David Kleckner

I have a new respect for Kim Strassel of WSJ after reading this article from her revealing how the fake news covers the left's lawfare dishonestly, to make anything Trump and conservatives look bad and losing and anything the left does look legitimate and winning. "The state of legal reporting has reached peak national embarrassment." --- The Media's Lawfare Enabling The Supreme Court last week allowed Donald Trump’s ballroom construction to proceed, eliciting shock from the press corps. The court on Monday allowed the president’s mail-in voting order to continue, eliciting the same shock. This follows the shock after Trump administration wins on immigration enforcement, personnel firings, DEI and transgender orders, and dozens of other issues. How long is the public meant to treat the press’s pearl-clutching as genuine, rather than part of a campaign to undermine the administration and the credibility of the high court? The state of legal reporting has reached peak national embarrassment, a master class in fiction that rivals the reporting about Russia “collusion” and Joe Biden’s undiminished capacity. The media’s contribution to lawfare began in the earliest days of the first Trump term and has become only more brazen. The swings and misses are there for all to see, every day. Yet the formula is now so routine that nobody pushes back. It works like this: The administration takes an action that offends liberal sensibilities. Interest groups rush to litigate, sometimes with prepackaged lawsuits. The press quotes liberal law professors and the litigators themselves as to why the suits are worthy. A liberal judge issues an injunction, which is treated as further proof of a lawsuit’s merit. The stories omit any critical analysis of standing, jurisdiction, merits or precedent. When a higher court corrects the legal overreach, the media, rather than acknowledge it got it wrong, insists the judges are in the tank for Mr. Trump. Consider that ballroom case. When the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit last December to halt the project, the press corps pushed the litigation as a slam dunk. The stories all led with a quote from the suit, presenting as fact that “no president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever.” The pieces cataloged the laws the administration had supposedly violated, and the claim that any building required the “express authority of Congress.” Critics hailed the early August ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to halt the project as evidence of the trust’s legal firepower. Chief Justice John Roberts’s order last Friday staying that injunction wasn’t accompanied by an opinion and isn’t a ruling on the merits. But any reporter with a half-sharp pencil might have reported the potentially fatal problems with this suit. These were nimbly outlined by Judge Neomi Rao, who dissented from the D.C. Circuit’s injunction. She argues the trust has no standing to bring the suit: It wasn’t chartered to look after the White House, and its one member who occasionally walks past the complex and expects to dislike the new structure, can hardly claim a concrete “injury.” Judge Rao also makes a persuasive case on the merits, noting that the trust’s ultra vires claim (that the administration is acting in obvious excess of its powers) is “essentially a Hail Mary pass,” since at least one federal law authorizes the president to use funds for the “care, maintenance, repair, alteration” and “improvement” of the executive residence. The courts will decide the merits. But it’s ludicrous that the country’s ace legal reporters never provided the public even an inkling of these legal defects. It’s much more fun, as numerous stories about last week’s order did, to suggest slyly that the chief justice is doing a personal favor for the president. This is the cynical game—jerryrigged reporting to give life to lawfare and to set false expectations, the better to smear legal grown-ups. How unrelentingly were we told Mr. Trump’s 2017 “travel ban” would never stand? That there was no such thing as presidential immunity? That of course a president can’t fire independent-agency heads? That the administration’s firings, and DEI rules, and immigration actions all offended the law? How do we know this misreporting is intentional? The press corps is quite capable of providing good analysis about cases the president is actually poised to lose, as with his emergency tariffs and his executive order on birthright citizenship. It would be easy to call any right-leaning lawyer to get a read on a liberal suit’s flaws. It doesn’t happen. Don’t expect it to end, since the tactic continues to work for the left. The lawsuits—and the cheering coverage—keep the Democratic base motivated. The flood of litigation—and the hyped coverage—maintains the narrative that the president is daily exceeding legal boundaries. And the purposeful presentation of Supreme Court rulings as political or partisan—rather than straightforward legal correctives—gives ammunition to elected Democrats making the argument that they are justified in blowing up the judiciary to achieve partisan objectives. The real scandal is the press’s role. No one is surprised to see elected officials or political partisans engaged in partisan tactics, which now includes lawfare. But this particular ruse doesn’t work without the media’s cooperation—its willingness to suspend disbelief, omit key facts, and pretend higher courts are acting out of bounds. It’s doing terrible damage. Where are the professional media critics when you need them?