March 27 (UPI) — A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s request that she recuse herself from a case challenging a presidential executive order, lambasting the government for attacking the federal judicial system with its motion.
In a scathing 21-page order, Judge Beryl Howell of the District of Columbia described the Justice Department’s attempt to remove from the case as “designed to impugn the integrity of the federal judicial system and blame any loss on the decision-maker rather than fallacies in the substantive legal arguments presented.”
“Every litigating party deserves a fair and impartial hearing to determine both what the material facts are and how the law best applies to those facts. That fundamental promise, however, does not entitle any party — not even those with the power and prestige of the President of the United States or a federal agency — to demand adherence to their own version of the facts and preferred legal outcome,” she wrote.
The order comes in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s March 6 retaliatory executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie over its association with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Howell, a President Barack Obama appointee, issued a temporary restraining order on March 12 barring the Trump administration from enforcing three of five sections of the executive order.
On Friday, the Justice Department asked Howell to recuse herself as “this Court has repeatedly demonstrated partiality against and animus towards the President.” As evidence, federal prosecutors pointed to Howell permitting former special counsel Jack Smith to proceed with criminal investigations against Trump and her ruling and comments made during court proceedings in the Perkins Coie case.
“Fair proceedings free from any suggestion of impartiality are essential to the integrity of our country’s judiciary and the need to curtail ongoing improper encroachments of President Trump’s Executive Power playing out across the country,” federal prosecutors wrote in its motion to disqualify Howell.
“In this case, reasonable observers may well view this Court as insufficiently impartial to adjudicate the meritless challenges to President Trump’s efforts to implement the agenda that the American people elected him to carry out.”
In her order on Wednesday, Howell remarked that adjudicating whether an executive branch’s exercise of power is legal is the job of the federal courts, not the president or the Justice Department. She also pushed back against the government’s characterization of every lawsuit challenging the president’s agenda as meritless.
“This blanket denigration of the merits of all the lawsuits filed across the country certainly reflects palpable frustration with court rulings issued to pauser, temper or reverse Trump Administration actions, but this is a testament to the fact that this country has an independent judiciary that adheres to an impartial adjudication process, without being swayed merely because the federal government appears on one side of a case and the President wishes a particular result,” she said.
Howell also rejected back at the accusation that she is biased against the administration, stating that she has previously ruled in its favor when the facts were on its side.
“Though this adage is commonplace, and the tactic overused, it is called to mind by defendants’ pending motion to disqualify this Court: ‘When you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger,'” she wrote.
Since returning to the White House on Jan. 20, Trump has led a campaign of retaliation against those whom he views as having wronged him. Through executive orders, Trump has stripped security clearances from several law firms, among other actions, over their connections to lawyers who prosecuted him or worked with Democrats.
His administration’s attack on Howell is also a continuation of its broader attacks on judges who rule against him, including calls for their impeachment.
The targeted attacks on the judicial system, combined with the punitive executive orders targeting law firms, are seen by opponents as not only an attempt to stifle judicial independence but a threat to the judicial system as a whole.
Earlier this month, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, chastised Trump for calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against his administration.
The American Bar Association has also voiced concerns and said it “will not stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not.”
