Washington– Washington (AFP) – Chief Justice John Roberts Personal criticism of federal judges is dangerous and “must stop,” he warned Tuesday, two days later President Donald Trump The federal judge who ruled against the administration called it “foolish, bad, crooked and completely out of control.”
As he has done before, Roberts was careful not to mention Trump or anyone else, insisting that the attacks on the justices were not from “just one political perspective.”
Criticism of judicial opinions “comes with the territory” and can be healthy, Roberts said in remarks at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston.
But the situation is different when criticism departs from legal analysis. “Personally directed hostility is dangerous and must stop,” Roberts said.
U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal, who shared the podium with the chief justice, thanked Roberts because “we always know you have our back and that means a lot.”
The US Marshals Service, which is responsible for protecting judges, reported 564 more threats in the government fiscal year that ended in September, compared with the previous year. Roberts acknowledged the existence of “serious threats” by noting that Congress has responded by increasing funding for judges’ security.
Trump’s latest comments about the judges came Sunday in a post on the website Truth Social After the ruling U.S. District Judge James Bosberg issued a decision to vacate subpoenas issued by the Department of Justice to the Federal Reserve.
Trump wrote that Boasberg is a “foolish, disgusting, crooked, and completely out of control judge” who “suffers from the highest levels of TDS, and has been stalking my people and me for years.”
Last year, Roberts publicly rejected Trump’s call to impeach Boasberg when a judge blocked additional deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The president also strongly criticized Roberts and the five other justices Who dropped global tariffs imposed under the Emergency Powers Act. Trump said he was “absolutely ashamed” of the members of the court who ruled against him, questioned their patriotism and singled out two of his appointees, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.
Trump’s allies and administration officials also joined in the criticism. After U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston on Monday blocked the administration’s efforts to reshape vaccine policy, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche noted that other rulings by Murphy had been upended.
“How many times can Judge Murphy be reversed in one year? On the same day he was taken into custody for repeatedly refusing to follow the law, he issued another activist decision. We will continue to appeal these lawless decisions, and we will continue to win. The question is, how much embarrassment can this judge endure?” Blanche posted on X.