US states say Trump illegally appointed Elon Musk to head DOGE, Texas judge fines NY doctor for prescribing abortion pills and more ??

?? Good morning from The Legal File! Here is the rundown of today's top legal news:

?? Trump DOJ's order to drop Eric Adams case sparks mass resignations

Six senior Justice Department officials, including Manhattan's top federal prosecutor, resigned on Feb. 13 rather than comply with an order to dismiss corruption charges against New York City's mayor, according to internal Justice Department letters seen by Reuters and people familiar with the matter.?

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, the Trump administration's recent pick to temporarily lead the office prosecuting New York Mayor?Eric Adams, resigned from her post on Feb. 13, according to the memorandum by Deputy Attorney General?Emil Bove, a Trump appointee.

Sassoon said in a letter seen by Reuters that she had been prepared to seek a new indictment accusing Adams of destroying evidence and directing others to do so.?

The departures mark a sign of resistance from career Justice Department officials to President Donald Trump's efforts to overhaul the agency to end what he calls its weaponization against political opponents. Critics say Trump's changes threaten to subject criminal prosecutions to political whims.

In his Feb. 13 memo, Bove wrote that Sassoon had refused to comply with what he called his office's finding that the case against Adams amounted to "weaponization" of the justice system.

"Your office has no authority to contest the weaponization finding," wrote Bove, Trump's former personal criminal defense lawyer. "The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination."

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?? US states say Trump illegally appointed Elon Musk to head DOGE

A group of state AGs have sued to stop?Elon Musk’s?efforts to cut government spending, alleging that the billionaire?Tesla?CEO was given “unchecked legal authority” by?President Donald Trump and without approval from Congress,

Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or?DOGE, have been hit with several privacy lawsuits over their access to government computer systems. The new lawsuit from the attorneys general of New Mexico and 13 other states goes a step further by alleging Musk was illegally appointed and seeking an order barring him from taking any further government action.

"Oblivious to the threat this poses to the nation, President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities," the states said, calling Musk an "agent of chaos" in the government.

Meanwhile, two federal judges?who are overseeing ongoing privacy cases against DOGE will consider today?whether the agency can have access to?Treasury Department?payment systems and potentially sensitive data at U.S. health, consumer protection and labor agencies.?

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?? Trump's order curtailing US birthright citizenship blocked by 4th judge

U.S. President Donald Trump's effort to curtail automatic birthright citizenship as part of his hardline immigration crackdown suffered a further setback on Feb. 13 as a fourth judge declared it unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston at the behest of immigrant rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 18 states and the District of Columbia issued a nationwide injunction, blocking implementation of an executive order Trump signed on his first day back in office on Jan. 20.

The Republican president's order directed U.S. agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States after Feb. 19 if neither their mother nor father is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.

But Sorokin, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, said Trump's order violated a right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment that guarantees that virtually anyone born in the United States is a citizen.

Sorokin said the administration's position disregarded that the 14th Amendment's original purpose was "to recognize as birthright citizens the children of enslaved persons who did not enter the country consensually, but were brought to our shores in chains."

"Simply put, the Amendment is the Nation’s consent to accept and protect as citizens those born here, subject to the few narrow exceptions recognized at the time of enactment, none of which are at issue here," Sorokin wrote.

The preliminary injunction he issued created an extra legal barrier for Trump's order to take effect, after federal judges in Maryland, Washington state and New Hampshire similarly blocked the order's enforcement.

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?? Texas judge fines NY doctor at least $100,000 for prescribing abortion pills

A Texas state judge on Feb. 13 ordered a New York doctor to pay a penalty of at least $100,000 and stop providing abortion pills to women in Texas, in a win for the state's Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton.

The case is an early test of conservative states’ power to prosecute doctors outside their borders and stop abortion medication from reaching their residents, and the ability of states that support abortion rights to shield providers from such prosecutions.

Judge Bryan Gantt in Collin County, Texas, entered a default judgment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter, of New Paltz, New York, after she failed to respond to the state’s civil lawsuit alleging she illegally prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol, the two drugs used in medication abortion, to a Texas woman via telemedicine.

Carpenter has also been indicted by a Louisiana grand jury for prescribing an abortion pill that was taken by a teenager there, in what appeared to be the first time a state criminally charged a doctor in another state for prescribing abortion drugs.

New York is among the Democratic-led states that have passed so-called shield laws aiming to protect doctors who provide abortion pills to patients in other states. The law says New York will not cooperate with another state's effort to prosecute, sue or otherwise penalize a doctor for providing the pills, as long as the doctor complies with New York law.

In the Texas lawsuit against Carpenter, which appeared to be the first of its kind, Paxton’s office alleged the doctor violated the state's abortion law and its occupational licensing law by practicing medicine in the state despite not being licensed there.

Read more.

?? That's all for today, thank you for reading The Legal File, and have a great weekend!

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