Obama judges say suspected terrorists must be allowed to fight Alien Enemies Act deportations



An Obama judge doubled down Monday on his ruling preventing President Donald Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected terrorists who have stolen into the homeland.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — who critics claim is not just overstepping his bounds but "usurping the power of the president" — stated in his 37-page opinion that suspected members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist organization have a right to individualized hearings before they may be deported.

Later Monday, another Obama judge — this time on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — heard the government's arguments for lifting Boasberg's order. U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett echoed her fellow traveler, claiming that the suspected terrorists dwelling in the country illegally who had been targeted for deportation were not given the due process supposedly owed them and that "Nazis got better treatment."

Background

Weeks after the State Department designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist group, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, proclaiming that all Venezuelan citizens "14 years of age or older who are members of TDA, are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies."

'The judge's order was patently unlawful.'

A pair of leftist activist groups immediately filed a lawsuit on behalf of several illegal aliens in an effort to prevent Trump from using the law, which was passed by the generation that drafted the Constitution.

Boasberg granted the leftist groups their temporary restraining order, thereby preventing the Trump administration from sending more suspected terrorists packing — besides, of course, the hundreds of illegal aliens the administration loaded into planes destined for El Salvador and Honduras hours earlier.

Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, stated, "The judge's order was patently unlawful. Beyond unlawful, it was an outrageous assault on the Constitution, an outrageous assault on the sovereignty of the nation and on democracy itself."

Miller later told CNN that Trump's authority to repel an alien invasion of the United States with the aid of the Alien Enemies Act "is not something that a district court judge has any authority whatsoever to interfere with, to enjoin, to restrict, or to restrain in any way."

"There's not one clause in that law that makes it subject to judicial review, let alone district court review," added Miller.

Trump noted 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!"

Tren de Aragua's judicial safety net

Boasberg suggested that the language of the Alien Enemies Act — particularly the terms "nation," "government," "invasion," and "predatory incursion" — was open for his interpretation and insinuated that a court could potentially be "empowered to decide if the characteristics of Tren de Aragua qualify it as a 'nation' or 'government,' or if its conducts constitutes a 'perpetrated, attempted, or threatened' 'invasion' or 'predatory incursion.'"

'Before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings.'

Despite his apparent interest in tailoring the definitions of key terms to suit leftist activists and illegal aliens, Boasberg indicated that such a provocative course of action was likely unnecessary as the plaintiffs "have established a likelihood of succeeding on a more discrete claim that justifies retaining the TROs."

The Obama judge claimed that even if Trump's invocation of the act is valid, suspected enemies in the country illegally are still to be afforded the chance to contest their deportation or voluntarily self-deport.

"Before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all," wrote Boasberg. "The awesome power granted by the Act may be brought to bear only on those who are, in fact, 'alien enemies.' And the Supreme Court and this Circuit have long maintained that federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such."

The judge stressed that the illegal aliens targeted by the act "must be given the opportunity, if they so choose, to contest that they are 'Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of [Tren de Aragua], are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States."

Different Obama judge, same story

The Trump administration has appealed Boasberg's hearing and argued its case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Monday. Based on their reception by an Obama-appointed judge on the panel, the Alien Enemies Act may not ultimately be a reliable arrow in the administration's quiver when it comes to dispatching with illegally imported terrorists.

Judge Patricia Millett complained that the hundreds of criminal noncitizens whom Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed were flown to El Salvador and Honduras on March 15 were not given notice or provided an opportunity to contest their ouster, reported ABC News.

"There's no regulations, and nothing was adopted by the agency officials that were administering this. They [sic] people weren't given notice," said Millett. "They weren't told where they were going. They were given those people on those planes on that Saturday and had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the AEA."

'We cannot allow rogue, activist judges to conduct our foreign policy.'

According to Millett, "Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemy Act," referencing previously identified enemy aliens' ability to challenge their removal from the country during World War II.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign reportedly suggested Millett was wrong about her Nazi comparison, noting that some of the suspected terrorists were able to file habeas petitions.

Whereas Boasberg repeatedly cast doubt on the validity of the law, Millett was at least willing to acknowledge the law was constitutional.

Millett's responses were tempered by another judge on the panel, Trump-appointee Justin Walker, who appeared wise to the plaintiffs' game. Walker reportedly questioned why the activist groups decided to bring their case in Washington, D.C., rather than in Texas, where the deportees were being detained.

Of limits and ousters

Republican Rep. Brandon Gill (Texas), among those frustrated with judicial overreach and Democrat-appointed judges' apparent efforts to thwart the will of the democratically elected president, has filed a resolution to impeach Boasberg — a largely symbolic gesture granted it will reportedly require 14 Senate Democrats to convict.

Gill, who deemed Boasberg's latest ruling a "judicial insurrection," told Fox Business, "I hope that the Supreme Court steps in and expedites this appeals process, but absent that, I think Congress needs to jump in here. We cannot allow rogue, activist judges to conduct our foreign policy or to usurp the president's authority."

A recent poll by Rasmussen Reports found that voters favor impeaching Boasberg by a 2-to-1 margin — something Trump has expressed support for — and that voters majoritively support Trump's deportation of Venezuelan terrorists.

Critics of judicial overreach might ultimately have better luck reining in activist judges with legislation.

On Monday, California Rep. Darrell Issa (R) introduced a bill titled the No Rogue Rulings Act, which would prohibit U.S. district courts from issuing any order providing for injunctive relief "except in the case of such an order that is applicable only to limit the actions of a party to the case before such district court with respect to the party seeking injunctive relief from such district court."

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan indicated that his committee will also hold hearings on efforts by Democrat-appointed judges to undermine the Trump administration.

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Trump, Vance challenge limits of judicial authority, sparking separation-of-powers debate



President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance seem to be gearing up for a battle about the separation of powers after weighing in on whether the federal judiciary should be able to curtail executive authority.

Early Saturday morning, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer issued a ruling that temporarily blocks Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency from gaining access to the payment system of the Treasury Department, which is under the purview of the executive branch. The judge also ordered anyone outside the Treasury Department who has already gained access to the system to destroy all downloaded information.

Musk and DOGE have attempted to audit the agency to uncover possible fraud, waste, and other inefficiencies.

Engelmayer's ruling is set to expire on Friday, when a hearing will be held before a federal judge in New York, who will consider the issue on a more permanent basis. The case was brought by 19 state attorneys general — all Democrats — who argued that Musk and DOGE should not have access to sensitive data within the payment system.

Engelmayer agreed. "The Court’s firm assessment is that, for the reasons stated by the States, they will face irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief," he wrote.

"That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking."

'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'

Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller countered on Fox News that hindering executive control over executive agencies has allowed the deep state to flourish with no accountability:

What we continue to see here is the idea that rogue bureaucrats who are elected by no one, who answer to no one, who have lifetime tenure jobs, who we would be told can never be fired, which, of course, is not true, that the power has been cemented and accumulated for years, whether it be with the Treasury bureaucrats or the FBI bureaucrats or the CIA bureaucrats or the USAID bureaucrats, with this unelected shadow force that is running our government and running our country.

Federal judges routinely blocked elements of Trump's agenda during his first term. From the travel ban to pushing back against sanctuary cities to border wall funding, federal judges, often at the district level, stymied the efforts of the president of the United States to fulfill his campaign promises.

On his way to the Super Bowl on Sunday, Trump suggested federal judges should not have the authority to block a democratically elected POTUS. "No judge should frankly be allowed to make that kind of a decision," he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

"We’re very disappointed with the judges that would make such a ruling, but we have a long way to go."

Vance also weighed in on the limits of judicial oversight on Sunday, likely in response to Engelmayer's ruling. Vance claimed that federal judges should not have the ability to prevent the president from exercising "legitimate" control over executive agencies.

"If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power," he wrote.

— (@)

Vance also retweeted Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule, who likewise argued that such judicial blocks ran afoul of the established separation of powers: "Judicial interference with legitimate acts of state, especially the internal functioning of a co-equal branch, is a violation of the separation of powers."

Republicans in Congress have also stood behind President Trump, defending executive authority in the face of apparent judicial overreach. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called Engelmayer's decision "outrageous," claiming it was not based on legal precedent and yet would still have the effect of impeding the work of the secretary of the treasury.

Though the Constitution empowers a president to nominate members of his Cabinet, those nominees must first be approved by the Senate before they can take office. So judicial interference in the actions of a president's Cabinet has separation-of-powers implications regarding the legislative branch as well.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) indicated that a showdown about the reach of judicial authority was imminent. "I assume we will argue this out in court, like the other 17 or 18 decisions we have seen in the last several days. That all is going to get argued out in court. And, frankly, we knew the left, we knew the Democrats were going to do this," he said Sunday on CNN.

X has also been flooded with recollections of President Andrew Jackson, a proto Democrat who famously engaged in a standoff with the federal judiciary. After the Supreme Court ruled on a case related to Native American sovereignty rights in 1832, Jackson allegedly quipped, "The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it."

With Jackson's quote as a backdrop, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) seemingly warned Vance not to ignore the courts, even as he stopped short of claiming that doing so would be illegal.

"JD, we both went to law school. But we don’t have to be lawyers to know that ignoring court decisions we don’t like puts us on a dangerous path to lawlessness. We just have to swear an oath [to] the constitution. And mean it," he said.

The Democratic Biden-Harris administration infamously ignored SCOTUS' rulings regarding student loan forgiveness.

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Judiciary nicely tells Democrats to pound sand — Justice Thomas will not be referred to DOJ



Democrats and their allies in the press have worked feverishly in recent years to neutralize conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on the U.S. Supreme Court. Owing to the justices' resilience and the toothless nature of Democrats' attacks, these efforts have all been in vain — including the attempt by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) to have Thomas referred to the Department of Justice for imagined violations of the Ethics in Government Act 1978, which was thwarted Thursday by the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Thomas and his relatives reportedly sold an old single-story home and two vacant lots in Savannah, Georgia, at market rate to one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow's companies in 2014. Crow, who has been Thomas' family friend for over two decades, said in a statement that his intention was to "one day create a public museum at the Thomas home dedicated to telling the story of our nation's second black Supreme Court Justice, who was born in Pin Point, Georgia and later raised in Savannah."

ProPublica — an investigative journalist outfit that has received donations from Laurene Powell Jobs and her leftist Emerson Collective, from George Soros' Foundation to Promote Open Society, and from Crankstart Foundation, Lincoln Project donor Michael Moritz's family foundation — published a report on April 13, 2023, suggesting that Thomas failed to disclose his family's sale of the property and may have violated a federal disclosure law in the process.

'Potential violations of disclosure laws by officers of the highest court merit serious investigation.'

ProPublica also made a fuss about the justice's inadvertent failure to note in financial filings that Crow provided him with food and lodging in 2019 at both an Indonesian hotel and at a private club that year in California. Thomas later noted these in his financial disclosure report for 2023.

Just as Democratic lawmakers would later use the New York Times strategic reports about flags to attack Justice Alito, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Hank Johnson were quick to weaponize the ProPublica report, penning a letter to the Judicial Conference on April 14, 2023, requesting that it refer Thomas to Attorney General Merrick Garland for investigation.

The Democrats suggested that there was "reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas willfully failed to file information required to be reported under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978."

"Justice Thomas's failure to report this transaction is part of an apparent pattern of noncompliance with disclosure requirements," said the letter. "Potential violations of disclosure laws by officers of the highest court merit serious investigation, and it is well past time for the Supreme Court to align with the rest of the government on ethics requirements."

Coinciding with Whitehouse and Johnson's publication of their letter, the New York Times editorial board ran a condemnatory piece echoing both the scandal-plagued leftist group Fix the Court in calling the Supreme Court "the least accountable part of our government" and Democratic lawmakers in calling for the establishment of an ethics office at the high court.

The Democratic lawmakers received a reply this week after 20 months of waiting. Apparently unmoved by the the letter and the editorial in the Times, Judicial Conference secretary Robert Conrad Jr., an Article III federal judge with senior status on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, effectively told Whitehouse and Johnson that theirs is a nonissue and to pound sand.

Conrad noted in his Thursday letter that the judiciary's financial disclosure requirements have been in flux over the past few years.

For instance, in early 2023, the Financial Disclosure Committee issued guidance that the personal hospitality gift reporting exemption applies only to food, lodging, or entertainment — such as what was received by Thomas from Crow in 2019. As for disclosures regarding gifts of transportation, Conrad noted that the committee issued guidance in March 2023 precluding the need for retroactive application past 2022.

'The provision in fact contains a suggestion to the contrary.'

Conrad pointed out that Thomas "has filed amended financial disclosure statements that address several issues identified in your letter. In addition, he has agreed to follow the relevant guidance issued to other federal judges, which would include the guidance mentioned above. We have no reason to believe he has done anything less."

The secretary also indicated that it was not altogether clear whether the Judicial Conference's referral authority applies to justices of the Supreme Court, stating that "there is reason to doubt that the Conference has any such authority."

"Because the Judicial Conference does not superintend the Supreme Court and because any effort to grant the Conference such authority would raise serious constitutional questions, one would expect Congress at a minimum to state any such directive clearly," wrote Conrad. "But no such express directive appears in this provision. The provision in fact contains a suggestion to the contrary."

Conrad indicated not only that the Democrats' request might be legally unworkable but that it was moot on account of the lawmakers' direct appeal to Garland on July 3 to have a special counsel investigate these matters.

In a separate letter, the Judicial Conference shut down a similar request from the Center for Renewing America to refer Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the DOJ for failing to "disclose required information regarding her husband's medical malpractice consulting income for over a decade." Conrad noted that Jackson has amended her disclosure to include the previously omitted income from her husband.

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Chief Justice Roberts highlights worsening attacks on judicial independence



Chief Justice John Roberts highlighted the efforts of certain elected officials and other ne'er-do-wells to undermine the independence and legitimacy of federal courts in his annual year-end report.

Echoing former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Roberts noted that the independent federal judiciary established in Article III and preserved for the past 235 years remains "one of the 'crown jewels of our system of government.’" The trouble, according to Roberts, is that independence is under attack.

While figuring passionate reactions to judicial rulings as inevitable and strong criticism as occasionally warranted, Roberts stressed that "not all actors engage in 'informed criticism' or anything remotely resembling it."

The chief justice noted that there exists types of "illegitimate activity" which "threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends: (1) violence, (2) intimidation, (3) disinformation, and (4) threats to defy lawfully entered judgments."

"There is of course no place for violence directed at judges for doing their job," wrote Roberts. "Yet, in recent years, there has been a significant uptick in identified threats at all levels of the judiciary."

Last year, the U.S. Marshals Service revealed that serious threats to federal judges had more than doubled since 2021, driven largely by political hostilities. Roberts indicated that the data shows the "volume of hostile threats and communications directed at judges has more than tripled over the past decade."

For instance, after a draft of the Dobbs opinion was leaked, Nicholas John Roske of California — headed for trial in June — was apparently caught near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house with a gun and a knife and charged with attempted murder. Roske allegedly claimed he was going to give his life a purpose by killing the justice, reported the Washington Post.

In another instance, an Alaska man with over 80 contributions to the Democratic fundraising outfit ActBlue was charged in September with nine counts of making threats against a federal judge and 13 counts of making threats in interstate commerce. Blaze News previously reported that Panos Anastasiou allegedly threatened to hang a specific justice from an oak tree, to lynch another, and to kill a third by "putting a bullet in his ... head." He is also accused of threatening to behead, strangle, and/or drown all six as well as gun down their family members.

After noting that judges "cannot hide, nor should they," Roberts thanked the Marshals who protect judicial officers as well as the federal and state lawmakers who have advanced legislation protecting judges from doxxing, which the chief justice noted has been used by activist groups to intimidate judges in recent years.

On account of doxxing efforts, Marshals had to be extremely vigilant when extreme pro-abortion groups, including Ruth Sent Us and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, mobbed the homes of Justices Roberts, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch in 2022.

Title 18, Section 1507, of the U.S. Code states that it is illegal to picket or parade in or near a building housing a U.S. court or occupied by a judge, juror, witness, or court officer "with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty."

Nevertheless, President Joe Biden and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) joined other Democrats in downplaying the intimidating post-Dobbs protests outside of Supreme Court justices' homes, saying they were acceptable if peaceful.

Although Roberts did not mention any particular Democratic lawmaker by name, he noted that "public officials, too, regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges — for example, suggesting political bias in the judge's adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations."

Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the Democrat who discussed the possibility last year of Democrats in Congress nullifying the 2024 election in the event of a Trump win, is among the radical lawmakers who have tried repeatedly to pressure and neutralize conservatives on the Supreme Court.

'These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.'

In a May op-ed in the New York Times titled "How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases," Raskin suggested that the Biden Department of Justice could lean on the court to help Democrats get their way.

When that didn't work and Democrats failed to get the result they wanted from the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States last year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) filed articles of impeachment against Justices Alito and Thomas with the backing of Reps. Barbara Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, and other radical Democrats.

"Disinformation, even if disconnected from any direct attempt to intimidate, also threatens judicial independence," Roberts said in his report. "The modern disinformation problem is magnified by social media, which provides a ready channel to 'instantly spread rumor and false information.'"

Obama hagiographer Jodi Kantor's attempted character assassination of Justice Alito in the New York Times would likely fall into Roberts' "disinformation" category.

Kantor's May 16 story concerned allegations about the Jan. 17, 2021, flying of an inverted American flag at the Alito residence — a story Robert Barnes of the Washington Post reportedly did not bother with at the time because it was clear that Justice Alito was not involved.

Blaze News previously noted that Kantor did her best to pass off the American flag as a "Stop the Steal" symbol, to link Alito to the Jan. 6 protests, and to set the stage for arguments by critics that the Supreme Court justice should recuse himself from important Trump-related cases — arguments that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and other Democrats were more than happy to make.

While violence, intimidation, and falsehoods are a problem, Roberts suggested that defiance of lawful judicial decisions is another major threat to the independence of the federal judiciary.

"Within the past few years, ... elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings," said Roberts. "These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected."

The chief justice concluded, "Violence, intimidation, and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable."

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'Pardons for me, no justice for thee': Biden vetoes bill that would have let Trump nominate much-needed judges



President Joe Biden appears keen to maximize consequential, controversial, and costly decisions in his final days as president.

Following President-elect Donald Trump's landslide victory last month, Biden and his administration undermined the Republican's goal of peace in Ukraine and risked turning America's proxy war with Russia into a direct nuclear conflict with the authorization of use of long-range American missiles; took steps to "Trump-proof" the federal bureaucracy; gave his felonious son Hunter Biden an "unconditional" blanket pardon and commuted the sentences of child-killers, grifters, and other loathsome convicts; rushed through DEI-satisfying judges; and set high-reaching greenhouse gas emission targets.

Par for the course, Biden — set to end his presidency with a record-low approval rating — vetoed a bipartisan bill on Monday that would have created 66 new judicial seats in the coming years in understaffed federal courts across the country.

While the 82-year-old Democrat suggested that there remained unanswered questions about the potential allocation of judges, legal experts and lawmakers who championed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act of 2024 indicated Biden's concerns were unfounded. Critics suggested Biden simply wanted to preclude his popular Republican successor from nominating dozens of new judges over the course of his second term.

'The President is more enthusiastic about using his office to provide relief to his family members who received due process.'

Reuters noted that had the bill been enacted, Trump would have been able to fill 22 permanent and three temporary federal judgeships in his second term in addition to the over 100 judicial appointments he is already expected to make.

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), who co-sponsored the initial Senate bill with Democratic Sen. Chris Coons (Del.), noted on X, "Issuing this veto is partisan politics at its worst. The JUDGES Act is a fair bill with strong bipartisan support that would have created 66 judgeships over three presidential terms to address our judicial backlog."

"The President is more enthusiastic about using his office to provide relief to his family members who received due process than he is about giving relief to the millions of regular Americans who are waiting years for their due process," continued Young. "Biden's legacy will be 'pardons for me, no justice for thee.'"

The authors of the legislation noted that by the end of fiscal year 2022, district courts were overwhelmed and in many cases understaffed: "As of March 31, 2023, there were 686,797 pending cases in the district courts of the United States, with an average of 491 weighted case filings per judgeship over a 12-month period."

Although authorized by Article III of the U.S. Constitution to establish judgeships in district courts, Congress has not done so since 2003. The Judicial Conference of the United States recommended to Congress in March 2023 the creation of new district and court of appeals judgeships to address the workload demands facing certain courts.

The JUDGES Act of 2024, which embraced the conference's recommendations, passed the Senate in October with an amendment by unanimous consent — back when Democrats figured they would have fellow traveler Kamala Harris making the judicial nominations.

'This veto is about power, not justice.'

Weeks after Trump won the election, Biden threatened to veto the bill.

The Federal Judges Association and Federal Bar Association implored the geriatric Democrat and members of the House to get over their doubts and similarly pass the bill, stressing in a Dec. 11 statement that it would add judges "in a non-partisan manner and through its creative staggered approach to creating these new judgeships, offers the best chance in three decades for addressing the increasing judicial caseload crisis."

Judge J. Michelle Childs of the FJA and Glen McMurry, president of the FBA, noted further in their joint statement, "Failure to enact the JUDGES Act will condemn our judicial system to more years of unnecessary delays and will deprive parties in the most impacted districts from obtaining appropriate justice and timely relief under the rule of law."

The House of Representatives passed the bill on Dec. 12 in a 236-173 vote.

Following the bipartisan embrace of the JUDGES Act in Congress, Democratic Rep. Lou Correa (Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) penned a letter to Biden urging him to reconsider his veto threat, noting that "addressing the needs of our judiciary is not a partisan issue but a national imperative."

The requests by judges and lawmakers of various stripes evidently fell on deaf ears.

In his veto announcement Monday, Biden stated, "The House of Representative's [sic] hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated, and neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate explored fully how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships," according to a White House transcript.

Biden suggested further that the "efficient and effective administration of justice" requires that these questions undergo further study and insinuated that helping courts meet workload demands — a problem recognized by members of both major parties — was not the "true motivating force behind the passage of this bill."

Judge Robert Conrad Jr., the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said in response, "The president’s veto of the JUDGES Act is extremely disappointing. Providing additional judgeships is essential to improving access to the courts and necessary for the efficient and effective administration of justice."

Conrad noted that Biden wasn't just spiking a carefully considered bill that was based on thorough analysis but breaking from a custom he appeared previously happy to uphold.

"This veto is a deviation from the long historical pattern of approving judgeship bills that awarded new judgeships to sitting presidents. The president's veto is contrary to the actions of Senator Biden who helped pass many of those bills," wrote Conrad. "It is regrettable that the administration failed to support the federal judiciary and rejected this bipartisan, bicameral, and interbranch agreement. The president’s veto will contribute to the pattern of growing caseloads and increasing backlogs that hurt litigants and weaken public confidence in our courts."

Rep. Issa called the veto "a petty, partisan, and pointless act by a presidency that can't end soon enough."

"Very disappointed President Biden has vetoed the JUDGES Act, despite strong bipartisan support in Congress," tweeted Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.). "This decision leaves countless individuals struck in a backlogged legal system without the judges needed to address delays."

Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming emphasized that Biden's veto was purely a partisan maneuver, noting, "The JUDGES Act of 2024 was 'necessary' until the point Republicans would hold a trifecta. This veto is about power, not justice."

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