‘He’s Breaking The Law’: Sheldon Whitehouse Issues Brutal Takedown Of Trump Over Judiciary Attacks

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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) slammed President Trump for his recent actions towards the judiciary.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Senator Cruz. When I chaired the Subcommittee on Federal Courts, we held hearings

00:04on the influence on our judiciary of dark money from the fossil fuel industry and from creepy

00:11billionaires. My Republican colleagues weren't interested in helping solve that problem, but

00:16those hearings were based on facts. Years of financial disclosures showed a secret

00:21billionaire gifts program for amenable Supreme Court justices. Written evidence suggested a

00:27justice may have failed to pay taxes on a $270,000 loan that was forgiven and that false statements

00:34were made about a yacht. A mountain of evidence revealed President Trump outsourced to billionaires

00:39and their dark money fixer, Leonard Leo, the selection of his judges and Supreme Court justices,

00:45which President Trump admitted just last week. Apparently, Leo also, and I'm quoting Trump here,

00:52openly brags about controlling the judges his creepy billionaires got appointed.

00:59This hearing will be different. A lot of hypocrisy about nationwide injunctions against the Trump

01:05administration after Republican colleagues cheered the nationwide injunctions that courts issued against

01:12the Biden administration. Indeed, some colleagues filed lawsuits asking for nationwide injunctions

01:19against the Biden administration. But now they're shocked, shocked that there are nationwide injunctions.

01:26Here are some facts everyone should bear in mind during this hearing. Fact number one,

01:31Donald Trump's administration is engaged in unprecedented lawlessness, period. In less than five months,

01:38President Trump has issued almost as many executive orders as President Biden did during four years in

01:43office. Many are flat out on their face illegal, as any first year law student could tell you.

01:50Trump tried to end 14th Amendment birthright citizenship. He tried to punish law firms First Amendment rights to

01:56associate with his perceived political enemies. His fossil fuel minion at OMB, Russ Vogt, withheld millions of dollars

02:03that Congress had appropriated under Article One. More than 20 years ago, originalist icon Scalia wrote about how

02:11illegal that is. The madcap pace and roughshod lawlessness of Trump's executive actions mean district judges

02:20across the country are striking them down, not because of judicial obstruction, because he is breaking the law.

02:28Hearings like this prop up a narrative that bad courts are stopping dear leader Donald Trump because some cabal of

02:36Democratic judges is out to get him. Wrong. The reality is much simpler. He's breaking the law and doing it a lot and

02:46judges are doing their job.

02:48It's not just me saying that. Trump appointed judges from across the country have struck down his illegal actions,

02:53holding, for instance, that Trump can't punish the AP for its reporting, that his misuse of the Alien Enemies Act is illegal,

03:01and that the administration can't withhold billions of appropriated public health funds. Trump judges. Hardly a liberal conspiracy.

03:09As it tries to prop up Trump's illegal orders, the MAGA Justice Department is fast destroying its reputation with judges,

03:18who've said about DOJ arguments, bad faith, shoddy, an admitted lack of any evidence whatsoever, deliberate evasion,

03:29shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

03:38And the prospect of contempt findings looms.

03:42Fact number two, failing in court, Donald Trump and his allies attack judges and their families.

03:47Trump has called judges who ruled against him

03:50communists,

03:51USA hating, and

03:53monsters.

03:55A Republican in Congress put up a wanted poster with judges faces outside his office.

04:00Elon Musk and Laura Loomer have used X to fire up the right wing's flying monkeys about judges,

04:06even adding photos of family members in a seemingly coordinated campaign to harass and intimidate.

04:13A test is coming of MAGA Attorney General Bondi.

04:16Will she let the Marshal Service investigate these threats and their orchestration?

04:22There's plenty of predication to look into conspiracy, aiding and abetting, or RICO enterprise liability.

04:29Will she let them?

04:31Which brings me to fact number three.

04:33In a six-week period from March through April, 162 judges received threats to themselves or family members of harassment or violence.

04:41162.

04:43A pattern was evident.

04:45Many had ruled against Trump and then were targeted.

04:48The latest tactic is a campaign to send pizzas to judges

04:52or family members' homes using the name of the murdered son of a federal judge.

04:58It's not clear yet who is behind that campaign,

05:02but it's not hard to figure out the message.

05:04Stop ruling against Trump or else.

05:07These attacks have gotten so bad that the Chief Justice issued a statement

05:12and the Judicial Conference formed a Judicial Security and Independence Task Force.

05:18Now I'd like to see some sign that the threats are being duly investigated.

05:24To the extent that this hearing encourages that animus further, it is deeply regrettable.

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