Judges warn Trump risks public perception of lawlessness in his fight with courts
Source: Reuters
April 17, 2025 4:28 PM EDT Updated 9 min ago
NEW YORK, April 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court urged the Trump administration on Thursday to back off from its escalating confrontation with the judiciary, warning that both the executive and judicial branches risk losing public confidence. In a strongly worded unanimous opinion, a three-judge panel rejected President Donald Trump's administration's request to stop a judge from probing what the government had done to secure the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant it acknowledged having wrongly deported to El Salvador.
The judges, part of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said the executive branch represented by the administration and the courts were "grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both."
"We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson. Wilkinson is an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, a Republican like Trump.
Asked to comment on the appeals court decision, a Justice Department spokesperson referred to Attorney General Pam Bondi's posts on X on Monday and on Wednesday asserting that Abrego Garcia belonged to the MS-13 street gang. An immigration judge in 2019 granted Abrego Garcia protection from deportation to El Salvador after finding he was likely to be persecuted by gangs if returned there, court records show. Abrego Garcia's lawyers and family members deny he was part of MS-13.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-challenges-judges-probes-compliance-with-deportation-orders-2025-04-17/
Link to ORDER (PDF viewer) - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25900495-2025-04-17-court-order-dckt/
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25900495/2025-04-17-court-order-dckt.pdf
There is no hypothetical "risk" of a "perception". IT IS PURE UNADULTERATED LAWLESSNESS. COMPLETE AND UTTER.
EVERY SINGLE THING HE HAS DONE HAS BROKEN SOME LAW..
And regarding this -
At this point, Raygun and 45 are like polar opposites.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Nope - he was just the latest version.
Don't forget THIS guy -
Much of what you see 45 doing - "Enemies lists", "refusing to spend Congressionally-appropriated money" (which lead to passage of H.R.7130 - Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974), came from the lawlessness of Nixon.
This is because 45 has 2 of these 3 former (then youngsters) Nixon (and later Raygun) guys around him -
(Roger Stone and Paul Manafort - the other - Lee Atwater, is no longer around)
BUT since I bring up Lee Atwater, THIS is one of HIS legacies that 45 has deployed -
Example - Misuse of the term "DEI" as a racist dog-whistle "code term" similar to how Atwater described the use of the term "busing" (in terms of trying to desegregate schools back in the '70s).
This is why RACE (and gender, etc) cannot be cavalierly dismissed as "identity politics" as some insist because as is heard in the above video, the white supremacist GOP have "weaponized 'economics'" in order to OPPRESS - not by "class", but by everything else.
The difference between both Nixon/Raygun and 45 is that the former two still had some sense of "honor" within their thievery (and both had ALSO served in some government role prior to becoming President).
45 has NONE of that. He had NEVER served in ANY CAPACITY in the government (municipal/county/state/federal, whether elected, appointed, as a civil servant, or in the military) and has completely TRASHED the "honor system" that has kept this Republic (semi-) together for the past 234 years.
