The United States, through the Justice Department, has stayed out of the case completely, filing no brief and thus seeking no argument time. In some ways, given the situation, this makes sense. But, it is nonetheless a little strange for these arguments over the Fourteenth Amendment to be taking place with the Justice Department — founded, as Attorney General Merrick Garland has said, “to secure the civil rights promised by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments” — absent from the arguments altogether.
