The Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has dismissed a slew of lawsuits filed under former President Joe Biden, including legal challenges to state-level abortion bans, merit-based hiring of first responders, and COVID-19 inquiries.
Last week, Trump’s DOJ dropped legal action against Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, which includes exceptions for cases involving rape or incest as well as when the mother’s life is endangered.
In August 2022, following the fall of Roe v. Wade, the Biden admin tried to circumvent this pro-life law with a lawsuit arguing that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a 1986 federal statute ensuring access to services at emergency rooms regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, mandates an abortion if it’s deemed medically necessary to prevent “serious health consequences,” not just concerning the life of the mother.
The lawsuit—launched by then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland—had been based on claims that Idaho’s Defense of Life Act forced hospitals to airlift women out of state for emergency abortions. However, in previous court proceedings, plaintiffs failed to provide evidence that patients had ever been denied emergency care under these circumstances.
Last month, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the dismissal of several Biden-era DEI lawsuits accusing various police and fire departments across the country of racial discrimination over their hiring and promotion practices.
In one of the cases lodged against a fire department in Cobb County, Georgia, the judge refused to grant a settlement proposed by the Biden administration due to a lack of evidence proving that physical fitness tests and credit report checks are racially discriminatory toward minorities. President Joe Biden’s DOJ claimed that the standardized testing and credit checks had an “impermissible disparate impact on African-American candidates.”