There’s a theme emerging in the Trump administration’s battles in courtrooms across the country contesting an array of executive actions facing litigation.

As the saying goes, if you can’t go under or over — go around.

As judges issue injunctions blocking particular executive orders or policies, the administration has returned to court with a new legal arsenal of laws and authorities to justify their sweeping plans to reshape the federal bureaucracy.

Essentially, they’re learning on the fly — taking lessons from adverse rulings and judges themselves to press on with the president’s agenda.

Take the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), for example. As a federal judge ruled last week that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) likely had no authority to shutter the foreign aid agency from the outside, the administration had a plan B.

The same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio formally appointed Jeremy Lewin, the USAID DOGE team lead, to become the agency’s chief operating officer. The administration insists this was done before the judge’s order (see Rubio’s signature making it official).

The government argued Lewin is now a “properly named USAID official” and urged the judge to make clear Lewin can take actions at the agency.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, an appointee of former President Obama overseeing the case, disagreed. He said allowing Lewin in would “undermine” his order, which barred DOGE-affiliated individuals from messing with USAID.

That’s not the only time the Trump administration has seen an opening.

As the administration asserts it did not violate Obama appointee U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s headline-grabbing order blocking Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to carry out swift deportations, the administration acknowledges that one flight destined for El Salvador took off after the judge’s written order issued at 7:25pm ET that Saturday night.

Not to worry, the government says. Unlike the other flights that brought hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to the notorious Salvadoran prison under the centuries-old, wartime law, that final flight was deporting migrants under another law, the administration contends.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign said Monday during an appeals court argument that the district court’s order applies only to those who would have been deported under the Alien Enemies Act — not those who may separately have final orders.

Even U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett agreed despite repeatedly ripping the administration for treating deportees worse than Nazis removed the last time the government invoked the law.

“That's right,” Millett, an Obama appointee, replied to Ensign.

White House wins have sometimes come from the judges themselves.

During a hearing last month over the revocation of The Associated Press’s White House access, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden called it “a little odd” that the White House Correspondents’ Association decides who’s allowed in the pool, a small group of independent journalists at a variety of news organizations who report on the president’s actions.

McFadden at one point said he could “decide to throw out” the group altogether.

Days later, the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote in court filings the White House’s decision to take control away from the correspondents association on which outlets get to pool the president and the administration’s intent to broaden the group by two additional outlets each day.

But other cases have proven to be lessons hard learned.

The administration has extensively complained about two judges’ rulings ordering that fired probationary workers be rehired at more than a dozen agencies. The administration is taking one of those rulings to the Supreme Court.

The judges have made clear it didn’t have to be this way; the administration merely failed to follow the proper procedures.

“The words that I give you today should not be taken that some wild-and-crazy judge in San Francisco said that an administration cannot engage in a reduction in force,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup, an appointee of former President Clinton, noted as he handed down his ruling.

“It can be done, if it’s done in accordance with the law.”

You’re reading The Gavel, The Hill’s weekly look at the courts from Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld. If you like what you’ve read so far, you can follow us on social media for updates or send us news tips via email or Signal (we’ll keep you anonymous!).

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