AG Ferguson Looks Back On 4 Years Of Lawsuits Against Trump Admin

OLYMPIA, WA — Now that a new president is in the White House, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is looking back at his office's nearly 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration. He's also taking stock of the work yet to be done, noting that more than half of those legal challenges haven't been settled yet, and didn't vanish just because Biden has been installed as the next president.

“If someone had told me four years ago that, by the time President Trump left office, I would file 97 lawsuits against the federal government, I would not have believed them,” Ferguson said.

Of Ferguson's 97 lawsuits against the Trump admin, Washington lead 36.

“Republicans sometimes asked me why I filed so many lawsuits against the Trump Administration. I would respond that they should ask the president why he pursued so many illegal policies that hurt our state. Throughout his term, the president demonstrated his contempt for the rule of law, and our record in court speaks for itself," the attorney general said.

Here's a breakdown from the Attorney General's Office of Washington's 97 lawsuits against President Trump:

• 97 total lawsuits
  • 39 legal victories
    • Of those 22 are set in stone and cannot be appealed
    • The remaining 17 either have been appealed or could be appealed in the future
  • 56 await a judicial ruling
    • Included in the 56 are several high profile cases like a challenge to the military transgender ban, net neutrality protections, and a recent move to sell the National Archives building in Seattle.
  • Two losses, one of which is being appealed.

As the AG's Office notes, that's a healthy number cases which still need to be wrapped up:

More than 60 of the 97 cases — including 17 legal victories and one adverse ruling — are still being actively litigated. Many of them are likely to continue working their way through the courts despite President Biden taking office.

The majority of Washington's lawsuits, 56, were about protecting existing environmental regulations. 15 were over immigration, and nine were about access to health care, including five suits over reproductive health care.

Of the 36 cases Washington led, the record is 18 victories and 0 losses thus far. Those victories include several high profile cases, like when Washington overturned the President's first attempt passing a so-called "Muslim ban" forbidding travel from several majority-Muslim nations, two cases securing DACA protections for dreamers, and a suit blocking the Trump admin from gutting the U.S. Postal Service in advance of the November General Election.

A full list of Washington's lawsuits against the Trump administration can be found at the Office of the Attorney General's website.