Since returning to office, President Trump has faced an onslaught of leftist-backed lawfare seeking to grind the implementation of his voters’ agenda to a halt. Unsurprisingly, many of these lawsuits have been filed in districts predominated by Democrat-appointed judges, who have been more than happy to issue a myriad of preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders blocking enforcement of the administration’s policies.
Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court largely agreeing to shut down this lower court judicial coup for the time being, a number of rogue judges have taken to anonymously attacking the high court for stopping the crisis they helped create.
The latest instance of this phenomenon came on Saturday, when The New York Times published an article highlighting criticisms from more than three-dozen unnamed lower court judges about the Supreme Court’s handling of cases involving the Trump administration. More specifically, these (mostly Democrat-appointed) jurists attacked the high court for its management of the “emergency” docket.
Otherwise known as the “interim” docket, this is where, for example, a district court judge issues a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order against a party (ex. the Trump administration) barring a specific policy from taking effect. If the affected party’s appeal to temporarily stay (“pause”) that injunction/TRO is rejected by the appeals court, the party can then file an emergency application for stay at SCOTUS’ emergency docket. The court can then grant or reject the request based on factors such as the party’s likelihood to succeed on the merits and suffer irreparable harm if the lower court injunction/TRO is allowed to remain in place throughout litigation.
Thus far, the Supreme Court has granted most of the administration’s requests to temporarily pause these overreaching orders. While such interim decisions have predictably prompted dishonest hot takes from leftist media, rogue judges clearly unhappy with their orders being overturned by the high court are now anonymously attacking the justices via legacy media.
According to the Times, 47 of the 65 lower court judges who responded to the outlet’s questionnaire disagreed with the statement that SCOTUS “has made appropriate use of the emergency docket since President Trump returned to office.” Thirty-six of those 47 were nominated by Democrats, while all 12 who agreed with the statement were appointed by Republicans. Five of the six judges who expressed neutrality on the issue were also appointed by Republicans.
This partisan divide was also evident in the Times’ question about whether “[l]ower-court judges have sufficient guidance from the Supreme Court about how to apply emergency docket orders.” Of the 48 who disagreed with the statement, 35 were Democrat appointees, while all 12 of the judges who expressed agreement were nominated by Republicans. Three Republican appointees and two Democrat appointees were neutral on the question.
The latter query is likely in reference to criticisms from corporate media and the Supreme Court’s Democrat-appointed justices, who have often taken aim at the court’s Republican-appointed majority for declining to provide lengthy legal explanations on the court’s emergency docket orders. As previously explained by Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, however, the reason for this decision is to avoid a “lock-in effect” in which justices offer extensive opinions on an issue before the merits of the cases can be fully litigated and decided by the Supreme Court.
What’s particularly notable about the piece is the question the Times posed to lower court judges about, “What effect, if any, has the Supreme Court’s use of the emergency docket, since President Trump returned to office, had on the public’s perception of the judiciary?” In other words, the Democrat Party mouthpiece is asking these judges to feed them talking points they desperately seek in their campaign to delegitimize a Supreme Court that won’t rule on issues in ways its hyper-leftist staffers prefer.
Unsurprisingly, among the 42 judges who said SCOTUS’ use of the interim docket “caused harm” to the branch’s reputation, 32 were appointed by Democrats. (Of the 10 who said it “had no effect” and two who said it had “an improvement,” all were Republican nominees).
See how this game works, folks?
Left-wing activists file a bevy of frivolous lawsuits against the Trump administration, mostly in districts dominated by Democrat-appointed judges. These judges issue overreaching injunctions and TROs blocking the president’s policies, which all but force the government to appeal to SCOTUS for relief. Then, when SCOTUS inevitably knocks down these ludicrous orders, left-wing propaganda firms like the Times go running to these same rogue lower court judges to get their thoughts on how the Supreme Court’s willingness to shut down the mess they made is the real crisis.
While there’s certainly more the Supreme Court could do to end the weaponization of the lower courts, the high court is not the problem here. The issue is rogue lower court judges who have no respect for the separation of powers or the constitutional role of the judicial branch.
What America has witnessed over the past nine months has been nothing short of a judicial coup, in which out-of-control lower courts have taken it upon themselves to usurp the power of the executive. Not only are many of these judicial activists attempting to micromanage a separate branch of government, some have even gone as far as to try and legislate from the bench.
But naturally, that’s not the primary concern of the Times or many of the judges interviewed by the outlet. Their focus is — and always has been — destroying one of the last major institutions their political allies don’t control. Whether it’s through deranged left-wing wackos allegedly armed with explosives or disgusting hit pieces in the pages of the New York Times, there is nothing the left won’t do to make that happen.