Tag: federal Judiciary

Trump ‘violates all recognized democratic norms,’ federal judge says in biting speech on judicial independence

Washington Post logoIn an unusually critical speech that lamented the public’s flagging confidence in the independence of the judicial branch, a federal judge slammed President Trump for “feeding right into this destructive narrative” with repeated attacks and personal insults toward judges he dislikes.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman of the District of Columbia said Trump’s rhetoric “violates all recognized democratic norms” during a speech at the annual Judge Thomas A. Flannery Lecture in Washington on Wednesday.

“We are in unchartered territory,” said Friedman, 75, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. “We are witnessing a chief executive who criticizes virtually every judicial decision that doesn’t go his way and denigrates judges who rule against him, sometimes in very personal terms. He seems to view the courts and the justice system as obstacles to be attacked and undermined, not as a coequal branch to be respected even when he disagrees with its decisions.”

View the complete November 8 article by Katie Shepherd on The Washington Post website here.

Courts become turbocharged battleground in Trump era

The Hill logoThe nation’s courts have become a central battleground for President Trump’s policy agenda, posing challenges for the third branch of government that has long sought to insulate itself from partisan politics.

As more of the president’s policies fail to gain traction in Congress, he has increasingly turned to executive actions to set them in place. Outside groups have filed lawsuit after lawsuit challenging those measures, leaving their fate in judges’ hands.

Courts have long played a role in sorting out messy policy fights, but legal experts who spoke to The Hill believe the growing polarization in Washington has increasingly thrust the courts into the political realm.

View the complete July 22 article by Jordan Fabian and jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.