A prominent former federal prosecutor tore into a top White House advisor on Thursday, blasting the aide's comment that a judge committed "legal insurrection" as an "absurd" "self-cancelling oxymoron."
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller made the remarks while answering reporters' questions on Monday. He was asked to clear up his recent attack on a Trump-appointed judge.
“You called a legal ruling, legal insurrection. Are you recommending the president take action against judges with rulings you disagree with?” a reporter asked.
“No, it’s simply a factually accurate statement that when a judge assumes for him or herself the powers that have been delegated by the Constitution to the president, that that is a form of illegal insurrection. And we have seen—” Miller replied.
But the reporter interjected, “The ruling carries legal weight. So are you recommending—”
“No, we have seen, over the last nine months, an ongoing legal insurrection in which district court judges, as a class in many cases, have issued—which is why they’ve been overturned so much—have issued rulings that are flagrantly unlawful and unconstitutional,” Miller shot back.
The exchange revolved around court rulings blocking President Donald Trump's orders to deploy National Guard troops to Oregon.
Miller's remarks caught the attention of Preet Bharara, a former federal prosecutor who served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017.
He noted that a federal judge temporarily blocked the federalization of Oregon National Guard members, shredding the president’s claims that conditions in the city were "simply untethered to the facts" and that protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility were “not significantly violent or disruptive.”
Bharara noted the judge based her ruling on a statute that requires a “rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.”
The judge issued a second emergency order to block the administration from sending National Guard units from other states to Oregon.
Bharara said he saw the judge’s ruling as "unremarkable" — but MAGA melted down. That included Miller's outburst, which Bharara said was "much worse than political theater."
"Trump adviser Stephen Miller ... recently took to X to label that federal judge’s ruling itself a 'legal insurrection.' What the hell even is that? It’s a self-cancelling oxymoron, as absurd as saying nonviolent war or lawful terrorism. By definition, an insurrection is a violent uprising against authority. Legal process, on the other hand, is the authority of law and action," he wrote in a Substack email.
"You can’t have a legal insurrection any more than you can have a peaceful war. The phrase collapses under its own weight. It’s nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. It’s a rebellion against logic and an insult to the rule of law, all in two words, but it fits a pattern," he continued.
Bharara said the exaggeration reminded him of a "similar hysterical hyperbole" of Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who railed that a preliminary ruling amounted to a “judicial coup.”
"What? To these two educated but ignorant MAGA men, even a mundane constitutional process is treachery. Mere disagreement is an insurrection or a coup. Everything is an attempted overthrow of the government, except of course, actual violence on January 6th," Bharara said.
He challenged the men to voice their opposition where it counts — the appeals court.
"That’s how it’s done. That appeal is the lawful, orderly path. You make your case to a higher court and let the rule of law play out. What you don’t do is hurl epithets like insurrection at a judge for doing her job. Yet Miller is jumping ahead of the game, implying rebellion and maligning the judge instead of respecting the process. It’s as if in his view, the very act of checks and balances is an affront to authority. Hmm…I wonder if there’s a word for that," he said.