The Watergate-Inspired Law That’s Being Used to Fight DOGE

Katie Drummond: And ironically, as you mentioned earlier, that's part of what makes these lawsuits so challenging to see through because a judge is assessing risk based on hypothetical harms to American citizens as opposed to actual harm or actual injury. Is that right? Andrew Couts: I mean it depends on exactly what the lawsuit is alleging or what it's attempting to achieve, what kind of legal standards they're going to apply. But typically judges, if they're looking for actual or potential imminent harm, they're going to be looking at past precedent to say, is it likely that this worst case scenario that is laid out in a hypothetical lawsuit is going to happen? And if they can't find any evidence that has happened in the past, it's entirely plausible that the judge isn't going to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. We can't necessarily rely on history to tell us what's going to happen next, at least not US history. We can look to dictatorships elsewhere in the world potentially, but US ... Read full article.