特朗普对法官阻挠他的议程感到愤怒，而他的高级副手则利用法院阻止拜登的政策

【中美创新时报2025 年 3 月 21 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）特朗普总统一直在加剧与联邦司法机构的对峙，对阻挠和推翻其政策的法官感到愤怒。周二，他呼吁弹劾一名法官，因为他的政府做出了不利于他的裁决。《波士顿环球报》记者Tal Kopan对此作了下述报道。

特朗普的副幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒周二在 X 上写道：“每天，全国人民都会看到最疯狂的未经选举的地方联邦法官决定了美国政府的政策。” 在对司法机构的猛烈批评中。“这是疯狂。这是疯狂。这是纯粹的无法无天。这是对民主最严重的攻击。它必须而且将会结束。”

但在特朗普上任之前，以米勒为首的许多高级副手都曾要求联邦法官做出类似的裁决，以阻止总统乔·拜登的政策。

在特朗普离开白宫的四年里，米勒和另一位特朗普政府的校友、据报道现已成为白宫高级法律顾问的吉恩·汉密尔顿 (Gene Hamilton) 经营着一个法律团体，旨在以同样的方式对拜登政府提出法律挑战。这个名为“美国第一法律”的组织自称是保守派对进步派在法庭上取得的胜利的回应，目的是打击“违宪的行政越权行为”。

该组织的网站称：“我们正在扭转激进左翼活动家的法律局面。”“我们将坚决捍卫我们的权利、我们的国家和我们珍视的美国生活方式。”

该组织在最有可能由保守派法官审理案件的司法管辖区提起诉讼，经常成功阻挠拜登。 2021 年，一名法官阻止了农业部为历史上遭受歧视的种族群体的农民提供的贷款减免计划。2022 年，一名德克萨斯州法官阻止了拜登政府免除无人陪伴儿童边境限制的计划，俄亥俄州的一名法官阻止了拜登为移民和海关执法局的行动设定优先事项。2024 年，一名德克萨斯州法官分别作出裁决，阻止了一项赋予美国公民无证配偶合法身份和移民假释计划的计划。

在每起案件中，米勒和汉密尔顿都发表声明，用“历史性胜利”或“巨大胜利”等字眼吹捧这些裁决。一些裁决后来被上级法院推翻或变得毫无意义。

白宫没有回答有关它是否认为米勒和汉密尔顿欢呼的裁决与米勒现在哀叹的裁决有任何区别的问题，但指出，过去一个月，全国范围内的此类司法命令比拜登政府执政头三年的总数还要多。

“激进的法官正在滥用权力，阻止特朗普总统合法且合乎常理的行政行为，”发言人泰勒·罗杰斯说。“这些激进的法官应该放下手中的木槌，为民主党人敲门。”

在某种程度上，随着白宫控制权的变更，自由派和保守派就法官的适当角色交换意见是一项历史悠久的传统。哈佛法学教授、保守派法律学者阿德里安·维尔穆尔曾将其比作简·奥斯汀式的舞厅场景，舞会上的观众在大厅的两侧排成一排，交换位置，然后像以前一样继续跳舞，只是舞步相反。失去权力后，双方都利用法院来减缓或阻止他们所说的总统的越权行为，然后在重新掌权后谴责同样的策略。

但特朗普和他的政府正在将这种舞蹈提升到新的水平。对法官的攻击越来越激烈，以至于最高法院首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨周二罕见地对特朗普呼吁弹劾阻止总统援引《外国敌人法》驱逐涉嫌委内瑞拉帮派成员的法官进行了谴责。

这是两党越来越习惯于质疑与他们意见相左的法官的正直性的升级。2020 年，罗伯茨还谴责了纽约州参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默，当时舒默呼吁法官为保守派裁决“付出代价”，舒默称这一声明指的是政治后果。在最高法院推翻罗诉韦德案后，民主党人对右翼集团尤其不满。

西北大学法学教授莫妮卡·海蒙德表示，越来越多人接受以党派为由谴责司法裁决，这是一种危险的滑坡。

“两党政府都会反对对他们不利的特定裁决，并认为法官的法律理解有误……问题是，这种狂热达到了什么程度？”海蒙德说。 “当你超出[上诉程序]的范围，质疑法院处理法律的权威，或者说它出于政治偏见时，你就开始破坏制度和法治了。”

特朗普政府对地方法院法官（联邦法院系统的第一级）的裁决尤其不满，这些裁决阻止了政策或命令政府在全国范围内采取行动。许多裁决都是在紧迫的时间内做出的，辩论时间有限，因为法官已经批准了挑战者的请求，鉴于所涉及的紧急情况，他们立即进行干预。批评所谓的全国禁令和类似法令的人认为，这些法令太过笼统，法官应该只针对其所在地区做出裁决。特朗普政府已要求最高法院限制地方法院法官发布此类裁决的能力。

支持法官有权在全国范围内发布禁令和命令的人表示，当政府行动过于激进时，裁决的快速转变和广泛影响是必要的，而且在许多政策上，不可能将裁决限制在一个地理区域。

其他特朗普官员此前也支持法官做出此类裁决的能力，并请求法院阻止民主党的举措。司法部长帕姆·邦迪 (Pam ​​Bondi) 曾担任佛罗里达州司法部长，参与了多州诉讼，以对抗巴拉克·奥巴马 (Barack Obama) 的政策。邦迪还是美国优先政策研究所的成员，该研究所由特朗普现任政府的多名成员创办和配备人员，并提起诉讼以阻止拜登的一些政策。

休斯顿南德克萨斯法学院教授、自由主义倾向的卡托研究所兼职学者乔希·布莱克曼 (Josh Blackman) 表示，他认为特朗普政府的言论与民主党对保守派法官的攻击几乎没有区别。他认为，法院通过发布难以上诉的全面裁决，加剧了与特朗普政府的斗争。

他说，无论责任在白宫还是司法部门，僵局显然正在加剧。

“如果法院采取强硬手段，我认为行政部门也会采取强硬手段，”布莱克曼说。“猫捉老鼠、胆小鬼游戏——两个部门都在互相争斗。”

题图：白宫政策副幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒（中）在白宫发表讲话。Andrew Harnik/Getty

附原英文报道：

While Trump rages at judges blocking his agenda, his top lieutenants used the courts to block Biden’s policies

By Tal Kopan Globe Staff,Updated March 20, 2025

Deputy White House chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller (center) spoke at the White House.Andrew Harnik/Getty

WASHINGTON — President Trump has been escalating his standoff with the federal judiciary, seething at judges who have blocked and reversed his policies. On Tuesday, he called for the impeachment of one such judge for ruling against his administration.

“Each day the nation arises to see what the craziest unelected local federal judge has decided the policies of the government of the United States shall be,” Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller wrote on X on Tuesday amid a storm of criticism of the judiciary. “It is madness. It is lunacy. It is pure lawlessness. It is the gravest assault on democracy. It must and will end.”

But before Trump took office, many of his top lieutenants, led by Miller, had asked federal judges to make similar such rulings to block the policies of a president, those of Joe Biden.

In the four years Trump was out of the White House, Miller and another Trump administration alumnus, Gene Hamilton, now reportedly a senior White House counsel, ran a legal group aimed at bringing legal challenges to the Biden administration in the same way. The group, America First Legal, billed itself as a conservative answer to progressives’ success in the courts in order to fight “unconstitutional executive overreach.”

“We are turning the legal tables on the radical activist left,” the group’s website states. “We will wage a forceful defense of our rights, our country, and our cherished American way of life.”

Filing cases in jurisdictions where they were most likely to be fielded by conservative judges, the group often succeeded in stymieing Biden. In 2021, a judge blocked a loan forgiveness plan by the Agriculture Department to benefit farmers of racial groups that had historically faced discrimination. In 2022, a Texas judge blocked a Biden administration plan to exempt unaccompanied children from restrictions at the border, and a judge in Ohio blocked Biden from setting priorities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. In 2024, a Texas judge made separate rulings blocking a plan to give undocumented spouses of American citizens legal status and a parole program for immigrants.

In each case, Miller and Hamilton released statements touting the rulings with words like “historic victory” or “colossal win.” Some rulings were later overturned by higher courts or rendered moot.

The White House did not respond to a question about whether it sees any difference between the rulings Miller and Hamilton cheered and the ones Miller is now lamenting, but noted there have been more such nationwide judicial orders in the last month than the entire first three years of the Biden administration.

“Activist judges are abusing their power to block President Trump’s lawful and common-sense executive actions,” spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. “These radical judges should ditch their gavels to knock doors for Democrats.”

To some degree, the swapping of views among liberals and conservatives about the proper role of judges with a change in White House control is a time-honored tradition. Harvard Law professor and conservative legal scholar Adrian Vermeule once compared it to a Jane Austenesque ballroom scene, where ball-goers line up on opposite sides of the hall, switch places, and then continue the dance as before with their steps reversed. When out of power, each side has used the courts to slow or stop what they say is an overreach by the president, then decry the same tactics when they regain power.

But Trump and his administration are taking the dance to new levels. The attacks on judges are increasingly aggressive, to the point where Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday issued a rare rebuke after Trump called for the impeachment of the judge who blocked the president from invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

It was an escalation of an increasing habit of both parties to question the integrity of judges with whom they disagree. Roberts also rebuked Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer of New York in 2020 when he called for justices to “pay the price” for conservative rulings, a statement Schumer said referred to political consequences. Democrats were particularly critical of the Supreme Court’s right bloc after it overturned Roe v. Wade.

The increasing acceptance of decrying judicial decisions on partisan grounds is a dangerous slippery slope, said Monica Haymond, a law professor at Northwestern University.

“Both parties’ administrations will object to particular rulings against them and think that the judge has got the law wrong. . . . The question is, what fever pitch does it reach?” Haymond said. “When you go outside of [the appeals process] and you’re challenging the authority of the court to address what the law is or you say it comes from a place of political bias, that’s when you start to undermine the institution and the rule of law.”

The Trump administration is particularly upset with rulings by district court judges, the first level of the federal court system, that have blocked policies or ordered the administration to take action on a nationwide basis. Many of those rulings have come on tight timelines, with limited time for arguments, as the judges have granted requests from challengers to immediately intervene given the exigent circumstances involved. Critics of the so-called nationwide injunction and similar edicts argue that they are too sweeping, and that judges should be limited to rulings affecting only their geographic region. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to limit the ability of district court judges to issue such rulings.

Supporters of judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions and orders say the quick turnarounds and sweeping effect of the rulings are necessary when the administration is acting too aggressively and, on many policies, it would be impossible to limit the ruling to a single geographic area.

Other Trump officials have also previously backed the ability of judges to make such rulings and petitioned courts to stop Democratic initiatives. Attorney General Pam Bondi was involved in multistate lawsuits as Florida’s attorney general to fight Barack Obama’s policies. Bondi also was part of the America First Policy Institute, which was started and staffed by multiple members of Trump’s current administration, and pursued litigation to stop some Biden policies.

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston and adjunct scholar at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said he sees little difference between the Trump administration’s rhetoric and Democrats’ attacks on conservative justices. He argued that the courts are escalating the fight with the Trump administration by issuing sweeping rulings in ways that are hard to appeal.

Whether the blame lies in the White House or the judiciary, he said, it’s clear that the standoff is intensifying.

“If the courts are playing hardball, I think the executive plays hardball also,” Blackman said. “Cat and mouse, game of chicken — both branches are butting heads against each other.”