President Donald Trump has flouted the law for many years, and he and Elon Musk have spent much of Trump’s first two-plus weeks back in office effectively daring the courts to try to stop them.

How much those courts stand in the way of an increasingly untethered Trump is one of the central questions of the next four years.

And, increasingly, we’re seeing even Republican-nominated judges issue rather stark warnings, often invoking the danger Trump’s actions could portend for the country.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour on Thursday shot up the most recent — and, arguably, the most striking — flare.

In halting Trump’s attempt to nix birthright citizenship — a long-established right under the 14th Amendment — Coughenour accused the president of trampling on the Constitution for “political or personal gain.”


“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” said Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan. “The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.”

Coughenour had also earlier indicated that he views this as a historic moment. In labeling Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional” two weeks ago, the judge compared the situation to instances when the legal systems in other countries buckled.

“There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say, ‘Where were the judges? Where were the lawyers?’” he said, according to KUOW.

Coughenour is hardly the first GOP-nominated judge to bark up this tree:

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, called Trump — in a 2022 case relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — a “charlatan” who “doesn’t in my view really care about democracy, but only about power.” He added that, because of Trump, “I think our democracy is in trouble.” Walton then last year rebuked Trump’s attacks on the judges involved in his court cases, saying that “if we don’t have a viable court system that’s able to function efficiently, then we have tyranny.”

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, last year excoriated attempts to rewrite Jan. 6. He said he had never seen a time “when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream.” He warned that this “misguided rhetoric could presage further danger to our country.” (While Lamberth didn’t cite Trump by name, he alluded to “martyrizing convicted Jan. 6 defendants as ‘political prisoners’ or even, incredibly, ‘hostages’” — all of which points to Trump’s own commentary and efforts.)

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, a Reagan appointee, told Georgetown Law School students last year that Trump and his allies’ Jan. 6 revisionism was “a danger that is embedded now in our communities across the country.” He added: “And we have to wonder where this is going to end up if that’s part of our history, this fraudulent story.”

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who was appointed to a lower court by Reagan and the district court by Bill Clinton, last month offered a subtle but pointed rebuke of Trump’s Jan. 6 revisionism and his blanket pardons, which included those who had assaulted police. She suggested that it was an attempt to obscure the horror of that day but that it would fail. “Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies,” she said.
Another recent example is more open to interpretation — but certainly points in the direction of the fears that even Republican-appointed judges are feeling right now vis-à-vis Trump.

In his 2024 year-end report, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. decried how politicians were treating the courts.

He said public officials “regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges — for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.” He said such things “may prompt dangerous reactions by others.”

Roberts also decried how politicians had “raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings.”

“These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected,” he said.

Roberts didn’t attach these offenses to specific politicians or parties; in fact, he attributed the latter to “elected officials from across the political spectrum.”


But nobody in recent years holds a candle to Trump when it comes to baselessly claiming judicial bias and seeding conspiracy theories that appear intended to intimidate.

And no major figure has raised “the specter of open disregard” for court rulings more than Vice President JD Vance.

Vance in 2021 said he would urge Trump in a second term to fire civil servants en masse. He added that “when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

He doubled down more than once last year, including telling ABC News that, “if the Supreme Court said the president of the United States can’t fire a general, that would be an illegitimate ruling, and the president has to have Article II prerogative under the Constitution to actually run the military as he sees fit.”


Vance isn’t the only one to float such a scenario. Some Democrats and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) last year briefly suggested that the Biden administration ignore a Texas federal judge’s ruling suspending the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, the abortion pill.

But you could understand why this man becoming the vice president — and serving a president with his own checkered relationship with the rule of law — might raise Roberts’s eyebrows.

And Roberts wouldn’t be the only one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...-judges-rule-of-law/

I think it completely makes sense to most of us that when you come here as non citizen on pretense to give birth and you create anchor is nonsense
Interpretation is wrong

“Lawlessness???”



Don’t you libs ever come up with ANYTHING original?

Even judges opinions don’t have to be right every time as we see on many occasions
They are after all fallible like rest of us

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
“Lawlessness???”



Don’t you libs ever come up with ANYTHING original?

Basically Trump and Musk are acting like a dictator and his toy boy!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
“Lawlessness???”



Don’t you libs ever come up with ANYTHING original?

Basically Trump and Musk are acting like a dictator and his toy boy!

This would be accurate and correct. As the OP points out, trump thinks he can do anything he wants by executive fiat. And, that's not the way things work in the United States. Unless you are a brain-dead trumptard like the folks responding in this thread.

quote:

Originally posted by M.Shy:
I think it completely makes sense to most of us that when you come here as non citizen on pretense to give birth and you create anchor is nonsense
Interpretation is wrong

Right. The SCOTUS and the dozens of other courts and judges that have interpreted the provision are wrong and you are right. I thought only Lane was arrogant enough to take that position but I guess I was wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
“Lawlessness???”



Don’t you libs ever come up with ANYTHING original?

Basically Trump and Musk are acting like a dictator and his toy boy!

Not at all furriner, you live in the land of dictators....and...boy toys

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
“Lawlessness???”



Don’t you libs ever come up with ANYTHING original?

Basically Trump and Musk are acting like a dictator and his toy boy!

This would be accurate and correct. As the OP points out, trump thinks he can do anything he wants by executive fiat. And, that's not the way things work in the United States. Unless you are a brain-dead trumptard like the folks responding in this thread.

should he have started with the Obama mantra to make the left feel better?

"I have a PEN and a CELL phone" ---

invoke lord obama and it's magc!

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
“Lawlessness???”



Don’t you libs ever come up with ANYTHING original?

Basically Trump and Musk are acting like a dictator and his toy boy!

This would be accurate and correct. As the OP points out, trump thinks he can do anything he wants by executive fiat. And, that's not the way things work in the United States. Unless you are a brain-dead trumptard like the folks responding in this thread.

should he have started with the Obama mantra to make the left feel better?

"I have a PEN and a CELL phone" ---

invoke lord obama and it's magc!

Nonresponsive. Just like all the rest.

Anybody care to substantively comment on these statements by federal judges, all appointed by Republicans?

“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” said Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan. “The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.”

Coughenour had also earlier indicated that he views this as a historic moment. In labeling Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional” two weeks ago, the judge compared the situation to instances when the legal systems in other countries buckled.

“There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say, ‘Where were the judges? Where were the lawyers?’” he said, according to KUOW.

Coughenour is hardly the first GOP-nominated judge to bark up this tree:

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, called Trump — in a 2022 case relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — a “charlatan” who “doesn’t in my view really care about democracy, but only about power.” He added that, because of Trump, “I think our democracy is in trouble.” Walton then last year rebuked Trump’s attacks on the judges involved in his court cases, saying that “if we don’t have a viable court system that’s able to function efficiently, then we have tyranny.”

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, last year excoriated attempts to rewrite Jan. 6. He said he had never seen a time “when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream.” He warned that this “misguided rhetoric could presage further danger to our country.” (While Lamberth didn’t cite Trump by name, he alluded to “martyrizing convicted Jan. 6 defendants as ‘political prisoners’ or even, incredibly, ‘hostages’” — all of which points to Trump’s own commentary and efforts.)

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, a Reagan appointee, told Georgetown Law School students last year that Trump and his allies’ Jan. 6 revisionism was “a danger that is embedded now in our communities across the country.” He added: “And we have to wonder where this is going to end up if that’s part of our history, this fraudulent story.”

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who was appointed to a lower court by Reagan and the district court by Bill Clinton, last month offered a subtle but pointed rebuke of Trump’s Jan. 6 revisionism and his blanket pardons, which included those who had assaulted police. She suggested that it was an attempt to obscure the horror of that day but that it would fail. “Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies,” she said.
Another recent example is more open to interpretation — but certainly points in the direction of the fears that even Republican-appointed judges are feeling right now vis-à-vis Trump.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
“Lawlessness???”



Don’t you libs ever come up with ANYTHING original?

Basically Trump and Musk are acting like a dictator and his toy boy!

This would be accurate and correct. As the OP points out, trump thinks he can do anything he wants by executive fiat. And, that's not the way things work in the United States. Unless you are a brain-dead trumptard like the folks responding in this thread.

should he have started with the Obama mantra to make the left feel better?

"I have a PEN and a CELL phone" ---

invoke lord obama and it's magc!

Nonresponsive. Just like all the rest.

uhm, Mike, perhaps you forgot -- listen to lord obama's WORDS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6tOgF_w-yI

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Mitchell:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
“Lawlessness???”



Don’t you libs ever come up with ANYTHING original?

Basically Trump and Musk are acting like a dictator and his toy boy!

This would be accurate and correct. As the OP points out, trump thinks he can do anything he wants by executive fiat. And, that's not the way things work in the United States. Unless you are a brain-dead trumptard like the folks responding in this thread.

should he have started with the Obama mantra to make the left feel better?

"I have a PEN and a CELL phone" ---

invoke lord obama and it's magc!

Nonresponsive. Just like all the rest.

uhm, Mike, perhaps you forgot -- listen to lord obama's WORDS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6tOgF_w-yI

The fact that POTUS can issue EO's isn't in dispute.

Whether the EO issued is lawful is the question.

fair enough --
of the ones issued since 1/20/25 - what percentage have been found to be in error?

then do jobama's percentage -- including repeats