A few days ago, President Trump expressed his frustration with the obvious venue and judge shopping that is going in the federal courts by opponents of his policy. His immediate ire was directed at an Obama-appointed federal judge in San Francisco who imposed a nationwide injunction on the administration’s plan to require all aliens seeking amnesty at our southern border to present themselves at an established point of entry and to refuse to process amnesty applications from illegals; but it reflected a growing realization that the Ninth Circuit has become the go-to Circuit for any objection to any Trump policy.

This brought a rebuke, of sorts, from Chief Justice John Roberts.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said in a statement. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley pointed out the selectiveness of Roberts’s sensibilities. Obama basically called the majority in Citizens United disloyal shills who had turned US elections over to foreign powers.

Chief Justice Roberts rebuked Trump for a comment he made abt judge’s decision on asylum I don’t recall the Chief attacking Obama when that Prez rebuked Alito during a State of the Union

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 21, 2018

One the whole, Roberts’s statement has been met with a lot of disbelief:

There are many judges–state and federal–who act on ideological motives, not neutral principles impartially applied. (The late Stephen Reinhardt is an egregious example.) There are even prominent theories justifying their doing it. It's no use (or help) pretending otherwise.

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) November 22, 2018

1/ Let's test the matter with a thought experiment. Imagine that you are an ACLU lawyer trying to get an antiabortion law (or a traditional marriage law, or a law prohibiting physician-assisted suicide) struck down. If you had a choice between an Obama-appointed judge and a Trump

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) November 22, 2018

2/ appointee, would you be indifferent as to which gets the case? On appeal, if you had a choice between a three-judge panel drawn from a pool of twelve Obama appointees and one drawn from a pool of Trump appointees, would you not care which you got? Of course you would care.

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) November 22, 2018

Professor George goes into a longer discussion in this thread–if you have any interest in understanding the issue, take some time to read it:

1/ As a number of people have pointed out, it's (part of) John Roberts' job, as Chief Justice, to uphold public confidence in the integrity of the federal judiciary and in the impartiality of the judges comprising it. I get that. But it's my job, as a scholar, to tell the truth. https://t.co/EjA3TpNrT5

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) November 23, 2018

Now Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has weighed in, ostensibly agreeing with Roberts (naturally) but, in reality, making Trump’s case.

I don’t agree very often with Chief Justice Roberts, especially his partisan decisions which seem highly political on Citizens United, Janus, and Shelby.

But I am thankful today that he—almost alone among Republicans—stood up to President Trump and for an independent judiciary.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 23, 2018

In this one tweet, Schumer calls Roberts a partisan (which is what Trump said about the Ninth Circuit), who has made some really bad decisions based on partisan politics (again what Trump said), and that Roberts is a Republican…which is pretty much like Trump calling the Ninth Circuit Democrats.

In less than 280 characters, Chuck Schumer:

• Criticizes partisan SCOTUS decisions

• Criticizes Donald Trump for suggesting there are partisan SCOTUS decisions https://t.co/N6LqmUr7UI

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) November 23, 2018

This is a truly idiotic tweet. Did Schumer or someone on his staff not see the howling contradiction here? https://t.co/hxyqAClbYa

— Brit Hume (@brithume) November 23, 2018

https://twitter.com/YossiGestetner/status/1066053268135124992

Shorter Chuck Schumer: Trump is totally right about the courts, except when Republican appointees criticize him; then the judiciary is Independent and Good:https://t.co/4b28OVJp6G

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) November 23, 2018

Chuck Schumer scolds Trump: I stand with right-wing partisan John Roberts in believing the judiciary isn’t partisan https://t.co/GvPpwsTUSk pic.twitter.com/lSlLdmnZiK

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) November 23, 2018

It seems to me that the criticism of Trump on this issue boils down to #OrangeManBad. Everyone knows that judges are appointed because the president likes their ideology. If they didn’t, why would a responsible journalist tweet this?

Supreme Court's future rides on Ginsburg's health – https://t.co/LcsMgKX2UU

— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) November 23, 2018

Why was a sterling and squeaky clean guy like Brett Kavanaugh subjected to a coordinated (by Dianne Feinstein) campaign of lies and smears to keep him off the bench? Why are the Democrats besh**ting themselves over McConnell’s judicial confirmation freight train and the role of the Federalist Society? Indeed, why does anyone even care about judges if they are all merely independent finders of fact?

Of course, there are Obama judges. Were there not, then the injunctions on Trump’s travel ban emanating from Hawaii and Washington and Maryland would have been routinely upheld by the Supreme Court. To argue otherwise is to argue that Antonin Scalia and Sonia Sotomayor are indistinguishable in the way they looked at cases. And of course, there are Trump judges, as we will see in the coming years.

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