Retired judges warn that the rule of law is unraveling – AI image by WP.

Retired judges warn that the rule of law is unraveling – The Washington Post

In interviews, former state and federal judges warn that democracy’s guardrails may already be weakened as the rule of law begins to falter.

November 28, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EST, Today at 5:00 a.m. EST, 11 min

By Brianna Tucker

When the White House blasted a federal judge as “partisan” for dismissing the criminal cases against former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James this week, it was an attack that has become common in President Donald Trump’s second term.

For many retired federal and state supreme court judges, it was another example of the president’s assault on the judiciary and further erosion of the rule of law.

In a dozen interviews with The Washington Post, former judges and one soon-to-be-retired judge described a judiciary under incredible strain and its integrity threatened by partisan attacks, antagonistic rhetoric from public officials and ambiguous decisions handed down by the nation’s highest court.

Many judges said the politicization of judges, the Supreme Court’s expanding use of emergency dockets and sustained criticism from the Trump administration have pushed the courts and democracyto a fragile tipping point — one where cooperation with rulings and adherence to the rule of law can no longer be assumed.

Follow Trump’s second term

“There’s not a person in our country that, whether they think about it or not, does not depend upon the ability of these fundamental rights and liberties to be protected in an action in court if there is someone who violates that,” said Paul Grimm, a retired judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

The consequences, judges warn, are already becoming visible in who’s willing to serve as a jurist, global shifts in judicial norms and the types of justice the U.S. system can still deliver.

Read more: Retired judges warn that the rule of law is unraveling – AI image by WP.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Retired judges warn that the rule of law is unraveling – The Washington Post

#AmbiguousDecisions #democracy #EmergencyDocket #Endangered #FederalJudges #JudicialNorms #PartisanAttacks #PoliticizationOfJudges #RuleOfLaw #SCOTUS #StrainingCourts #USDistrictCourts #USJusticeSystem #UnitedStates

🎺 🇺🇸

Per #WSJ

Dozens of Jeffrey #Epstein victims’ names have been exposed in documents that were recently made public by #congress setting off a legal #dispute about the #JusticeDepartment’s plans to release more materials about the late sex offender.
Lawyers for the women have asked two #FederalJudges who oversaw the prosecutions of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to ensure that the victims’ privacy is protected in any additional document releases by the Justice Department.

Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders – The New York Times

Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders

Dozens of sitting judges shared with The Times their concerns about risks to the courts’ legitimacy as the Supreme Court releases opaque orders about Trump administration policies.

Listen to this article · 11:18 min Learn more

Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders – The New York Times

By Mattathias Schwartz and Zach Montague

Mattathias Schwartz and Zach Montague cover the federal courts.

Oct. 11, 2025

Sign up for the Tilt newsletter, for Times subscribers only.  Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, makes sense of the latest political data. Try it for 4 weeks.

More than three dozen federal judges have told The New York Times that the Supreme Court’s flurry of brief, opaque emergency orders in cases related to the Trump administration have left them confused about how to proceed in those matters and are hurting the judiciary’s image with the public.

At issue are the quick-turn orders the Supreme Court has issued dictating whether Trump administration policies should be left in place while they are litigated through the lower courts. That emergency docket, a growing part of the Supreme Court’s work in recent years, has taken on greater importance amid the flood of litigation challenging President Trump’s efforts to expand executive power.

While the orders are technically temporary, they have had broad practical effects, allowing the administration to deport tens of thousands of people, discharge transgender military service members, fire thousands of government workers and slash federal spending.

The striking and highly unusual critique of the nation’s highest court from lower court judges reveals the degree to which litigation over Mr. Trump’s agenda has created strains in the federal judicial system.

Sixty-five judges responded to a Times questionnaire sent to hundreds of federal judges across the country. Of those, 47 said the Supreme Court had been mishandling its emergency docket since Mr. Trump returned to office.

The judges responded to the questionnaire and spoke in interviews on the condition of anonymity so they could share their views candidly, as lower court judges are governed by a complex set of rules that include limitations on their public statements.

Of the judges who responded, 28 were nominated by Republican presidents, including 10 by Mr. Trump; 37 were nominated by Democrats. While those nominated by Democrats were more critical of the Supreme Court, judges nominated by presidents of both parties expressed concerns.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders – The New York Times

#Democrats #EmergencyOrders #FederalJudges #FederalJudicialSystem #Judges #JudicialCrisis #Republicans #SCOTUS #SupremeCourt #SupremeCourtOfTheUnitedStates #TheNewYorkTimes

From #LizOyer @[email protected]

Two #federaljudges have now disqualified Trump’s picks for #USAttorney jobs (in #Nevada and #NewJersey). Both courts found that Trump’s attempt to do an end-run around #Senate confirmation was illegal. If these rulings stick, other unqualified #partisan #extremists appointed by #Trump around the country — including the #Comey #prosecutor — could also lose their posts.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPUPK3zjw88

#USA #US #lawyers #politics

Trump ally Michael Flynn submits ‘extreme’ legal brief brimming with bigotry in trans military case

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/news/talbott-amicus-brief-michael-flynn

Federal judges are above the law in the workplace: How a “Glassdoor for Judges” will help – GovTrack.us

 News From Us

Analysis and Commentary

Federal judges are above the law in the workplace: How a “Glassdoor for Judges” will help

Sept. 16, 2025 · by Aliza Shatzman

This guest post is from Aliza Shatzman, who in her first job after law school working for a judge learned the reality of judges’ conduct behind closed doors. She launched a transparency and accountability platform for recent law school graduates to rate their bosses and also advocates for policy reform.

While judges, regardless of party, rule for democracy, behind the bench, judges’ conduct is lawless and ungoverned. Judges regularly engage in misconduct that would be illegal — except that judges are exempt from all federal anti-discrimination laws.

Disturbingly, 1,700 federal judges who rule on issues of national significance and determine litigants’ lives, livelihoods, and liberty, are themselves above the laws they interpret. And more than 30,000 judicial branch employees — including judicial law clerks, permanent court staff, and federal public defenders — lack workplace protections, due to a legal loophole creating judicial immunity.

I learned the implications of this firsthand when, while serving as a judicial law clerk six years ago, I was harassed and discriminated against, fired, and retaliated against by the judge I worked for. When I tried to hold him accountable for attempting to destroy my career and reputation, I discovered law clerks like me are exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all federal anti-discrimination laws. I could not sue my harasser and seek redress. I filed a complaint, but I did not realize the judge’s friends decided whether to discipline him, since judges “self-police” their colleagues (much like Congress).

Judicial clerkships are prestigious first legal jobs where recent law graduates spend a year or two working closely with and learning from judges — researching, writing, going to court, and assisting with judicial decision-making. Clerks gain valuable insight into judges’ thinking, a coveted credential and, if they’re lucky, a lifelong mentor. But law schools almost never discuss potential downsides of clerking — the small, isolated, hierarchical work environment that’s ripe for abuse; lack of workplace protections and oversight; enormous power disparity between judge and clerk; and judges’ far-reaching power over clerks’ careers. Young attorneys are blinded to the hazards inherent in these unregulated work environments.

Because law schools are obsessed with placing as many students as possible into prestigious clerkships, they’re loath to collect and disseminate negative information about judges, necessitating a third-party, independent platform to collect information from graduates and disseminate it to students.

In 2022 I testified in support of the Judiciary Accountability Act (JAA), which would finally extend anti-discrimination and whistleblower protections to the judiciary — protections extended to the other two branches of governmentin 1995.

Soon after, I launched The Legal Accountability Project (LAP), a court accountability and clerkship transparency nonprofit that’s leading the charge against harassment and workplace abuse in the courts.

A key aspect of LAP’s work is its award-winning, nationwide Clerkships Database (basically, “Glassdoor for Judges“), where clerks review their powerful, unaccountable bosses as managers — anonymously if they choose, to ensure candid responses. LAP’s Database — the largest independent repository of clerkship information in the U.S. — already contains nearly 2,000 candid reviews about approximately 1,200 federal and state judges, including information from every state, federal circuit, and most U.S. District Courts. It’s the only way for applicants to identify great bosses to apply to, and bad managers — or downright abusive judges — to avoid. LAP created accountability through transparency: there’s nothing imperious judges hate more than negative feedback they cannot see, dispute, or silence clerks from sharing through threats of retaliation.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Federal judges are above the law in the workplace: How a “Glassdoor for Judges” will help – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #FederalJudges #GlassdoorForJudges #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Judges #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates #Workplace

DOJ is walking back the White House’s goal to arrest 3,000 immigrants per day

Stephen Miller was unequivocal: Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would seek to arrest 3,000 or more immigrants per…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #9thCircuitCourtofAppeals #administration #DonaldTrump #federaljudges #immigrants #immigrationlaw #JusticeDepartment #LosAngeles #massdeportation #quota #StephenMiller #UnitedStates #Us #USA #WhiteHouse
https://www.newsbeep.com/38122/

#Judges recount #DeathThreats, '#swatting' after rulings against #Trump

A group of #FederalJudges took the rare step of speaking out about receiving death threats & mysterious pizza deliveries in the name of a judge's #murdered son after they blocked parts of Trump's agenda.

"It was disturbing, it was frightening," Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island said.

#law #StochasticTerrorism #DomesticViolentExtremists
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judges-recount-death-threats-swatting-after-rulings-against-trump-2025-07-31/