'WE DISAGREE' — Supreme Court Drops Blockbuster 9-0 Ruling
Supreme Court Sides With Trump Admin With Unanimous Ruling
The Supreme Court of the United States handed the Trump administration a legal victory this week by throwing out a federal appeals court ruling that had revived a dispute over public speaking restrictions for immigration judges.
In an unsigned order, the justices reversed a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
They reinstated a lower-court ruling dismissing a lawsuit filed by the National Association of Immigration Judges.
The case centered on a Justice Department policy requiring immigration judges to obtain approval before participating in certain public speaking engagements deemed “official” in nature.
The policy requires immigration judges to obtain approval before participating in “official” speaking engagements, including presentations at immigration conferences or pro bono legal training events.
According to court records, judges are still permitted to give speeches in a personal capacity so long as the topics are not directly connected to immigration matters.
The National Association of Immigration Judges challenged the policy in federal court in Alexandria, arguing it violated the First Amendment by restricting judges from expressing private opinions about immigration policy or the agency employing them.
But U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, a Clinton appointee serving the Eastern District of Virginia, dismissed the lawsuit, pointing to the Civil Service Reform Act.
Brinkema concluded that Congress intended claims like those brought by the judges’ association to be handled through that specialized review system instead of traditional lawsuits in federal court.
The 4th Circuit later revived the lawsuit and sent it back to the district court, raising concerns about whether the review framework created under the Civil Service Reform Act is actually operating the way Congress intended.
The appeals court pointed to two major issues.
First, the Merit Systems Protection Board at one point lacked enough members to function, creating a backlog that critics argued undermined the effectiveness of the system.
Second, the court noted the Trump administration’s constitutional position that the president has the authority to remove members of the MSPB and the Office of Special Counsel at will, a stance that raised broader questions about the independence of the federal employee oversight process.
The administration returned to the Supreme Court, calling the case a “clear candidate for summary reversal,” arguing the 4th Circuit relied on a theory the parties had not raised.
The high court agreed.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, wrote that the 4th Circuit was also wrong regarding the legal issues involved.
This is the second big ruling this week involving Trump.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused once more to hear Trump’s bid to overturn a New York jury’s $5 million finding that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll.
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The justices did not explain their decision to decline to take the case, a standard practice when the high court turns away petitions.
This marks the second time this year the Court has rejected Trump’s effort to erase the civil verdict.
Carroll has delayed collecting the judgment for an extended period while the president pressed his appeals.
Trump’s legal team continues to contest a separate $83.3 million defamation award Carroll won against him in a related case. In that matter, his lawyers argue he is entitled to presidential immunity.
The $5 million verdict stemmed from a jury’s determination in the battery and defamation proceedings that Trump had sexually abused Carroll.
The larger award followed a subsequent defamation trial. Both cases have unfolded against a backdrop of intense political scrutiny and repeated legal challenges from the Trump side.
Trump has consistently denied Carroll’s accusations and maintained that the civil proceedings were politically motivated.
His attorneys have pursued every available avenue to contest the outcomes, including the immunity claim now central to the remaining $83.3 million judgment.
The Supreme Court’s latest refusal leaves the $5 million finding intact for now, clearing a path for Carroll to seek payment after prolonged litigation.
As the president’s lawyers press forward on the remaining judgment, the $5 million verdict stands as a finality the Court has twice declined to disturb.
Back in June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal of a $5 million civil verdict finding him liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the long-running case brought by Carroll.
The denial leaves intact a jury’s 2023 decision from New York federal court, even as the sitting president contends the proceedings represent a politically motivated distraction from his duties leading the nation.
A separate defamation trial produced an $83.3 million award, which remains under appeal and subject to further challenges, including arguments over presidential immunity and the Westfall Act.
Trump DEMANDS King Charles Strip Harry’s Titles — "Glad They Left America!"
DIPLOMATIC TREMORS: TRUMP REVIVES SUSSEX TITLE ATTACK AS UK RETURN REOPENS CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE
Trump’s latest remarks stop short of a new demand to strip Harry and Meghan of their titles. But his 2022 call to do exactly that has returned to the spotlight as the Sussexes settle back in Britain.
WHAT IS VERIFIED
• Trump said on Sept. 2 he was happy the Sussexes left the U.S. and that he would not have taken them back.
• In 2022, Trump explicitly said Queen Elizabeth II should strip their titles.
• Harry and Meghan still officially hold the Duke and Duchess of Sussex peerage titles.
NOT ESTABLISHED BY THE CURRENT RECORD
• Trump did not make a fresh title-removal demand in the Sept. 2 exchange reviewed here.
• Buckingham Palace has not announced a new title review in response to Trump.
• No new Act of Parliament has stripped the Sussex peerages.
WASHINGTON, D.C. & LONDON — Donald Trump has reignited an old transatlantic argument over Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, after welcoming their departure from the United States and sharply criticizing their treatment of the Royal Family.
The language was unmistakably hostile. Speaking to reporters on September 2, 2026, Trump said he was “happy” the couple had left the United States, said he was “not a fan,” and added that if he were part of the Royal Family he would not have accepted them back.
What he did not do, in that exchange, was issue a fresh call for King Charles or Parliament to strip the Sussex peerages.
That distinction matters. The more explosive title-removal demand belongs to an earlier chapter: in an April 2022 interview with Piers Morgan, Trump said Queen Elizabeth II should have told Harry and Meghan that, after stepping away from royal service, they could no longer keep their titles. Asked directly whether he would strip them, Trump answered that he would.
1. THE TRANSATLANTIC BROADSIDE
The renewed controversy comes at a sensitive moment. Harry and Meghan have returned to Britain after years based in California, while remaining non-working members of the Royal Family. Their official Royal Family page still lists Harry as Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel, and Meghan as Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton and Baroness Kilkeel.
Their return does not restore the arrangement they left in 2020. Under the Sandringham settlement, the couple ceased formally representing the monarch and agreed not to use their HRH styles while no longer serving as working royals.
That leaves them in an unusual but legally recognizable position: members of the Royal Family who retain peerage titles but do not carry out official duties for the sovereign.
Trump’s criticism therefore lands on a longstanding political and media fault line. To critics of the Sussexes, continued use of royal titles alongside commercial media activity appears contradictory. To their supporters, the titles remain legally conferred dignities and do not disappear simply because the holders no longer work for the Crown.
2. THE LAW IS LESS DRAMATIC THAN THE HEADLINES
The most important reality check is constitutional.
A foreign president has no formal role in deciding who holds a British peerage. Nor can Buckingham Palace simply erase a dukedom because a political figure abroad objects to it.
The House of Commons Library’s 2026 briefing on the removal of titles states that a peerage once conferred can be removed only by or under the authority of an Act of Parliament. The century-old Titles Deprivation Act 1917 is a famous precedent, but it was a specific wartime statute aimed at peers and princes who supported Britain’s enemies; it is not a standing general power to remove any peerage on demand.
Royal styles are a different category. The Crown has greater prerogative authority over styles such as “Royal Highness,” normally exercised with ministerial advice. That distinction is already relevant to Harry and Meghan because, since 2020, they have retained their Duke and Duchess titles but have not used HRH in their post-royal working lives.
3. PALACE SILENCE — AND WESTMINSTER REALITY
Buckingham Palace has not publicly announced a new review of the Sussex peerages in response to Trump’s latest comments. Nor is there evidence that the President’s September remarks have triggered a formal government bill to remove them.
That does not mean the issue is politically dead. Debate over royal titles has resurfaced repeatedly in Parliament and the British press, particularly when senior royals leave public service or become embroiled in controversy. But any serious effort to remove the Duke of Sussex peerage would move the dispute out of tabloid rhetoric and into legislation.
And that would be a very different fight.
4. THE REALITY CHECK
The current story is therefore less a new constitutional intervention by an American president than a collision between two moments: Trump’s fresh criticism of Harry and Meghan in September 2026, and his much more explicit 2022 view that they should have lost their titles.
The Palace remains silent. The Sussex titles remain in place. Parliament has not stripped them.
For now, the political noise is louder than the constitutional change.
DIPLOMATIC SHUTTLE: WITKOFF AND KUSHNER TAKE MOSCOW'S “NEW IDEAS” TO KYIV AS DONBAS DEADLOCK HOLDS
Trump’s envoys made their first official visit to Kyiv on September 6 after more than three hours with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The talks produced no announced breakthrough, but reopened a channel that could lead to new U.S.-mediated negotiations — with Ukraine’s air defence, security guarantees and the future of Donbas still at the centre of the fight.
KYIV / WASHINGTON • 6–7 SEPTEMBER 2026 • Verification cut-off: 7 September 2026 (ICT)
KYIV — The Trump administration has launched one of its most visible diplomatic pushes on Ukraine in months, sending Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner directly from Moscow to Kyiv for back-to-back talks with the two sides of Europe’s largest war.
KEY TIMELINE
4 Sep 2026
Zelenskyy publicly confirms that Witkoff and Kushner will travel to Moscow and then Kyiv.
5 Sep 2026
The U.S. envoys hold more than three hours of talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow; no breakthrough is announced.
6 Sep 2026
Witkoff and Kushner meet Zelenskyy in Kyiv; British, French and German national security advisers join part of the talks.
1. THE TRIGGER: MOSCOW FIRST, KYIV NEXT
On September 5, 2026, Witkoff and Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow for more than three hours. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov called the session “highly useful,” while a White House official told Reuters that substantive plans for next steps had been discussed and that further announcements could come in the following weeks.
A day later, the pair arrived in Kyiv and met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Reuters and AP reported that this was their first visit to the Ukrainian capital in their capacity as U.S. peace negotiators. Witkoff said the Moscow session had produced “new ideas,” but neither he nor Kushner publicly detailed them.
The Kyiv agenda was broader than a ceasefire headline. Zelenskyy said the discussions covered Patriot air-defence needs, energy support for the approaching winter, long-term security and economic guarantees, and a post-war prosperity plan.
2. THE CONFRONTATION: DONBAS REMAINS THE HARD WALL
The political collision is still territory. Russia has demanded Ukrainian withdrawal from areas of Donbas that Kyiv continues to hold, while Ukraine has refused to surrender land it believes its forces can defend. Zelenskyy described Donbas on Sunday as central to the war and said the most difficult territorial questions would have to be resolved at leader level.
That makes the current shuttle diplomacy consequential but fragile. A pause in fighting without enforceable guarantees is deeply sensitive in Kyiv, where officials have repeatedly argued that any settlement must prevent Russia from using a ceasefire to prepare another attack.
European involvement also matters. British, French and German national security advisers joined the final hour of the Kyiv discussions, according to Reuters, undercutting the idea that the talks were purely bilateral or conducted entirely outside Europe.
3. WHY IT MATTERS
The visit reactivates a negotiating track that had produced limited results despite months of U.S. pressure. It also comes as long-range strikes have intensified and Ukraine is preparing for another winter of attacks on its energy system.
For Washington, the immediate test is whether “new ideas” from Moscow can be turned into a format Kyiv and European partners will negotiate rather than reject. For Ukraine, the test is whether U.S. diplomacy can deliver security architecture strong enough to make any ceasefire durable.
There is also a timing problem. Zelenskyy has said he sees a window before U.S. political attention increasingly shifts toward the 2028 presidential cycle.
4. THE REALITY CHECK
WHAT IS VERIFIED
Witkoff and Kushner met Putin in Moscow on September 5 and Zelenskyy in Kyiv on September 6. The Kyiv talks included air defence, winter energy support, security and economic guarantees, reconstruction planning and territorial issues. European national security advisers from Britain, France and Germany participated in part of the talks.
WHAT IS NOT ESTABLISHED
No authoritative public source reviewed for this article confirms that the U.S. delegation formally presented demilitarized buffer-zone boundaries or a specific frontline-monitoring map. The public record also does not establish that congressional oversight committees have scheduled inquiries into the envoys’ diplomatic authority.
The original description of the Kyiv arrival as “unannounced” is also inaccurate: Zelenskyy publicly confirmed the planned Moscow-then-Kyiv itinerary on September 4.
5. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Witkoff said he hoped a new round of U.S.-mediated Ukraine-Russia talks would be announced soon. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready for trilateral talks, and AP reported that the sides agreed on a follow-up meeting involving Ukraine, the United States and Europe, with the venue still unsettled.
That is the next measurable test. Until a date, format and negotiating text are published, the mission should be viewed as a reopened diplomatic channel — not as a ceasefire agreement, territorial settlement or frozen-conflict deal.
VERIFICATION & SOURCE NOTES
Priority was given to contemporaneous wire reporting and official records. Hyperlinks below were checked against the claims used in this article.
• Reuters — 6 Sep 2026 — US envoys hope for new Ukraine-Russia talks soon after visits to both capitals. Confirms Kyiv visit, three-hour Moscow meeting, “new ideas,” security/economic guarantees, prosperity plan, E3 advisers and Donbas dispute.
• Associated Press — 6 Sep 2026 — US envoys Witkoff and Kushner hold talks in Ukraine after meeting with Putin. Confirms first official Ukraine visit, three rounds of talks, Patriot/winter package, territorial issue, follow-up U.S.-Ukraine-Europe meeting.
• Reuters — 5 Sep 2026 — Kremlin says Ukraine talks with US envoys were useful; no sign of breakthrough. Confirms Moscow talks with Putin and absence of an announced breakthrough.
• Office of the President of Ukraine — 5 Sep 2026 — Ukraine Is Ready to Observe a Ceasefire in Airstrikes against the Cities Involved in the Negotiation Process. Official confirmation that the U.S. envoys had begun work with the Russian side and were expected in Kyiv.
• Office of the President of Ukraine — 4 Sep 2026 — Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner Will Visit Moscow and Then Kyiv on Sunday. Establishes that the Kyiv stop was publicly announced in advance, so it was not accurately described as unannounced.
• The White House — 23 Nov 2025 — Readout of Peace Talks in Geneva. Background record showing earlier U.S.-Ukraine work on security guarantees, infrastructure protection and long-term economic development.
EDITORIAL CORRECTION TO THE SUBMITTED HEADLINE
Adjusted: The final headline keeps the high-stakes diplomatic framing but removes the implication that a specific buffer-zone plan or a congressional inquiry has been confirmed. It also avoids calling the Kyiv visit “unannounced,” because the itinerary was publicly confirmed on September 4.
