Thomas Jefferson, Donald Trump & the Long War Against Rogue Judges

“The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they may please.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1819

The Trump Administration went into court today, asking the Supreme Court to block a federal judge ruling — by US District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco — that canceled the White House decision to fire 16,000 federal employees on probationary status at the VA, USDA, Pentagon, Energy, Interior and Treasury.

In other cases — Judge Ana Reyes’ injunction to block Trump’s ban on transgenders in the military, Judge James Boasberg’s order to return the plane deporting 261 Tren de Aragua gang members and criminals back from El Salvador, Judge John McConnell’s order that Trump’s DOGE unfreeze billions in federal grants, Judge Theodore Chuang’s decision to bar Secretary of State Rubio from appointing a nominee as deputy administrator of USAID, Judge Lee Rosenthal’s injunction against Texas A&M for canceling a campus drag show in compliance with Trump’s order — the Dem plaintiffs go “judge shopping” for the most radical TDS appointee on any federal bench, all in an effort to thwart President Trump’s executive actions.

So quickly are the injunctions piling up that three-fourths of those filed in the past 75 years were against Trump. This is not substance, this is politics. As filmmaker Mike Cernovich, an investor in nutritional products, pointed out, “No federal judge ever issued a nationwide injunction to prevent military service members from being forcefully injected with the COVID-19 poison.” Now they rule on All Things Trump.

Often, their rulings offer the rescue of wasteful spending targeted by DOGE to protect family fortunes. Katherine Boasberg, the judge’s daughter, runs an NGO called Partners for Justice, which offers legal advice to criminal illegal aliens and gang members. Another judicial daughter, Catherine McConnell, is employed by the Department of Education that Trump hopes to eliminate. For Theodore Chuang, who also ruled against Trump’s travel ban during his first term, an appointee’s loyalty to Trump renders him unfit to run USAID. In this case, he issued what amounts to a judicial coup, substituting his views for those of a duly elected president. And today, Judge Boasberg invited Tren de Aragua criminals to appeal their deportations.

In the case of Ana Reyes, an immigrant from Uruguay appointed to the bench by Biden, she accompanied her order with a 79-page memorandum opinion, so riddled by error as to be shocking. She calls the Trump ban on transgender troops “unabashedly demeaning,” and offers her independent assessment of sexual disorders, erroneously reporting that 1.7% of Americans are intersex. She regularly mocks DOJ attorneys and offers her political judgments on matters such as where transgender soldiers should be housed. As backup for her assertions, she cites sources in footnotes not from legal cases or precedence but from NPR, Wikipedia and the play Hamilton.

Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth wasted no time trolling.

Since “Judge” Reyes is now a top military planner, she/they can report to Fort Benning at 0600 to instruct our Army Rangers on how to execute High Value Target Raids…after that, Commander Reyes can dispatch to Fort Bragg to train our Green Berets on counterinsurgency warfare.

For his part, Trump was less funny.

“Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country!” he wrote on Truth Social. “These people are Lunatics, who do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect Decisions and Rulings … If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!”

Some suggest that Trump should simply ignore the rogue judges, and keep governing. But in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Trump made clear he is not one of them, saying “I would not defy a court order.” In fairness, he complied with every order issued during Lawfare I, and looks to be complying now, in Lawfare II.

Congress is making noises about holding hearings, or passing bills against judges imposing nationwide injunctions. The only thing sure is that little will come of it.

In the meantime, the Trump White House might review the records of the Jefferson administration, when the Federalists — represented by George Washington and John Adams — stacked the judiciary with those who shared their views. When Jefferson and his Republicans won the 1800 election, he disparaged John Adams for appointing what he called “midnight judges,” lifted to the bench in the last hours of the 2nd president’s term, after the results of the 3rd’s presidential election were well known. One of Adams’ midnight appointments was John Marshall at the Supreme Court, a lifetime appointment that put a Federalist atop the entire judiciary.

Like Trump, Jefferson was concerned that the federal government had grown too powerful, at the expense of the states and the public. In the months before his inauguration, TJ leaked out that his “intention was not to dismantle the federal government but to shrink it.” Naming Levi Lincoln as his attorney general, Jefferson told him “the removal of the excrescences from the judiciary is the universal demand.”

One of Jefferson’s first actions was to quietly mobilize allies to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1801, passed by a lameduck Federalist Congress while Republicans were scrambling to assume power. That law had set up a separate circuit court with 16 new judges — creating a new layer of federal judges between the district courts and the Supreme Court. John Marshall had the last word in Marbury v Madison, which cemented the high court’s right to interpret the Constitution’s meaning. Finally came the Republican effort to impeach Justice Samuel Chase, a fierce Federalist who supported the Alien and Sedition Act. Federalists defended Chase as the victim of a partisan attack. Eventually, he was acquitted on all charges. As biographer Joseph Ellis noted, “The Republican assault on the federal judiciary may have been successful at eliminating the circuit courts.” But the Supreme Court was “a federalist Gibraltar.”

Know this Mr. President, we are all, in MAGA nation, counting on you.