Happy Wednesday. Welcome to The Gavel, The Hill’s new weekly look at the intersection of courts and national politics.

We’re Zach Schonfeld and Ella Lee, The Hill’s courts team. For months, we’ve sat in courtrooms with the president as he attempted to fend off four criminal indictments and a barrage of civil litigation.

Now that Trump is back in the White House, he’s become a defendant again, but in scores of lawsuits involving challenges to his administration’s sweeping executive agenda — and his once-personal defense attorneys have become Justice Department prosecutors.

Increasingly, courtrooms have become the epicenter of the political arena. With Republicans in unified control of Congress and the White House, the judiciary has emerged as the most formidable backstop to Trump.

Just Tuesday, federal judges indefinitely blocked the Trump administration’s freeze of federal funding and Trump’s refugee ban.

It’s just a snippet of the roughly 100 lawsuits challenging major administration actions barely a month past Trump’s inauguration.

Birthright citizenship. Elon Musk. Foreign aid. Diversity programs. Refugee ban. Federal workforce buyouts. FBI agents on Jan. 6 cases. Transgender athletes. Independent agency firings. Research funding cuts.

The list goes on and will grow as the president’s first 100 days take shape.

Just Tuesday, federal judges indefinitely blocked the Trump administration’s freeze of federal funding and Trump’s refugee ban.

It’s just a snippet of the roughly 100 lawsuits challenging major administration actions barely a month past Trump’s inauguration.

Portions of this weekly look will focus on the Supreme Court. We track every movement on the high court’s docket — the roughly 5,000 petitions to take up cases, 60 opinions and hundreds of emergency applications each year.

When the court is in session, each week you can expect:

• Cert Watch: A look-ahead at the cases the justices may take up at its next weekly, closed-door conference

• In/Out: The Order List: A look-back at what the justices decided at the most recent conference

• Bench Banter: A data-driven analysis of what the justices are saying during oral arguments, and why it matters

• Coverage of every Supreme Court opinion and major emergency application

In addition to SCOTUS coverage, expect from us a schedule of major proceedings in courtrooms across the country in cases influencing the political scene, deep dives on the lawyers and plaintiffs bringing cases to the judiciary and sharp analysis of what it all means for the state of our nation.

You can also follow us on social media for updates and send us news tips via email or Signal (we’ll keep you anonymous!).

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