'Don't have our backs': Lower court judges slam the 'inexcusable' Supreme Court

04 September

John Roberts

A dozen federal judges are criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court, and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts, for what they say is a pattern of overturning their rulings in cases involving President Donald Trump's policies while offering little explanation — or none at all. Their rare rebuke comes just as the President has demanded the high court reverse lower court rulings yet again, this time in a pivotal case: Trump's massive tariffs, which many legal experts and several courts have already deemed unconstitutional.

"Lower court judges are handed contentious cases involving the Trump administration," NBC News reports in an exclusive. "They painstakingly research the law to reach their rulings. When they go against Trump, administration officials and allies criticize the judges in harsh terms. The government appeals to the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority."

"And then the Supreme Court, in emergency rulings, swiftly rejects the judges’ decisions with little to no explanation," according to NBC News. "A short rebuttal from the Supreme Court, they argue, makes it seem like they did shoddy work and are biased against Trump."

One judge called the current environment "inexcusable," lamenting the SCOTUS justices "don’t have our backs.”

NBC noted that when federal judges rule against Trump and his administration, "they are frequently targeted by influential figures in MAGA world and sometimes Trump himself, who called for a judge who ruled against him in a high-profile immigration case to be impeached. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has said the administration is the victim of a 'judicial coup.'"

At the center of the controversy is the Supreme Court’s growing reliance on its ‘shadow docket,’ a mechanism the Trump administration has repeatedly used to its advantage.

Instead of filing a petition for the Supreme Court to hear a case and waiting for oral arguments to be scheduled if it agrees, Trump has often bypassed the process — nearly two dozen times since January — by going directly to the justices with emergency requests.

Seventeen times the Supreme Court has granted Trump's emergency requests.

Late on Wednesday night, the Trump administration again went to SCOTUS, this time demanding the justices overturn the rulings of two separate courts, which had deemed his tariffs unlawful and unconstitutional.

On Friday, in a 7-4 ruling, a federal appeals court affirmed an earlier U.S. Court of International Trade decision that Trump's sweeping and unilateral imposition of tariffs exceeded his authority.

The Supreme Court has yet to respond.