The Daily Docket

A newsletter by Reuters and Westlaw

By Diana Novak Jones, Mike Scarcella and Sara Merken

Good morning. Here are some of the major stories driving the day. Coalitions of Democratic states’ attorneys general are seeking to defend Biden administration policies as Donald Trump returns to the White House. Plus, Rudy Giuliani’s settlement with two Georgia election workers allows him to keep his property; a top official overseeing the DOJ’s fraud and appeals sections will exit the department; and U.S. Supreme Court advocate Tom Goldstein was charged with tax crimes. Happy Friday. Thanks for reading.

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Democratic states brace for Trump by launching defense of Biden policies

REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Attorneys general from Democratic states launched a legal bid this week to defend Biden administration policies on immigration, the environment and guns, just days before Donald Trump takes office, our colleague Tom Hals reports.

Attorneys general from a dozen states that include California, New Jersey and Michigan, asked a federal judge to let them take on the role of defending a Biden rule providing health insurance to immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Similar coalitions of AGs moved to intervene in cases to defend Biden rules related to the environment, gun dealers and devices known as "forced reset triggers" that allow firearms to fire more rapidly.

Coalitions of state attorneys general have emerged over the past decade, using the courts to thwart federal government policies in areas ranging from healthcare to energy and financial regulation.

More top news

The buzz

At least 36 judges and employees in federal and state courts have lost their homes during the massive wildfires that have ravaged parts of Los Angeles and leveled entire neighborhoods, according to court officials.
Lawyers for a group of U.S. home sellers in Missouri have accused real estate broker eXp World Holdings of negotiating a lowball settlement in a Georgia antitrust lawsuit in order to head off a potentially bigger nationwide class action payout in their own case.
AI startup Eve raised $47 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz to continue building its AI platform for plaintiffs' lawyers, in the latest capital raise for companies targeting that segment of the legal market.

"Remember who you are, and why you came to work here in the first place."

—U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, preparing to step down from his post, in a farewell address urging career civil servants at the DOJ not to let unfair criticism prevent them from doing what is right for the country. Read more from Garland’s address.

Our weekend reading

Coming up today

A D.C. Circuit panel will hear arguments over New York derivatives trading platform KalshiEX listing contracts that allow Americans to bet on election outcomes. In a setback for regulators, the appeals court in October declined to put on hold a lower judge’s order that backed KalshiEX.
In Pittsburgh, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Horan will hold a status conference in the lawsuit U.S. Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel filed against rival Cleveland-Cliffs. Cleveland-Cliffs illegally tried to scuttle a deal between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel, the lawsuit alleged. The plaintiffs also separately have sued the Biden administration over its decision to block the merger.
Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Shelby in Utah will weigh a request to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of misrepresenting how donations would be spent. The plaintiffs contend the church “secreted tens of billions of donated dollars into an undisclosed fund.”
Google and lawyers for the DOJ will meet with U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in D.C. for a status conference in the government’s web search antitrust lawsuit. The two sides are preparing to clash over proposed reforms to address Mehta’s ruling that Google unlawfully dominates online search.

Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.