Truth on Trial
When courts stop trusting the government
I have often heard it said that politicians lie. That has been a refrain of defense since 2016 when we began hearing about alternative facts while arguing about crowd size. It is that refrain that compelled me to research current news by reading source documents like congressional records and court filings. If everything could be spun as an alternative fact, I wanted to ground myself in as much actual fact as possible. It has resulted in now hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours of research. It is what led me to write this Substack. Since I was doing the research for myself, I decided to publish what I learned for others who are also disillusioned with the idea of alternative facts.
Now in his second term, recent incidents have raised concern about the frequency and impact of inaccurate statements being made by Trump administration officials.
I have previously written about the Vice-President’s public admission that the administration would make up stories to get media attention when pushed in a CNN interview in 2024 about the lie that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield. Clearly, the Vice-President continues to double down on that a year later after evidence has clearly revealed this to be a fake story.
In a Pod Force One video recorded on Oct 29, 2025 in speaking about Democrats and “open borders” Vance states,
“They would actually say, “we want these new people to come in because we can’t win the votes of the people already here, so we’re going to import new voters to replace them.”
While this is Vance’s characterization, no public record supports any Democrat making such a statement. The rhetoric mirrors the white nationalist “Great Replacement” theory, which analysts have noted is being amplified by some GOP figures as reported by the Center for American progress.
Moments later, Vance went on to spread disinformation once more about Haitian migrants in Springfield,
“You know 20,000 immigrants, Haitian migrants in a town of 40,000 people. So you blink your eyes in Springfield Ohio and you wake up and literally a third of the population of your town is now Haitian immigrants and eating cats and dogs. Eating cats and dogs.”
This statement is false. There is no evidence to support the claim that Haitian migrants were consuming pets. Vance’s description exemplifies the spreading of disinformation for dramatic effect.
Supporters may argue that his statements are merely rhetorical. Even if rhetorical, statements like these contribute to the normalization of conspiratorial narratives and can influence political polarization, as noted by the Center for American Progress
That willingness to use the press to spread disinformation appears to have extended to the judicial branch as judges have expressed concern about the reliability of government representations in court, raising questions about transparency and accuracy.
I reported in June that Erez Reuveni had filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that he was ordered to file a report in court misrepresenting the facts in the deportation of Kilmar Garcia. When he refused, he was later released from his position as Acting Deputy Director of OIL. This complaint offered an early look at the lengths the administration is willing to go to in their dishonesty, even in a judicial hearing.
While courts routinely review government actions, the number and tone of recent rulings suggest a departure from the traditional presumption of regularity. Multiple judges across unrelated cases have expressed concern about the accuracy and reliability of representations from this administration, signaling a pattern that goes beyond ordinary scrutiny.
According to Andrew Hessick in a January 14, 2019 article in The Yale Journal on Regulation, regarding presumption of regularity:
“Courts have invoked it to give the government the benefit of the doubt in challenges to agency actions.”
It is uncommon to have an administration’s presumption of regularity questioned. Under the Obama administration, for example, there was just one case, Latif v Obama, in which a judge through a 2010 District Court ruling ordered the release of a Guantanamo Bay detainee because the judge found the intelligence reports to be unreliable and refused to afford them a presumption of regularity.
Under the Biden administration, several Executive Orders faced legal challenges, as is common across administrations. Although the administration acted unlawfully or in a way that was arbitrary or capricious, the rulings represent standard administrative law principles and not a question of good faith or a widespread pattern of irregular procedures across agencies, both of which undermine the core presumption of regularity.
Just Security reported in September that the Presumption of Regularity in the Trump Administration is regularly being questioned. In August, 2025 in a lawsuit filed by the Federal Education Association (FEA) regarding collective bargaining rights and other benefits, Judge Paul Friedman cautioned,
“Generations of presidential administrations and public officials have validated this underlying premise of the presumption of regularity: their actions writ large have raised little question that they act ‘in obedience to [their] duty.’ Over the last six months, however, courts have seen instance after instance of departures from this tradition. … In just six months, the President of the United States may have forfeited the right to such a presumption of regularity.”
In May, Judge Zia M Faruqui stated in a ruling,
“Blind deference to the government? That is no longer a thing. Trust that had been earned over generations has been lost in weeks.”
In July, in a hearing on the Abrego Garcia case, Judge Paula Xinis told the government counsel,
“You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it in my view.”
In a case regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote,
“the Court is left with little confidence that the defense can be trusted to tell the truth about anything.”
Concerning an Executive Order against a law firm, Judge Beryl A Howell wrote that the government’s non-compliance with a temporary restraining order,
“raised some concern about the general presumption by courts ‘that executive officials will act in good faith.’”
When Judge Loren L Alikhan reviewed the rescission of government funds to small businesses and non-profits, she wrote,
“Defendants’ plea for a presumption of good faith rings hollow when their own actions contradict their representations.”
These judicial statements suggest that, at least in some cases, government representations have not met the standards courts expect, raising broader questions about reliability and transparency. Regardless of intent, the repeated misstatements have eroded the courts’ ability to assume good faith in government filings, which poses a risk to the integrity of administrative and judicial processes.
Is there other evidence to support this idea that the administration is contributing to an erosion of confidence through its actions in the judicial system?
The City of Portland has sued the administration for unlawfully attempting to deploy National Guard troops in their city. Government officials initially claimed 115 Federal Protection Service (FPS) officers were ordered to the city between June and September. They claimed that this number represented a quarter of the total FPS force that protects federal facilities. In oral arguments, attorneys for the federal government argued that this major reallocation of FPS officers indicated that the president could not enforce federal law in Portland with regular forces, and was therefore justified in calling up additional National Guard. When the Ninth Circuit was reviewing the case to determine whether the President had authority to call the National Guard to Portland, they relied on that key piece of information in making their decision.
During their discovery of evidence, the city of Portland and the state of Oregon discovered that no more than 31 FPS officers were in Portland at any one time, thereby calling into suspect the government’s allegations. As a result, the DOJ attorney, Andrew Bernie sent a letter to the Ninth Circuit stating,
“We stated in our supplemental brief that ‘it is undisputed that nearly a quarter of the agency’s entire FPS capacity had to be redirected over a relatively short period to a single location in one medium-sized American city due to the unrest there. This statement was incorrect.”
A three day trial in early November is set to determine the legal merits of the deployment of federal troops to Portland.
Three DOJ lawyers are facing bar complaints, raising questions about representations made in court. In a lawsuit filed in July of 2025 challenging the Trump administration’s actions against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the lawyers are accused of falsely assuring U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson that the administration merely meant to streamline the CFPB, or make minor legal adjustments. However evidence suggests that the actual intent was to shut down, or significantly hobble the agency, which is the central issue of the legal challenge.
The Trump administration, in response to rulings by federal judges, has attacked the judiciary. In September, Jeanine Pirro, Interim Attorney for the District of Columbia, stated on X:
“This judge took an oath to follow the law, yet he has allowed his politics to consistently cloud his judgment and his requirement to follow the law. America voted for safe communities, law and order, and this judge is the antithesis of that.”
In response to Judge Xinis’ ruling on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case, Stephen Miller, Whitehouse Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor, posted on X:
“Marxist judge now thinks she’s president of El Salvador.”
In a Truth Social post in March the president stated:
“This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President…This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”
The Constitution provides for three co-equal branches of government: the legislative, executive and judicial branches. These three branches were intended to be the checks to prevent tyranny as experienced under British rule at the time. As reported by The Conversation, according to Michael Gregory, a scholar of legal and political theory, shared his concern about the administration’s attack on the judiciary,
“I believe this kind of talk about judges and the judicial system is not just misleading, it’s dangerous. It mirrors a pattern seen across many populist movements worldwide, where leaders cast independent courts and judges as illegitimate obstacles to what they see as the will of the people.”
He goes on to say,
“By confusing the idea that the people’s will must prevail with what the law actually says, these leaders justify intimidating judges and their sound legal rulings, a move that ultimately undermines democracy.”
I have observed this administration’s willingness to distort facts. I have seen a decline in reliability and transparency that has contributed to a reduction in the presumption of regularity normally afforded to past administrations. I have also witnessed its public attacks on the judiciary. Collectively, these incidents reveal a growing strain on the norms of transparency and good faith that have long underpinned the judiciary’s trust in executive representations — a strain that, if left unchecked, could reshape the balance between the branches of government.