Roberts pushes back for “Obama judge” remark

He apparently isn’t all that thankful for checks and balances.

With Thanksgiving just hours away, President Donald Trump traded jabs with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday in an extraordinary public spat over the value of an independent federal judiciary.

In his first-ever rebuke of Trump, the Republican-appointed Roberts laid into the president over denigrating U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar as an “Obama judge” because he blocked his recent executive order on asylum, which blatantly violated U.S. and international laws.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Roberts, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush in 2005, said in the extremely unusual statement. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

Referencing the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend, Roberts added, “That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Seemingly ignoring the fact that Roberts didn’t defend Tigar’s ruling per se but rather the independence of federal judges as ensured by the Constitution, Trump responded by urging the nation’s highestranking jurist to “study” the issue more closely.

“Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts,” the president tweeted, “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.”

In reference to Tigar’s federal court in San Francisco, Trump continued, “Why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security — these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”