Justice Roberts Criticizes Trump

Finally, a few positive things

Today, I am encouraged by a few things, but we still have a long way to go in stopping Trump and Musk.

We heard about the recent legal mess when Trump decided to deport 238 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador because he said they were gang members, calling them murders and “bad people” (we don’t really know much about them), and federal Judge James Boasberg, ordered him to turn the planes around. The planes kept going. The judge asked for a hearing yesterday to get the facts, and Trump’s lawyers evaded giving the judge what he needed and asked for. During all this time, Trump called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg, calling him a “radical left lunatic.” Today, Chief Justice John Roberts made a rare public statement rebuking Trump. He said,

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

This is an important debate and judicial oversight. Judge Boasberg has been responsible for “setting the tone of the court through some of its highest-profile dealings with President Trump, including overseeing the end of grand jury inquiries in both federal cases against Mr. Trump, the 2020 elections case and the president’s handling of classified documents.” As more judges order injunctions and try to stop Trump from acting outside of his jurisdiction as the executive branch, Trump and his mouthpieces are calling for impeachment of judges who disagree with what he’s doing. So this is an encouraging push-back from our judicial branch. More on this judge, here.

While Roberts is often very conservative, it seems on this he is apolitical.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said in a statement in 2018. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Another federal judge ruled that Musk/Doge actions in dismantling USAID were likely illegal. He said it likely violated the United States constitution in “multiple ways," and that these actions harmed not only Plaintiffs, but also the public interest, because they deprived the public’s elected representatives in Congress of their constitutional authority to decide whether, when, and how to close down an agency created by Congress.” They have two weeks to certify that the USAID headquarters are reopened.

What happens if they don’t reopen the offices, and ignore the judge?

RFK, Jr, Health and Human Services head honcho said today that maybe the best way to battle bird flu is to allow it to spread, let it rip. Not only is this inhumane, it is dangerous and potentially economically disatrous.

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