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A legal strategy favored by Republicans to halt the policies of Democratic administrations is now being turned around to box in former President Donald Trump and his hopes of winning the 2024 election.
John Castro, the long-shot GOP presidential candidate who is challenging Trump's candidacy in at least 14 states, is deploying Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure—a statute that allows a court to issue a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order—against Trump's 2024 campaign.
"If you utilize properly this special Rule 65, you can actually get a bench trial on the merits within 14 days. It's absolutely crazy," Castro told Newsweek. "I filed the case and within 14 days, boom, we're going to have a bench trial on the merits. And whatever the judge decides is going to hold true until the end of the trial."
In recent years, Rule 65 has been used by the likes of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to block President Joe Biden's immigration policies from taking effect. Using the special civil action, Republicans in border states have filed lawsuits to protect the pandemic era's Title 42 coronavirus restrictions on asylum and to block Biden's 100-day deportation moratorium.
Paxton also used the rule in 2018 to file a national injunction to halt former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, commonly known as DACA.
Now, Castro is hoping to wield the rule against Trump.
"It's been the one thing that the conservative movement has abused to get these nationwide injunctions against the Biden administration and also during the Obama administration," he said. "They were really good at doing that. Now this is sort of coming back to haunt them."
Castro is asking judges across the nation to consider his lawsuits challenging Trump's 2024 candidacy, which he argues is unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.
Citing Trump's role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Castro argues that Trump "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S., which prohibits him from running for public office. He also argues that he would suffer personal "political competitive injury" because Trump's candidacy would take voters and donors away from his 2024 campaign.
On Monday, a federal judge in Arizona agreed to schedule a preliminary injunction hearing for Castro's lawsuit on October 23.
"If the judge in Arizona says, 'I'm granting the preliminary injunction' [and] the [case's] filing period is November 10 to December 11,' there's no way you can have a trial that fast," Castro said. "So Trump is going to immediately cry foul, and he's going to say, 'This is unfair. This basically guarantees that I'm off the ballot in Arizona.'
"His only recourse, at that point, is to go to the Supreme Court and basically beg them to intervene because if he tries to appeal it, I mean, you're talking about the liberal 9th Circuit—that's dead on arrival," Castro said "So it's a really good legal strategy. It's going to box him in."
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more