Federal judges under President Donald Trump’s second term in office have not hesitated to defy precedent and presidential authority: One even ordered jets carrying deported illegal aliens out of the country turned around mid-air.
Another defied a ruling from even the U.S. Supreme Court.
It’s all been in their agenda to oppose Trump’s security, economic and foreign policy plans for America.
Now the administration is responding, with several requests that judges who participated in a partisan campaign with the New York Times to criticize Trump removed from key cases.
“Impartiality is imperative to ensuring public trust in our nation’s judiciary,” explained the Department of Justice in a court filing.
That submission targeted two Minnesota judges, Patrick Schiltz, who claimed to the Times that the administration actions were “a grave threat to the rule of law,” and John Tunheim, who commented that Trump’s agenda to track down and remove those illegally in the United States wasn’t arresting “people who were dangerous criminals on the streets.”
A report at the Washington Examiner said the DOJ explained in its filing, “Judge Schiltz’s and Judge Tunheim’s on-the-record participation in a recent highly partisan New York Times Article, along with Judge Schiltz’s subsequent public comments, unquestionably calls into doubt whether they can be impartial in these cases.”
The DOJ wants them removed from separate immigration-related cases, one involving a legal effort to strip a Minnesota man of his U.S. citizenship for events that transpired, and the prosecution of a South African woman accused of voting illegally.
The Examiner reported, “The motions mark another clash between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary over immigration enforcement and the role judges play in reviewing the government’s actions. The Justice Department contended that the judges’ remarks to the New York Times in September suggest they have already formed opinions about the administration’s immigration policies and should not oversee cases tied to those efforts.”
Regarding Schiltz, the DOJ charged, “A judge who has publicly taken sides on the political issue of immigration enforcement cannot then preside over a case concerning one of the Justice Department’s key immigration initiatives: pursuing the largest denaturalization effort in Department history to restore trust and integrity in U.S. citizenship.”
The DOJ said, “Absent recusal, the American people will reasonably question whether Judge Schiltz can be impartial regarding this important matter defending the integrity of American citizenship.”
Similar charges were leveled against Tunheim with the DOJ suggesting his comments about such issues to the news outlet indicated he viewed the charges as unwarranted.
“To Judge Tunheim, the ‘rule of law’ apparently means ignoring the law when it comes to illegal aliens who have broken the law,” the DOJ said. “In sum, Judge Tunheim’s statements and participation in the New York Times article, at a minimum, give rise to the appearance of bias in immigration-related cases.”
The Examiner explained that letting a judge with a bias continue cannot always be fixed on appeal.
“Winning an appeal may not undo the time lost while a policy or executive agenda item is blocked. The silver lining for Trump is that the Supreme Court has frequently granted the administration emergency relief, but those decisions often allow a policy to proceed while litigation continues rather than end the case. Lower court judges still oversee many of those lawsuits. And while the government can ask a judge to recuse, the decision belongs to the judge or the court, not the department,” the report said.
Mike Davis, a conservative legal activist and Trump ally, told the publication the DOJ is now confronting disputes over judges it views as partisan without fear or hesitation.
“President Trump has a bold, fearless, and very strong team at the Justice Department, and they’re not going to be cowed by these Democrat activist judges,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Schiltz hs been defiant, insisting he was talking about a “threat to the rule of law and the threat to judicial independence. I have a duty to do so.”
Another judge, Ana Reyes, who is hearing a lawsuit over the administration’s plans for the East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, refused a motion for her to leave the case.
The DOJ has accused her of a deep-seated hostility to the Trump administration.
She also ordered the government to refile a document, withdrawing the order hours later after her agenda was described as “incredibly untenable.”
Several judges, like James Boasberg in Washington, have been named in congressional impeachment agendas because of their blatant opposition to a president exercising his constitutional duties.
Hans von Spakovsky, a former DOJ official and senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, said the problem is serious.
“DOJ is dealing with an almost intractable problem — the radical, ideological judges that Biden and Obama put into the judiciary. They have shown in the numerous injunctions that they have issued that they don’t care what the law says, as long as they can stop Trump enforcement policies. That is why the Supreme Court has overturned a record number of those injunctions. Other than the ethics complaints that have been filed, like the one in Minnesota, there simply isn’t much else the DOJ can do because federal judges have lifetime tenure. Impeachment is also almost impossible. You’ll never get the two-thirds vote needed in the Senate to be successful.”
The solution, he said, is “getting better judges.”
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[ H/T WorldNetDaily ]
