US president Donald Trump has delivered an astonishing public rant against the judge ruling in his legal battle with a Seattle law firm.
A hearing was held yesterday before a federal court where Perkins Coie applied to have an executive order from the Trump administration ruled unlawful.
US District Judge Beryl Howell had already granted a temporary restraining order against the government action and oversaw the hearing on the firm’s motion for summary judgment as well as the government’s motion to dismiss.
In a post on the same day on his Truth Social site, Trump said he was suing Perkins Coie but was dismayed to learn that Howell was the appointed judge. He described her as a Barack Obama appointment and a ‘highly biased and unfair disaster’.
The president continued: ‘She ruled against me in the past, in a shocking display of sick judicial temperament, on a case that ended up working out very well for me, on appeal. Her ruling was so pathologically bad that it became the “talk of the town.” I could have a 100% perfect case and she would angrily rule against me. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome, and she’s got a bad case of it.’
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The executive order stopped Perkins Coie from doing business with federal contractors and restricted lawyers’ access to government officials and buildings.
The firm said: ‘As our filing today makes clear, the government’s arguments do nothing to overcome the fact that the executive order is patently unlawful – for all the reasons the court has already recognised. We remain committed to upholding the rule of law and ensuring this unconstitutional executive order is never enforced.’
Criticism of judges from politicians this week has not been confined to the US. On Tuesday, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick was urged to be ‘careful’ by House of Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle and reminded that MPs were not meant to criticise individual judges.
This followed an exchange during justice questions when Jenrick brought up the appointment of Greg Ó Ceallaigh as an immigration judge.
Jenrick added: ‘It took nothing more than a basic Google search to uncover his past comments that the Conservative party should be treated the same way as Nazis and cancer. As a sitting judge, he has publicly supported Labour’s plans to scrap the Rwanda scheme and for illegal entry into the United Kingdom to be decriminalised.’
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood said that if he wished to make a complaint, Jenrick should do so through the judicial complaints office. She continued: ‘What I will not do is indulge in, effectively, the doxing of judges, especially not when they are simply doing their job of applying the law in the cases that appear before them.’
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