Donald Trump has responded to the ruling by a federal district judge that blocks his executive order halting funding to sanctuary cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
This response takes the form of both an official statement from the office of the White House press secretary and a flurry of tweets from POTUS himself attacking an independent judiciary and our system of checks and balances:
First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban & now it hits again on sanctuary cities-both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017
Out of our very big country, with many choices, does everyone notice that both the "ban" case and now the "sanctuary" case is brought in …
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017
…the Ninth Circuit, which has a terrible record of being overturned (close to 80%). They used to call this "judge shopping!" Messy system.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017
Never mind that the judge in question doesn’t sit on the Ninth Circuit. Ooops.
The official White House statement, which Toronto Star fact checker Daniel Dale calls a “Coulterian incendiary statement,” claims that “Today, the rule of law suffered another blow, as an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our Nation,” and cited “egregious overreach by a single, unelected district judge.”
What the judge said was that,
“Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the president disapproves.”
What the administration heard is that they can’t do whatever they want regardless of the law. Reince Priebus even told CNN the very idea was “absurd.” So according to the White House,
“Today’s ruling undermines faith in our legal system and raises serious questions about circuit shopping. But we are confident we will ultimately prevail in the Supreme Court, just as we will prevail in our lawful efforts to impose immigration restrictions necessary to keep terrorists out of the Untied States.”
In fact, what the ruling by that single federal judge, Judge William H. Orrick, accomplished, was to defend the rule of law and our nation’s system of checks and balances.
Donald Trump wants to rule like an autocrat. He thinks the United States is a nation wholly under his power and authority and where his very word is law.
It is not. And when a single judge reminded him of that fact, and Donald Trump responded like the thwarted would-be dictator he is.
Donald Trump accused a federal judge of “rewriting immigration policy” but what the federal judge did was to prevent unilateral action by a renegade (and childishly petulant) chief executive drunk on his own power.
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