(AFP) – A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against other judges and rebuked the White House for attacks on the judiciary. District Judge Thomas Cullen, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, dismissed the unusual suit brought by the Justice Department against all of the 15 federal district judges in Maryland.
The Trump Justice Department filed suit after the chief district judge in the eastern state issued a standing order requiring the government to give undocumented migrants facing expulsion 48 hours to contest their removal. Instead of appealing the order to a higher court, the Justice Department took the extraordinary step of suing the 15 district judges in Maryland, accusing them of “judicial overreach.”
Cullen, who normally sits in a district in Virginia, was brought in to hear the case since the federal district judges in Maryland were defendants. In a scathing 37-page ruling against the Justice Department, he said suing federal judges was a “novel and potentially calamitous” approach. “If the Executive truly believes that Defendants’ standing orders violate the law, it should avail itself of the tried-and-true recourse available to all federal litigants: It should appeal,” he said.
Cullen also had harsh words for White House attacks on the judiciary. For months, administration officials “have described federal district judges across the country as ‘left-wing,’ ‘liberal,’ ‘activists,’ ‘radical’ … ‘rogue,’ ‘unhinged’ … and worse,” the judge said. “Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate,” he added.
Trump, the first convicted felon to serve in the White House, has a history of attacking the judges who presided over his civil and criminal cases. Since his return to office in January, Trump has launched fierce attacks on judges who have ruled against his executive orders or blocked his efforts to deport migrants and slash the federal workforce.
In March, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts issued a rare public rebuke of the Republican president over his call for the impeachment of a federal judge. “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.”
© 2024 AFP
