Lawfare News

The Daily Signal covers the rise of lawfare in America, examining how legal institutions are used to target political opponents, influence elections, and shape public policy. Reporting includes expert commentary, case analysis, and constitutional perspectives on fairness and due process.
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    • Opinion

    Climate Lawfare Suffers Major Defeat at the Supreme Court

    The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously struck down a bizarre effort at climate lawfare, which aimed to penalize Chevron for its role in boosting the U.S. war effort against the Nazis and Imperial Japan in World War II. The ruling is good news for sanity, but it also sets an important precedent for the Left’s…
    Tyler O’Neil
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    • Opinion

    The Supreme Court’s Golden Opportunity to Eviscerate Climate Lawfare

    Climate alarmism has lost at the ballot box time and time again, and last year, even Bill Gates significantly dialed down his support for it. However, enterprising lawyers on the Left are still trying to smuggle in an effective carbon tax through the courts—and the Supreme Court should put an end to it. It works…
    Tyler O’Neil
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    • News

    How Liberal Lawfare Actors Spearheaded Case That Got Trump-Appointed Prosecutor Disqualified

    A three-judge panel disqualified President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer as the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, in a case pushed by the head of a liberal lawfare group, and by Hunter Biden’s former lawyer. The panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit determined Monday that Alina Habba’s appointment violated…
    Fred Lucas
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    • News

    Teachers Union Anti-Trump Lawfare Cases Have Little Connection to K-12 Public School Education

    After President Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term in January, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten asserted she was “really sad” about the inaugural speech.  “Rather than unifying people and building on America’s best qualities, Trump delivered a speech that was laden with divisiveness, showing that he is the president of…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    Local Climate Lawfare Is Undermining US Foreign Policy and National Security

    Lawfare has grown to be a huge problem. If a set of activists cannot win an election or get a favorable bill passed, they find and run to a sympathetic court. An additional emerging form of lawfare has now taken root in America: local governments and states suing domestic energy producers over their alleged role in climate change….
    Steven Bucci
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    • Opinion

    Arizona’s Attorney General Wages Lawfare on Families

    Arizona is one of the nation’s leading states in offering families education choice—and families are loving it. Three out of four parents support the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program, which enables families to choose the learning environments that work best for their children. Parents can use these funds to pay for private school tuition, tutoring,…
    Jason Bedrick
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    • News

    ‘This Is Lawfare’: AGs Draw Attention to Leftist Group Training Judges to Push Climate Alarmism

    Twenty-three Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, demanding the EPA investigate funding for the Environmental Law Institute, which the AGs said attempts to “rig the courts” against American energy. The EPA confirmed receipt and reiterated Zeldin’s dedication to cutting down on wasteful spending from the previous administration….
    Tyler O’Neil
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    • News

    EXCLUSIVE: How Marc Elias Group Used States to Ramp-Up Anti-Trump Lawfare

    A litigation group run by veteran Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias helped coordinate legal challenges from California and Illinois to stop President Donald Trump’s agenda.  Democracy Forward, where Elias is chairman, coordinated an online conference with lawyers working for the California and Illinois state attorneys general offices to challenge executive orders from Trump, according to…
    Fred Lucas
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    • News

    Ex-DOJ Lawyers Join DNC, Left’s Lawfare Against Trump

    Media accounts have cast departing Justice Department lawyers as principled nonpartisan civil servants too conscientious to serve a politicized Trump administration. But several of these lawyers have taken up very political roles after they’ve left the department.  Dan Freeman, the litigation director for the Democratic National Committee, touted his time in the Justice Department in…
    Fred Lucas
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  • Convicted Democrat Ex-Sen. Menendez Accuses Party of Lawfare

    Convicted former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., took to X on Friday to accuse his party of weaponizing justice and unfairly ousting him from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in order to advance its political goals. Menendez, 71, resigned from the Senate in 2024 after being sentenced on Jan. 29 to 11 years in prison for…
    George Caldwell
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  • Europe’s Embrace of Lawfare Threatens Its Alliance with the US

    President Donald Trump’s election was greeted in Europe with outright fear by parties of the Left and wary apprehension by the center-right but with open elation by a resurgent sovereigntist Right. Now the Left and the center are regrouping and coming up with a strategy to rein in the surging populists. It should surprise no one that this strategy…
    Mike Gonzalez
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  • EXCLUSIVE: Republican Lawmakers Look to Codify Trump Policy to End Leftist Lawfare

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—When courts issue wrongful injunctions, taxpayers are often left paying for the damage done to their own government. But Reps. Derek Schmidt, R-Kan., and Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., are introducing a bill on Monday that aims to shift that burden from taxpayers to the plaintiffs seeking these injunctions, forcing the courts to…
    Bradley Devlin
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  • Texas Legislature Considering Change to Law That Could Increase Lawfare

    A handful of laws are making their way through the Texas Legislature that could exacerbate the use of malicious lawfare to silence unwanted speech. Texas passed the so-called Texas Citizens Participation Act in 2011. This was one of many laws in states around the country designed to curtail what’s called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or…
    Jarrett Stepman
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  • Trump Moves to Stop ‘Climate Lawfare’ Driving Up Energy Costs, Endangering US Energy Dominance

    President Donald Trump’s critics are right about one thing: The first few months of his second term have been a reckoning. Starting with the federal government’s pursuit of law firms and organizations that committed lawfare against the president to hobble his political comeback, Trump has now supercharged executive authority to stop the flood of ideologically based lawsuits…
    Yaël Ossowski
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  • Trump Order Would Force the ACLU to Put Its Money Where Its Mouth Is on Lawfare

    What if I told you that when federal district judges issue injunctions blocking President Donald Trump’s policies in a judicial insurrection, they were the ones breaking the law? No, it’s not just because these judges are effectively usurping the authority of the president over the executive branch. It’s more clear-cut than that. When Chief Judge…
    Tyler O’Neil
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  • Lawfare Isn’t Beaten—in France or America

    Elections are supposed to be decided at the ballot box, not in the courtroom—unless you’re French or, in this country, a liberal. What a judge in France has just done by disqualifying Marine Le Pen from running in that nation’s next presidential election is what Democrats dream of doing here. The controversial populist was ahead…
    Daniel McCarthy
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  • It’s All Lawfare: Everyone but the Cronies Get Cheated, Mistreated by Big Government

    Not to get all Old World on you, but the Oxford Dictionary defines “lawfare” thusly: “Legal action undertaken in order to exert power or control, esp. as part of a hostile campaign against a particular country or group.” In New World parlance? Author Malcolm Feeley in 1979 published a tome with a title that best…
    Seton Motley
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  • Euro-Lawfare? France Bans Nationalist Candidate From Running for Office

    A French court banned the leader of France’s conservative nationalist party—Marine Le Pen—from running for public office for the next five years after her embezzlement conviction.  Le Pen lost the 2022 French presidential election to current President Emmanuel Macron. The sentence, which also includes a partially suspended four-year prison sentence, disqualifies her from running for…
    Fred Lucas
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  • Trump Racking Up Important Legal Victories as Left’s Lawfare Ramps Up

    The Left couldn’t defeat President Donald Trump at the ballot box. Now, their only hope seems to be defeating him at the courthouse. More than 130 cases have been filed against the Trump administration since Trump’s return to office just two months ago. With the help of activist federal judges, the Left’s large-scale lawfare operation…
    Bradley Devlin
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  • DOJ Reviewing Lawfare Case of Colorado Election Clerk Tina Peters

    The Department of Justice announced in a March 3 court filing that it will conduct a “review” of Colorado’s prosecution of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County election clerk convicted in connection with her efforts to prove election software had been tampered with in the 2020 election.  Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser is none too…
    Al Perrotta
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