Conservative attorney begs court to kill the Trump 'virus' before it 'spreads'

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 25, 2025. REUTERS Nathan Howard

Former U.S. solicitor general and conservative attorney Paul Clement says the Trump administration’s lawsuit against an entire federal court in Maryland must die, and die quickly, before the spirit of the infection spreads to other courts and dismantles the U.S. justice system.

Last June, President Donald Trump’s politicized Department of Justice targeted the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in a lawsuit after the chief U.S. district judge for Maryland granted automatic stays against the government in response to a flood of petitions for writs of habeas corpus, reports Law & Crime.

The court granted the stays automatically as a matter of judicial economy because of the flood of immigrant habeas petitions, Law & Crime reports. But Trump and his helpers were furious, and launched a first-of-its-kind suit to undermine the court.

Judges on the court hired Clement to argue their case, and Clement did not hold back in the withering response brief he filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

In Clement’s view, Trump’s attack is a devastating power grab by the executive designed to pulls courts to pieces.

“If this case were to go forward, the next step would be discovery, with Article III judges and principal Executive Branch officers ‘prob[ing]’ each others' ‘mental processes,’ producing documents, and litigating privilege disputes of epic proportions,” said Clement. “Then comes final judgment and the potential for a permanent injunction, the effect of which could be to place the United States District Court for the District of Maryland in indefinite judicial receivership of an out-of-district colleague. And the virus would only spread.”

Clement said if Trump’s “misguided lawsuit were allowed to proceed, tensions between the branches would only escalate,” with Executive depositions of Judicial officers and cross-examinations in open court exploring Judicial motivations and Executive necessities.”

The attack Trump lobbed in Maryland would certainly not be the last, said Clement: “The next one could be against this Court (or the Supreme Court) and cause greater disruption still.”

That being the case, Clement says Trump would have managed to “permanently elevate” himself over his coordinate branches, with the loser being “not just or even principally the Judiciary, but the Constitution and the People it protects."

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