Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned Thursday against attacks and pointed rhetoric against the judiciary in an unsubtle reference to President Trump’s criticisms of judges ruling against his policies.
In statements to judges at a conference in Puerto Rico, Justice Jackson said she was addressing the “elephant in the room,” according to Politico, but the Biden appointee did not mention Mr. Trump by name.
“The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate,” Justice Jackson said, according to Politico. “The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”
Her comments come a few weeks after the Judicial Conference also commented on Mr. Trump and his allies’ calls to impeach judges who have ruled against some of his executive orders.
In March, Judge Richard Sullivan of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told reporters during a Judicial Conference press event that they were concerned about threats to impeach a judge for his rulings, saying there is an appeal process that allows people who disagree with a decision to take it up the chain.
“Impeachment shouldn’t be a short circuiting of that process,” Judge Sullivan said, and Judge Sutton called such moves “threats to judicial independence.”
Since Mr. Trump took office and signed dozens of executive orders, judges have been handling legal challenges to his agenda, as hundreds of lawsuits were filed looking to curtail his moves to fire people, pause spending, and change immigration policy.
Mostly Biden- and Obama-appointed judges at the district court levels have been issuing injunctions to halt the president’s moves ranging from banning transgender people in the military to ending birthright citizenship, and from his moves to end diversity, equity and inclusion to his power over immigration policy.
“The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges. No one is above the law, including judges,” Elon Musk previously said in a post on X.
An Arizona Republican lawmaker took up that invitation in March, filing articles of impeachment against U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer, who temporarily blocked Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records.
And Mr. Trump has been quite vocal too, calling for the impeachment of a judge that looked to halt his administration’s deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members.
“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” He wrote on social media.
