The White House on Wednesday accused judges of “usurping” executive power after a series of rulings against Donald Trump’s administration, including one that blocked the deportation of Venezuelan migrants, which provoked the president’s anger.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that there was a “concerted effort by the far left” to select judges who were “clearly acting as partisan activists” in cases involving Trump’s administration.
“These judges are not only usurping the will of the president and the chief executive of our country but are also undermining the will of the American public,” Leavitt stated at a daily briefing.
Leavitt specifically criticized District Judge James Boasberg, who, over the weekend, suspended the deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants carried out under an obscure wartime law.
The Trump administration argued that it invoked the over-200-year-old legislation to deport Venezuelan gang members as part of a broader effort to remove undocumented migrants.
“It’s very clear that this is an activist judge trying to usurp the president’s authority,” Leavitt said, labeling Boasberg a “Democrat activist.”
Trump personally called for Boasberg’s impeachment on Tuesday, referring to him as a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.”
Trump’s comments prompted an unusual public response from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who issued a statement saying, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
On Wednesday, Trump renewed his attacks on Boasberg via his Truth Social network, although he refrained from repeating his impeachment call.
“If a president doesn’t have the right to remove murderers and other criminals from our country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our country is in very big trouble and destined to fail!” Trump wrote.
In recent days, judges have handed the Trump administration a series of setbacks as it pushes forward with its agenda of overhauling the federal government.
On Tuesday, a judge ordered an immediate halt to the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Another judge on the same day temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, citing equality principles.
South African billionaire Musk also lashed out at what he described as a “judicial coup” in a series of posts on his social network, X.
Trump, the first convicted felon to serve as president, has frequently attacked judges who presided over his civil and criminal cases. Now, his administration appears intent on confronting the judiciary as he seeks to assert unprecedented levels of executive power.
AFP
