WASHINGTON — Late Friday night, some of President Donald Trump’s top advisers huddled on the phone to craft a response to a court ruling that blocked the White House’s refugee and immigration ban.
The White House statement slammed the order as “outrageous.” But the president’s lawyers quickly raised objections to that wording, according to a White House official. About 10 minutes later, a new statement was sent without the fiery characterization of the ruling.
The lawyers’ warnings don’t appear to have made their way to the president. On Saturday morning, Trump lashed out on Twitter at the “so-called judge” and called the judge’s decree “ridiculous.”
Later Saturday, Trump followed that tweet with another: “What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?”
The episode illustrated just how little ability anyone in the White House has when it comes to restraining the president — not his lawyers, his aides or his family. Not even at a time when Trump’s views of judicial independence could complicate the looming confirmation fight for his nominee to the Supreme Court, which holds one of the ultimate checks on presidential power.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, said Saturday that Trump’s tweet “shows a disdain for an independent judiciary” and “raises the bar even higher” for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch.
“His ability to be an independent check will be front and center throughout the confirmation process,” Schumer said of Gorsuch.
While presidents have publicly disagreed with court rulings before, personal criticism of a judge is rare. The independence of the judiciary is enshrined through the Constitution’s separation of powers, and judges are supposed to have freedom to decide cases impartially and without political pressure.
In 2008, President George W. Bush said he disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling upholding the rights of prisoners at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but said his administration would “abide by the court’s decision.” During his 2010 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama rebuked the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens’ United campaign finance case, though he opened his remarks by noting that his criticism was “with all due deference to separation of powers.”
Trump’s Twitter attacks were a sharp contrast to his measured, statesman-like introduction of Gorsuch during an address to the nation Tuesday night. Gorsuch, a 49-year-old conservative, has been widely praised by Republicans and his sterling credentials have put Democrats eager to block Trump any way they can.
On Saturday, after Trump disparaged U.S. District Judge James Robart, some Democrats appeared to sense an opening. Sen. Patrick Leahy, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Gorsuch must show an ability “to be an independent check and balance on an administration that shamefully and harmfully seems to reject the very concept.”
