The 9th Circuit Appeals court just denied the Trump administration’s request to halt an injunction against President Trump’s order banning transgender individuals from the military.
Here’s more from Fox News:
A U.S. appeals court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court ruling that temporarily blocked its ban on transgender military service members – a near-term blow as the administration signals it may take the case to the Supreme Court.
The three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the administration’s request for an administrative stay, which would have allowed it to enforce the ban while a lower court weighs the case.
Instead, the appellate court decision leaves in place, for now, a preliminary injunction handed down late last month by U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle. That decision blocked the Trump administration from identifying and removing transgender service members for the near-term while the case proceeds in lower court.
“The Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness Executive Order, and will continue to do so,” a spokesperson for the Justice Department told Fox News Digital.
The Trump administration filed its appeal to the 9th Circuit last week, seeking to overturn Judge Settle’s preliminary injunction.
In court filings, the government argued that the transgender military policy “furthers the government’s important interests in military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, and avoiding disproportionate costs.”
However, the policy has already faced a wave of early legal challenges.
Settle, who is based in Tacoma, Washington, is not the only federal judge to block the Trump administration’s transgender military ban this year. Last month, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes also temporarily blocked Trump’s ban, citing what she described as a lack of evidence to support the administration’s stated rationale for the policy.
I guess the Supreme Court is the next stop and hopefully they’ll undo this ridiculous ban on Trump’s order.