[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] rejected [order, PDF] on Thursday requests to intervene and defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [official website]. Sixteen states, two lawmakers and several nonprofit consumer groups filed motions out of concern that the Trump administration would fire Richard Cordray [official profile], the agency’s director who was appointed by former president Barack Obama. Last October the same court ruled that the structure of the agency was unconstitutional [JURIST report]. Lawsuits against the agency are ongoing, and these parties wished to be allowed to join in the case to defend the agency in case the Trump administration fails to defend it in court. The court did not give a reason for their denial.

Many different groups and individuals have filed lawsuits in the wake of newly-elected president Trump’s swift and numerous executive actions. Earlier this week the City of San Francisco filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against the Trump administration over the executive order to withhold federal funding from designated sanctuary cities. In January the Council on American-Islamic Relations [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [JURIST] in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s executive order restricting immigration from several Muslim-majority nations. Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson also sued [JURIST report] President Donald Trump over the temporary immigration ban. A journalist and a graduate student at MIT filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] last month against eight federal agencies for records on attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions [official profile]. Also in January the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York claiming President Donald Trump’s continued business dealings violate the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution.