US judges, USA News (California, Washington DC): Across the US, judges are fuming. The source of their ire: Donald Trump and his administration. In frank, unapologetic and sometimes openly angry language, the American judiciary is pushing back at what it says is undemocratic and dangerous behaviour by Trump, his agents and federal prosecutors. And in the lead-up to next month’s midterm elections, those accusations have escalated dramatically.
‘Democracy in danger’
On Wednesday Judge David Carter, in California’s district court, accused Trump of acting like “a sovereign”. The Trump administration, via the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been seeking an emergency court order to segregate about 20,000 potential ballots in the midterm elections, which it claimed were sent to “likely noncitizens”. In a blistering 26-page ruling rejecting the suit, Carter said the case was “about the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election”.
“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” Carter wrote. “In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign.
Carter said it wasn’t an isolated case: the DOJ has filed at least 31 lawsuits in federal district courts across the country seeking to decide who can or cannot vote according to its own lists of eligible voters. “The DOJ’s actions are indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials,” the judge said. He also ordered the DOJ to stop threatening officials who do not comply with its wishes.
‘A sideshow on top of a sideshow’
On Tuesday, a federal judge scolded the DOJ for mishandling a criminal case against two former FBI officials, regarding their investigation of a laptop linked to Hunter Biden, the son of former president Joe Biden. An agent confessed in court that FBI director Kash Patel ordered the case to be launched after a July speech from Trump rehashing old complaints about election interference. Magistrate Zia Faruqui rejected an amended criminal complaint filed by the DOJ, which had not been signed off by a judge to confirm there was “probable cause” to believe a crime had been committed.
“Everything is a little sideshow on top of a sideshow,” Faruqui complained. The DOJ is also accused of political motivations for making a fresh attempt to prosecute former FBI director James Comey, as well as a former White House staffer who testified against Trump at an investigation into the Capitol Hill riot in January 2021, both this week.
‘Running amok, unchecked’
Trump’s plan to bulldoze a public golf course in Washington DC and replace it with a carbon copy of one of his resorts has met stiff resistance from conservationists. Ana Reyes, a district court judge in DC, has been overseeing the case, and rounded on the government when it started cutting down trees on the course while it was still being litigated. She was especially bemused by government lawyers insisting there was no official plan or decision to remodel the course, despite the president’s repeated social media posts on the subject that conclusively confirmed it was happening.
In a quoxotic ruling on Monday, Reyes’ frustration boiled over. “Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President,” her written decision began. Much of her 70-page ruling concerned the separation of powers between the courts and the government, in which she asserted her power to check Trump’s overreach.
‘Unworthy… unsettling… blatantly unlawful’
Under pressure from the administration, prosecutors are starting to cut corners or even lie, judges claim. In July ProPublica published a review of hundreds of cases in which judges have criticised the actions of federal prosecutors since Trump’s re-election. They found that, increasingly, judges could not rely on a legal principle called “the presumption of regularity”. Examples found by ProPublica include rulings by district court judges Mary McElroy, Irene Berger, and Patrick Schiltz, who noted misrepresentations, bad faith, and unconstitutional efforts by the DOJ.
