An unusually leaky DOJ keeps Trump’s legal woes in voters’ minds for midterms
The DOJ, a branch of the Justice Department, has filed a court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to stop President Trump from directing an executive order on immigration that has divided the court. (Steve Helber/Associated Press)
The Trump administration wants to keep the courts out of its immigration and trade battles on the same day it faces the biggest electoral test in its young presidency.
Amid a flood of legal challenges to the president, the Justice Department is filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing it should be allowed to block President Trump’s order on immigration and trade in the fall, as a result of a recent federal judge’s order blocking the administration’s proposed changes to immigration policy.
This is a strategy of “staying the course,” Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley wrote in an email.
“This court order is the latest in a long string of court orders and administrative rulings that have protected the executive branch’s lawful authority to implement the president’s lawful policies,” O’Malley wrote.
But Trump supporters and liberal organizations are already mobilizing to stop the administration from “muzzling the courts,” as one Republican-affiliated legal blogger phrased the move.
In an April 25 interview on NPR’s “This Morning,” the White House’s chief counsel, former Ohio Attorney General Michael Mukasey, was asked about the administration’s strategy to make the courts the “scapegoat” of its immigration crackdown.
Mukasey responded by comparing the battle for the courts to Vietnam: “You’re going to lose a war and you’re going to lose that war you don’t have to lose,” he said he told Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in an interview last week.
The administration