HAVE IT YOUR WAY: HOW TRUMP'S DOJ TURNED A FORT WORTH COURTHOUSE INTO ITS PERSONAL DRIVE-THRU
When Donald Trump wants a burger, he goes to McDonald's. When he wants a legal win, he goes to Fort Worth, Texas — and Chief Judge Reed O'Connor is reliably behind the counter, order ready before you've even finished speaking. The Northern District of Texas has become the Trump DOJ's most reliable legal fast-food franchise: predictable menu, fast service, and the special always comes out conservative. Here's a full breakdown of how the most audacious judicial venue strategy in modern American legal history actually works — and why critics say it's less "justice" and more "just-us."
The Setup: One Courthouse, One Judge, Zero Surprises
Fort Worth isn't just a city with great steakhouses. It's the home of a federal courthouse where, thanks to single-judge divisional assignment rules, filing a lawsuit is less like spinning a roulette wheel and more like calling your shot in billiards.
Chief Judge Reed O'Connor — a George W. Bush appointee who assumed the chief judgeship in August 2025 — has spent nearly two decades building a track record that reads like a conservative legal wish list :
- Struck down the entire Affordable Care Act in 2018 (Texas v. United States)
- Invalidated Obama-era Title IX guidance on transgender students
- Blocked ATF "ghost gun" rules via nationwide injunction in VanDerStok v. Garland
- Issued same-day enforcement orders against out-of-state hospitals — before they could even respond
Critics have long noted that conservative attorneys general and interest groups strategically file cases in O'Connor's jurisdiction to guarantee a sympathetic ear. The man isn't just a judge — he's a destination.
The Rhode Island Gambit: A Masterclass in Judicial Tourism
If you want a perfect specimen of forum shopping pinned and mounted under glass, look no further than In Re: Administrative Subpoena 25-1431-032, filed April 30, 2026.
Here's the timeline, and it is chef's kiss audacious:
- July 2025: DOJ serves sweeping subpoenas on 20+ hospitals nationwide, demanding names, Social Security numbers, diagnoses, and family data of every minor who received puberty blockers or hormone therapy over five years.
- August–February: Rhode Island Hospital negotiates in good faith. DOJ goes radio silent for twelve weeks.
- April 28: DOJ emails the hospital asking to "schedule a conference." Hospital agrees for the next day.
- April 30: Instead of conferring, DOJ files a petition in Fort Worth, Texas — arguing its investigation is "being carried out in the Northern District of Texas." There are zero hospitals in Texas offering the care in question. Texas banned it in 2023.
- April 30, same day: Judge O'Connor grants the petition before the hospital can respond, ordering full compliance within 14 days.
The legal logic? The U.S. Attorney's office running the investigation happened to be in North Texas. That's it. That's the hook. Rhode Island Hospital, meet your new judge — 2,000 miles away.
The Judicial Cage Match: Fort Worth vs. Providence
What happened next was genuinely extraordinary — a federal judicial system openly fighting itself.
By the end of April 2026, federal judges in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Seattle had already quashed or substantially pared back identical DOJ subpoenas. The administration, losing on every front, simply picked up its briefcase and flew south.
The counter-response was swift:
- May 13, 2026: Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island issued an emergency order invalidating O'Connor's subpoena enforcement, ruling the DOJ had engaged in blatant forum shopping.
- May 18, 2026: O'Connor, unbothered, ordered the hospital to produce records to be held in camera by the court itself — and declared that Rhode Island Hospital could only seek further relief in his court, the Fifth Circuit, or the Supreme Court.
In other words: you may have escaped the order, but you can't escape me. The jurisdictional standoff between a Texas chief judge and a Rhode Island federal judge over a hospital that has never set foot in Texas is, legally speaking, the equivalent of two referees from different sports leagues both blowing their whistles at the same play.
The Architecture of the Strategy
The Rhode Island case is dramatic, but it's part of a larger, methodical playbook. Here's how the DOJ's forum-shopping machine operates:
| Strategy | How It Works | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Enforcement Filing Off-Site | File subpoena enforcement where the investigation is based, not where the target is located | Rhode Island Hospital subpoena filed in Fort Worth |
| Friendly Litigation | Conservative AGs sue in Fort Worth; administration settles favorably, binding future policy | Immigration court procedure suits |
| Nationwide Injunctions | Single district judge halts federal policy in all 50 states | ATF ghost gun rule vacated nationwide |
| Fifth Circuit Pipeline | NDTX rulings feed directly into the most conservative appellate court in the country | ACA litigation, VanDerStok v. Garland |
The genius — or the gall, depending on your perspective — is that each layer reinforces the next. Win at O'Connor's level, appeal to the Fifth Circuit (already the most conservative appellate bench in America), and arrive at the Supreme Court with favorable precedent already locked in below. It's not just forum shopping. It's forum architecture.
The Institutional Revolt That Changed Nothing
The federal judiciary's own governing body tried to pump the brakes. In March 2024, the U.S. Judicial Conference — led by Chief Justice John Roberts — issued guidance recommending that cases seeking nationwide or statewide injunctions be assigned through district-wide random selection, not single-judge divisional rules.
The Northern District of Texas's response? A formal vote. The answer? No.
Chief Judge David Godbey (O'Connor's predecessor) announced the district would exercise its discretion and keep its single-judge division structure exactly as it was. The Judicial Conference's guidance was advisory, not binding — and Fort Worth knew it.
Congressional reform proposals — mandatory random assignment, restrictions on nationwide injunctions, direct appellate routing — remain stalled in partisan gridlock. The drive-thru stays open.
The Bottom Line
The Northern District of Texas isn't a courthouse anymore — it's a legal vending machine, and the Trump DOJ has the exact change. The strategy is elegant in its simplicity: find the one place in America where the rules of the game, the judge on the bench, and the appellate path above all point in the same direction, then file everything there.
Whether you call it brilliant legal strategy or a quiet assault on the randomness that makes judicial impartiality possible depends entirely on which side of the counter you're standing on. What's not in dispute is the result: when the DOJ wants it their way, they know exactly which drive-thru window to pull up to.
Sources: Balls & Strikes () · The New York Times, Aug. 30, 2026 () · Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse () · Wikipedia: Reed O'Connor ()
Sources & Links
Here is the full list of sources cited in the article, with direct links:
1. Balls & Strikes — "The Right's Favorite District Court Judge Is Delivering For Trump's Anti-Trans Agenda" Madiba K. Dennie | May 20, 2026 🔗 https://ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics/reed-oconnor-rhode-island-judge-shopping/
2. The New York Times — "How Trump's Policy Agenda Runs Through One Federal Court, in Texas" Zach Montague & Mattathias Schwartz | August 30, 2026 🔗 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/us/politics/texas-judge-trump-agenda.html
3. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse — "In Re: Administrative Subpoena 25-1431-032 — Case No. 4:26-mc-00006, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas" Filed: April 30, 2026 | Case Ongoing 🔗 https://clearinghouse.net/case/48133/
4. Wikipedia — "Reed O'Connor — Chief United States District Judge, Northern District of Texas" 🔗 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor
💡 Note: The New York Times article may require a subscription to read in full. The Balls & Strikes and Clearinghouse links are freely accessible.