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It was a warm afternoon in late May 2024 in Lower Manhattan. The jury in the case of Donald Trump, concerning hush money payments facilitated by his former counsel to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, continued its deliberations for a second day.
Anticipating a protracted wait, I joined the BBC team for lunch at the renowned Katz’s Delicatessen, opting for a classic Reuben sandwich.
Suddenly, the situation escalated rapidly. News broke that the jury was returning.
Initial reports were conflicting, suggesting either dismissal for the day or the announcement of a verdict.
Arriving breathlessly at the live broadcast location outside the courthouse moments before the BBC News at Ten went on air, I inadvertently shattered my phone screen in my haste.
The verdicts were announced one by one: guilty… guilty… guilty… the litany continued.
With all 34 charges resulting in guilty verdicts, I spent the evening’s news broadcast elucidating the unprecedented nature of a former president’s conviction as a felon in US history.
As the BBC’s Senior North America Correspondent, I dedicated months to covering Mr. Trump’s extensive legal challenges across the East Coast. Facing four distinct criminal cases and numerous civil suits, his legal battles posed a threat to his freedom and his political and commercial standing.
Fast forward one year, and the power dynamic has shifted considerably.
Three pivotal Supreme Court rulings – one granting broad immunity from prosecution to presidents and former presidents; another dismissing the ruling that Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election disqualified him from holding office; and a third, issued just last month, limiting district judges’ ability to impede the president’s agenda – have empowered the president, who has reshaped the Supreme Court with a conservative majority and now focuses on the lower courts.
Federal district judges, who have frequently issued rulings on immigration policy with nationwide implications, now face an aggressive challenge from an administration that has questioned their legitimacy and, according to some, disregarded their authority.
The central questions are whether these judges should actively defend their authority, how they can do so effectively, and whether these events will permanently alter the balance of power within the US government, even after Donald Trump’s presidency concludes.
Several judges, both current and retired, have expressed that the scale of this “attack” is unprecedented.
John E. Jones III, a former judge in Pennsylvania appointed by a Republican president and now president of Dickinson College, stated, “I think it’s fair to say that in particular, the U.S. district courts… [are] under attack by the administration in a way that is unprecedented.”
In addition to his commentary during our recent interview, the President has characterized judges as “crooked,” “monsters,” “deranged,” “lunatics,” “USA hating,” and “radical left.”
He has also advocated for the impeachment of judges with whom he disagrees and threatened legal action against them.
Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, has asserted that the country is experiencing judicial tyranny.
“Each day, they change the foreign policy, economic, staffing, and national security policies of the administration,” he wrote on X in March. “It is madness. It is lunacy. It is pure lawlessness.
“It is the gravest assault on democracy. It must and will end.”
Judges have faced increasing hostility and, in some instances, threats of violence from the public.
“[They] are facing threats that they never have faced before,” said Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge and current professor at Harvard Law School, appointed by President Bill Clinton and having served 17 years on the federal bench in Massachusetts.
“There’s no question that the kind of opprobrium that the administration heaps on judges with whom they disagree is unlike any other time.”
Judge Gertner stated she knows of serving judges who have received death threats this year, believed to be motivated by their obstruction or delay of some of the president’s executive orders.
There is no suggestion that Mr. Trump had any knowledge of the threats.
Data from the U.S. Marshals Service, responsible for protecting the judiciary, indicates that as of mid-June, there had been over 400 threats against nearly 300 judges, exceeding the totals for the entire year of 2022.
Some of the threats involve doxxing, the publication of personal information about the individual or their family, increasing their vulnerability to attack.
Other forms of intimidation this year have been more sinister.
According to Esther Salas, a sitting district judge in New Jersey, more than 100 judges have received fake pizza delivery orders.
While seemingly insignificant, these deliveries are often accompanied by threats, and in approximately 20 cases, the orders were placed under the name Daniel Anderl, Judge Salas’s deceased son.
He was murdered five years ago by a disgruntled lawyer involved in a case presided over by his mother. The assailant, who also shot her husband, had impersonated a pizza delivery person.
Judge Salas described her reaction: “To say that I was angry is an understatement. And then of course, to have come home and tell my husband who nearly [died].”
While the increase in threats began before the current administration, Judge Salas believes the situation has entered new territory. “We are inviting individuals to do us harm when inflammatory rhetoric [is used],” she argued.
“That is giving a green light to anyone who thinks they may need to take things into their own hands. And our leaders know that.”
Many supporters of the current administration, including Jeff Anderson, a key architect of Project 2025, which many consider a blueprint for Mr. Trump’s second term, dismiss the idea that presidential rhetoric is responsible for escalating tensions.
Mr. Anderson contends that the left is more culpable for the hostility towards judges: “The most high-profile threat to anyone on the federal courts was when someone tried to assassinate [the conservative] Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“There’s this tendency to try to characterize the Trump administration as being what has facilitated this. I think a lot of the more radical revolutionary notions that we need to take law in our own hands and the ends justify the means… tend to [be] from the left in America.”
While previous presidents have clashed with the courts, Mr. Trump’s confrontations are unique in their scale and intensity, and were perhaps inevitable given his immediate implementation of numerous executive orders aimed at swift policy changes.
On his first day in office, he signed 26 executive orders.
Through the beginning of July, he has issued another 140, surpassing President Joe Biden’s total during his four-year term and only slightly fewer than President Barack Obama’s during his eight years in office.
Mr. Trump could have sought legislative action from Congress to implement these policies; Republicans currently control both chambers. However, the legislative process requires time, and Congress has been preoccupied with the president’s primary domestic initiative – the “Big Beautiful Bill” – leaving little time or political capital for other priorities.
The issuance of executive orders falls within the president’s constitutional prerogative. This power derives directly from Article II of the US Constitution, and Mr. Trump is operating within established governmental mechanisms, provided the orders cite legislative authority and carry the force of law.
The president cannot use executive orders to create new laws or act in violation of the Constitution.
In the absence of congressional action, challenging executive orders requires legal recourse.
The broad scope of the orders Mr. Trump has signed, many addressing constitutional matters such as birthright citizenship, has led to numerous nationwide injunctions pending the outcomes of individual cases.
This context underscores the significance of Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court victory in late June, which curtailed the issuance of such nationwide injunctions.
“These district court judges have been totally out of line and out of control,” argues Jeff Anderson.
The administration has advanced various arguments, accusing the judiciary of “overreach” and labeling judges as “activists.” The most fundamental criticism is that they are obstructing the will of the people.
As Stephen Miller stated, “out of control Marxist judges” are impeding the “desires of the electorate.”
According to many judges, this argument represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution.
“We’re a nation of laws, not men,” explained Judge John E. Jones III. “A mandate to the President of the United States does not mean a mandate to disregard the law. That’s evident, but this is papering over a fundamental disregard of the law and the Constitution.”
There are indications that some within the administration may be contemplating disregarding the authority of the courts, despite public assertions to the contrary.
Tom Homan, the president’s border security advisor, stated on television regarding a court’s efforts to prevent the deportation of several hundred Venezuelans: “I’m proud to be a part of this administration. We’re not stopping. … I don’t care what the judges think.”
However, in my interview with the President last week, he denied defying the judiciary, noting that when rulings have gone against him, he has sought remedies through the court system.
“I have too much respect for it to defy it. I have great respect for the judiciary. And you can see that,” he stated, adding, “That’s why I’m winning on appeal.”
Some prominent critics of the president argue that he is dismantling the system of checks and balances, in which the three branches of government (the presidency, Congress, and the judiciary) serve as constraints on each other.
“This is a huge turning point for the country,” said Professor Laurence Tribe, a leading constitutional expert and outspoken critic of the president.
He contends that Congress has ceased its oversight function and fears that “the United States is facing a catastrophic situation.”
“The idea of three branches… was hatched at our founding – before the rise of political parties and before the rise of demagogues as effective and charismatic as Trump,” he explained. “The whole system is completely out of balance.”
The balance of power Professor Tribe discusses has been a subject of debate, and concerns about the concentration of power in the executive branch are not new.
Following the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, during which President Richard Nixon violated numerous norms established by his predecessors, legislation was enacted to constrain the executive branch and increase accountability.
However, some of the changes simply involved adopting new norms, such as the publication of presidential tax returns and avoiding financial conflicts of interest – norms that the current president has shown little inclination to follow.
Even Nixon, when dealing with the relationship between the presidency and the courts, ultimately complied with the Supreme Court’s unanimous order to hand over the Watergate tapes, after months of resistance.
Mr. Trump has approached defiance. In one case, after being ordered to facilitate the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, a man wrongly deported to El Salvador, the administration was accused of deliberately delaying compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision.
Even Mr. Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, stated, “He’s not coming back to our country.”
The administration took two months to comply with the court’s order, which was interpreted by critics as a preview of potential future actions.
Ultimately, there are only two mechanisms for holding a president accountable: removal through elections and impeachment by Congress, and Mr. Trump has already survived two impeachment proceedings.
However, the judiciary has not surrendered and continues to resist any potential plan to defy or weaken the courts.
Even after the Supreme Court’s late June ruling curbing nationwide injunctions (which presidents of both parties have criticized in the past), another judge issued an injunction against Mr. Trump’s asylum policy.
Earlier this month, a U.S. district judge issued a nationwide block on Mr. Trump’s executive order restricting the automatic right to citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants or foreign visitors, prompting strong condemnation from the White House.
This conflict is underway but far from resolved, and its implications for this and future presidencies remain uncertain.
Top image credits: Bloomberg via Getty and EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
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