Trump DOJ is infuriating judges as experts say his 'contempt' for the law is backfiring
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Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche reacts as he speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 18, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
The Justice Department is dealing with absolute chaos after a number of district court judges issued strong rulings challenging the legality of some of President Donald Trump's moves.
Not only is Trump's administration dealing with losses by U.S. Attorneys in immigration-related cases and losing in Trump's retribution cases, but the DOJ is also losing when it comes to defending his "executive power grabs," wrote The Guardian's Peter Stone on Monday.
Rulings coming in on the cases have gone beyond losses, however. Since Trump's second term, lower court judges have been writing critical opinions about any of his actions they find dubious.
"The impact of the court rulings by thesejudges has been sizable, slowing or halting some of the president’s most extreme policies and prompting Trump and MAGA allies to respond with vindictive attacks that have helped to fuel some threats against several judges," said Stone.
Former Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich told Stone, “District court judges around the country, appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents alike, are serving as the strongest guardrail against the incursions on the rule of law."
“In one year, DOJ lawyers have lost the presumptions of regularity, competence and reliability that it has taken decades to accumulate," he added. "The judges are calling out [the] DOJ for its lawless positions and hollow arguments in the strongest language I have ever seen.”
The site Just Security conducted a study last month that counted 210 cases in three critical areas since the start of 2025 in which the administration has drawn rebuke from judges.
Stone cited the findings that it isn't merely that the administration is getting a legal lecture. The administration was found not to be in compliance with court orders 34 times. Courts have also "stated a distrust in government information and representations in 90 cases." Meanwhile, courts have uncovered "arbitrary and capricious conduct in administrative action in 91 cases," the research found.
The judges are from both Republican and Democratic presidents. Some are judges whom Trump appointed himself.
"With tough rulings slowing his priorities and policies, Trump has ratcheted up high decibel attacks on judges, calling them at times 'crooked' or 'lunatic,'" Stone wrote. "On 25 March, Trump went further in a talk to House Republicans by urging them to pass a crime bill that 'cracks down on rogue judges.'" Trump fumed in his talk against “rogue judges that are criminals. They are criminals, what they do to our country.”
A whopping 97 percent of Trump's emergency filings to the U.S. Supreme Court argue that the federal judges are stepping on his executive authority. To put that in context, President Joe Biden's administration made that argument in 26 percent of its cases, said a Reuters report.
Trump has responded to each case with dozens of appeals, many of which have already reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The 6-3 conservative majority on the high court has ruled in Trump's favor, but it dealt one significant blow when it struck down a portion of Trump's tariff policy.
Trump complained at the time, “The decisions that these people make — I got a decision on tariffs that’s going to cost our country – not me, I do it a different way – going to cost our country hundreds of billions, potentially, of refunds.”
Retired Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig, a well-known conservative, told The Guardian, “The president’s and the attorney general’s contempt for the constitution, rule of law, and federal judiciary has predictably backfired on them."
“The lower federal courts are the last line of defense of the constitution and rule of law in this president’s war on the rule of law," he continued. "Honoring their oaths to the letter every day for the past 15 months, these federal courts have risen to this moment of America’s testing, holding unconstitutional or otherwise violative of the law of the United States essentially every signature initiative of Donald Trump’s presidency.”
District Court Judge William Young in Boston, an appointee of GOP President Ronald Reagan, issued a ruling in September that raked the administration across the coals in 161 pages over its deportation policies of student activists in college.
Young alleged outright that Trump’s was violating his oath of office by refusing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He called the deportations a “full-throated assault on the First Amendment”.
Stone noted that former Justice Department lawyers say that these judges are serving as the last guardrails on American democracy as they rebuff "Trump's grabs and the administration's disdain for the rule of law."