Chief Justice John Roberts offers a rebuke. Trump has a tantrum
by digby
I have little doubt that Roberts is still the right wing conservative we always knew he was. And he will likely rule with the right-wing majority on any issues of real conservative philosophy. But this indicates that he's not happy with Trump's assault on the courts for being biased whenever they rule against something he wants. Roberts appears to believe that ends up creating public distrust in the judiciary. (Ya think?) And as Tom blogged this morning, he's not the only one.
NBC News reports:
Chief Justice John Roberts is pushing back against President Donald Trump for his description of a judge who ruled against Trump's migrant asylum policy as an "Obama judge."
It's the first time the Republican-appointed leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Trump, who has previously blasted federal judges who ruled against him.
Roberts said Wednesday the U.S. doesn't have "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges." He commented in a statement released by the Supreme Court after a query by The Associated Press.
Roberts said on the day before Thanksgiving that an "independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for."
Last year, the president used the term a "so-called judge" after the first federal ruling against his travel ban. During the presidential campaign, Trump criticized Roberts himself for the chief justice's decisive vote in 2012 to preserve the Obama health care overhaul.
Trump also referred to a judge who was presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump University as a Mexican who would be unable to rule fairly because of Trump's proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
The president's latest remarks come as the Supreme Court is enmeshed in controversy over his appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Several justices have spoken out about judicial independence and the danger of having the court viewed as a political institution that is divided between five conservative Republicans and four liberal Democrats.
Trump had spoken Tuesday when a reporter asked for his reaction to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco that put the administration's asylum policy on hold.
It's very hard to say whether this means anything in the long run. But judges do sometimes evolve. It's not impossible that Roberts may be seeing the fruits of this decades-long campaign to discredit the courts as ultimately blowing back on him. Or maybe he's just realizing that the tribe to which he belongs has gone batshit crazy and needs reining in from somebody, somewhere.
I won't hold my breath. He's a long-standing conservative legal movement zealot. But if George Conway can break with his wife .... who knows?
Update:
... aren't they licking my boots?
He's declaring war on the Chief Justice.
BTW: This is how he actually continued that tweet. It's equally stupid:
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