The woman behind Instagram’s “Cats On A Couch” account will be allowed into Vice President JD Vance’s Monday event in Brewer.
That comes after Amanda McGonigle of Falmouth, Massachusetts, sought a preliminary injunction to prevent Vance’s team and the U.S. Secret Service from barring her entry into the public event. She was supported by the Maine ACLU.
In a 21-page order issued Sunday, U.S. Judge John Woodcock Jr. denied McGonigle’s request for a preliminary injunction, saying that a government attorney pledged during a Friday telephone conference that she would be allowed entry and treated like any other attendee.
“Ms. McGonigle might wish to have the authority and power of the federal court behind her as she approaches the waiting line tomorrow morning. But the Government might well live up to its representations and, if so, the order requiring it to do so would amount to a forbidden advisory opinion, issued anticipating trouble that may well not occur,” Woodcock wrote in his order.
Under Article III, Section II, of the U.S. Constitution, federal courts are permitted to weigh in only where there is a concrete dispute.
Vance will speak at noon Monday at CompoTech, a University of Maine spinoff company. It’s not known what he will speak about, but this will mark Vance’s second visit to the state this year. In May, Vance spoke to a crowd at Bangor International Airport about the Trump administration’s campaign against Medicaid fraud.
McGonigle sought to attend that May event, but before Vance spoke, she was approached by five people, including two armed U.S. Secret Service agents, who addressed her by name and denied her entry because “we know where you stand,” according to her Friday court filing.
McGonigle runs the Instagram account “CatsOnACouch,” which she uses to lambast the vice president and post pictures of cats, an allusion to Vance’s 2021 comment that the country is being run by ” a bunch of childless cat ladies.” She has more than 2.1 million followers.
Last month, she sued over being denied entry into the event, saying the administration violated her First Amendment rights.
Sunday’s order from Woodcock doesn’t have any bearing on that lawsuit. The Trump administration has yet to investigate McGonigle’s exclusion from the May event in Bangor nor has it responded to her allegations in court, Woodcock noted.
Woodcock also expressed wariness about the impact of a preliminary injunction on the Secret Service’s ability to perform its security functions.
But, he wrote, that “The Court will act quickly and decisively if necessary to enjoin the Executive Branch” if it fails to fulfill its pledge to permit McGonigle to attend Monday’s event.