Federal judge tosses Trump admin’s lawsuit against Maryland’s 15 judges, terms it attempt to ‘smear’ justice system

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit the Trump administration filed against all 15 federal judges in Maryland and accused it of intentionally trying to “smear” the justice system while rejecting the Justice Department’s bid to limit court power in fast-moving immigration cases. Judge Thomas Cullen termed the lawsuit a major constitutional standoff and said the Justice Department couldn’t pursue a “constitutional free-for-all.”

Cullen, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, also wrote a scathing rebuke, saying the Trump administration is intentionally trying to smear the justice system.

“Over the past several months, principal officers of the Executive (and their spokespersons) have described federal district judges across the country as ‘left-wing,’ ‘liberal,’ ‘activists,’ ‘radical,’ ‘politically minded,’ ‘rogue,’ ‘unhinged,’ ‘outrageous, overzealous, [and] unconstitutional,’ ‘[c]rooked,’ and worse,” Judge Cullen wrote.

‘Concerted effort to smear and impugn individual judges’

“Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate,” he added.

Cullen, who was brought in from another district to handle the case in Maryland, said the government lacked the legal right to bring the challenge and that the judges are immune from such suits brought by the executive branch.

‘To hold otherwise would run counter to…’

“Any fair reading of the legal authorities cited by Defendants leads to the ineluctable conclusion that this court has no alternative but to dismiss. To hold otherwise would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law,” Cullen wrote in the 39-page decision.

The Justice Department had sued all federal judges on the lower-level District Court of Maryland in late June, after the court’s chief judge established a rule that automatically and temporarily blocked the Trump administration from removing an immigration detainee from the US if the removal had already been challenged in court.

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On Monday, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador in mid-March eventually returned to the US as per the rule.

“Dismissal of the Executive’s suit is appropriate because it has not pointed to a cause of action that permits this court to entertain a lawsuit between two coordinate branches of government, and this court will not be the first to create one,” he wrote.

The Justice Department had claimed in the lawsuit that the orders from the Maryland court in certain immigration cases were unlawful.