On Tuesday, Donald Trump broke new ground, calling for U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s impeachment, not because the jurist did something wrong, but because he issued a ruling the president didn’t like in an Alien Enemies Act case. A day later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt kept the offensive going during a briefing with reporters.
It reached the point, however, in which the presidential spokesperson had to be fact-checked in real time.
“I would just like to point out that the judge in this case is essentially trying to say that the president doesn’t have the executive authority to deport foreign terrorists from our American soil,” Leavitt began. “That is an egregious abuse of the bench.”
This was not a good start. Indeed, if the administration is convinced that the hundreds of people that Team Trump flew to El Salvador were “foreign terrorists,” they could present some evidence along those lines to the courts and/or the public. That hasn’t happened.
Nevertheless, Leavitt kept going, condemning Boasberg as “a Democrat [sic] activist” who was “appointed by Barack Obama.” The White House press secretary than complained about the judge’s wife’s campaign contributions before concluding that Boasberg has “consistently” shown “disdain” for the Republican administration.
If Leavitt thought this was persuasive, she was mistaken. For one thing, to simply assume that Obama-appointed jurists can’t be impartial is ridiculous. For another, that the White House is talking about the private decisions of a federal judge’s wife is inherently sketchy.
As for the suggestion that Boasberg’s record is one of a Democratic “activist,” reality tells a very different story.
But if that weren’t quite enough, NBC News’ Garrett Haake took a moment to remind Leavitt that Boasberg was first made a judge by George W. Bush — who, if memory serves, was not exactly a far-left Democratic partisan — before Obama elevated him to the federal district court. (What’s more, it’s worth noting for context that Boasberg was also appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who has also never been mistaken for a liberal ideologue.)
Reminded of these relevant details, the White House press secretary didn’t question what Haake said, but she did seem eager to change the subject, arguing that “67% of all of the injunctions in this century have come against which president? Donald J. Trump.”
I have no idea if that statistic is accurate, but even if it is, there are two ways to look at it. One way, which Leavitt apparently prefers, is to see it as proof that a cabal of nefarious judges are hostile to the incumbent Republican’s agenda.
The other way is to note that courts keep enjoining Trump’s provocative and legally dubious moves because — wait for it — Trump keeps pushing provocative and legally dubious moves, far more than his predecessors from either party.
As lawyer David R. Lurie summarized, in response to Leavitt’s curious argument, “Maybe, just maybe, it is an indication that Trump — a convicted felon — habitually breaks the law.”
As for the president’s remarks from last week in which he suggested criticizing judges should be seen as “totally illegal,” apparently the White House has moved on from that rather quickly.
