In the grand landscape of “resistance” litigation thrown at the Trump administration, this case might not grab the biggest headlines — but it’s still another win chalked up for the administration, courtesy of the Supreme Court’s Monday order list.
Here’s the setup:
Todd Harper, a member of the National Credit Union Administration Board, decided to sue after being removed from his position. He went after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, President Donald Trump, and several administration officials, claiming his ouster was unlawful.
Back in July, D.C. District Judge Amir Ali handed Harper a victory, granting summary judgment in his favor. But the Trump administration wasn’t having it. They appealed — and in August, the D.C. Circuit stepped in and put Judge Ali’s ruling on ice with a stay pending appeal.
Harper then tried to leapfrog the process and asked the Supreme Court to intervene directly, filing a petition for certiorari in September.
We’re all used to the screaming headlines when the Supreme Court hands down a major ruling or drops an emergency-docket order. But what most people don’t realize is that the Court quietly moves a lot of business through its Monday order lists — the routine, nuts-and-bolts housekeeping that rarely gets mainstream attention.
As the Court itself notes, “Regularly scheduled lists of orders are issued on each Monday that the Court sits.” These lists can run several pages and include everything from administrative housekeeping to decisions on whether the justices will take up certain cases. Sometimes they even contain unsigned per curiam opinions or separate statements and dissents from individual justices.
So, Monday’s list included this snippet as to the Harper case:
25-367 HARPER, TODD M., ET AL. V. BESSENT, SEC. TREASURY, ET AL. The petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment is denied.
My first reaction was surprise — after all, the Trump administration has racked up a strong track record at the Supreme Court, and there are already similar cases about removing independent agency heads on the Court’s docket with oral arguments coming soon. But then it clicked: this petition for certiorari wasn’t filed by the administration. It was filed by Harper, trying to get the Supreme Court to bail him out after the D.C. Circuit put the lower court’s ruling on hold.
Once you see that, it’s obvious what this is: Yet another win for the Trump administration and another major defeat for Democrats who are trying to block anything and everything Trump does, especially when it comes to their appointees and federal employee unions.
A quiet win, sure — but a win nonetheless. And not a bad way to kick off the week.
