Live updates: Supreme Court allows White House contacts with social media platforms; Trump immunity still undecided

The Supreme Court still has multiple blockbuster decisions set to drop. The major cases still outstanding include hot-button issues such as abortion, the power of federal agencies and former president Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution on election interference charges. On Wednesday, the court rejected an effort to limit White House contacts with social media firms to flag disinformation. A divided court said the challengers did not have legal standing to bring the case.

The term usually wraps up by the end of June, and Friday is the last weekday of the month. The justices have already said more decisions are coming Thursday and Friday. With at least nine major rulings left, it seems likely they will continue their term into July.

12:18 PM: Supreme Court overturns mayor’s bribery conviction

The Supreme Court vacated the bribery conviction of a former Indiana mayor Wednesday, a decision that continues a recent trend by the justices to narrow the scope of anticorruption laws.

The justices divided along ideological lines in the 6-3 ruling, which found the federal law that prosecutors used to convict James Snyder applies only to situations in which officials accept gifts or payments before taking a government action, not getting a reward after, known as a gratuity.

Snyder, who was the mayor of Portage, Ind., received $13,000 from a local trucking company after the city bought five trash trucks from the business for $1.1 million in 2013.

Prosecutors alleged the payment was for steering business to the company, but Snyder claimed it was for consulting work. A federal jury ultimately convicted Snyder of accepting an illegal gratuity, and he was sentenced to nearly two years in prison.

Snyder appealed his conviction arguing the statute used to convict him only applies to bribes, not gratuities. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit affirmed Snyder’s conviction, but the Supreme Court sided with Snyder.

Writing for the majority, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh found that Congress narrowly tailored the particular statute to apply to bribes, saying legislators left it to state and local and local officials to regulate gratuities.

Kavanaugh said the government’s interpretation of the law “would radically upend gratuities rules” and turn the federal statute into a “vague and unfair trap for 19 million state and local officials.”

By: Justin Jouvenal

11:32 AM: Another case linked to judge shopping gets overturned

Murthy v. Missouri is the latest case to be overturned by the Supreme Court that has been linked to judge shopping, which is when a party files a lawsuit in a courthouse where the lone federal judge is known or suspected to be sympathetic to a particular cause or issue.

The case originated from the Monroe division of the Western District of Louisiana, where Judge Terry A. Doughty, who has a history of ruling against the Biden administration, heard all of the cases filed in that division at the time.

Last week, the Supreme Court upheld broad access to mifepristone, a widely used abortion medication, reversing a lower court decision that originated from U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s single-judge courthouse in the Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas. Kacsmaryk is known to have longtime antiabortion beliefs.

By: Tobi Raji

11:29 AM: Analysis from Cat Zakrzewski, National technology policy reporter

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision in the social media case, and that he planned to continue his congressional probe into communications between the Biden administration and the tech industry. “The First Amendment is first for a reason,” Jordan said.

11:26 AM: House Democrat calls on Republicans to halt censorship probe

Live updates: Supreme Court allows White House contacts with social media platforms; Trump immunity still undecided

Rep. Jerry Nadler (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called on his Republican colleagues to halt their investigation into alleged social media censorship in light of the court’s ruling Wednesday.

The case, known as Murthy v. Missouri, is just one prong of a conservative legal campaign that seeks to limit content moderation online. House Republicans, led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), have been running a parallel investigation into claims that the government coordinated with universities, tech companies and researchers to censor conservative speech online. Researchers have said the committee’s subpoenas and requests have had a chilling effect on the work to root out misinformation online.

Nadler called the Supreme Court’s opinion “a stinging rebuke to Jim Jordan and his multimillion-dollar conspiracy theory-fueled witch hunt.” He said the court’s ruling undermines the basis for Jordan’s probe.

“I hope that after this humiliating defeat, Chairman Jordan and his colleagues will end their failed investigation into the companies, universities, and individuals who have been trying to stop the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation on social media,” Nadler said.

By: Cat Zakrzewski

11:18 AM: Analysis from Cristiano Lima-Strong, Tech policy reporter

While the Murthy decision gets one major social media case off the Supreme Court’s docket, justices have a pair still pending. The court is set to rule on two cases, NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, considering whether states are able to restrict social media companies from removing or moderating certain posts or accounts online.

11:17 AM: Audience filled with anticipation, then surprise, as more rulings weren’t issued

People wait before opinions were handed down at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

There was an electric anticipation inside the Supreme Court chamber Wednesday, as an audience of attorneys, government officials and journalists waited for the justices to issue a series of blockbuster decisions on hot-button issues — ranging from abortion to former president Donald Trump’s charges for interfering with the 2020 election — as the current term reaches it end.

But as has happened in previous weeks, the justices put off issuing decisions on their most consequential cases.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett kicked off the session at exactly 10 a.m., reading her majority opinion in Murthy v. Missouri that turned aside a Republican-led effort to limit the White House from pressuring social media companies to remove posts it deems are rife with misinformation. The plaintiffs complained that their First Amendment rights were violated.

But Barrett explained that the plaintiffs, two states and five social media users, had not demonstrated that they had suffered an actual injury by the government, the standard for bringing a lawsuit. She said the plaintiffs had also not demonstrated a need for an injunction against the government they were seeking.

“The plaintiffs can only speculate the platforms will continue to suppress their speech at the behest of the defendants,” Barrett said.

After Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh read his opinion in a minor case this term, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. gaveled the session closed, surprising many in the audience, who had expected the justices to issue more rulings with just days before the term traditionally ends in June.

By: Justin Jouvenal

11:01 AM: Analysis from Cat Zakrzewski, National technology policy reporter

Consumer advocates and civil liberties groups celebrated the Murthy decision, after having warned that limits a lower court had placed on federal employees communicating with tech giants had chilled efforts to promote safety on social media.

“The Supreme Court’s opinion today turned back a serious threat to public safety as well as to our very system of democratic government,” said Ishan Mehta, the media and democracy program director at the nonprofit Common Cause.

10:59 AM: One major ruling down, nine more to go

Antiabortion demonstrators pray outside the Supreme Court building on Wednesday. Among the major decisions still outstanding is one on abortion care in emergency rooms. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)

The Supreme Court released a decision for two cases — including a major one — on Wednesday morning. There are still nine cases left this term that The Washington Post has been tracking:

1. Trump v. United States — Whether former president Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for his alleged efforts to stay in power by overturning Joe Biden’s election victory.
2. Fischer v. United States — Whether prosecutors properly charged hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants and Trump using a law that makes it a crime to obstruct or impede an official proceeding — in this case, the disruption of Congress’s certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory.
3. Idaho v. United States — Whether a federal law requiring emergency care means emergency room doctors in states with strict abortion bans must terminate pregnancies in certain non-life-threatening circumstances, such as if a woman’s future fertility may be at risk.
4. NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, LLC — Whether the First Amendment allows states to restrict social media companies from removing certain political posts or accounts.
5. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce — Whether courts must continue to defer to the reasonable interpretations of agency officials enforcing ambiguous federal statutes.
6. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy — Whether in-house legal proceedings used by the Securities and Exchange Commission to discipline those accused of committing fraud are unconstitutional.
7. Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P. — The legality of a proposed Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan that would allocate billions of dollars to help ease the nation’s opioid crisis but shield the family that owns the company from future lawsuits.
8. City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Gloria Johnson — Whether state and local officials can punish homeless individuals for camping and sleeping in public spaces when shelter beds are unavailable.
9. Ohio v. EPA, Kinder Morgan Inc. v. EPA, American Forest & Paper Assn. v. EPA, U.S. Steel Corp. v. EPA — The court is reviewing the Biden administration’s plan to limit smog-forming pollutants from power plants and other industrial facilities that cause problems for their downwind neighbors in other states.

Check out The Post’s Supreme Court case tracker for more information.

By: Tobi Raji

10:51 AM: Analysis from Cristiano Lima-Strong, Tech policy reporter

Three conservative justices — Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — wrote in a dissenting opinion in the Murthy case that the court was shirking its duty by not ruling on the merits of the case over contacts with social media platforms and permitting a “successful campaign of coercion” by government officials against tech companies.

10:50 AM: Analysis from Cat Zakrzewski, National technology policy reporter

In the Murthy opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the lower court “glossed over complexities in the evidence” by attributing every company decision to remove or moderate content to the Biden administration. “The evidence indicates that the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment,” the justice wrote.

10:45 AM: Analysis from Ann E. Marimow, Supreme Court correspondent

Writing for the majority in Murthy v. Missouri, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said companies such as Facebook and YouTube have long-standing content-moderation policies that place warning labels on certain posts and delete others. The challengers, Barrett wrote, did not demonstrate that the companies’ actions to remove posts were traceable to the government.

10:38 AM: Analysis from Justin Jouvenal, Reporter covering the Supreme Court

Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch was absent from the session this morning. A spokeswoman for the court had no comment on why he was not in the courtroom, but it is not uncommon for justices to miss opinion days. Last week, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. missed two opinion days. The court did not explain his absence either.

10:36 AM: Analysis from Cat Zakrzewski, National technology policy reporter

The Supreme Court’s decision in the social media case has broad implications for preparations for the 2024 elections. Tech companies said last year that, amid legal uncertainty, the U.S. government was not warning them about foreign disinformation campaigns on their platforms, despite fears that AI would supercharge propaganda campaigns.

10:30 AM: Supreme Court allows White House contacts with social media firms

The Supreme Court building (Photo by Jonathan Newton /The Washington Post)

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a Republican-led effort to sharply limit White House officials and other federal employees from pressuring social media companies to remove posts from their platforms that the U.S. government deems problematic.

State leaders in Missouri and Louisiana, in addition to individual social media users, filed a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of violating the First Amendment by operating a sprawling federal “censorship enterprise” to improperly influence platforms to modify or take down posts related to public health and elections.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court said the challengers did not have legal grounds — or standing — to bring the case against the Biden administration because the states and individuals could not show they were directly harmed by the communication between federal officials and social media platforms. Continue reading about Wednesday’s ruling in Murthy v. Missouri.

By: Ann E. Marimow

10:20 AM: Analysis from Ann E. Marimow, Supreme Court correspondent

In Snyder v. U.S., Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, with the three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissenting.

10:13 AM: Analysis from Ann E. Marimow, Supreme Court correspondent

The second and last ruling for today is in Snyder v. U.S. The opinion is 6-3 with the court holding that federal law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to accept gratuities for past acts.

10:06 AM: Analysis from Ann E. Marimow, Supreme Court correspondent

The case is Murthy v. Missouri, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett writes for the majority. The court throws the case out on standing, meaning those who brought the challenge didn’t have legal standing to do so.

The ruling was 6-3, with Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch dissenting.

10:02 AM: Analysis from Ann E. Marimow, Supreme Court correspondent

In the first opinion of the day, the Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in a case about limits on White House social media contacts.

9:59 AM: Analysis from Ann E. Marimow, Supreme Court correspondent

Surprisingly, just one box of opinions has been put out by the court today. That means one or two rulings are coming, which in turn means there will be eight or more left to go after today. That doesn’t bode well for wrapping up the term in June.

9:58 AM: Decided earlier this term: Bump stock ban

Among the major cases decided by the justices so far this term is Garland v. Cargill. Here’s what to know.

What they ruled: The Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down a federal ban on bump stock devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire hundreds of rounds a minute. The majority said bump stocks do not qualify as machine guns under a 1986 law that barred civilians from owning the weapons.

Why it matters: The 6-3 ruling upends one of the few recent efforts by the federal government to address the nation’s epidemic of gun violence and continues the conservative majority’s record of limiting gun restrictions.

By: Ann E. Marimow, Nick Mourtoupalas and Tobi Raji

9:55 AM: Analysis from Ann E. Marimow, Supreme Court correspondent

Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar and former deputy solicitor general Michael Dreeben are in court today to listen to the opinion announcements. Dreeben is part of the special counsel’s team who argued against Donald Trump’s immunity claims in April. He has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court.

9:50 AM: Number of Supreme Court decisions near record low

If there were one word to describe the Supreme Court in 2024, it might be sluggish. The justices are slated to issue about 60 opinions this year, following a trend in recent years toward a lower caseload.

That is slightly more than the 58 handed down in 2023 and the 47 in 2022. In contrast, the 1980s and 1990s regularly saw more than 100 decisions a year — sometimes nearly 200.

The court is also working at a deliberate pace this year, leaving about 20 percent of its cases undecided headed into the final days of the term. Those include some of its most significant decisions.

There is no consensus among legal scholars as to why the Supreme Court is deciding fewer cases, but potential explanations include changes in the law that have allowed the court to reject more cases, political polarization and the changing makeup of the court.

Things may not change much next year. The Supreme Court so far has announced 23 cases it will hear when its next term begins in October.

By: Justin Jouvenal

9:45 AM: Decided earlier this term: Trump tax cuts

Among the major cases decided by the justices so far this term is Moore v. U.S. Here’s what to know.

What they ruled: An obscure provision of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax package is constitutional.

Why it matters: In a 7-2 decision, the court upheld a one-time tax on offshore earnings that helped fund the massive tax cut, ruling that it is permitted under Congress’s limited powers of taxation. Some viewed the challenge to the tax — brought by a Washington couple who were backed by an anti-regulatory advocacy group — as an effort to preemptively block Congress from creating a wealth tax. Many experts feared that a ruling that the tax was unconstitutional could destabilize the nation’s tax system.

By: Ann E. Marimow, Nick Mourtoupalas and Tobi Raji

9:41 AM: When will the Supreme Court term end?

The Supreme Court traditionally wraps up its term by late June, but that may not be the case this year. Decisions sometimes spill into the first days of July or even past the Independence Day holiday if the court needs more time to wrap up its work.

The last time the court extended a session into July was in 2020, when the justices were contending with delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. That was the first time it had happened since 1996.

July rulings were a regular feature, however, in the 1970s and 1980s under the tenure of Chief Justice Warren Burger.

When will we know whether the court will go into overtime this year? The court would probably make an announcement in the coming days.

By: Justin Jouvenal

9:34 AM: Decided earlier this term: Abortion medication restrictions

Among the major cases decided by the justices so far this term is FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Here’s what to know.

What they ruled: The justices maintained broad access to mifepristone, unanimously reversing a lower court decision that would have made the widely used abortion medication more difficult to obtain. The decision was not on the substance of the case, but a procedural ruling that the challengers did not have legal grounds to bring their lawsuit.

By: Ann E. Marimow, Nick Mourtoupalas and Tobi Raji

9:29 AM: How an immunity decision could affect Trump’s Georgia case

Former president Donald Trump addresses a rally crowd at the Forum River Center in Rome, Ga., on March 9.

ATLANTA — The Supreme Court’s decision on Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution could have a sweeping impact on the Georgia election interference case, where the former president and several allies are accused of criminally conspiring to try to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state.

If the high court grants Trump’s claim of absolute immunity, the charges brought against him by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) would probably be dismissed. Already, Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead counsel in Georgia, has filed a motion seeking to have the case thrown out because of presidential immunity. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has not yet ruled on Trump’s request, acknowledging to parties months ago that he would wait until the Supreme Court ruling to render his decision.

Recent motions in Georgia suggest that Trump’s legal team is preparing for a more nuanced ruling from the high court — where they could rule that former presidents can be prosecuted for “private conduct” while enjoying immunity tied to their official duties in office.

Among the allegations cited against Trump by both federal and Fulton County prosecutors is that he knowingly signed a verification of a Dec. 31, 2020, lawsuit against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) that made election fraud claims that he had been told were false.

During oral arguments, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan specifically pressed Trump attorney D. John Sauer on whether this incident could be considered an official act. Sauer said they would not dispute that it was an “unofficial” act by Trump.

The same week, Sadow filed a motion in Georgia seeking to dismiss two additional counts against Trump, including the filing of a false documents charge related to that lawsuit against Kemp. He argued state prosecutors lack “the authority to criminalize conduct” that is targeted at a federal judiciary. Prosecutors have dismissed the argument.

McAfee has not ruled on the issue — and probably won’t for months. The case against Trump and several of his co-defendants has been stayed as they appeal a ruling allowing Willis to continue prosecuting the case — an appeal that has almost certainly delayed any potential trial until after the November election.

By: Holly Bailey

9:27 AM: A limited ruling last week in favor of gun restrictions for domestic abusers

In a nearly unanimous ruling announced last week, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law that disarms people who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said the Second Amendment permits such firearms restrictions when an individual is deemed dangerous.

The court’s ruling was narrow and did not forecast how the justices might evaluate other gun-control measures that have been challenged since the court expanded gun rights in a major 2022 ruling.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the decision two years ago in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, issued a dissent in the case involving domestic violence restraining orders.

Earlier this term, the justices struck down a federal ban on bump stock devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire hundreds of rounds a minute.

By: Ann E. Marimow

9:24 AM: Tracker: The biggest Supreme Court rulings left this term

Here’s a look at major Supreme Court cases on abortion care, the opioid crisis, homelessness, free speech on social media platforms, former president Donald Trump and more.

(Chloe Cushman for The Washington Post)

By: Ann E. Marimow, Nick Mourtoupalas and Tobi Raji