SEC plans to cut regional directors, DOGE blocked from accessing Education Dept data, and another judge who ruled against Trump faces impeachment bid
Reuters Legal
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?? Good morning from The Legal File! Here is the rundown of today's top legal news:
??US SEC plans to cut regional directors as agency prepares for DOGE scrutiny, sources say
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission plans to remove the top leaders at regional offices across the country as part of its cost-cutting recommendations to the Trump administration, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The SEC on Feb. 21 told directors across its 10 regional offices that their roles will be eliminated as part of the plan the agency submits next month, the sources told Reuters.
The plan is the latest in a series of changes at the top U.S. markets regulator since Republicans took the helm at the commission and is part of a broader effort by Republican President Donald Trump, alongside special adviser and billionaire Elon Musk, to purge the federal workforce.
The SEC, which oversees the more than $100 trillion U.S. capital markets, is under pressure from Republican President Donald Trump to fire staff and slash costs. Agency leaders have been told to submit recommendations for steep cuts to the administration.
??US judge blocks Musk's DOGE team from accessing Education Department, OPM data
A federal judge on Feb. 24 blocked the government downsizing team created by President Donald Trump and spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk from accessing sensitive data maintained by the U.S. Education Department and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland issued the temporary restraining order at the behest of a coalition of labor unions who argued the agencies wrongly granted Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to records containing personal information on millions of Americans.
The judge said the plaintiffs had established that both agencies had likely violated federal law by granting DOGE 'sweeping access' to sensitive personal information in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974.
That information included Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, income and assets, citizenship status and disability status for current and former federal employees and student aid recipients.
??? US Supreme Court grants Oklahoma death row inmate Glossip new trial
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 25 in favor of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip in his bid to challenge his conviction for a 1997 murder-for-hire plot and granted him a new trial.
The justices reversed a lower court's decision that had upheld Glossip's conviction and had allowed his planned execution to move forward despite his claim that prosecutors wrongly withheld evidence that could help his defense.
During Oct. 9 arguments in the case, the justices probed whether an Oklahoma court properly weighed newly revealed information that Glossip's lawyers said would have aided his defense and which the state's Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, called wrongly withheld by prosecutors. Drummond, a Republican, supported Glossip's appeal.
Glossip's lawyers asked the justices to throw out his conviction and grant him a new trial after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his death sentence despite potentially exculpatory evidence being found in an independent investigation ordered last year by Drummond.
Glossip was convicted of commissioning the murder of Barry Van Treese, owner of the Best Budget Inn motel in Oklahoma City where Glossip was a manager. All parties agree Van Treese was fatally beaten with a baseball bat by maintenance worker Justin Sneed. Sneed confessed to the murder but avoided capital punishment by accepting a plea deal that involved testifying that Glossip paid him $10,000 to do it.
??Second US judge who ruled against Trump faces Republican impeachment bid
A second federal judge is facing a long-shot bid by a Republican lawmaker to have him impeached as conservative members of the U.S. House of Representatives ramp up public criticism of judges who rule against U.S. President Donald Trump's agenda.
Republican U.S. Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee on Feb. 24 said he filed a resolution seeking to have U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C., removed from office after he ordered the Trump administration to restore government health websites that were taken offline in response to an executive order requiring the removal of 'gender ideology extremism.'
Ogles' impeachment measure argued that Bates failed to consider that the webpages at issue maintained information about gender-affirming care and that the 'continued socialization of this grave moral evil necessitates immediate action against those who would promote it.'
The U.S. Constitution provides that the grounds for impeachment are treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
?? That's all for today, thank you for reading The Legal File, and have a great day!
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