Chosen by Bush, derided by Trump

The federal judge who blocked the travel ban is known as a conservative jurist.

SEATTLE — The federal judge whom President Trump derided on Twitter on Saturday after blocking Trump’s executive order restricting travel to the U.S. is known for his conservative legal views, for a record of helping disadvantaged children that includes fostering six of them, and for dramatically declaring “black lives matter” during a hearing on police reform in 2015.

District Judge James L. Robart, 69, was appointed to the bench by President Bush in 2004, following a distinguished 30-year career in private practice that included his selection to the American College of Trial Lawyers, an honor bestowed on less than 1% of lawyers.

The Seattle judge made the most high-profile ruling of his tenure Friday when he temporarily invalidated Trump’s ban on travel to the U.S. from seven primarily Muslim nations. Washington state sued to block the order — with support from Minnesota and major corporations including Microsoft — arguing that it’s unconstitutional and would harm its residents. Robart held that the state was probably right.

The ruling did not sit well with Trump, who on Twitter called Robart a “so-called judge” and the ruling “ridiculous.” Trump later claimed that the decision meant “anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.”

The comments are unlikely to sway Robart, said those who know him.

“He’s conservative in his review of the law, but courageous in his application of it,” said former Seattle U.S. Atty. John McKay, who worked with Robart for a decade at the law firm Lane Powell Spears Lubersky.

Another former U.S. attorney in Seattle, Jenny Durkan, called Robart exacting: “We won some in front of him and we lost some in front of him, but we knew anytime we walked into his courtroom we’d better be prepared.”

That was evident Friday when Robart grilled a Justice Department lawyer, Michelle Bennett, asking if there had been any terrorist attacks by people from the seven barred countries since the Sept. 11 attacks. Bennett said she didn’t know. “The answer is none,” Robart said. “You’re here arguing we have to protect from these individuals from these countries, and there’s no support for that.”

Robart, a graduate of Georgetown Law School, is considered a tough sentencing judge in criminal matters, and he has overseen reforms at the Seattle Police Department since 2012.

Robart was holding a hearing on those reforms in 2015 when he surprised the courtroom by quoting a slogan of protesters.

“The importance of this issue to me is best demonstrated by the news,” he said. “According to FBI statistics, police shootings resulting in death involve 41% black people, despite being only 20% of the population living in those cities. Fortyone percent of the casualties, 20% of the population: Black lives matter.”