Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), at 91 years old and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Thursday urged federal judges to resist President Trump’s agenda and the actions of some House Republicans aiming to remove judicial officials.
“You can’t just remove a judge because you disagree with their decisions,” Grassley stated to Fox News regarding his request to lower-court judges who have halted parts of Trump’s initiatives, coinciding with the deportation of Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
Grassley is drafting legislation aimed at curtailing the power of district-level federal judges to issue national injunctions and intends to conduct a hearing on April 2 to discuss “legislative responses to the widespread concern regarding universal injunctions.”
“We need to act as a legislative entity. I understand the president’s frustration with certain judges. I don’t hold that against him, but we can’t dismiss judges solely based on disagreement,” he remarked.
This month, Trump targeted US District Judge James Boasberg from the District of Columbia with calls for removal.
He condemned the judge as “appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, a radical leftist and troublemaker.”
Representative Brandon Gill (R-Texas) introduced an article aimed at opposing Boasberg and charged him with “abuse of authority.” This proposal has garnered support from 22 House Republicans.
Grassley informed local media in a recent call that legislation could be proposed to limit the scope of district judge rulings to the parties involved in specific cases.
“It remains uncertain if we should enact laws restricting all national injunctions,” he stated to the Des Moines Register. “However, the key point is that an injunction should generally be applicable only to those parties engaged in the case, rather than an entire judicial district.”
He added that the judge is “not responsible for making policy.”
