Federal judges on the left are determined to stop Trump
These judges apparently consider themselves the firewall against Trump and the troglodytes who elected him:
More nationwide injunctions and restraining orders have been issued against Trump in the past month that were issued against the Biden administration in four years. On Wednesday alone, four different federal judges ordered Elon Musk to reinstate USAID workers (something he and DOGE have no authority to do), ordered President Trump to disclose sensitive operational details about the deportation flights of alleged terrorists, ordered the Department of Defense to admit individuals suffering from gender dysphoria to the military, and ordered the Department of Education to issue $600 million in DEI grants to schools.
On one level, what all this amounts to is an attempted takeover of the Executive Branch by the Judicial Branch — a judicial coup d’état. These judges are usurping President Trump’s valid exercise of his Executive Branch powers through sheer judicial fiat — a raw assertion of power by one branch of the federal government against another.
But on another, deeper level, this is an attempt by the judiciary to prevent the duly elected president from reclaiming control of the Executive Branch from the federal bureaucracy — the deep state, which has long functioned as an unelected and unaccountable fourth branch of the government. This unconstitutional fourth branch has always been controlled by Democrats and leftist ideologues who, under the guise of being nonpartisan experts neutrally administering the functions of government, have effectively supplanted the political branches. Unfortunately, to large extent the political branches have acquiesced in the usurpation of their authority.
So it’s The Left Strikes Back. Problems at the ballot box? Send in the judiciary. What failed to be accomplished through the kangaroo court lawfare to which Trump was subjected prior to his election – the goal being to prevent him from being elected to a second term at all – could possibly be accomplished by tying his hands whenever he tries to do much of anything as president. These are not unbiased decisions for the most part, but these judges consider it their duty to stop the right from changing things in any big way.
It’s somewhat similar to Russiagate during Trump’s first term, which was an attempt by the intelligence community and the FBI, DOJ, and press to hamstring Trump and if possible remove him from office. That didn’t work, either. Will this? It really depends on SCOTUS, and many people are worried about how Roberts will see his role and that of the Supreme Court.
It also reminds me very much of what’s been going on for quite some time in Israel regarding Netanyahu. There’s been a huge conflict between Israel’s extremely powerful Supreme Court (much more powerful, actually, than our own) which is controlled by the left, and Netanyahu. In Israel, the judiciary works like this:
Though Israel is in a state of war on several fronts, the judges presiding in that trial are forcing him to testify three days a week, every week, because, they have argued, it is “in the public interest” to bring the trial to a speedy conclusion. So, determining the exact number of cigars that Mr. Netanyahu received as gifts from friends has come to take precedence over his running of the war.
The judges know, of course, that they will pay no price for their risible definition of “the public interest,” which the public itself would undoubtedly have rejected. Because Israel’s deep state has achieved the dream of bureaucrats since the dawn of bureaucracy: the complete divorce of authority from accountability. The judges know that if their lopsided priorities hinder the war effort, it will be the prime minister, not those who coerced him, who will pay the political price.
At this late stage in the game, one may speculate that this is exactly the point of their whole exercise. Because the Netanyahu trial is not a real criminal procedure. It is a means for doing what elections could not: removing him from power. It is an arena of the struggle for supremacy between democracy on the one hand and the administrative state on the other. …
Under a heavy cloud of judicial-sounding terms, Israel’s Supreme Court judges have removed sovereignty itself—that is, the power of final decision over the whole realm of law and politics—from the elected branches of government and transferred it to themselves.
The Supreme Court completed this move in the course of the war, when it exercised a new power it invented for itself: judicial review over what we have for a constitution. It is now in the position to prescribe the rules of the political game, not just its concrete results.
Much much more at the link.
What are we going to do about this? What can be done?
I’m worried.
There’s plenty that can be done about it. Here’s one course being taken by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri.
“ Today, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced he will introduce legislation to restrict local district court judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions and therefore stymie President Donald Trump’s agenda.”
https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-to-introduce-legislation-restricting-lower-court-judges-from-issuing-nationwide-injunctions/
It may well be up to the legislature. I have no faith anymore that squish CJ Roberts will take any of this on, and if he does he will vote with the libs.
Trump can continue to let judges thwart his promises that got him elected, then use that sense of betrayal to win control of Congress in the midterms, and then impeach the hell out of them – making sure the electorate knows that if he loses Congress, the Dems will impeach him again!!
Glenn Reynolds has ideas.
https://instapundit.substack.com/p/trump-and-the-lower-courts
Sen. Hawley’s bill sounds promising, assuming Congress can do this. I do not see why a single federal judge should be able to issue injunctions or restraining orders outside the immediate jurisdiction over which he has authority.
https://youtu.be/ANCrWy9bJWQ
Mike and Gadi chat up the Israeli deep-state, the removal of Ronen Bar, the Israeli Supreme Court says “No!”, the impending removal of AG Baharav-Miara, it’s nuts, enjoy.
Here are some of Glenn Reynolds’ ideas from his Substack. See link quoted by Kate
“ Impeachment is a symbolic and probably self-destructive gesture. Those are for Democrats, not fo Republicans who want to Make America Great Again.
But here are some things that could be done, lower profile but more effective.
First, expand the courts. No, no, not “court packing,” nothing like that. The National Judicial Council just recommended adding 66 District Judges and two Court of Appeals judges to remedy the “crisis of undermanned federal courts.” Republicans should do at least that, though I would add at least two new Court of Appeals judges to each circuit. And I might increase the number of district judges appointed to the District for the District of Columbia, and perhaps the Southern District of New York, beyond the Council’s recomendations on the ground that those districts seem to be getting busier.
This wouldn’t be court-packing, since it’s simply following the recommendations of a non-partisan commission. (And in truth, it’s been widely agreed for many years that the federal courts are understaffed).
Now for the Supreme Court. Again, no partisan court-packing. Instead, in a spirit of bipartisanship, the GOP should enact the Democrats’ bill from 2021, which would have expanded the Supreme Court from 9 to 13. Although perhaps, in a spirit of generosity, they might increase the number to 15.
Okay, this is good clean fun, and letting it be known that these changes are on the table would probably be an inducement to better behavior — and in particular an inducement to the Supreme Court to begin supervising lower courts more vigorously. And you could do this with simple majorities of the House and Senate.
With simple majoritis you could, as I’ve previously suggested, bring back the requirement for three-judge district courts when the legality of federal statutes is challenged, and expand that requirement to include challenges to executive orders.
Another thing you could do with simple majorities, as Ron DeSantis has noted, is to strip federal courts of jurisdiction to issue Temporary Restraining Orders and Preliminary Injunctions in the class of cases that we’ve been seeing. Or, indeed, to strip them of jurisdiction to hear any complaints regarding the internal administration of the Executive. Or stripping courts of jurisdiction to issue any order in such cases until an appeals bond has actually been posted by the moving party.
Congress could also provide that lawsuits challenging changes to federal programs or agencies be assigned to randomly-selected district courts from around the nation, rather than the District for the District of Columbia. (It could possibly even go further and simply abolish the District for the District of Columbia, and do this with all cases. In 2025, there’s no real reason for all such cases to be heard in DC; it’s not the horse-and-buggy era anymore. Going further still, they could simply abolish the District of Columbia itself, which is permitted by not required to exist by the Constitution.)
Congress could also require that all proceedings in federal courts be televised. Federal Judges have resisted that, but ultimately it’s not their call. Many lawyers involved in the January 6 proceedings have said that if video of what judges were doing there had been made public, there would have been a revolution. At least the prospect of public scrutiny might make judges more cautious, and less imperious.”
Wasnt the supreme court the prime instigator of lawfare in israel
Back at the ranch julie kelly has pointed ouf that procurator boasberg demands info he already has
Congress could do many things but they seem exceedingly lethargic
Miguel cervantes:
The Supreme Court in Israel has different and much greater powers than the US Supreme Court.
Besides slowing Trump down with the Judicial shenanigans, I think the Left wants a Constitutional “crisis” to further paint Trump as lawless, reckless, and chaotic. Trump has certainly raised their ire with these DOGE actions.
If Roberts doesn’t act, at some point the Trump team will have to ignore the courts. The courts’ legitimacy is based on respect for the law, when the courts are lawless their legitimacy will evaporate. And they will have little defense, because their behavior will be seen by many to have violated the Constitution.
Sean Davis, co-founder of the Federalist website had a frankly-stated warning to Roberts and Barrett:
https://x.com/seanmdav/status/1901114750349574144
His first paragraph:
John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett had better wake up from their stupid little dreamworld and end this lawless nonsense from their precious co-credentialists in robes forthwith, or they can watch their lawyer friends turn the judiciary into a joke which no president or Congress will listen to ever again.
When Associate Justice Antonin Scalia gave a talk here in Bozeman, Montana in 2013, sponsored by the Federalist Society, I wanted to put together a warning to him that an attentive layman — myself! — thought American judges and justices were enroute to making themselves ignorable and irrelevant via rulings that were manifestly ridiculous. I had advice from a good friend of Scalia.
As he was leaving the venue after the speech, I managed to speak to Scalia very briefly, mentioning the mutual friend, and giving him my note. I never heard anything further about it (no surprise), but my note was spare enough that I guessed he would have looked at it (as he said he would). Here’s the note:
Given the litany and severity of preposterous rulings* and statements** by judges over the last several decades, I predict that the time is soon when some of these absurdities will simply be ignored by those to whom they formally apply — a modern realization of Andrew Jackson’s “Now let him enforce it” rejoinder to John Marshall, whether or not Jackson actually said it.
If you have a public response to my prediction, I’ll be interested. In any event, I hope you’ll circulate the prediction among your colleagues — and have them read Angelo Codevilla’s “America’s Ruling Class — and the Perils of Revolution.”
* Example rulings
– The way California’s Proposition 187 was strangled to death by federal District Judge Marianna Pfaelzer.
– Courtroom rulings of the state judge in the recent Zimmerman trial
– Ruling of Federal District Judge Shira Scheindlin in current NYC police-profiling case.
** Example statement
– Kagan’s “boatload of federal money” assertion.
J’accuse!
Paul Nachman
Bozeman, Montana
==
Explanations of points in my note to Scalia:
– California’s Proposition 187, decisively passed with 59% of a large vote, would have ended most state benefits for illegal aliens there.
– The Zimmerman trial concerned the death of Trayvon Martin.
– I no longer recall what the Scheindlin remark covered.
– Re Associate Justice Elena Kagan, here’s Rush Limbaugh on March 30, 2012: https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/03/30/elena_kagan_how_can_giving_a_boatload_of_money_to_poor_people_be_unconstitutional/
@ Chuck > “The courts’ legitimacy is based on respect for the law, when the courts are lawless their legitimacy will evaporate. And they will have little defense, because their behavior will be seen by many to have violated the Constitution.”
Only on the Right; the Left already thinks it is perfectly consonant with the Constitution (especially its emanations and penumbras) to thwart Republican presidents and congresses.
The courts are only illegitimate if they thwart Democrat objectives.
The difference is that the Left switches back and forth depending on the cases.
Once the Right has “switched off” they are unlikely to switch back.
@ Paul Nachman > ” Re Associate Justice Elena Kagan, here’s Rush Limbaugh on March 30, 2012″
Here’s another transcript coming from the same day, about Obamacare at the Supreme Court.
https://live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io/daily/2012/03/30/the_out_of_touch_liberal_provincials/
As far as I can tell, nothing Rush said has changed.
Sean Davis gives the justices a fair warning, but he forgets they are part of the out of touch faction in DC.
SD: “The simple truth is it [SCOTUS] cannot [enforce its decisions], and its smarter members—until recently, at least—understood the court’s unique challenge: how to enforce rulings against two institutions despite any real power to do so. Those with brains and no fear of their own shadows knew this was only possible if the politicians and the people believed the courts had the necessary credibility and reputation to produce long-term deference to its decisions.”
Credibility and reputation depend a lot on how the public perceives the arguments before the Court and the reasoning of the Justices, even if they don’t agree with the decisions.
The lower courts are undermining those two factors, and have for a long time, as Paul Nachman pointed out.
When the decisions themselves are patently wrong, only one side gives them deference.
Even the Supreme Court has a share of those (Dred Scott is always the prime example).
The Left already ignores or creates work-arounds of decisions they don’t like.
They will continue to do so, and have no intention of giving any deference to decisions they oppose. They are being forced to comply (somewhat, and with loud complaints) because there are now Republicans in charge of the agencies that can make enforcement stick, more or less.
Glenn Reynolds, per Kate’s link, notes that Republicans under Trump are doing as much as possible to follow their agenda despite the lower court judges’ inane rulings, without openly flouting them.
They — both politicians and people — may continue to give long-term deference to unfavorable decisions, or they may not. No one knows for sure right now.
What the justices DO know for sure is that Republicans will not picket the courthouse, threaten them on the courthouse steps, parade noisily in front of their homes, riot in the streets, burn down buildings, and so forth.
And they know the Left will.
Their mistake IMO is two-fold: they don’t think Republicans / conservatives will ever switch to the same methods as the Democrats / leftists (there might have been some liberals in 2012 but they are long gone now); and they think there are more leftists among the people than there really are.
However, I agree with Davis that they may fool around too long and find out they are wrong.
Good comment at Glenn’s post:
“I’m starting to think that TROs inherently unconstitutional. We’ve learned lately (if we didn’t already know) that TROs can be issued against a party without that party being represented in the hearing, or without that party even being aware that a hearing is taking place. We’ve all seen how TROs are widely abused in divorce cases. And now the meaning of the word “restraining” seems to have been lost; not only can a TRO bar someone from doing something, it can also apparently *command* someone to do whatever the judge wants them to do. Where is the due process in any of this? Yes, I know that TROs are temporary, but often the cost of a lost opportunity due to having to comply with a TRO, while waiting for a chance to appeal an injunction, causes permanent harm to the enjoined party.”
Even if there is a legitimate need for some kind of secrecy in a domestic violence case, the TROs without notice and representation should be limited to those — not to challenging Presidential Executive actions, and a lot in between those two extremes.