A Democracy Drive Thread
Defying court orders, threatening and stripping the power of federal judges, floating the suspension of habeas corpus, and turning on his own Supreme Court appointees — the campaign against the U.S. courts that try to check him.
This thread tracks, in chronological order and with sources, the administration’s attacks on the American judiciary: court orders ignored or slow-walked, judges threatened, sued, or targeted for impeachment, calls to “abolish” courts and suspend habeas corpus, and the president’s public attacks on the very justices he appointed. (Rulings that went the administration’s way are a separate story; this page is about the effort to defy, intimidate, or hollow out the courts.)
May 10, 2026
Trump posted that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett should be more loyal to him because he put them on the Court, casting their independence as ingratitude and “disrespect” and floating packing the bench.
February 11, 2025
In his own words
Trump said he would abide by rulings and appeal, but he and Musk attacked the judges who had blocked DOGE’s access to Treasury systems and the funding freeze. House Republicans were drafting impeachment articles against those judges.
“Maybe we have to look at the judges because I think that’s a very serious violation.”
February 13, 2025
On the ground
McConnell had found the administration was not complying with his order to release grants and loans frozen in Trump’s spending freeze. Other GOP members filed articles against Judge Paul Engelmayer for blocking DOGE from Treasury payment systems.
March 17, 2025
On March 17, 2025, border czar Tom Homan said on Fox & Friends that the administration would keep flying alleged Venezuelan gang members out of the country regardless of the courts, after it let deportation planes proceed despite a federal judge's verbal order that they turn around. The removals were carried out under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law invoked in peacetime. It was one of the administration's first open defiances of a court order.
“I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming.”
March 18, 2025
In his own words
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. Rep. Brandon Gill filed articles of impeachment. In a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ said the flights were outside U.S. airspace when the written order issued and declined to answer further.
March 19, 2025
In his own words
Leavitt said his wife had donated more than $10,000 to Democrats. Fact-checkers noted that Boasberg was first appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush. It came a day after Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment.
April 4, 2025
On April 4, 2025, U.S. District Judge John McConnell — for the second time — found the administration in violation of his preliminary injunction against an across-the-board freeze on federal grants, ruling that FEMA's new “manual review” process was “covertly” withholding disaster-relief money from 22 states and Washington, D.C. He found the review was an attempt to carry out Trump's executive order denying funds to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, and ordered the money released. States including Oregon and Hawaii said tens of millions in storm, wildfire, and flood-recovery aid had been frozen.
April 7, 2025
On a Fox News appearance aired April 7, 2025, Mark Levin suggested Congress use the budget process to eliminate the funding of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after it blocked deportations to a Salvadoran mega-prison, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller agreed that Congress had the power to do so, saying it had to “step up.” It was an explicit call to use the power of the purse to punish a court for its rulings.
April 9, 2025
On April 9, 2025, the House voted 219-213 to pass the No Rogue Rulings Act, a bill by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that would bar federal district judges from issuing nationwide injunctions and limit their relief to the parties before them — sharply curbing the main tool courts had used to halt Trump's directives across the country. Republicans called the injunctions “rogue”; Democrats countered that they reflected the illegality of the underlying orders. The bill faced long odds in the Senate.
April 10, 2025
On April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld an order directing the administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man it had deported to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison on March 15 despite a court order barring his removal. Rather than comply, officials claimed the ruling was “in our favor,” and El Salvador's president said he would not send him back; Justice Department lawyers stonewalled the district judge over what, if anything, was being done. Abrego Garcia was not returned until June — nearly two months later.
April 16, 2025
On the ground
Boasberg wrote that the government’s actions demonstrated “a willful disregard for its Order.” A divided D.C. Circuit panel later vacated the contempt finding, with its two Trump appointees in the majority and an Obama appointee dissenting that “the rule of law” was at issue.
April 23, 2025
On April 23, 2025, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher — a Trump appointee — ruled that the administration had violated a 2019 class-action settlement when it deported a 20-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker identified as “Cristian” to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, despite his pending asylum claim. She ordered the government to facilitate his return; Justice Department lawyers argued she lacked jurisdiction to review the removal at all.
April 24, 2025
In his own words
In posts he called Judge Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic.”
April 25, 2025
On the ground
Prosecutors said Dugan steered agents away and let Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was in her court on a misdemeanor battery charge, leave through a private jury door. FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrest on X. In December 2025 a jury acquitted her of concealing Flores-Ruiz but convicted her of felony obstruction. Facing impeachment, she resigned on January 3, 2026, and in June 2026 the trial judge postponed her sentencing indefinitely to weigh overturning the conviction.
April 28, 2025
At an April 28, 2025 briefing, Fox News's Peter Doocy asked press secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the administration would ever arrest “somebody higher up on the judicial food chain, like a federal judge or even a Supreme Court justice.” Leavitt did not rule it out, saying anyone “breaking the law or obstructing federal law enforcement officials is putting themselves at risk of being prosecuted, absolutely,” and left the decision to the Justice Department. The exchange followed the FBI's arrest of a Wisconsin state judge earlier that month.
“Anyone who is breaking the law or obstructing federal law enforcement officials is putting themselves at risk of being prosecuted, absolutely.”
April 29, 2025
In an April 29, 2025 brief to the U.S. Court of International Trade, the Justice Department argued that Trump's decision to impose sweeping tariffs under an emergency-powers statute was “unreviewable” by the judiciary and that whether trade deficits constitute a national emergency was “beyond the courts' authority to resolve.” The court disagreed, soon freezing most of the tariffs as exceeding presidential power.
May 5, 2025
On the ground
The one-sentence provision in the 1,100-page bill said: “No court of the United States may enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued.” Judges rarely require such bonds in cases against the government, so it would have made most rulings against the administration unenforceable, retroactively. It followed a White House memo telling agencies to demand bonds from plaintiffs. The Senate parliamentarian struck it in June.
May 9, 2025
On May 9, 2025, Stephen Miller told reporters the administration was “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus — the centuries-old right to challenge unlawful imprisonment in court — as a way to remove migrants without judicial review, adding that whether it did so depended on “whether the courts do the right thing or not.” CNN reported Trump was personally involved in the discussions. The Constitution permits suspension only in cases of rebellion or invasion.
“The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion, so ... that's an option we're actively looking at.”
May 21, 2025
On the ground
Judge Brian Murphy had ordered that people facing removal to a third country get the chance to argue it would put them in danger. He raised the prospect of criminal contempt.
June 24, 2025
On the ground
Reuveni says he was pushed out after resisting efforts to defy judges and make false arguments. The complaint came a day before Bove’s confirmation hearing for the Third Circuit. Republicans turned down requests to hear from Reuveni, and Bove was confirmed.
June 25, 2025
On June 25, 2025, the Justice Department took the extraordinary step of suing every one of Maryland's 15 federal district judges over a standing order, signed by Chief Judge George Russell III, that paused the deportation of detainees for two business days after they filed habeas petitions — time for a court to review the case. The DOJ argued the judges had exceeded their authority. A judge dismissed the suit on August 26 as “potentially calamitous,” and the government said it would appeal.
June 27, 2025
On the ground
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that courts may give relief only to the plaintiffs before them. The administration sought the ruling to stop lower courts from blocking its orders nationwide. The Court didn’t rule on whether the birthright order itself is constitutional.
July 28, 2025
On the ground
The July 28, 2025 complaint, signed by Bondi’s chief of staff Chad Mizelle, said Boasberg’s comments “have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,” claimed the administration “has always complied with all court orders,” and asked that he be disciplined and removed from Trump-related cases. Boasberg had found probable cause to hold officials in contempt for defying his order on deportation flights. The complaint was dismissed in January 2026.
August 8, 2025
In his own words
Trump posted that a “Radical Left Court” ruling against him would make it “impossible to ever recover.” In a letter to the Federal Circuit, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote that a year earlier the U.S. “was a dead country, and now, because of the trillions of dollars being paid by countries that have so badly abused us, America is a strong, financially viable, and respected country again,” and warned that undoing the trade deals “could lead to a 1929-style result.” The Court of International Trade had already ruled the tariffs unlawful in May.
“It would be 1929 all over again, a GREAT DEPRESSION!”
November 6, 2025
In early November 2025, U.S. District Judge John McConnell ordered the administration to use a $4.6 billion reserve to fully fund SNAP food benefits for roughly 42 million people during the government shutdown. The administration did not pay, and McConnell cited Trump's own Truth Social posts — declaring that benefits would flow only “when the Radical Left Democrats open up the Government” — as evidence of a deliberate intent to defy his order. The Justice Department appealed, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an administrative stay pausing the order.
“SNAP Benefits...will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up the Government.”
November 10, 2025
On the ground
The Justice Department appeals a judge’s order limiting immigration agents’ use of force on protesters and journalists around Chicago, calling it “overbroad and unworkable.” Judge Sara Ellis had found agents violated First Amendment rights and ordered them to use force only against immediate threats, with warnings first. Witnesses testified that agents pointed guns at them and hit them with pepper balls and tear gas for recording arrests. The 7th Circuit paused the order on Nov. 19.
February 20, 2026
On February 20, 2026, the Court ruled 6–3 that the emergency-powers law did not authorize his global tariffs, with two of his own appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, in the majority. At the White House that day, Trump called the three Democratic appointees in the majority “fools and lapdogs,” suggested without evidence that foreign interests have “undue influence” over the Court (“Whether it’s through fear or respect or friendships, I don’t know”), and said of Gorsuch and Barrett: “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, you wanna know the truth, the two of them.” Vice President JD Vance called the decision “lawlessness from the Court, plain and simple.” The same day Trump announced new tariffs under a different law to replace the ones the Court struck down.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”
February 27, 2026
In his own words
He called the refunds an undeserved “windfall.” The Supreme Court almost never grants rehearings. “You can’t just ask for a do over because you dislike the outcome,” said former prosecutor Dave Aronberg. His own Justice Department said it would not ask the court to rehear the case.
“Is a Rehearing or Readjudication of this case possible???”
March 15, 2026
In his own words
In a long Truth Social post on March 15, 2026, Trump thanked the three conservative justices who had sided with him in the tariff case, then went after, without naming them, the two he had appointed who ruled against him, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Democratic appointees always stick together, he wrote, but “Republicans do not do this.” Two days later, in a rare public appearance at Rice University, Chief Justice John Roberts said that “personally directed hostility is dangerous and it’s got to stop.”
“They openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land ... and go out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how ‘honest,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘legitimate’ they are.”
March 25, 2026
In his own words
Speaking at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner on March 25, 2026, Trump singled out Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, the two of his appointees who voted to strike down his tariffs, a ruling that left the government owing roughly $175 billion in refunds. “All they needed was a sentence,” he said. He then asked Republicans in Congress to pass a crime bill that “cracks down on rogue judges,” and said: “We got rogue judges that are criminals. They’re criminals, what they do to our country, the decisions that they hand down.”
“Two of the people that voted for that I appointed, and they sicken me. They sicken me. Because they’re bad for our country.”
June 30, 2026
In his own words
On June 30, 2026, the Court upheld birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment. Trump called the ruling “too bad,” posted that the United States was the only country “STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!” (it is not the only one) and urged Congress to end it with legislation, writing that “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!” The Court had ruled on constitutional grounds, which an ordinary law cannot override.
“Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support!”
July 13, 2026
On July 13, 2026, a federal judge ruled that Trump had sought to “manipulate the judicial process” and used the court for “political purposes” through his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury and a purported “anti-weaponization” settlement never actually filed with the court. A group of 35 former federal judges had moved to reopen the case, accusing the administration of corrupting the judicial process. It fit a documented pattern: a tally of more than 40 cases in which courts found false statements or serious defects in the government's representations, and at least 77 rulings containing unusually sharp judicial criticism of the administration.
September 15, 2026
In his own words
On September 14, 2026, the Court refused to let a Postal Service rule, adopted at Trump’s direction, take effect before the November 3 midterms. It would have required states to hand over voter-specific data and use barcoded, agency-approved envelopes, and let the Postal Service refuse ballots that did not comply. Only Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented; Trump called them “legends, both.” The next day he called the ruling “horrible, highly political,” said the Court was “costing the United States Trillions of Dollars,” and wrote: “The Supreme Court has really let our Country down! Certain Justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved Democrats.” Attorney General Todd Blanche said the administration would comply, then defended the attacks: “This isn’t the first time that he’s done it, and it won’t be the last.”
“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves.”
October 1, 2026
In his own words
In a Time magazine interview published October 1, 2026, Trump said yes when asked whether he regrets nominating his three justices. He praised the liberal justices for sticking “like glue” out of “loyalty to Barack Hussein Obama” and to Biden. Asked whether he wants loyalty from his own picks, he said, “I do like loyalty, yeah,” then, pressed again: “No, I don’t want loyalty. I want good decisions. The tariff decision was disastrous for the country.” The same three justices voted with the majority that gave him broad presidential immunity in 2024 and helped overturn Roe v. Wade; this term the Court also let him fire independent agency leaders and end deportation protections for Haitians and Syrians.
“Yeah. Yeah. What can I do? I put them in. They voted against me too often. I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often.”