Democrats Have A Smart Idea To Protect Judges From Trump

A new bill would move the US Marshal Service from executive branch to the judicial branch to protect judges from Trump.

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Trump’s DOJ has been using US Marshals to intimidate and even arrest judges, but a group of Democrats in the House and Senate has a solution.

House Judiciary Committee Democrats announced:

Rep. Eric Swalwell, Member of the House Judiciary Committee, along with Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and Rep. Hank Johnson, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet, plan to introduce legislation that would address the potential for weaponization of the U.S. Marshals Service (“Marshals” or “USMS”) by President Trump and the executive branch. The Maintaining Authority and Restoring Security to Halt the Abuse of Law Act (MARSHALS Act) would move the Marshals from the operation and direction of the executive branch to the judiciary, ensuring that USMS can perform its primary mission of protecting federal judges and to obeying, executing, and enforcing federal court orders without political interference.

President Trump and members of his Administration are systematically undermining judicial independence and the rule of law: the President himself called for impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against him, the Vice President has suggested that the executive branch does not need to follow court orders, and a federal judge has found that the Trump Administration demonstrated a “willful disregard” for its court order. Against the backdrop of Trump’s attacks on the rule of law, serious threats of violence against federal judges and their families have risen to alarming levels. Hundreds of unsolicited pizza deliveries have been sent to the homes of federal judges and their relatives across seven states in an apparent attempt to intimidate the judiciary. Many of the deliveries have been sent to judges who ruled against the Trump Administration and some have been placed in the name of Daniel Anderl, the son of New Jersey District Judge Esther Salas, who was fatally shot by an attorney who appeared in her courtroom.

The USMS, the nation’s oldest federal law enforcement agency, risks being ensnared in Trump’s efforts to upend our constitutional order. While the USMS’s “primary role and mission” is to protect the federal judiciary and obey and enforce its court orders, the USMS is under the control of the executive branch, specifically the U.S. Attorney General who in turn answers to the President. The potential conflict looming between the USMS’s duty to provide security of and carry out the orders of the federal judiciary and the Attorney General’s control of the Marshals will put our democracy to the test if the Administration directs the USMS to ignore a court order or otherwise prevents the USMS from carrying out its duties. For example, at a recent meeting of the Judicial Conference of the United States, a federal judge expressed concern that the President could order the USMS to stop protecting judges. Sadly, these fears are not hypothetical in light of the Administration’s recent decisions to stop providing protection to former military and national security officials who have criticized the president.

Moving the marshals to the judicial branch would take away the Trump administration’s ability to use them for political reasons.

It is a smart idea and demonstrates why Democrats need to be in control of Congress next year. The odds of House Republicans passing such a bill this year are exactly zero, because even discussing this type of legislation would be an admission that Donald Trump and his administration are abusing their power.

Democrats aren’t sitting on their hands and waiting for the election next year in the hope that voters check Trump by putting them back into power.

Democrats in the House and Senate have to try everything to raise public awareness and devise a strategy to check Trump. There is no idea that isn’t worth a try, because doing anything is better than doing nothing.

What do you think of the idea of taking the US Marshals away from Trump? Share your thoughts in the comments below.