‘Lunatic’: Trump’s long history of abusing judges who oppose him

As his administration builds up its rhetoric against the courts, US President Donald Trump has called a federal judge “radical left” for blocking the deportation of Venezuelan migrants.

Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of Judge James Boasberg, accusing him of putting the US at risk. Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday, saying “we don’t want vicious, violent, and demented criminals in our country, many of whom are deranged murderers.”

Since he issued a deportation flight deportation order on Saturday, Boasberg, who serves in the federal district court in Washington, DC, has been attacked.

The Trump administration has been accused of ignoring Boasberg’s orders by sending several planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador prisons notorious for rights abuses. Trump has used the obscurity-titled Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law intended to evict Americans from an enemy country during wartime.

The Republican-controlled Congress has little to counteract Trump’s executive orders, which has sparked the officials’ fury.

Attorney General Pam Bondi accused the judge of “meddling in our government” while White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt believes judges are acting as “judicial activists”.

Boasberg was referred to as a “radical left lunatic” by the US president when he was appointed by former US president Barack Hussein Obama.

Justice John Roberts, the supreme court’s justice, has criticized Judge Boasberg’s attempts to remove him, but Trump hasn’t stopped him from doing so. The US president lashed out at Roberts as well, suggesting the Supreme Court itself was compromised by political bias.

Trump has launched a number of attacks against judges and courts that disagree with his policies or hold him accountable in legal proceedings against him.

Why did Trump and members of his administration clash with the justice system? There’s a troubling pattern of Trump attacking judges and courts in the past. Take a look, folks.

a pattern of attacks?

Trump’s contempt for the courts predates his presidency but reached new levels during his time in office. Trump frequently criticized the judge for being biased, incompetent, or a part of a left-wing conspiracy when a decision was made against him.

One of the earliest instances occurred in 2016, when Trump, a presidential candidate, attacked US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was overseeing the fraud lawsuits against his now-defunct Trump University. Trump suggested Curiel was unfit to preside over the case because of his Mexican heritage, calling him a “hater” and implying he could not be fair due to Trump’s hardline stance on immigration. The attack received a lot of negative feedback.

Trump fought the judiciary once more while he was in office. In 2017, when Judge James Robart issued a temporary block on his travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries, Trump labelled him a “so-called judge” and accused him of endangering national security.

After ruling that an immigrant could seek asylum regardless of her country of birth, Trump dubbed Jon Tigar, a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, “an Obama judge.”

Trump attacked the judiciary the following year after a California appeals court forbade his administration from deporting young people who were protected by an Obama-era program.

Trump did not hesitate to also target the Supreme Court when it ruled against him.

When the court rejected his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, he was angry. Trump continues to think that his 2020 presidential campaign was rigged. In particular, he turned against Chief Justice Roberts, calling him “disgraceful” and “a disappointment”.

Did his attacks on the judiciary continue after his first term were over?

Trump’s attacks on judges became even more personal as his legal issues increased after his presidency ended in 2020. Facing multiple indictments ranging from election interference to business fraud, Trump often took to social media to condemn judges overseeing his cases.

Trump referred to Judge Arthur Engoron as “unhinged” and a “Trump-hating, radical left, Democrat operative” in his New York civil fraud case, in which he was found guilty of causing his net worth. On social media, he made fun of his lawyer, calling him “politically biased and corrupt,” which sparked a gag order.

Despite the restriction, Trump did not hold back.

Trump called her “highly partisan,” “very biased, and unfair,” and suggested she was trying to get him in his federal election interference case, which was being handled by Judge Tanya Chutkan. Prosecutors argued that his verbal assaults were putting the judicial process at risk and making judges and court staff potentially threatened.

Chutkan had warned Trump against making any “inflammatory statements” before the first hearing.

Trump’s attorneys told Chutkan, adding that the more people who make “inflammatory” statements about the case, the more urgently her case would be to go to trial. “Your client’s defense is supposed to happen in this courtroom, not on the internet,” Chutkan told them.

Additionally, Trump criticized Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, two liberal Supreme Court justices.

In 2020, Trump demanded that both judges “recuse” themselves from cases involving him, accusing them of bias, particularly after Sotomayor criticised the Trump administration’s frequent appeals to the top court to intervene in lower-court decisions.

Trump called Sotomayor’s remarks “highly inappropriate,” and later took to Twitter, which later became X.

His hostility toward Justice Ginsburg increased even more. Before her passing in 2020, Ginsburg had publicly criticised Trump during his 2016 campaign, calling him a “faker” and expressing concern over his presidency.

Trump responded by reversing her demands and calling her to resign. He faced criticism for nominating a conservative replacement, Amy Coney Barrett, right away after her death.

In 2020, Trump attacked Judge Amy Berman Jackson over the conviction of his long-term aide Roger Stone in a witness tempering case. He claimed that anti-Trump bias was present in Stone’s jury. Trump used social media to question the fairness of the justice system, which in turn represented political meddling in high-profile cases. Stone was pardoned in December 2020 at the end of Trump’s first term.

Trump’s rhetoric has encouraged some people to harass judges and their families, as well as stoking skepticism about the judiciary among his supporters. In response to Trump’s public criticism, Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the criminal case involving him in New York, received death threats and had his court bombarded with hostile messages.

Former federal judge J Michael Luttig last year called Trump’s rhetoric” vicious “and” an existential threat to the rule of law”, warning that undermining judicial independence could have long-term consequences for US democracy.

Lug referred to Trump’s repeated verbal attacks as “his objective was delegitimise those courts.”

The judiciary is the subject of the Trump administration’s conflict.

Trump, however, seems undeterred. Experts fear that Trump’s second term may be in full swing due to anti-court rhetoric from his and his supporters, including billionaire Elon Musk, who are close aides.

JD Vance, the vice president, is accused of attacking judges who allegedly obstructed some of Trump’s executive orders. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power, “he wrote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed with Vance when he said, “The courts should take a step back and allow these processes to unfold.”

Leavitt, a White House press secretary, stated days later that it is against the law to block some of Trump’s agenda.

Musk, Trump’s powerful adviser, has slammed judges in more than 30 social media posts since January. He demanded that a judge be fired last week after the judge had ordered the restoration of datasets and health-related websites.

In an effort to reduce costs, the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has fired thousands of federal government employees and shut down numerous federal agencies, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID). On Wednesday, a judge said Musk and DOGE” likely violated “the constitution in the USAID shutdown.

Legal experts have been alarmed by the unheard rhetoric.

According to our system, it has been known up until now that the courts are the ones who determine whether or not executive power is valid.

The US president has said he would not defy the court”. I adhere to the laws. He said on Wednesday in the Oval Office, “I have to follow the law.” But the previous day he complained that judges were preventing his administration from stopping fraudulent government spending.

He said, “We want to eradicate the corruption, and it seems difficult to believe a judge would say that.” Therefore, I believe we should examine the judges because I believe it to be a very serious violation.

The new administration’s rhetoric comes as at least 60 lawsuits have been filed over Trump’s actions since he took office in January, slowing down his aggressive agenda, including the firing of thousands of federal employees to slash spending.

Claire Finkelstein, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, claimed that there has been a concerted effort to portray judges as foes.

“He can start removing judges, which is fantastic, but he can make their lives so difficult that they might start resign.” I think that’s part of the attempt here”, she added.

How does one impeach a US judge?

Legal experts claim the impeachment process is not simple in the midst of the legal industry. Members of the House can file articles of impeachment against a judge.

If the House wins the simple majority, the Congress can remove a judge from office. The Senate will hear the case after the article is cleared. A two-thirds majority is required to convict a judge in the upper chamber of the Congress.

Republican Representative Eli Crane, who obstructed DOGE’s access to Department of Treasury payment systems, has filed articles of impeachment against US District Judge Paul Engelmayer.

Source: Aljazeera