The White House is celebrating a legal winning streak with a series of high-profile victories at the U.S. Supreme Court, employing a strategy of case selection targeting the high court's conservative majority, according to reports on Monday.
The president has faced his own string of lawsuits in the wake of his aggressive strategy and use of executive power, yet the high court has granted wins 18 wins for the administration since Trump took office, NBC News reports. The White House has had a 15-case winning run, and the last loss happened in May.
A person close to the administration told NBC News, "they're ecstatic" and bullish on the wins; however, they do not want to be too bold. A small number of the more than 300 active lawsuits filed against the administration have gone to the high court.
The Supreme Court has been asked by the Trump administration to weigh in 28 times on an emergency basis, an NBC News tally reports. Only two were lost, and five cases are pending, yet the court did issue temporary wins to the government in two of them while determining the next steps. Three others have resulted in no decision by the court.
“We are being very careful,” a White House official told NBC. “We’re dotting our i’s, crossing our t’s. But we prepare for loss, of course. We never just assume.”
It appears that the administration is not pushing the court on cases where executive power might result in pushback from some of the conservative majority justices.
Lower courts have challenged the administration and the high court — surprising the Trump administration — and blocking executive actions. Earlier this month, a group of a dozen federal judges criticized the high court overturning lower court rulings involving the Trump administration with little or no explanation.
“We do take into consideration the fact that some things are more of a priority versus others, and most of what we’re appealing is a priority,” the official said.