was filed, he granted it – without seeking any response from the hospital and before DOJ even publicly announced it had sought such relief.
In theory, the Supreme Court has the final say in major legal disputes, but the Fifth Circuit’s recent pattern of issuing rulings with nationwide effect – many of which take hold before any review and are sometimes upheld or left untouched – has given the lower court significant interim influence, Geidner argued.
“This is a mess of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito’s making, but, because of the way this is all being done, the Fifth Circuit and district court judges within the Fifth Circuit are taking the first actions – and making the first law – about what is going to happen and be allowed in this post-Callais country,” he wrote.
“And though the Supreme Court will still be able to weigh in, the Fifth Circuit and its district court judges are creating the record that would come before the justices.”
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