Last night, the federal district court in New York (SDNY) issued a temporary restraining order in State of New York et al. v. Donald J Trump et al., a lawsuit filed by the AGs of 19 States against Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The suit (and a separate lawsuit filed by Public Citizen in D.D.C.) challenges one of the more outrageous actions taken by President Trump in his first three weeks: granting Elon Musk and members of the "Department of Government Efficiency" - private citizens, all - full access to the Treasury Department's main payment system, the one through which virtually all of the $6 trillion or so disbursed by the federal government each year - to bondholders, social security recipients, NIH grantees, Medicare providers, university laboratories and hospitals, military contractors, armed services personnel, etc. - is channeled.
Is anyone not riled up about this? The President simply picks one of his cronies - one who just happened to have contributed tens of millions of dollars to his successful campaign for office - and says "Go at it"? Can he really do that? Lawfully?
