The Supreme Court announced on Friday afternoon that it will hear oral arguments on Dec. 8 in the battle over the president’s power to remove the heads of independent federal agencies created by Congress. The case, Trump v. Slaughter, is one of eight cases scheduled for oral argument during the court’s December argument calendar, which runs from Dec. 1-3 and again from Dec. 8-10. Other high-profile cases now slated for argument in December include National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission and First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin.

The Trump administration on Friday afternoon asked the Supreme Court to pause an order by a federal judge in Illinois that bars the federal government from deploying the National Guard to Illinois. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that the order by U.S. District Judge April Perry “cause[s] irreparable harm to the Executive Branch by countermanding the President’s authority as Commander in Chief, jeopardizing the lives and safety of DHS officers, and preventing the President and the Secretary of War from taking reasonable and lawful measures to protect federal personnel from the violent resistance that has persisted in the Chicago area for several months.” Sauer also asked the court to issue “an immediate administrative stay to prevent ongoing and intolerable risks to the lives and safety of federal personnel while this Court considers this application.”

The fallout from the federal government shutdown, now in its 17th day, has come to the Supreme Court. Patricia McCabe, the head of the court’s Public Information Office, said in a statement released to reporters by email on Friday afternoon that the court “expects to run out of funding on October 18” and “if new appropriated funds do not become available” after that, “the Court will make changes in its operations to comply” with federal law.

ScotusCrim is a recurring series by Rory Little focusing on intersections between the Supreme Court and criminal law.

Please note that the views of outside contributors do not reflect the official opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff.

The recent federal indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James have raised concerns, among other things, of improper selective or vindictive prosecution. These aren’t just abstract legal concepts: These doctrines are rooted in the Constitution, and there are commonsense as well as prudential reasons to support them.

Nuts and Bolts is a recurring series by Stephen Wermiel providing insights into the mechanics of how the Supreme Court works.

Every term in recent years, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide roughly 60 cases by receiving briefs, hearing arguments, and answering the questions posed in petitions by the parties.

But every so often, the justices decide to pose their own questions, sometimes in addition to and sometimes in place of the questions posed by the petitioner – that is, the litigant who lost in the lower court and sought Supreme Court review. At other times, the justices select which questions they will answer from among those posed by the petitioner.