President Donald Trump is striking back at the litigation-industrial complex’s war against his agenda.
On Monday, Trump’s Justice Department filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to take a stand on the “epidemic” of national injunctions — more than 70 and increasing daily — that leftist district court judges are using to tie the president’s hands.
Only the Supreme Court can stop this “power grab,” Trump’s lawyers said.
The success of his presidency could hinge on whether the court will act. The justices have dithered too long.
Trump’s attorneys made their initial “emergency” request for relief from nationwide injunctions on March 15.
Since then the high court has shown only shameful, cowardly inaction.
Dozens of federal judges are blocking core policies — downsizing government, ending DEI, shrinking foreign aid, eliminating transgenderism in the military, deporting Tren de Aragua and more — that voters chose when they elected Trump.
A cadre of leftist lawyers and judges is getting away with negating the November election.
Four justices are already on the record against national injunctions, including Elena Kagan, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito.
Chief Justice John Roberts has the votes. He needs to put aside his distaste for Trump’s rhetorical indiscretions regarding the judiciary — and act to protect both the Constitution and the outcome of the November election.
In Monday’s emergency application, acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris challenged a San Francisco district-court judge’s injunction preventing federal offices in all 50 states, including the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Treasury and Commerce, from making workforce reductions.
In February, as downsizing began, government unions and nonprofits sued in the Northern District of California, notorious for its leftist bias.
They were immediately rewarded for their court-shopping: Sympathetic Judge William Alsup commanded the Trump administration to hire back 16,000 terminated provisional employees, all across the country, and indicated he’d micromanage each reinstatement.
Never mind the public elected a president who promised smaller, more affordable government.
While Harris’ Monday emergency appeal was landing at the Supreme Court, down the street at the US Court of Appeals leftist judicial militancy was on full display.
Appeals Court Judge Patricia Millett, one of three members of the appeals panel, excoriated the president for deporting suspected Tren de Aragua gangbangers under the Alien Enemies Act.
At issue was a nationwide injunction imposed by District Court Judge James Boasberg halting the deportations.
The act empowers the president to arrest, detain and deport non-citizens deemed to pose a risk during times of war, invasion or enemy incursion. That language, Trump argues, includes mass invasions across the southern border.
Trump’s lawyers asked the Court of Appeals to lift Boasberg’s injunction, calling it an “unprecedented and enormous intrusion” on the commander-in-chief’s authority.
Millett shut her ears to that basic constitutional issue, and insisted instead on advocating for the 260 gang members already deported to an El Salvadoran prison.
“There were planeloads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” she chastised Trump’s lawyers. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.”
Sorry, Judge. Cry me a river.
Border czar Tom Homan said Tren de Aragua “is a designated terrorist organization,” as he slammed a reporter reiterating the judge’s sob story about the deportees.
“Talk to Laken Riley’s family,” Homan retorted. “What due process did she have?”
Truth is, the Alien Enemies Act does not require any regulations like Millett suggested.
The president’s discretion under the act is “as unlimited as legislation could make it,” a federal court ruled in the 1817 case Lockington v. Smith.
When the act was challenged during World War II, the Supreme Court ruled again that “some statutes preclude judicial review.”
At Monday’s hearing, Millett showed herself to be a left-wing firebrand. But Judge Justin Walker, also on the panel, had a different view.
Walker nailed the American Civil Liberties Union lawyers representing the deportees — asking why they didn’t bring their habeas corpus action in Texas, where the deportation flights originated, rather than coming to the DC Circuit.
The ACLU offered only doubletalk in response, because the truth is it went court-shopping.
Now, we wait.
The three-judge appeals panel has yet to rule on lifting Boasberg’s nationwide injunction.
Until then, swift deportation of illegal-immigrant Tren de Aragua members, a key Trump promise, is on hold.
Even more critical is the Supreme Court’s response to Trump’s emergency petition.
Nationwide injunctions from rogue lower-court judges have handcuffed presidents of both parties — none more than Trump.
It’s time to act, Mr. Chief Justice.
As the lefties are always claiming — but this time, it’s true — democracy is at stake.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of the Committee to Save Our City.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
