Chief Justice Roberts Call Out Politicians for Criticizing Judiciary

As we bring in the new year, Chief Justice Roberts dropped the hammer on politicians who have been highly critical of the judiciary after rulings are handed down.

Roberts encouraged them to stifle their criticism or at least be more mindful of their words.

The Annual Report

Roberts releases a report every year, but this report has been a pushback of sorts in more recent years. In his 15-page report, he stated, "It is not in the nature of judicial work to make everyone happy. Most cases have a winner and a loser. Every Administration suffers defeats in the court system — sometimes in cases with major ramifications for executive or legislative power or other consequential topics.

"Nevertheless, for the past several decades, the decisions of the courts, popular or not, have been followed, and the Nation has avoided the standoffs that plagued the 1950s and 1960s.

"Within the past few years, however, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings.

"These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected. Judicial independence is worth preserving. As my late colleague Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, an independent judiciary is ‘essential to the rule of law in any land,’ yet it ‘is vulnerable to assault; it can be shattered if the society law exists to serve does not take care to assure its preservation.’"

Calling Out the Judiciary

Both sides of the aisle have been harsh on the judiciary, even though the media only calls out Donald Trump and Republicans for being critical.

For instance, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) went off after Roe v. Wade was overturned, stating, “I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Ironically, Donald Trump, who has lit up judges consistently over decisions he did not like, slammed Schumer for the comments, stating, “There can be few things worse in a civilized, law abiding nation, than a United States Senator openly, and for all to see and hear, threatening the Supreme Court or its Justices. This is what Chuck Schumer just did. He must pay a severe price for this!”

This problem goes much deeper, though, as we have seen far too many decisions based on political ideology rather than the rule of law and the Constitution, which is why people are getting so upset. You can pretty much predict the outcome of almost any case based on who appointed the judge, and that is simply not how the judiciary is supposed to work.

Get It Right

I can point to the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity as a perfect example. The ruling by the court literally changed nothing. It was a neat packing up of previous rulings on the matter, and nothing more, but that is not how the media, Democrats, and liberal justices framed it.

The court ruled that a president cannot be prosecuted for actions deemed to fall under the office of the president, but it also stated, as had been previously ruled, that not all acts of a sitting president are considered presidential acts. Point being, it was up to the court to define the alleged crimes, then it had to decide if the acts committed were presidential acts or that of an individual who just happened to be president.

Yet, in her dissent, Sotomayor went off the rails, even to the point that she suggested Trump could use a SEAL team to go after a political enemy and he would be immune from prosecution, and that was about as far off base as one could be.

Her response was shameful, and I even thought it went to the point that she should have been impeached over it, but that is exactly why people are going off on judges and their rulings. These days, we have far too many activists on the bench rather than jurors.