White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is “basically admitting” the White House “lied” about the mass firings of tens of thousands of federal government employees, a legal expert is alleging, based on her remarks on Friday. Many of not most of the terminated government workers were ordered to be reinstated by two separate federal courts on Thursday. Judges ruled the terminations were likely unlawful.
According to The New York Times, one judge “said in his lengthy ruling that the government’s contention that the firings of the probationary employees had been for cause, and not a mass layoff, ‘borders on the frivolous.'” Another judge “concluded much the same and made it clear that he thought the manner in which the Trump administration had fired the probationary workers was a ‘sham.'”
Leavitt previously has been criticized for having exhibited “a fundamental misunderstanding of the separation of powers enumerated in the U.S. Constitution since 1789,” and for making false claims in general.
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On Friday, having been asked to clarify a previous statement, Leavitt told reporters that the Trump administration will be “fighting back” against those two rulings “by appealing, fighting back by using the full weight of the White House Counsel’s office and our lawyers at the federal government who believed that this injunction is entirely unconstitutional.”
Leavitt insisted that the injunction — presumably both injunctions blocking the administration from additional mass firings and requiring that the fired probational employees be reinstated — are unconstitutional.
She claimed that, “for anybody who has a basic understanding of the law, you cannot have a low level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the president of the United States.”
That is false, and violates the separation of powers, as legal experts and Supreme Court cases have made clear, although it is a claim the Trump administration has repeatedly asserted.
“That is completely absurd, and as the executive of the executive branch, the president has the ability to fire or hire. And you have these lower level judges who are trying to, uh, block this president’s agenda,” she stated (video below).
That appears to be the remark that drew the attention of attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration policy expert and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.
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“Pay attention here to how the White House is basically admitting to have lied about why these people were fired,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote. “Now they claim this was the President’s command and must not be overruled. But when the firings were happening, they claimed on paper it was for ‘performance’ reasons.”
Andrew Heineman, legislative director for U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) wrote: “It sounds very much like Leavitt just admitted that the firings were part of Trump’s ‘agenda.'”
Leavitt went on to suggest that there is a conspiracy of activist judges working to “block” President Trump.
“It’s very clear, and as I just cited, I was appalled by the statistic when I saw it this morning in three or, uh, in one month in February, there have been 15 injunctions of this administration in our agenda,” she said.
“In three years under the Biden administration, there were 14 injunctions. So, uh, it’s very clear that there are judicial activists throughout our judicial branch who are trying to block this president’s executive authority.”
She went on to praise President Trump and his legal team, saying that despite being “indicted nearly 200 times,” he was able to become President.
Trump has not been indicted nearly 200 times. He was indicted four times, and faced a total of 91 felony charges.
“We are going to fight back,” she insisted, “and as anyone who saw President Trump up in his legal team fighting back, they know how to do it. He was indicted nearly 200 times, and he’s in the Oval Office now because all of the indictments, all of these injunctions have always been unconstitutional and unfair.”
“They are led by partisan activists, who are trying to usurp the will of this president and we’re not going to stand for it.”
Critics blasted Leavitt’s grasp of the law.
Semafor’s David Weigel posted headlines of federal judges, or, “low level district court” judges, as she said, blocking other President’s actions.
“You sure about that? You sure about that?” he asked, mockingly.
Attorney and Democratic activist Aaron Parnas, responding to Leavitt’s claim that you cannot have a judge block a president’s wishes, responded: “You actually can. That’s why we have three branches of government.”
Watch the video below or at this link.