Although the house was demolished in 1832, the foundations still remain visible in this unique exhibit. (NPS photo.)

In a massive victory for common sense, American history, and executive authority, a federal appeals court has completely demolished a rogue activist judge’s attempt to micromanage the executive branch.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed down a stinging rebuke to left-wing Philadelphia bureaucrats and an activist lower-court judge, unanimously vacating an injunction that attempted to halt the Trump Administration from cleaning up radical, self-loathing exhibits at the President’s House National Park.

The 3-0 ruling, authored by Judge Thomas Hardiman (George W. Bush appointee) and joined by Judges L. Felipe Restrepo (Obama appointee) and Peter J. Phipps (Trump appointee), delivers a powerful rebuke to activist district judges who think they can run the executive branch and dictate content on federal property.

The President’s House Site at Independence National Historical Park marks the location of the first executive mansion, where Presidents George Washington and John Adams lived and worked in the 1790s. Previous exhibits heavily focused on the nine individuals enslaved by Washington at the site.

Following President Trump’s March 2025 Executive Order directing federal agencies to remove false revisions of history and materials that inappropriately disparage America’s past, the National Park Service removed certain interpretive panels as part of a broader effort to provide fuller historical context.

Democrat-run City of Philadelphia sued immediately. U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe (a George W. Bush appointee) issued a preliminary injunction in February 2026 ordering the old panels restored.

In a unhinged, 40-page opinion, Rufe went so far as to compare the Trump Administration’s patriotic historical review to George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.

Now, the Third Circuit vacated that injunction in full.

Judge Hardiman wrote for the unanimous panel:

“The City does not have any statutory, property, or contractual rights that empower it to curate the exhibits in the President’s House.”

The appeals court ruled the District Court lacked jurisdiction over Counts II through V.

Key points:

The City has ZERO statutory veto power over the President’s House. The mutual-agreement requirement in 16 U.S.C. § 407n applies only to the five-acre Independence Hall National Historic Site (Independence Square — the block with Independence Hall, Congress Hall, and Old City Hall). The President’s House sits a block north on federal land. It is not part of that Site. Period.

Philadelphia donated the project and waived its rights. Under the 2006 Cooperative Agreement and 2009 Third Amendment, the City voluntarily gave the entire President’s House Exhibit to NPS. NPS owns it, maintains it, and interprets it. The City explicitly waived “any claim or right to any property interest, including use rights.” The agreements expired in 2010. The survival clause does not give the City ongoing curation control or veto power.

No APA jurisdiction. Removing (and replacing) exhibits at a federal site the City does not own is not reviewable “agency action” under the APA in the way the City claimed. The court also found the action was not “final” because NPS was actively preparing balanced replacement exhibits.

The underlying claims lack merit anyway. The Third Circuit made clear the City’s statutory and contract theories do not hold up.

The court even reviewed the new replacement panels NPS prepared and noted they provide full historical context, acknowledging the evil and hypocrisies of slavery while placing it inside the broader story of the Founders’ experiment in liberty, the contradictions they grappled with, Philadelphia’s early abolition efforts, Black abolitionists, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Lincoln, the Civil War, and the 13th Amendment.

The panels highlight the humanity of the enslaved people at the site and the price the Nation ultimately paid to finish the work the Founders began.

Jim Hᴏft Jim Hᴏft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.

You can email Jim Hᴏft here, and read more of Jim Hᴏft's articles here.

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