Here's what's making headlines in the political world on Saturday, November 24 2018:
Trump administration asks SCOTUS to hear transgender ban
- In yet another aggressive attempt to bypass federal appeals courts, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to hear a challenge to President Donald Trump's policy that bars most transgender individuals from military service.
The policy, first announced by the President in July 2017 via Twitter and later officially released by Secretary of Defense James Mattis, blocks individuals who suffer from a condition known as gender dysphoria from serving with limited exceptions. It also specifies that individuals without the condition can serve but only if they do so according to the sex they were assigned at birth.
District courts across the country have so far blocked the policy from going into effect. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in one challenge earlier this fall and the DC Circuit will hear arguments in early December. Read more
Trump Foundation lawsuit may proceed
- The New York state attorney general's civil lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation, President Donald Trump and his three eldest children can proceed after a state court judge on Friday denied their motion to dismiss the case.
The suit, filed in June, names as defendants the foundation, Trump and his children Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka Trump, all of whom sat on the charity's board. It alleges that they violated federal and state charities law with a "persistent" pattern of conduct that included unlawful coordination with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.
The attorney general's office, led by Barbara Underwood, is seeking to dissolve the Trump Foundation and wants $2.8 million in restitution, plus additional penalties. The office is also seeking to ban Trump from serving as a director of any New York nonprofit for 10 years and to prohibit the other board members, the Trump children, from serving for one year. Read more
CNN contributed to this report.
