Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.
This week’s Injustice for All features the tantalizing possibility of consequences for Jared Kushner and unemployment for one of President Donald Trump’s handpicked acting U.S. attorney goons who has no business being in their job.
And, of course, Trump showed what a coward he really is.
Trump chickens out on the BBC
Honestly, this is toddler behavior. What an absolute beta the president of the United States is.
Last year, Trump sued the BBC with much fanfare, demanding $10 billion for tortious editing or something, but he really, really, really doesn’t want to provide any discovery about his finances. So he drew one of his own appointees, the extremely pliable U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, who let him amend his complaint to remove any allegation that the BBC hurt his business reputation.
Journalists report outside of the BBC Broadcasting House in London on Nov. 11, 2025.AP
Voila! No pesky requirement to provide any finances.
But the BBC still gets to depose Trump, because that’s how lawsuits work. But Trump doesn’t want to, and even though this is his own lawsuit—brought in his personal capacity—he’s now invoking his presidential status as the reason he can’t be bothered.
“The President is no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance,” Trump’s attorneys said.
According to Trump’s personal lawyers, he won’t be available until mid-January, which is after the discovery period in the case ends. Meanwhile, seven BBC witnesses have already sat for depositions, and the BBC has provided discovery, which is not the norm when a party has moved to dismiss the case, as the BBC has.
Here’s a thought: Maybe stop bringing a bunch of lawsuits if you don’t actually want to litigate them.
No human is illegal, except maybe Jared Kushner
Now this should be fun.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington just dropped a 45-page complaint against Kushner and the administration. It’s all about how Kushner is illegally serving as one of the nation’s top diplomats, since he was never confirmed by the Senate nor provided any of the required financial disclosures.
Honestly, it’s well past time someone calls out Kushner’s freelancing, where he flip-flops between diplomat and private dealmaker.
And while the administration tends to get its way by simply screaming “national security,” the courts have held the line on telling the administration that it can’t just skip over Senate confirmations whenever Trump feels like it.
Hopefully Kushner is out of a job soon. It isn’t as if he’s any good at negotiating anything anyway. Well, except to line his own pockets, that is.
No human is illegal, except maybe for Bill Essayli
Speaking of courts holding the line on telling the administration they can’t just skip over Senate confirmations …
First assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli has hung on longer than most of the unconfirmed rabble that Trump stuffed into U.S. attorney offices across the country.
Essayli burrowed into the Central District like a tick, thanks to being allowed to continue as first assistant U.S. attorney rather than holding the acting title. But it looks like his time is coming to an end.
Bill EssayliAP
Judge Michael Seabright, who originally let Essayli stay in the role, didn’t seem inclined to buy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s argument that Essayli isn’t really fully doing everything that an acting U.S. attorney could do, so it’s totally cool that he’s functionally serving as an acting U.S. attorney anyway.
This is the caliber of arguments coming out of the DOJ these days—lord help us all.
Essayli and Blanche are stuck with the reality that a federal court already told the government that this little arrangement didn’t work in the case of another handpicked Trumpy interim appointment, Sigil Chattah, in Las Vegas.
But if you want to know how things are going to play out from here, know that even before reporters asked him a question after the hearing, Essayli huffed, “The president runs the executive branch, and nothing here is going to change that.”
Okay, buddy. Whatever gets you through the night.
Now this is a benchslap
Back at the start of Trump’s hellish second term, the Department of Homeland Security went after a career public servant, Mary Comans of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in the most vicious, public way.
The administration was incensed that FEMA had money—approved by Congress for this very purpose, of course—with which to house immigrants displaced by natural disasters.
In the rabid, rancid minds of Kristi Noem and Elon Musk, this got transformed into unhinged accusations that Comans made unauthorized payments for immigrants to stay at the most deluxe hotels in New York City, which got her fired.
Since that wasn’t remotely what happened, Comans sued over her illegal termination, and a federal magistrate just went off on the administration, calling out Noem and Musk in particular.
“[H]igh-ranking government officials, including then-Secretary of DHS Kristi Noem and Elon Musk, engaged in a coordinated public relations campaign to impugn the personal and professional integrity of Ms. Comans,” the court order said.
The court also said that “for reasons unfathomable to this Court, officials chose to turn the power of the federal government against a singular employee with an impeccable record.”
Honestly, they do that a lot.
Judge to DOJ: Did I stutter?
Remember how the administration ignored the court order to stop airing the taxpayer-funded Trump propaganda ads? Yeah, apparently it ran a staggering 570 ads after the court order.
The DOJ offered up the weakest excuse imaginable for this, a real my-dog-ate-my-homework sort of deal.
Clay Bennett/Tribune Content Agency
Somehow, the only notification it decided to send DHS was a single email, which the department official apparently didn’t see until Monday morning. Totally normal behavior on the part of both agencies in a high-profile, fast-moving case.
After that, the judge seems to have decided to belt-and-suspenders things, because that’s what you always have to do with this administration. So she extended it by two weeks, until Nov. 8.
It’s got to sting for the administration to be told it can’t air more of this garbage on our dime until after the midterms. I half expect to hear from both the DOJ and DHS that this order was just too hard to understand so they can keep airing these low-rent ads anyway.