Conservative judge stands up to Trump and slams AG Barr in ‘jaw-dropping opinion’

AlterNet logoDemocrats and Never Trump conservatives have been highly critical of U.S. Attorney General William Barr as well as Republicans in Congress for becoming loyal servants of President Donald Trump and doing his bidding at every turn. But law professor and former federal prosecutor Kimberly Wehle, in a February 12 op-ed for Politico, asserts that there is one conservative in the judiciary who clearly doesn’t consider himself a Trump servant: Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Wehle opens her op-ed by lamenting that it was painfully evident how much Trump has “defanged Congress’ oversight authority” when “the Senate acquitted the president of obstruction” during his impeachment trial. But Easterbrook, Wehle quickly adds, is “one conservative judge isn’t willing to let the executive branch steal power from his branch of government.”

n a “jaw-dropping opinion issued by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,” Wehle asserts, Easterbrook “rebuked Attorney General William Barr for declaring in a letter that the court’s decision in an immigration case was ‘incorrect’ and thus, dispensable.”  Continue reading.