March 19, 2025 - 7:00pm
Donald Trump’s first two months in office already feel like they have contained more action than Joe Biden’s entire four years. But a great deal of that presidential vigour is being diffused and delayed by district court judges around the country.
Injunctions are a normal part of a court’s business, but the recent explosion in local judges issuing nationwide injunctions adds an unprecedented layer of sclerosis to the federal government — which wasn’t exactly good at moving quickly in the first place.
Every time Trump attempts to use his executive authority in a way that affects a privileged class or interest group, we have the inevitable spectacle of some plaintiff running to some local district court and finding some judge who will throw a wooden shoe into the machinery of state, grinding the whole thing to a shuddering halt.
Trump has complained about this, loudly and often. He has even called for the impeachment of at least one judge, James E. Boasberg, who tried to put a halt to the deportation of some Venezuelan gang members over the weekend. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” the President thundered on Truth Social. He criticised the judge again in an interview on Fox News this week.
Chief Justice John Roberts replied in a rare foray into politics, saying that “for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Who’s right? It’s true that Roberts has the history and precedent correct: when Thomas Jefferson encouraged his allies in Congress to remove Federalist judges from the bench, members of his own party rebuked him. It set a precedent that stands to this day: Congress does not remove judges for differences of opinion, only for actual misconduct in office. That’s a good thing because it reinforces judicial independence and ensures a stability in the way justice is administered.
But Trump is also right that the system is not working as the Founders designed it. Nationwide injunctions were unknown in our jurisprudence until the Sixties, and even after that they were incredibly rare. Judges would issue injunctions that applied to the plaintiff before them. They wouldn’t attempt to put an entire law on hold.
George W. Bush’s administration had six injunctions imposed on it by district court judges. Barack Obama had 12. Trump in his first term alone had 64. Unsurprisingly, 92.2% of those came from judges appointed to the bench by Democrats.
The judiciary, to some activist judges, is like a third branch of the legislature, jumping in to impose their own political — rather than legal — opinions on the elected branches. The practice has been called into question by politicians, legal scholars, and even some members of the Supreme Court, and the extra-constitutional delays sap the energy to the executive and the nation. The more Left-wing judges obstruct the agenda of the elected branches, the sooner the issue will come to a head.
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SubscribeLawfare is the great elephant in the room of Western liberal ‘democracy’. In recent decades real governmental power (as opposed to MSM politician psychodrama) has become politicians 10%; lawyers 90%. And particularly so in the Anglosphere. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/carry-on-governing
Judges who make decisions which are politically motivated have compromised their judicial independence and thereby expose themselves to legitimate calls for their impeachment. Injunctions whose primary purpose is to frustrate or block the executive authority of the President, as distinct from upholding just laws, are self-evidently questionable.
A similar situation prevails in the UK where activist judges, in collusion with activist, left-wing lawyers and the European Court of Human rights, have increasingly stopped government initiatives (e.g. the Tory government’s Rwanda Plan for dealing with illegal immigrants, which was repeatedly destroyed by judicial interventions. Not good for democracy.
The article takes it as a given that Judge Boas’ decision was political. But Trump was deporting people who had not been convicted of any crime to a third country they had no connection with, there to be jailed without trial. These are legal, not political, issues. And just because it was done to people the writer assumed he would not like that was fine. If liberty in America means anything, surely it means people can remain free until some judicial process has been completed.
Heard an interesting debate on this very subject today. Congress absolutely has the right to impeach judges. And while precedent has so far limited impeachment to the conduct of judges, precedent is always changing and evolving. If the role of judges has now evolved to include inserting themselves into the policy making process, it makes perfect sense for the impeachment process to evolve as well.
Jimmy, always supporting his orange idol!
Why don’t you explain to us how judges have inserted themselves into the policy making process? Or do you believe that Trump and the vile scum that work for him can just do whatever they like to anyone? Does the US constitution, admittedly one of the most ridiculous documents in history, just go out of the window because Trumpy is in a bad mood that day.
Give yourself a shake, Jimbo!
Reading comprehension is clearly not your strong suit. I have repeatedly criticized Trump in this comment section. In my comment above I simply reported what I heard in a debate. I didn’t advocate one way or the other. I know party hacks get triggered even at the mention of counter arguments.
And you clearly missed this tidbit from the article. “George W. Bush’s administration had six injunctions imposed on it by district court judges. Barack Obama had 12. Trump in his first term alone had 64. Unsurprisingly, 92.2% of those came from judges appointed to the bench by Democrats.”
Au contraire, Jimbo! I understand exactly what you are saying! You say that you aren’t a Trump fan – because to admit that is declaring yourself a complete moron – but you actually agree with every single thing he says and does.
That’s what you call comprehension, boyo!
“George W. Bush’s administration had six injunctions imposed on it by district court judges. Barack Obama had 12. Trump in his first term alone had 64. Unsurprisingly, 92.2% of those came from judges appointed to the bench by Democrats.”
It probably didn’t occur to you that the first Trump administration was a chaotic mess overseen by an idiot who had no clue what he he was doing and that is why the courts ruled against them. Its going to be even worse this time around.
No, as always your obsequious devotion to all things Trump trumps any logic or common sense!
See what I did there?!?!
Another comment that adds fuel to the idea circulating in the current administration of classifying Trump Derangement Syndrome a recognised mental illness.
Being called mentally ill by the sort of loons that support Trump is high praise indeed!!!
Best to ignore it, Chris.
Indeed. History marches on. We used to have more than nine justices and the Constitution used to forbid direct taxes (such as the income tax). Changes invariably have consequences and problems that lead to a need for further changes and round and round it goes.
The trouble is that you can always make a claim that a judge’s decision was politically motivated. If that precedent were set, Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito on the Supreme Court would be targeted immediately.
The Left has always turned to the judiciary to impose its agenda when actual voters refused to sign on – which is usually the case.
Trump needs to simply ignore these activists, and force the issue to SCOTUS.
What is happening on the lower courts is an absolute disgrace; these judges are meant to rule on questions of law, not questions of politics.
The lower courts are not actually protects by the US constitution in the way the Supreme Court is. The idea of local judges blocking the elected representatives of an entire federal state is completely untenable.
These judges have all ruled on questions of law. What part of that don’t you understand? I know you MAGA folks aren’t too smart but surely even you can see that these cases are being decided on the law?
No, maybe you can’t.
Care to provide an example?
It’s a bored troll, just don’t engage.
How about the example that is under discussion here, dimwit!
What about the judge who issued an injunction on the DoD, forcing it to accept trans men into the military, even though there is a long list of medical conditions that disqualify people from the military, everything from ADHD to vision issues? Everyone and their uncle knows the vast majority of these injunctions will be overturned.
Then why are you and your aunt’s husband getting so exercised about it, Jimmy? Why not go through the process? Why are they behaving in this utterly bizarre and criminal way?
Because, obviously, these injunctions are protecting the US constitution and will not be overturned. In actual fact, once the United States has restored constitutional government, the criminals who have taken these actions should be rounded up and executed for treason.
I just, for fun, read the injunction. Its argument is that the US Government introduced no evidence to support its moves against the group it is trying to ban from the military. Regardless of one’s views about what such evidence would show, were someone to look, it seems to me that basing policy on evidence is quite a good idea.
Shill post.
What decisions are you concerned about? I’m not seeing any nationwide injunctions so far.
wake up you’re snoring again…
Judges are supposed to be wise. They are not just settling a point of law, but their decision also needs to be seen as fair and neutral and generally applicable (even if they are not making case law).
In this situation, the judges involved in the current injunctions know they are in political waters. Wisdom should mean that they hold a very close eye to the letter of the law and avoid anything that could look like political entanglement, for precisely the problems that are now occurring. Wisdom should be that judgements in political charged cases should be narrow, and extraneous detail and non-legal ‘judging’ should be avoided.
However, the bigger picture is that what Trump is trying to do pushes against large constitutional questions about the level and method of control the Executive or Congress can exercise over the federal bureaucracies and spending, and from that separation of powers – who does control the bureaucracy, and how can it be reformed?
It’s almost inevitable that this question will need to be settled within the Supreme Court. And in acting slowly and allowing things to play out, I wonder if the Supreme Court might be acting wisely, allowing legal argument to develop and be tested in lower courts, before seeking to consolidate a number of issues and cases together into final judgements.
If a US president makes a decision that is beyond his constitutional authority, either because he didn’t follow due process, or infringed on someone’s constitutional rights or needed Congressional approval it is the function of the judiciary to issue an appropriate order, often an injunction. That does not make the judicial opinion a mere political opinion. And the duty is the same regardless of which political party appointed them to the bench.
This already has two downvotes and will undoubtedly get a lot more.
Why? Are you people so far gone that you are willing to grant Trump unlimited power, constitutional protections be damned?
I look forward to seeing the usual cult-like defences of your moron president – should be pretty funny!
The question is the jurisdiction of District Court Judges exercising this power..The Supreme Court is the only co-equal branch and exists for exactly these types of decisions…not the District Court and the Author makes that clear
Oh, absolutely! Because why let those pesky District Court Judges exercise their constitutional authority when we can just outsource every tough call to the Supreme Court? Who needs checks and balances anyway? Just let Trump and the hideous scum that he employs send whoever they want to jail in El Salvador without due process.
Who knows, maybe they’ll kick your door in one day and you’ll be off for an unscheduled jaunt to San Salvador?!?! Who’s going to stop them?
But none of these judges have ruled that the President or his officers have acted beyond their authority. They have injuncted the Government to stop, pending an actual ruling, certain policy decisions from having effect. That may be appropriate for a particular plaintiff but it is a step into the unknown for the judge to apply the injunction with universal effect.
The purpose of these injunctions is to allow special interest groups to evade the impact of Executive decisions. So, for example, when a judge prevents the Government from stopping a payment to an overseas recipient there’s little chance of the US taxpayer getting that money back when the injunction is, inevitably, overturned by a higher court.
It’s bad enough when attorneys engaged in lawfare. It’s very serious when judges join in.
In most of the cases I have seen the judges have issued temporary restraining orders, not injunctions. A temporary restraining order is only good for 14 days at most. It’s designed to preserve the status quo when irreversible harm would be suffered absent the order.
Donald Trump is trying to push things through with a shock and awe campaign. There’s no reason not to slow things done a bit to let the courts decide whether the law has been followed. Elon Musk is not in charge here.
This is the real issue. the District court rulings have always been seen as limited in effect to the case at hand, to the plaintiffs that brought the case, and at most similar cases pending within that District.
The Progressives however have decided that they will fight every conservative measure by shopping activist courts and then pretending that the rulings are universal. Since none of this has been addressed by the Supremes, no one really knows for sure exactly what weight the Districts do carry.
I have noticed however that none of the people who right now are singing the praises of the courts were that enthusiastic when they ruled that Biden’s plan to go around Congress to forgive student debt. In fact they were calling for impeachments, and urging Biden to ignore the rulings.
But we are used to the same old story. Progressives develop new and more devious machinations to turn the country into a a Fascist crap-hole, and then scream bloody murder when we conservatives have no choice but to roll over or adopt their weapons.
LOL..They better hope that we conservatives don’t decide to copy their use of “brown shirt” groups like BLM and Antifa.
The sooner it comes to a head the better and not just in the US.
Judge’s Order on Deportation Flights Carrying Alleged Tren de Aragua Members: an Intrusion of Executive Power
Welcome to the new civil war folks. It’s a mess. This is the way that the civil wars that transformed the Roman Republic into the Empire started. Partisans started using the institutions of government to advance their own partisan causes.
One reason that Julius Ceasar gave us the Julian Calandar was that the office of the Censor regulated the Calandar. If the Censor’s party was in power, he might add days so that his side could rule longer and take away days if the opposition was in power. So that by the time of Julius, it was completely useless for organizing agriculture.
Now, I don’t have a problem with illegals being deported. However, when people are legally hear, and they are deported for the wrong politics or speech, then I side with the injunctions that the courts are giving.
Big of you, since that hasn’t actually happened.
Its incredible how quick the right is to ignore the US constitution when it suits them. They are traitors, plain and simple. And the fact that they are willing to turn their back on the rule of law in service of a simpleton like Donald Trump just makes it even worse.
Bravo! A True Blue Tory fusiliade if ever I’ve encountered the genre.
I believe Good King George was of the same opinion.
‘TWAS NOT while England’s sword unsheathed
Put half a world to flight,
Nor while their new-built cities breathed
Secure behind her might;
Not while she poured from Pole to Line
Treasure and ships and men—
These worshippers at Freedoms shrine
They did not quit her then!
Go back to sleep, grandpa!
“Traitors plain and simple”
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
MABA
“Make America Britain Again!”
“put a halt to the deportation of some Venezuelan gang members over the weekend”
This is the point. We don’t know who was deported or why. Are we expected to take Trump and his cronies at their word? Please.
Democrat policy allowed these scum to enter and to run wild. Why is that?