While Trump has also signed more executive orders in his first 100 days in office than any president, many of those are facing legal scrutiny and roping the DOJ’s Federal Programs Bench into defending Trump in dozens of high-profile lawsuits. The Trump department’s proactive actions interjecting in Biden-era court cases mark a different avenue down which Trump has been able to push conservative priorities.

Abortion

The Trump DOJ notified a court in Idaho this week that it was dropping a lawsuit brought by the Biden administration that challenged the state’s near-total abortion ban.

The notice came after the Biden DOJ sued Idaho in August 2022, saying the state’s ban conflicted with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a federal law that requires hospitals to provide essential care to anyone who needs it.

Idaho’s abortion ban carves out exceptions for rape and incest and in cases where the mother’s life is at risk. The Biden administration argued that the last exception was too narrow and improperly worked as a deterrent to doctors.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court, but the high court declined to weigh in on the merits of it and instead sent it back to the lower courts to reexamine. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on the case at the end of last year, but a decision was still pending when Trump took office.

The Trump DOJ’s dismissal paves the way for Idaho to enforce its ban fully, and, according to Jake Warner, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, it sets a tone for abortion cases nationwide.

“It’s good news for states all around the country that their pro-life laws will be protected from federal overreach and misinterpreting EMTALA to require emergency room abortions,” Warner told the Washington Examiner.

He said the Trump DOJ’s move “signals that the administration is interpreting EMTALA correctly to allow states to fully protect unborn life except when necessary to protect the mother’s life.”

Despite Trump remaining relatively quiet about abortion restrictions on the campaign trail to the chagrin of anti-abortion advocates, his administration has taken other steps, beyond the Idaho case, to further their causes.

On a smaller scale, the Trump administration changed the DOJ’s position on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits blocking entry to or intimidation toward abortion clinics, anti-abortion pregnancy counseling centers, and churches. The Biden administration aggressively targeted anti-abortion activists who breached the law.

The Trump DOJ dismissed three of those pending cases in January against activists who were accused of using their bodies, locks, and chains to obstruct entrances to abortion clinics. Several of the activists were repeat offenders who have openly signaled they will continue to cause disruptions at abortion facilities, which they often describe as “rescue” missions to save the unborn.

DOJ chief of staff Chad Mizelle said in a memo that such cases could be handled at the state level and that the Biden administration’s heavy-handed applications of the FACE Act were the “prototypical example” of the weaponization of government authority.

Roger Severino, a Heritage Foundation vice president who worked as an attorney in the Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration, told the Washington Examiner that the DOJ’s recent turn “from attacking and jailing people who protect the unborn to pardoning and defending them” is “really an answer to a prayer.”

Severino is now urging the DOJ to restore what he said were “chemical abortion safeguards for women” from Trump’s first administration.

Immigration

The Trump DOJ requested in February that a judge pause court proceedings in a case against Texas over massive lines of buoys the state installed in the Rio Grande in response to surges of illegal migration.

The Biden DOJ brought the lawsuit against Texas in 2023, arguing the bright orange floating barriers violated the Rivers and Harbors Act.

While a lower court initially sided with the Biden administration, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, allowing the state to keep its buoys and directing further proceedings at the district court level. The Trump DOJ’s decision to pause proceedings all but signals the imminent death of the case.

Trump has employed numerous executive branch agencies to retool their priorities to focus on border control and deportations, so its decision not to move forward with challenging the Texas barriers came as expected.

Bolstered by a friendly administration and perhaps in anticipation of the lawsuit’s termination, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) revealed days after Trump took office that his state was installing more buoys.

Transgender matters

The Trump DOJ notified the Supreme Court that it changed its position in United States v. Skrmetti, a case before the high court involving a Tennessee bill that bans transgender medical treatments for minors.

The Biden DOJ petitioned the high court to weigh in on the case in 2023, arguing Tennessee’s law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The Trump DOJ now says it does not.

“The government’s previously stated views no longer represent the United States’ position,” Trump’s deputy solicitor general wrote in a letter to the high court on Feb. 7.

TRUMP DOJ ABANDONS BIDEN-BACKED BID TO MANDATE IDAHO EMERGENCY ABORTIONS

Still, the Trump administration asked that the high court continue with the case because it will “bear on many cases pending in the lower courts.”

A decision is expected by the summer.