The Times unearthed memos that signaled a major shift in the court’s operations, in a decision that critics say was rushed and flawed.

In its opinion, the high court said an appellate court "is not free to substitute its judgment for that of the trial judge."

The U.S. Supreme Court on ​Wednesday rejected Enbridge's bid to change the venue of an environmental lawsuit by Michigan seeking to force the Canadian ‌energy company to stop operating an oil pipeline between two of the Great Lakes.

The decision overturns regulators who had treated those companies as agents of landlords, leaving tenants with fewer protections.

Enbridge waited too long to move a state case challenging Line 5's continued operation in the Straits of Mackinac to federal court, high court ruled.

Sotomayor said Enbridge “waited too long,” as the Supreme Court kept Michigan’s Line 5 pipeline lawsuit in state court.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with Michigan in ruling that the state’s lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of an aging pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel will stay in state court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous court that the Enbridge energy company waited too long to try to move the case to federal court.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who had campaigned on a pledge to shut the pipeline, is seeking to close an underwater section of Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. Nessel argues Enbridge has violated the terms of its state lease on the property and that the pipeline poses the risk of a catastrophic spill into the Great Lakes.

President Donald Trump promoted the ravings of a self-described “conspiracy theorist” during his latest late-night temper tantrum on Truth Social. In a flurry of seven posts in an hour-long period

The suit was filed by former Army Specialist Winston T. Hencely, who was injured in a suicide-bomb attack in Afghanistan.