Donald Trump's war on judges, which has earned him a rare rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, will not end well for him according to one highly influential retired judge who served on U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
In a column in the New York Times on Sunday morning, conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote that, by trying to bully the courts to rubber-stamp his agenda with criticism and threats, Trump risks a wave of blow-back that will end his re-election honeymoon.
According to Luttig, in a column headlined, "It’s Trump vs. the Courts, and It Won’t End Well for Trump," he asserted the president has "... yearned for this war against the federal judiciary and the rule of law since his first term in office," and now that he has it he will come to regret it.
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"But unless Mr. Trump immediately turns an about-face and beats a fast retreat, not only will he plunge the nation deeper into constitutional crisis, which he appears fully willing to do, he will also find himself increasingly hobbled even before his already vanishing political honeymoon is over," he predicted before adding, "All that is left to check his impulses is the nation’s independent judiciary, which Alexander Hamilton deemed 'essential' to our country’s constitutional governance."
Noting the president's battle with Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, that has moved to front and center as Trump relentlessly attacks the judiciary, Luttig wrote that Justice Roberts, in a rare rebuke, fired a shot across Trump's bow when he issued a statement claiming, "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
"Mr. Trump seems supremely confident, though deludedly so, that he can win this war against the federal judiciary, just as he was deludedly confident that he could win the war he instigated against America’s democracy after the 2020 election," Luttig charged before adding, "If the president oversteps his authority in his dispute with Judge Boasberg, the Supreme Court will step in and assert its undisputed constitutional power 'to say what the law is.'”
He then warned the president, "A rebuke from the nation’s highest court in his wished-for war with the nation’s federal courts could well cripple Mr. Trump’s presidency and tarnish his legacy."
