Norman Eisen, the former White House ethics czar who has been coordinating legal challenges against the Trump administration, declared Friday a landmark day for democracy after courts handed him back-to-back wins on two of the most high-profile cases in his portfolio.
In a Substack post titled "Contrarians Strike Two Mighty Blows Against Trump," Eisen described the victories as among the biggest in his organization's more than 300 active legal cases and matters.
The first came in the Kennedy Center case, where a federal judge blocked the administration's attempt to close the venue for renovations and ordered Donald Trump's name stripped from the building and its official title within two weeks. The court ruled that only Congress has the power to change the name of the national cultural landmark. Eisen helped argue the case alongside Democracy Defenders Action, the Washington Litigation Group, and Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, the lead plaintiff.
The second win came in Florida, where Judge Kathleen Williams reopened Trump's IRS lawsuit after Eisen and his partners filed a motion on behalf of 35 bipartisan former federal judges. The judges argued that Trump's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization settlement was a fraud on the court, used to funnel taxpayer money to political allies while shielding Trump, his sons, and his businesses from future prosecution. Williams launched a formal investigation into whether the court had been deceived.
Eisen noted that additional courts were also moving against the fund. A judge in the Eastern District of Virginia entered a temporary restraining order blocking the $1.8 billion fund from operating while the case is argued, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed for similar emergency relief in D.C. federal court.
"I don't think I have ever had two of my cases as the top two stories on both The New York Times and The Washington Post websites," Eisen wrote in the Substack piece, "but that happened Friday because these two wins were good news for democracy."
