Stephen Miller Is Waging War on Biden for Discriminating Against White People

By Greg Walters, VICE

24 May 21

And, yes, you’re still paying his salary.

tephen Miller is waging legal war against President Joe Biden in the name of fighting alleged racial discrimination against white people. And he’s doing it while still reportedly drawing a sizable government salary.

The onetime White House adviser notorious for driving Former President Trump’s hardline anti-immigration agenda is behind two legal challenges against the Biden administration alleging anti-discrimination against white people in multibillion-dollar pandemic economic recovery programs.

He’s already won an early courtroom victory in Texas, and legal experts say his team has a shot at further success in the federal courts, including possibly the Supreme Court, which has moved to the right after Trump appointed three conservative justices.

“From a legal point of view, these are not totally crackpot lawsuits,” said Steven Schwinn, an expert on Constitutional law at The University of Illinois Chicago John Marshall Law School. “I think the plaintiffs here do have a serious argument, especially if the cases were to go to the Supreme Court.”

The lawsuits represent a new front in Miller’s long running and controversial push for nativist policies. As an advisor in Trump’s White House, Miller earned notoriety as a chief architect of Trump’s infamous Muslim travel ban, efforts to reduce the number of incoming refugees, and forced family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Miller isn’t a lawyer. But the lawsuits have been joined by the group he assembled called America First Legal, which Miller has said aims to hem in the Biden administration wherever it sees an opportunity. Miller told The Wall Street Journal he was inspired by the legal resistance to the Trump administration’s policies thrown up by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the Trump administration 413 times.

Miller’s lawsuits have argued that COVID relief packages passed as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, and designed to prioritize women and historically marginalized groups, unfairly disenfranchise white people.

One legal challenge takes aim at roughly $5 billion set aside for debt relief, grants and training for Black farmers and other “socially disadvantaged” groups.

Advocates for Black farmers have called the program a much-needed step aimed at countering over a century of racist treatment by the government and private lenders, which discriminated against Black farmers, effectively forcing many off their land.

But Miller’s AFL filed a lawsuit on behalf of Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller, in his capacity as a private citizen and farmer, in late April. The suit argues that excluding white farmers from the funds aimed at “socially disadvantaged” groups represents a racial exclusion that is “patently unconstitutional.”

If the court doesn't agree, ”then it should at the very least declare that the phrase 'socially disadvantaged group' must be construed, as a matter of statutory interpretation, to include ethnic groups of all types that have been subjected to racial and ethnic prejudice, including (but not limited to) Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews, and eastern Europeans."

Another legal assault takes aim at the $29 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which prioritizes applications from women, veterans and “socially and economically disadvantaged” applicants during its first three weeks of implementation, from May 3 to May 24.

Filed on behalf of Philip Greer, the white male owner of Greer’s Ranch Café, the lawsuit succeeded in winning a temporary restraining order from Judge Reed O’Connor, an appointee of former GOP President George W. Bush in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas.

“The evidence submitted by plaintiffs indicates that the entire $28.6 billion in the Restaurant Revitalization Fund may be depleted before plaintiffs’ application can be considered for relief under the program,” O’Connor wrote. The judge ordered the SBA to consider Greer’s application.

Greer’s attorneys filed a notice of dismissal for their own case on Wednesday for reasons that were not immediately clear. An email to AFL seeking comment for this story wasn’t returned. Outside lawyers, however, speculated that the move might be a temporary, technical, procedural maneuver ahead of the court-ordered hearing scheduled for Monday, May 24, and that the suit could be refiled. The SBA declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Margaret Russell, an expert on Constitutional law and civil rights at California’s Santa Clara University, said the restaurant suit looks like an attempt to get higher courts to overturn previous rulings concerning protections for historically disadvantaged groups.

“I think there’s an effort to erase race and gender from equal protection rulings in the Supreme Court,” Russell said. “This is a planned effort to introduce lawsuits that, if they do make the circuit court and Supreme Court, try to overturn earlier precedent.”

Miller’s legal war on the administration is all the more remarkable in that he’s reportedly still drawing a government paycheck.

While his tenure in the White House ended in January, he’s set to continue receiving a taxpayer-funded salary through July, when the formal presidential transition period ends, Business Insider reported earlier this month, citing documents released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Miller remained on Trump's post-presidential transition staff, earning an annualized salary of $160,000, Business Insider reported.