White House accuses US judges of ‘usurping’ Trump’s authority
Donald Trump and his allies escalate their attacks against judges who have ruled against his administration
The White House accused judges on Wednesday of “usurping” executive power in its latest broadside against federal courts whose rulings have gone against US President Donald Trump’s administration.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged there had been a “concerted effort by the far left” to pick judges who were “clearly acting as partisan activists” to deal with cases involving the Republican’s actions.
“Not only are they usurping the will of the president and the chief executive of our country, but they are undermining the will of the American public,” Leavitt said at a daily briefing.
Leavitt in particular lashed out at District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the suspension over the weekend of deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants carried out under an obscure wartime law, calling him a “Democrat activist”.
Trump’s administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport the alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador as part of its mass deportation programme of undocumented migrants. Their names or alleged offences have not been made public.