Chief Justice Roberts rebukes Trump
President said negative ruling came from an ‘Obama judge’
The normally restrained Chief Justice John Roberts took issue Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s characterization of a federal judge who ruled against his administration as an “Obama judge.”
“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Roberts said in a statement. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.
“That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”
Roberts issued the statement in response to a request from the Associated Press after Trump’s comment about U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco, who on Monday blocked the Trump administration’s effort to keep migrants trying to enter the U.S. from applying for asylum.
“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” said Tigar, who was nominated in 2012 by then-President Barack Obama.
The president, who is spending time in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday, disagreed with Roberts and posted a response Wednesday afternoon on Twitter detailing his complaints with the court.
“Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” Trump posted.
He continued in another post, asking whether the 9th Circuit was an “independent judiciary,” why so many border cases were filed in that circuit and why were the “vast number of those cases overturned.”
“Please study the numbers, they are shocking,” the president said. “We need protection and security these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”
Tigar’s ruling stated the administration’s new policy of cutting off asylum to immigrants who enter the country illegally appears to run afoul of U.S. law that specifically allows them to do so.