Chief justice criticizes Trump for comment
Roberts sends first hint of criticism president’s way.
John Roberts pushes back against president for description of judge who ruled against migrant asylum policy as an “Obama judge.”
Chief JusWASHINGTON — tice 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 Repub- lican-appointed leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Trump, who has previously criticized 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.
Roberts said on the day before Thanksgiving that an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”
Trump responded to Roberts in a tweet Wednesday afternoon: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much differ- ent point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country.”
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 jus- tice’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 c ont roversy over his appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Several justices have spoken out about judicial inde- pendence and the danger of having the court being seen as a political institution divided between five conser- vative Republicans and four liberal Democrats. Roberts is widely seen by judicial observers as the justice closest to the middle and likely to determine the outcome of high-profile cases that split the court.
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.
The president said that his opponents file lawsuits in courts that are part of the liberal-leaning 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Before he took office, conservative groups tended to bring chal- lenges to Obama-era policies in Texas, part of the conser- vative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won,” Trump said.
The president went on to say about the asylum ruling: “This was an Obama judge. And I’ll tell you what, it’s not going to happen like this anymore.”