Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is urging fellow judges to keep their heads high despite Trump’s relentless attacks on the United States judiciary.
The liberal justice, appointed by former President Barack Obama, said that judges must remain steadfast in their work and avoid getting “aggravated or maddened” by President Donald Trump’s severe criticisms.
“The response to perceived lawlessness of any kind is law, and the way an independent judiciary should counter assaults on an independent judiciary is to act in the sorts of ways that judges are required to act,” Kagan said on Thursday at a conference in Monterey, California.
Trump has a long history of verbally abusing judges who oppose him, but he has increased his attacks since taking office for the second time.
“Judges are fair game for all kinds of criticism—strong criticism, pointed criticism. But vilifying judges in that way is a step beyond and ought to be understood as such,” Kagan said.
She added: ”In the face of these sorts of threats to an independent judiciary, judges just need to do what they are obligated to do, which is to do law in the best way they know how to do, make independent, reasoned judgments based on precedent, based on other law, to not be inhibited by any of these threats.”
In the last few months alone, Trump has called federal judges “radical left lunatics,” “rogue,” and “unhinged.” His rhetoric has spurred other MAGA supporters to turn against “judicial activists.”
The president’s demand to impeach judges who have ruled against the administration even prompted a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by former president George W. Bush.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” Roberts said in a statement.
Kagan also suggested that her fellow justices have done a poor job at providing sufficient information to the American public on their reasoning for emergency decisions. She said that the 6-3 conservative majority has increasingly issued critical rulings without a full briefing, argument, or explanation.
The Trump administration has often asked the Supreme Court to lend a helping hand when its policies are blocked by federal judges, and the high court has largely complied and ruled in favor of MAGA.
“I think we should be cautious about acting on the emergency docket,” Kagan said. “I think more generally, it’s the courts that are supposed to explain things. That’s what courts do.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Trump administration for comment.
