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The Weirdness Grows: Stephen Miller Group Sues John Roberts To Give Trump Power Over The Judiciary [1]
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Date: 2025-05-02
This one is really out there. Via Talking Points Memo: The America First Legal Foundation, a group formed by nefarious Trump aide Stephen Miller, has brought a lawsuit in D.C. federal court, styled as a FOIA request but which actually “asks the courts to cede massive power to the White House,” by arguing that “the bodies that make court policy and manage the judiciary’s day-to-day operations should be considered independent agencies of the executive branch,” which would give “the President . . .the power to appoint and dismiss people in key roles.”
The two groups sued include (i) the Judicial Conference of the United States, and (ii) the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Chief Justice John Roberts is named personally as a defendant in his capacity as the Presiding Officer of the Judicial Conference of the United States. The case, hysterically, complains that “the media and liberal lawmakers have sought to undermine the political independence of Article III courts,” and seeks to enforce FOIA requests concerning Congressional inquiries into inappropriate financial dealings by Justices Alito and Thomas. The Amended Complaint is here, and the best summary of this convoluted case is set forth in the short TPM article, which includes this observation:
Multiple legal scholars and attorneys TPM spoke with reacted to the suit with a mixture of dismay, disdain and laughter. Though the core legal claim is invalid, they said, the suit seems to be a part of the fight that the administration launched and has continued to escalate against the courts over the past several months: ignoring a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of a wrongly removed Salvadoran man, providing minimal notice to people subject to the Alien Enemies Act, flaunting an aggressive criminal case against a state court judge.
Without being cynical, I’ll wager that this “laughable” case will turn out to raise issues that are statutorily ambiguous, and that long established practice has been largely driven by norms. This will then consume time and suspense with lower court and appellate decisions, and TPM already notes speculation that naming Chief Justice Roberts as a party was designed to force his recusal in eventual Supreme Court litigation. If that is the case, I don’t see why Alito and Thomas would not need to recuse also given their prominent role in the lawsuit’s subject matter. So, let's see the remaining three liberal justices square off against the three Trump appointees over a matter integral to the Supreme Court’s and judiciary’s own power. You can already see the Trump/Miller machinations designed to denigrate the Supreme Court and create a circus for chaos’s own sake,
But I also see a benefit to the Trump people increasingly turning their ham-fisted tactics directly against the Supreme Court itself. I think this is a typically strategic blunder by the Trump crew. For all of the Supreme Court’s recent outrageous decisions, for the most part they have aggrandized the Supreme Court’s power. A Republican Congress has decided to prostrate itself before Executive power, but this Republican Supreme Court has been interested mainly in increasing its power. All of that, however, is dangerous speculation on my part.
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