Trump revisits playbook for taking down the judiciary

A hallmark of President Trump’s criminal trials were his unsparing attacks on the judges who oversaw them.

Now, he’s going to that playbook again – this time from the Oval Office.

Trump on Tuesday stepped up his attacks, and for the first time called for the impeachment of a judge who ruled against him.

“I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Trump was referencing U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who on Saturday blocked Trump’s plan to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport suspected members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.

Boasberg’s ruling, and the administration’s reaction to it, has sparked an extraordinary battle raising questions about the limits of executive power as Trump officials say they don’t have to listen to the court.

Chief Justice John Roberts weighed in, issuing a rare public rebuke of the president, without naming him, for raising impeachment.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Trump’s attacks on judges became a central feature of his personal criminal and civil trials, where he lambasted presiding judges like Judge Juan Merchan in Manhattan criminal court as a “radical partisan,” Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington as “the most evil person” and Judge Arthur Engoron in Manhattan civil court as a “political hack.”

Responding to Roberts during an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Trump noted that the chief justice didn’t name him and repeated his earlier comments about Boasberg.

“But many people have called for his impeachment, the impeachment of this judge. I don’t know who the judge is, but he’s radical left. He was Obama-appointed,” Trump said.

Trump’s Republican allies in Congress are running the play, too.

Beyond Boasberg, they’ve announced plans to impeach Judge John McConnell, who halted the administration’s blanket funding freeze; Judge Amir Ali, who resumed foreign aid payments; Judge John Bates, who restored scrubbed online health data; and Judge Paul Engelmayer, who prevented Elon Musk from accessing Treasury Department payment systems.

The calls are raising concerns in the judiciary that go well beyond Roberts and were addressed last week at the spring meeting of the Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s policymaking body.

“Often someone's gonna be unhappy with a decision, and that means then a person has to choose whether they wish to appeal. We have a system of justice that allows for appeals as of right to an intermediate appellate court and ultimately to the Supreme Court, if necessary,” said Judge Richard Sullivan, who chairs the conference’s security committee.

“So that's typically the way it works. Impeachment shouldn't be a short circuiting of that process,” said Sullivan.

Judge Jeffrey Sutton, the Judicial Conference’s executive committee chair, told reporters that "threats to judges are threats to judicial independence.”

“Threats of impeachment, this is not the first time this has happened. One thing worth keeping in mind is if we dilute the standards for impeachment, that's not just a problem for judges. That's a problem for all three branches of government,” said Sutton.

Impeaching a federal judge is rare. It has only happened 15 times in the nation’s history, congressional records show.

It hasn’t taken place since 2010, when Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. was removed from office for receiving cash and valuables from lawyers appearing before him.

Even efforts to impeach judges for non-politically charged rulings have fallen flat.

Last year, the Judicial Conference referred for impeachment Judge Joshua Kindred, who resigned from his post in Alaska after facing accusations of judicial misconduct. The House has not yet acted on the referral.

You’re reading The Gavel, The Hill’s weekly look at the intersection of courts and national politics from Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld. If you like what you’ve read so far, you can follow us on social media for updates or send us news tips via email or Signal (we’ll keep you anonymous!).

X: @ByEllaLee, @ZachASchonfeld

Email: elee@thehill.com, zschonfeld@thehill.com

Signal: elee.03, zachschonfeld.48

Washington's love-hate relationship with nationwide injunctions

Trump and his Republican allies’ sharp aim at judges largely target nationwide blocks on executive orders key to his sweeping agenda.

“If ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY,” Trump ally Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, wrote recently on X.

When it comes to nationwide injunctions, many in Washington try to have their cake and eat it, too. Hate ‘em when you’re in power, love ‘em when you’re not.

Trump himself has a complicated relationship with the issue. When a Louisiana judge blocked certain talk between the Biden administration and social media companies in 2023, the president (then former) called the ruling “historic” and hailed the judge as “brilliant.”

Now, the administration is seeking to end the practice. The Justice Department has filed a series of emergency applications telling the Supreme Court to rein in lower judges that have issued nationwide blocks on Trump’s birthright citizenship restrictions.

Nationwide injunctions — court orders barring the government from enforcing a policy or law against anyone, not just challengers of the action — have become a frequent phenomenon over the last two decades. They’re sometimes also called universal, or even cosmic, injunctions

During former President George W. Bush’s administration, just six nationwide injunctions were imposed, according to a 2024 Harvard Law Review survey. That doubled in former President Obama’s administration, when 12 universal injunctions were issued.

Those numbers rocketed in Trump’s first term; he faced 64 nationwide injunctions then, while former President Biden’s administration saw 14.

Leavitt, the White House press secretary, has been sure to remind everyone of the stat everywhere she goes.

As the administration goes to the Supreme Court, its request to rein in the practice will fall on at least some friendly ears.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first appointee, has repeatedly criticized nationwide injunctions, writing in 2020 that “this is not normal.”

“The rise of nationwide injunctions may just be a sign of our impatient times. But good judicial decisions are usually tempered by older virtues,” Gorsuch wrote, joined by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.

Nationwide injunctions’ defenders, however, view them as an essential tool for the federal judiciary to check the political branches:

“Without nationwide injunctions, the federal courts would be powerless to protect thousands or millions of people from potential illegal or unconstitutional government policies—policies that can be applied with minimal notice or process, and to many who lack the ability to bring their individual cases before the courts,” University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost wrote in a noted 2018 law review article.

Despite some of the conservative justices’ gripes about nationwide injunctions, they’ve declined recent opportunities to take up the issue head on.

In its waning days, the Biden-era Justice Department proposed the court could use a challenge to an anti-money laundering law as a vehicle to lay down ground rules. The court declined to do so (though Gorsuch, again, said he would entertain it).

And when the court took up the Biden administration’s defense of one of its student borrower rules, it refused the administration’s invitation to take up a second question of nationwide injunctions.

Trump firings skepticized by appeals panel

Trump’s firings of Democratic appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) garnered skepticism from an appeals panel Tuesday, as it weighs one facet of the president’s bid to expand his power.

The judges heard the Justice Department’s appeal of lower court reinstatements of NLRB’s Gwynne Wilcox and MSPB’s Cathy Harris, both found to have been unlawfully fired by Trump.

It’s become a common refrain by the government that the president’s executive power cannot be fettered by the courts. DOJ lawyer Eric McArthur argued that Trump’s “unrestricted” removal power is the “general” or “presumptive” rule, and that decades-old Supreme Court precedent only carves out exceptions for some independent agency leaders.

But the judges pushed back, insisting that the precedent remains good law since the justices have so far declined to explicitly overrule key parts of it in more recent cases.

“I'm sitting here with Supreme Court precedent, one on each shoulder — multiple on each shoulder, honestly — saying ‘still law,’ ‘still law,’ ‘still law,’ ‘still law,’” said U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of former President Obama.

The cases seem destined for the high court, which could choose to overrule its own precedent. Such an outcome would resonate beyond the NLRB and MSPB, potentially making way for the political whims of the White House to have a greater effect on independent agencies across the federal government.

Maine recusals

A Republican Maine state representative sued Maine’s Democratic House speaker.

Where? In Maine, of course.

Just one problem. One after the other, every active judge serving on Maine’s federal district court has recused themselves.

Each judge cited the federal recusal statute but provided no further explanation (see an example here).

It has created an interesting turn of events in State Rep. Laurel Libby’s (R) lawsuit against Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau and the house clerk, which Libby filed last week after the Democratic-controlled body censured her over a Feb. 17 Facebook post criticizing a transgender student who won a girls’ track and field championship event in the state.

The lawsuit has become the latest dimension of Maine’s new mainstay role in the debate over transgender athletes.

Maine has become a flashpoint after the state vowed noncompliance with Trump’s executive order barring their participation in girls’ sports. Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) even publicly sparred at the White House last month, when the president threatened to withhold federal funding from the state.

So now what? Chief U.S. District Judge Lance Walker is sending Libby’s lawsuit to a New England neighbor:

“All of the judges in this district have recused themselves from presiding over this case. Accordingly, the case shall be referred to the District of Rhode Island, sitting by designation,” Walker wrote in an order after six judges submitted recusal notices.

After Walker’s order, the case was assigned by U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose, a Biden appointee who joined Rhode Island’s federal district court at the start of this year.

Petitions Pile

Each week, we highlight petitions that the court has “relisted” for the first time, meaning the justices have re-upped the case for consideration at second, consecutive closed-door conferences.

It is a strong indication the court may hear the case, or a justice is writing a dissent from the court’s refusal to do so. This week, however, there are no new relists among the roughly 200 petitions set to be considered at Friday’s conference.

We’re still watching a handful of petitions that we previously highlighted in past editions of The Gavel that have not yet been resolved:

Second Amendment challenges to gun laws in Rhode Island and Maryland.

A religious dispute over plans to convert Oak Flat, a sacred Apache site, into a mine.

A student’s challenge to his school district banning him from wearing a shirt that reads, “There are only two genders.”

A death row inmate’s bid to advance claims of juror bias.

Two cases involving restitution orders.

A defendant’s case making claims under the Constitution’s Confrontation Clause.

Looking ahead

Don’t be surprised if additional hearings are scheduled throughout the week. But here’s what we’re watching for now:

Today:

The California State Bar’s appellate level is set to hear oral arguments in Trump ally John Eastman’s appeal of its recommendation to permanently disbar him over his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is set to hold a preliminary injunction hearing in the National Urban League’s challenge to three Trump executive orders involving gender and DEI.

Friday:

The Supreme Court will announce opinions.

A D.C. federal judge will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in the challenge to Trump’s plan to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members.

Monday:

The Supreme Court will announce orders.

The justices will hear oral arguments in a case concerning Louisiana’s new congressional map, which adds a second Black-majority district. They’ve been asked to decide the extent to which a voting map can be remediated to comply with the Voting Rights Act before it amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

The justices will also hear oral arguments over whether the 30-day deadline to seek an appeals court’s review of a removal order is jurisdictional when a migrant is seeking protection against torture.

A federal judge in San Francisco is set to hold a hearing over whether to postpone the effective date of the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela.

Tuesday:

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case concerning where plaintiffs can challenge final actions taken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act (CAA). They’ve been asked to decide the proper venue for oil refineries’ seeking exemptions from the EPA’s renewable fuel standard program.

A federal judge in Massachusetts is set to hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a challenge to Trump's order preventing people from updating the sex marker on their passports.

A Seattle federal judge is set to hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a challenge to Trump's order effectively banning transgender people from openly serving in the military.

What we’re reading

POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney, Megan Messerly and Josh Gerstein: Trump, already on a collision course with the courts, hits the gas

The Associated Press’s Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst: Supreme Court seems intent on taking small steps in dealing with challenges to Trump’s agenda

Vox’s Ian Millhiser: What can be done if Trump is openly defying the courts?

The New York Times’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Hamed Aleaziz, Maggie Haberman and Karoun Demirjian: Trump Invoked the Alien Enemies Act to Speed Up Deportations: What to Know

The Washington Post’s Jason Willick: Opinion - A provocative experiment pits AI against federal judges

We’ll be back next Wednesday with additional reporting and insights. In the meantime, keep up with our coverage here.

Questions? Tips? Love letters, hate mail, pet pics?

Email us here: elee@thehill.com and zschonfeld@thehill.com.

Securely reach us on Signal here: @elee.03 and @zachschonfeld.48.

Topics

Trump displays Declaration of Independence copy in the Oval Office

President Trump is displaying a copy of the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office after requesting it from the National Archives, according to a photograph he shared on Monday. “The ...
The Hill - 1d
Trump doubles down on attack against judge after Roberts rebuke

President Trump early Wednesday renewed his attacks on a federal judge who ordered the administration to turn around flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members, despite pushback from the ...
The Hill - 4h
Trump hangs a copy of Declaration of Independence in Oval Office

President Donald Trump has hung a copy of the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office, according to images he shared on social media
ABC News - 1d
Trump meets with Ireland's Martin in Oval Office

President Trump met with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin in the Oval Office weeks after the bombastic meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. CBS News' Olivia Rinaldi breaks down ...
CBS News - 6d
The Memo: Trump ratchets up confrontation with judiciary

President Trump and his administration ramped up their confrontation with the judiciary to extraordinary heights Monday, demanding that a judge whose ruling had incurred their disfavor should be ...
The Hill - 1d
More say Zelensky was not disrespectful to Trump in Oval Office: Survey

More Americans than not say Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wasn’t disrespectful to President Trump during their contentious Oval Office meeting late last month, according to a poll. The ...
The Hill - Mar. 12
The key Project 2025 authors now staffing the Trump administration

Trump has invited some of the most prominent contributors to the Project 2025 playbook into his administration.
NBC News - Mar. 12
GOP lawmakers conflicted over Trump’s clash with judiciary

Republican lawmakers are conflicted over how to respond to President Trump’s confrontational standoff with the federal judiciary, which drew a rare public rebuke Tuesday from Chief Justice John ...
The Hill - 7h
Trump could reshape judiciary with 300 judge appointments, analysis shows

Advocacy group Demand Justice warns of opportunities for president to shift balance of courts in his favour. Donald Trump is poised to reshape the US judiciary over the next four years through ...
The Guardian - 1d