Good for John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States, for chastising President Trump and lecturing him on the principles of our constitutional judicial system.
After federal judge James Boasberg issued a restraining order prohibiting federal officials from sending Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, Trump and his minions went on the attack against Boasberg. Calling the judge a “troublemaker and agitator” and a “Radical Left Lunatic,” Trump called for his impeachment. The impeachment cry was repeated by Trumpster members of Congress.
Chief Justice John Roberts
There are two issues arising in this case:
One, whether Trump can deny due process of law to Venezuelan immigrants, some of whom might well be innocent of the criminal offenses with which Trump is charging them — by renditioning them to El Salvador, where they will be punished as if they have been convicted of crimes, including through brutal incarceration and, most likely, torture.
Two, whether Trump and his minions knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally violated the judge’s order to return the immigrants to the United States rather than deliver them to El Salvador, where Boasberg lost jurisdiction over them. That’s what El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele meant when he mockingly exclaimed, “Oppsie … Too late.”
To make his determination as to point two, Boasberg needs to know when the flights to El Salvador took off and landed. He also needs to know whether U.S. officials were aware of his order when they delivered the immigrants into the clutches of Bukele.
Justice Department lawyers, however, at two hearings held by the judge have so far refused to disclose that information, citing the two magical words in the American political lexicon — “national security.” Those two words are supposed to cause Boasberg to quiver and quake, bang down his gavel, and automatically rule in favor of the government.
Obviously recognizing the attempt by Trump and Trumpsters to intimidate Boasberg into backing off and giving up, Chief Justice Roberts came to Boasberg’s defense with a severe public chastisement of Trump. Roberts lectured Trump that under our system of constitutional government, if Trump doesn’t like the ruling of a U.S. District Judge, he can appeal the ruling to the Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court. Roberts reminded Trump that impeachment and removal of a federal judge simply because Trump doesn’t like his rulings is an illegitimate course of action under our system of constitutional government.
A necessary part of a free society is a limited government that includes an independent judiciary. If Trump can ignore judicial rulings or if he succeeds in cowing the federal judiciary into upholding his unconstitutional actions, freedom is extinguished in favor of a ruler who is exercising omnipotent powers over the citizenry. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, omnipotent government is the opposite of a free society.
History is replete with examples of rulers who hated judicial or legislative interference with their actions. President Franklin Roosevelt comes to mind. He was so furious at the Supreme Court for declaring much of his socialist and fascist agenda unconstitutional that he proposed his infamous court-packing scheme that would have enabled him to pack the Court with statist lawyers who would have sustained his programs.
Also coming to mind is Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile who took power in a coup that was supported by the U.S. government. Both the Chilean congress and the Chilean federal judiciary were so scared to oppose Pinochet that they both rolled over and let him do whatever he wanted. That included the round-ups, rapes, torture, disappearances, or executions of 50,000-60,000 innocent Chilean citizens — people who Pinochet was certain were “guilty” of being “communists,” even though they were never accorded trials, which due process of law requires. Interestingly many years after Pinochet was removed from power, the Chilean bar issued a public apology to the Chilean people for abrogating their legal and judicial responsibility to the nation with their failure to stand up to Pinochet.
Hopefully, American lawyers and judges will never have to issue a similar apology to the American people. Kudos to Judge Boasberg and Chief Justice Roberts for reminding Trump and the American people of how important an independent judiciary is to a free society.
