Judge Didn’t Even Read Final Complaint Before Enjoining Trump

New York federal Judge Paul Engelmayer’s temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s access to Treasury documents happened so fast it’s unlikely he carefully read the case filings. The filings from the 19 suing Democrat state attorneys generals were so voluminous, and Engelmayer’s order was entered so quickly, that it could not possibly have been the product of reasoned judicial analysis and reflection.  The stench is so bad, questions of possible corruption must be answered.

Engelmayer is the first judge ever to grant a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the president of the United States that also forbids a cabinet secretary from accessing his own records without giving these parties an opportunity to respond. He offered zero analysis of his constitutional authority to make such a radical ruling, the federal rule governing injunctions and temporary restraining orders, or why he is enabling fraud and grift by blocking access to records that show who got government money and for what.

The next court hearing scheduled in this case is Feb. 14. I wrote an earlier article focused on some of the procedural defects in the plaintiff states’ request for a TRO and Engelmayer’s order keeping Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk, from investigating federal payments. New information shows the situation was much worse than suggested by my earlier observation that “Engelmayer’s Order was a very rushed, put-up job.”

As I wrote earlier, “After Engelmayer got the States’ Complaint and related filings on Friday night, he wasted no time in ruling on the application for a TRO. In a feat of seeming super-human efficiency and concentration, he must somehow have reviewed and diligently analyzed the 80+ pages of the Complaint and the Memorandum of Law, carefully read at least some of the 100+ court opinions, articles and other sources cited by the Plaintiffs, and concentrated on it all very carefully before entering his unprecedented Order granting the request for a TRO.”

The situation is actually worse than that. Here’s the timeline of the court filings. All these initial documents were filed by New York Special Trial Counsel Colleen Faherty.

Friday, February 7

7:32 p.m. — Faherty sent an email to two government lawyers advising them “of the States [sic] concerns about Defendants’ harmful conduct and the States [sic] intent to seek immediate temporary relief.”

7:39 p.m. — Seven minutes later, Faherty “filed” a 200-plus paragraph, 60-page “Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief,” which included an “emergency” request for a TRO. The court immediately filed it as “Filing Error – Deficient Pleading.”

This was a technical error in the way the complaint was filed in the court’s electronic filing system. Nevertheless, the filing was defective, and Faherty was directed to re-file the complaint.

10:09 p.m. — Faherty filed a “Proposed Order” for the judge to see what she wanted the TRO to say.

10:13 p.m. — The coalition of Democrat attorneys general filed a 40-page legal memorandum in support of the requested TRO. It included more than 27 pages of discussion and citations to 54 court opinions.

10:15 p.m. — The court received an “affirmation of Colleen K. Faherty” that affirmed she had sent the 7:32 p.m. e-mail to the government lawyers.

Saturday, February 8

12:39 a.m. — Judge Engelmayer entered his order granting the TRO.

1:04 a.m. — Faherty e-mailed four items — the complaint, the legal memorandum, her prior affirmation, and the order granting the TRO — to two government lawyers, only one of whom had been a recipient of her 7:32 p.m. email.

1:14 a.m. — The complaint was refiled with the deficiency corrected. Note that a properly filed complaint was not filed until more than a half-hour after Judge Engelmayer had already entered his order.

5:48 p.m. — This is when Faherty’s certification arrived that, at 1:04 a.m., she had emailed the above documents to the government lawyers.

As I pointed out in my initial article, “Anyone attempting to read the suit and materials submitted with it would be faced with a monumental task, even if they had help. The Complaint runs to 200-plus paragraphs in almost 60 pages. In the complaint alone, the plaintiffs cited more than 50 articles and other sources that they thought were of sufficient importance to include in it. It was accompanied by a 40-page legal Memorandum that includes more than 27 pages of discussion, and citations to 54 court opinions.”

The accelerated timeline is simply incredible, especially in view of the voluminous materials that any diligent judge would analyze to render a proper opinion. And I mean “incredible” in its literal sense of “not to be believed.”

The last documents filed in support of the request for a TRO were at 10:13 and 10:15 p.m. These included the legal memorandum with its citation to 54 court opinions. Did Engelmayer read these? Not a chance. Did he read any of them? If he did, you can’t tell it from his order, other than one citation from him to a single case that had no resemblance to the case before him.

Even if Engelmayer had received and began to study these materials immediately after he had them all, he spent less than two-and-one-half hours reviewing and analyzing the materials presented to him before entering his order at 12:39 a.m.

That’s not even counting the time it would have taken Engelmeyer to write his order. If he took only a half-hour to do that, he spent less than two hours to peruse the voluminous record and then begin to write his order. He could not possibly have considered more than a small fraction of the cited cases and other authorities in that time. It raises the question of how much of this order was AI-generated.

Aside from these other filings, Engelmayer only had the complaint for five hours, even assuming that he got it promptly when it was first (improperly) filed. The complaint was not properly filed until after he had already entered his order.

Five hours was not even enough time to thoroughly review and analyze solely the 60-page complaint, not to mention the authorities and sources it cites. It was not enough time, that is, for an honest judge trying to discharge his duty to render a reasoned and impartial opinion.

Any judge I ever knew would have thought long and hard before even coming close to joining in such an effort to thwart the president of the United States in his efforts to control the spending that is speeding the nation toward a fiscal cliff. With these charlatans, however, that is too much to hope for.

It simply is not believable that Engelmayer’s order was an honest or competent piece of work. The timeline drives us toward the conclusion that the fix was in, and this outcome was predetermined.

I will never again be surprised by anything these people do. All rules, all the so-called guiderails, are gone. Democrats are determined to bring down Trump and his presidency, no matter what the cost to the nation. Congress must investigate this travesty to determine if Engelmayer’s impeachment is warranted.

A version of this article was originally published on the author’s Substack, “Bravo Blue.”

John A. Lucas is a retired attorney who has tried and argued a variety of cases, including before the U. S. Supreme Court. Before entering law school at the University of Texas, he served in the Army Special Forces as an enlisted man, later graduating from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969. He is an Army Ranger who fought in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader. He is married with five children. He and his wife now live in Virginia. John also is published at johnalucas6.substack.com.