'Thumbing their nose': Judges warn of 'serious' crackdown as White House lawyers irritate
A new report in The Wall Street Journal says federal judges are facing "increasing irritation" when dealing with Trump administration lawyers because they're unsure of the accuracy of the information they're getting before making important rulings.
The consequences of the government's waning credibility "could be serious—both for the administration, which might see its odds of prevailing on close questions diminish before judges who lack confidence in government representations, and for the judiciary, should lip service to court orders become an acceptable norm," the report said.
Correspondent Jess Bravin wrote that the latest test is expected this week during a hearing on whether the White House is openly disregarding U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson's orders to stop dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The paper quoted Judge Jackson saying, “There is reason to believe that officials 'are thumbing their nose at both this Court and the Court of Appeals.'"
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The Journal piece explained that the appellate court upheld most of Jackson's orders "to preserve the CFPB’s existence while an employee-union’s lawsuit against the layoffs proceeds."
Although the government lawyers have claimed they're complying "even with judicial orders they think are egregiously wrong, while pursuing expedited appeals to higher courts," some judges hearing the myriad cases Trump has lined up thanks to his "aggressive assertions of executive power" are dubious, the report said.
The piece quotes Charles Cooper, a former assistant attorney general who has represented Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
According to the piece, "Cooper said he didn’t know if there was merit to courts’ complaints about administration conduct, but judges are human.' If a lawyer misleads you, he said, 'you deal with that lawyer in a different way than you have been.'"
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