As President Donald Trump doubled down Wednesday on his criticism of federal judges, an expert talked to WWL’s Tommy Tucker about why it is important to respect checks and balances in the U.S.
“Our whole government is built upon fear – fear of abuse of power fear that one person one agency one department it’s going to get too much power and abuse it because part of human nature [is] to do something like that,” said David Schultz, a political scientist and professor of law at Hamline University.
Here’s how that relates to the current situation with Trump and the courts. During his first months in office, Trump has issued a large number of executive orders – Schultz estimated the number at around 100 as of Wednesday. Many of those orders – including those related to layoffs of government employees linked to the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Trump’s ally, multibillionaire Elon Musk, have been challenged in the courts.
One specific move that has been challenged is Trump’s decision to send immigrants to Venezuela, with a rarely used maritime law. Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the Trump administration from using the law, known as the Alien Enemies Act, to detain and deport noncitizens. Schultz said the law has only been used around three times before, during wartime.
“The question is, did he actually disregard the judge’s order… or was the plane already in the air and beyond being able to be recalled,” he said, adding that Trump is “picking yet another fight with yet another judge.”
This Tuesday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he believes “crooked judges” should be impeached after the judge ruled against him. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts quickly issued a statement defending federal judges.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” said Roberts in the statement, which CBS News said was distributed by the Supreme Court’s public information office. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
However, Trump doubled down on his comment Wednesday. He posted this on Truth Social: “If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!”
“Now, my comment is that – it’s much closer to John Roberts – and it’s the idea of saying that for 250 years, part of what’s made our system work is something we all learned in grade school,” said Schultz. “It’s called checks and balances, separation of powers, that the judges get to make decisions on Constitutionality, and you’re supposed to obey them, and if you don’t like what they say, appeal them or change the law, but don’t just sort of say, ‘the rules don’t apply to me.’”
However, legal challenges to the Trump administration’s actions go beyond just the issue with Venezuela and it looks like the judicial branch is still doing its best to check executive power. Intelligencer from New York Magazine published a list of all the challenges Wednesday and said it will be updating it going forward.
So far, it includes rulings that federal probationary workers get their jobs back, block a ban on birthright citizenship, halt a federal hiring freeze, reinstate refugee admissions, block the deportation of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, order the government to pay U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) bills, order the Education Department to restore grants, block prisons from transferring some transgender women to men’s facilities, and pause a ban on gender affirming care for minors.
Whether or not people support Trump’s executive actions, Schultz noted that this check of powers is important for a functioning democracy.
“The way I describe it also to my students is – for some of us who’ve ever played board games like Monopoly or chess or checkers or something like that, there’s rules of game that determine how we’re supposed to play the game of politics and that’s what checks and balances, separation of powers are,” the explained, adding that “our framers learned… learned from the experience with the King of England that you do not entrust any one person, agency or department with too much power because there’s the fear it will be abused.”