President Donald Trump's first three weeks have been a nonstop attack on federal institutions that has left even a number of Republican-appointed judges horrified, Aaron Blake wrote for The Washington Post — and that horror is already translating into rulings against him.
One of the most notable recent salvos was a Ronald Reagan-appointed federal judge blocking Trump's order attempting to reinterpret the 14th Amendment to abolish birthright citizenship — but that is just the tip of the iceberg, Blake continued.
"U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour on Thursday shot up the most recent — and arguably the most striking — flare," he wrote. "In halting Trump’s attempt to nix birthright citizenship — a long-established right under the 14th Amendment — Coughenour accused Trump of trampling on the Constitution for 'political or personal gain.'" He compared Trump's order to other authoritarians dismantling the rule of law in other countries, saying, “There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say, ‘Where were the judges? Where were the lawyers?'”
At this point, wrote Blake, there is a pattern, with many other Reagan-nominated judges taking similar stances — including Judge Reggie Walton condemning Trump as a "charlatan" during a January 6 case; Judge Royce Lamberth saying he had never seen a time “when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream” as MAGA efforts to whitewash January 6; Judge Thomas Hogan calling martyrization of the January 6 insurrectionists “a danger that is embedded now in our communities across the country”; and Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly — who was initially appointed by Reagan and promoted to federal court by Bill Clinton — who warned Trump's pardons of the rioters do not change the reality of their crimes, and who just blocked Trump-backed tech billionaire Elon Musk from accessing certain federal computer systems.
Even the most important Republican-appointed judge in the country, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, appears tired of the drama Trump is foisting on the courts, wrote Blake.
Roberts, he wrote, recently commented in his 2024 year-end report that public officials “regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges — for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.” He did not single out Trump, and appeared frustrated with Democrats as well after their ongoing criticism of far-right court rulings; nonetheless, wrote Blake, "nobody in recent years holds a candle to Trump when it comes to baselessly claiming judicial bias and seeding conspiracy theories that appear intended to intimidate" judges, and Vice President J.D. Vance has openly suggested the president ignore the Supreme Court if they rule he can't fire generals.
"You could understand why this man becoming the vice president — and serving a president with his own checkered relationship with the rule of law — might raise Roberts’s eyebrows," concluded Blake. "And Roberts wouldn’t be the only one."
