Leftist judges want to turn Donald Trump into a president in name only.
Look at all the ways that individual judges have hamstrung the Trump administration. A District Court judge recently blocked President Trump’s executive order removing transgender individuals from the military. Another judge ordered the Trump administration to send two men who are pretending to be women into a women’s prison. One federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore government webpages that promote the left’s transgender narrative.
A different District Court judge stopped the Trump administration from disbanding the wasteful USAID and weighed in on hiring decisions.
Last weekend, another federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting illegal immigrant gang members. He even unsuccessfully attempted to force the Trump administration to turn around flights that were already in the air. These examples are only the tip of the judicial overreach iceberg.
Now, all presidential administrations face lawsuits, but what’s happening here is well beyond historical norms. In his four years in office, former President Joe Biden’s administration received 14 federal injunctions. In less than two months, judges have already hit the Trump administration with more than that.
These rulings are an affront to the Constitution. Article II gives “executive power” to the president, who is also “Commander in Chief” of the military. Yet, according to some federal judges, the judiciary is in charge of the executive branch’s military policy, hiring, spending decisions and deportation flights. The Trump administration can’t even take down a website.
Contrast that judicial activism with what Alexander Hamilton laid out in Federalist 78.
“The judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power,” he wrote.
But, Hamilton warned, while “liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone,” it “would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.”
That’s what some District Court judges are attempting to do. These unelected, unaccountable judges are attempting to upend the constitutional order.
Most people take it for granted that the executive and legislative branches will abide by judicial decisions. And despite Trump’s social media bluster, his administration has been remarkably deferential to the judicial process in its actions. That’s likely in part from a belief that higher courts, including the Supreme Court, will largely overrule these individual judges. That’s already happened in one case involving Trump’s push to eliminate DEI.
The judiciary is more vulnerable than many activist judges seem to realize. As Hamilton wrote, the judiciary “must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.”
In other words, if Trump tells the court to enforce its own rulings, the court can’t. It can only hope there would be a political price to pay for openly defying a court order.
Public support for the judiciary, however, could collapse quickly. The left has been attacking it for years. Biden openly disregarded a Supreme Court decision on student loan forgiveness. Some Democrats pushed to pack the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts needs to stop rogue District Court judges from violating the Constitution — and quickly. If he doesn’t, support from the right could evaporate quickly.
A diminished court isn’t ideal, but neither is one that flagrantly violates the Constitution.
Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Opinion section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.
