Trump loss in voter rolls case

Good morning!

A federal judge handed the Trump administration a big loss in court Wednesday by declaring it cannot force New Jersey to hand over its unredacted list of registered voters.

The ruling comes at a particularly newsy time for New Jersey on this front, with Gov. Mikie Sherrill announcing last week that thousands of noncitizens were added to the voter rolls because of what she has called a software error.

The Trump administration had said this revelation strengthened its case for getting its hands on the voter list but the judge, Zahid Quraishi, dispatched that idea in a footnote.

“Whether DOJ is acting in good faith is not relevant to this court’s analysis and has no bearing on whether plaintiff is entitled to the information it seeks,” he wrote.

Quraishi is not only a Biden appointee, he’s a judge who has clashed with Trump administration prosecutors in court over the last year, including recently when he demanded a trio of prosecutors who had been running the U.S. Attorney’s Office testify under oath in front of him about the unusual leadership structure of that office. Soon after that order, and before the three testified, the Trump administration came to a deal with the district’s federal judges on a new U.S. attorney.

The administration is appealing Wednesday’s ruling. Read more from Nikita Biryukov.

Courts: A New Jersey nurse says in a new legal filing that federal immigration agents “violently attacked” her during a melee outside Newark migrant jail Delaney Hall on Memorial Day. That day saw dramatic clashes between protesters outside the jail and agents, who used rubber bullets and pepper balls on the crowd. The nurse says she was trying to help a woman she saw being dragged by agents when they shoved her, leading to injuries. The filing is one of dozens filed by the ACLU nationwide.

Environment: A nonprofit that advocates for endangered species wants New Jersey environmental officials to declare a Cape May County biomedical company in violation of a longstanding moratorium on harvesting horseshoe crabs. The petition comes as the population of horseshoe crabs has plummeted globally partly due to overharvesting.

D.C.: Yesterday was a drama-filled one in our nation’s capital, with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped lead the nation’s response to the COVID-19 crisis under the first Trump administration, refusing to answer questions during a confrontational U.S. Senate hearing. Fauci said Sen. Rand Paul’s “unhinged obsession” with him made it clear that Paul wanted Fauci to say something that would lead to criminal charges against him. Though President Biden issued Fauci a wide-ranging pardon, Paul noted it would not include any statements Fauci made to Congress since Trump regained the White House last year.  “A pardon may protect a person from criminal prosecution. It doesn’t rewrite history,” Paul said. “It does not erase documents. It does not convert a misleading statement into a truthful one.”