Free Republic

Not a week seems to go by without a rogue lower court judge issuing yet another overreaching edict designed to subvert the will of the American people. While these “judges” certainly deserve criticism for rubber-stamping leftists’ lawfare, there’s one individual who deserves primary blame for this concentrated effort to cripple Trump’s presidency via a judicial coup: Chief Justice John Roberts. Over the past five months, rogue lower courts have issued nearly 200 overreaching injunctions and temporary restraining orders attempting to prevent Trump from fulfilling his Article II obligation to execute the nation’s laws. And yet, despite this egregious usurpation of...

The operation to cue riots over the removal of illegal immigrants has been well-planned in advance. Chief lawfare artists Norm Eisen and Mary McCord have engineered the legal strategy to oppose enforcement of US immigration law. They will clog the courts with lawsuits to prevent it and enlist their allied federal judges to issue injunction after injunction paralyzing the deportation process. ...

Activist judges like Judge Boasberg are are issuing blatantly unlawful nationwide injunctions. It’s not judicial review, it’s judicial sabotage.

Sen. John Kennedy came loaded for bear when questioning Kate Shaw in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Shaw was invited by the Democrats. She's a University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor and an ABC News contributor. She also happens to be married to MSNBC host Chris Hayes. The subject in discussion was judicial overreach. Among the topics under that rubric was nationwide injunctions. Our sister site, PJ Media, reported Kennedy asked if any of the panel of witnesses thought that "nationwide or universal injunctions are not being abused." Shaw said that in her opinion, she didn't see any...

The Supreme Court unanimously decided on Thursday to limit environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects in a case that will have sweeping impacts on President Donald Trump’s energy agenda. In a move that will restrict power of federal judges, Thursday’s decision reduces the scope of reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to focus solely on immediate impacts. Under NEPA, federal agencies are required to study any potentially significant environmental consequences of federal permits for infrastructure projects. “NEPA does not allow courts, ‘under the guise of judicial review’ of agency compliance with NEPA, to delay or block agency projects...

This week, the Supreme Court continued to deliberate over what to do with the growing number of national or universal injunctions issued by federal district courts against the Trump Administration. The court has long failed to address the problem, and what I call “chronic injunctivitis” is now raging across the court system. Justices have only worsened the condition with conflicting and at times incomprehensible opinions. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have long argued that federal judges are out of control in issuing national injunctions that freeze the entire executive branch for years on a given policy. For presidents, you have...

Judge James Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit responded to the Supreme Court charging a district court with “inaction” for not ruling on an emergency injunction in A.A.R.P v. Trump in 42 minutes by arguing they had over 14 hours. Alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang the U.S. government has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, sent an injunction in April seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent their deportation or removal from the U.S., according to Ho’s concurring opinion. The district court told petitioners it would give the government a 24-hour...

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Thursday in three cases concerning challenges to President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. The question before the high court was not, however, the constitutionality of the EO, but rather whether the lower courts had authority to issue injunctions on a nationwide basis to bar implementation of an EO. You would be hard pressed to know that, though, from the justices’ questions—-the overwhelming number of which focused instead on how to stop Trump. “So, as far as I see it, this order violates four Supreme Court precedents,” Justice Sotomayor declared early in the argument,...

SummaryTrump order targeted children of certain immigrants Three judges issued orders blocking policy nationwide Administration challenges nationwide injunctions WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court wrestled on Thursday over Donald Trump's attempt to broadly enforce his executive order to restrict birthright citizenship, a move that would affect thousands of babies born each year as the Republican president seeks a major shift in how the U.S. Constitution has long been understood.The court's conservative justices, who hold a 6-3 majority, seemed willing to limit the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide, or "universal," injunctions, as federal judges in Maryland,...

Today, the United States Supreme Court will hear three consolidated cases in Trump v. CASA on the growing use of national or universal injunctions. This is a matter submitted on the “shadow docket” and the underlying cases concern the controversy over “birthright citizenship.” However, the merits of those claims are not at issue. Instead, the Trump Administration has made a “modest request” for the Court to limit the scope of lower-court injunctions to their immediate districts and parties, challenging the right of such courts to bind an Administration across the nation. The case is the consolidation of three matters: Trump...

During Supreme Court oral arguments in the Trump v. CASA, Washington, and New Jersey cases, Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a surgical takedown of the legal rationale for nationwide injunctions, using just one line.The case centers around whether lower courts can issue sweeping injunctions that block federal policies nationwide, even when only a handful of plaintiffs are before the court. Representing the United States, Solicitor General John Sauer argued that such broad orders violate established legal norms and Supreme Court precedent.“We believe that the best reading of that is what you said in Trump against Hawaii, which is that Wirtz in...

Bills would check district courts from issuing nationwide injunctions like those issued against President Trump’s executive orders.. In the opening three months of President Trump’s ambitious “flood the zone” second term, we have witnessed activist federal courts issue a tsunami of national injunctions against the executive branch. Rep. Bob Onder, R-Mo., recently described the third branch’s overzealous blocking of Trump’s executive orders as a “judicial coup d’etat.” The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports there had already been at least 17 national injunctions against the Trump administration between Inauguration Day and March 27 — on everything from the firing of federal...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: The U.S. House passes HR 1526, restricting district rogue court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions against presidential policies. 7:00 PM · Apr 9, 2025

“For more than two centuries,” the chief justice wrote, “it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” With that statement, the chief justice revealed not only that he suffers from the very self-aggrandizement plaguing the lower court judges but that he is either willfully blind to the brewing fire or lacks the will to put it out. Apparently, he is content to let it spread — digging in, defending courts acting lawlessly, and deferring to the “process.” At the same time, he...

Here is a long take on the court injunction crisis, which is less crisis than an opportunity… OK, stop panicking about all the stupid legal decisions from leftist judges that the left is getting from judge shopping in leftist jurisdictions. Stop. Panicking. First, no one should be surprised by any of this. The administration certainly isn’t. We always knew exactly what they would do. Do not take the fact they are not screaming and yelling as them rolling over. They are not rolling over. There’s plenty going on behind the scenes as administration lawyers prepare their papers for the legal...

Lawyers representing President Trump and the office of the presidency have filed an urgent response motion to remove a court order by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer that blocked the Treasury Secretary and “political appointees” from accessing Treasury Department systems. [SEE ADMINISTRATION FILING HERE]The filing is in response to District Judge Engelmayer’s blatant effort to engage in judicial activism and violate the Article II separation of power. The Chief executive cannot be limited in scope or activity by the judicial branch, let alone a single circuit court judge within the regional judicial branch who is attempting to block the executive...

Liberals control the legal profession, from the law schools and litigious nonprofits to the bar associations and judges (including many Republican appointees). Judicial supremacy, implemented through “universal injunctions,” allows any liberal legal group to tap one of 670 district judges in 94 district courts to decide on a broad range of public policies, which the political elite then treat as “law.” The good news: Evidence seems to suggest that at least three Supreme Court justices intend to end this irrational practice. We might only have three justices on our side, but governors should still firmly reject overreaching judges who believe...

Washington, DC  ~  Wednesday, February 12, 2020 Remarks as Prepared for DeliveryThank you for the introduction, Dean Morrison.  I’d also like to thank ACUS for inviting me to speak, and Deputy Attorney General Rosen for his important remarks and leadership on this issue. As Dean Morrison mentioned, I am the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Policy at DOJ.  I am grateful to be here to discuss the Department of Justice’s position on nationwide injunctions. Across administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has taken the position that nationwide injunctions are improper.  The Obama Administration argued forcefully against them,...

Washington, DC  ~  Wednesday, February 12, 2020 Remarks as Prepared for DeliveryThank you, Dean Cass.  Thank you also to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), George Washington Law, and the ABA Section of Administrative Law for inviting me to speak today.  I also want to thank ACUS Vice Chair and Executive Director, Matt Wiener, who also recently spoke at the Department of Justice’s Summit on Modernizing the Administrative Procedure Act.Today’s topic of nationwide injunctions is both important and timely.  Many observers have commented on this issue with a focus on legal and policy concerns, and you will hear...

When a federal court issues an order against enforcement of a government policy, the ruling traditionally applies only to the plaintiff in that case. Over the past several decades, however, some lower court federal judges have increasingly resorted to a procedural device—the “nationwide injunction”—to prevent the government from enforcing a policy against anyone in the country. Shrewd lawyers have learned to “shop” for a sympathetic judge willing to issue such an injunction. These days, virtually every significant congressional or presidential initiative is enjoined—often within hours—threatening our democratic system and undermining the rule of law. During the eight years of the...