Former judges blast DOJ remarks: ‘Pouring oil’ on a fire

A group of exes Federal judges A senior Justice Department official was sharply criticized this week for describing the court battles in President Donald Trump’s second term as a “war” against so-called “activist judges,” comments they called needlessly inflammatory and amounted to “additional fuel” on an already smoldering fire.

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, spoke colorfully last week during a conversation hosted by the Federalist Society. Blanch used his time to criticize federal judges for pausing or blocking some of Trump’s biggest executive orders and actions since January, and to urge young lawyers and law students in the audience to respond.

“This is a war, and we will only win it if we keep fighting,” Blanche said.

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Judges “wear a robe, but they are more political, or politicians, like the most liberal governor or the Democratic representative,” Blanche added.

His statements prompted A rebuke From the New York State Bar Association and from the Article III Coalition, a group of 50 former federal judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents.

Todd Blanche, nominee for US Attorney General, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC, on February 12. (Daniel Hoyer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

This type of rhetoric, “particularly when expressed by high-ranking officials, not only puts judges and court staff at risk, but also undermines public confidence in the judiciary as an impartial and equal branch of government,” the justices said in a letter.

In a series of interviews this week, several former judges told Fox News Digital they were shocked by Blanche’s comments, which they described as a departure from longstanding Justice Department standards and a threat to the judiciary as an institution and to the individual judges who serve on the bench.

One judge said Blanche’s comments were “very different from all previous decades and under all previous administrations” he had witnessed during his more than 60-year career in D.C.

“I’ve been in Washington since 1974, continuously, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Paul R. Michel, former chief justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, said in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Michel served as a special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation, a role in which he personally interviewed former President Nixon.

“It is amazing that Deputy Attorney General K Public relations “hatchet man” Instead of a law enforcement official,” he said of Blanche’s comments.

Michel and others in the group of retired judges told Fox News Digital they fear the rhetoric used will further erode public confidence in the judiciary, the branch that the framers designed to interpret the law impartially and serve as a check against abuses by other branches, regardless of the policy or administration in charge.

They noted that while parties often do not agree to a decision, order, or interim motion in the near term, both the Department of Justice and opposing parties have a readily available mechanism for seeking relief through the appeals process.

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US Attorney Pam Bondi speaks as President Donald Trump looks on during a news conference in the Oval Office on October 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Deitch/Getty Images)

Parties seeking to challenge an interim order or other form of injunctive relief can proceed by resorting to the local court. Case evaluation On the merits, it goes to the US Court of Appeals, and in some cases, to the Supreme Court, for review, Philip Breaux, a former US District Judge in Nevada appointed by President Ronald Reagan, told Fox News Digital.

Federal judges have attempted to issue short-term or emergency orders that temporarily block some of Trump’s top policy priorities, including immigration enforcement, birthright citizenship, and sweeping layoffs across the federal government. The administration responded to the lower court’s actions by requesting emergency relief from the higher courts, through emergency stays, which Blanche also touted during his remarks last week.

The judges are “quite interactive” by design, Brough said. “We sit in our regions. Cases are allocated randomly.”

“There is nothing rogue about these decisions,” Brough added. “Those wheels grind slowly, but they grind very fine, and that’s how you get the solution.”

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law who attended the remarks, told Fox News Digital in an interview that he was sympathetic to the concerns expressed by the justices, but also understood the broader issue Blanche may have been trying to get at, which is the power courts have to review the actions of the executive branch.

This has emerged as a particular pain point not just for Trump but for his predecessors, each of whom sought to enact some of their policy priorities through executive order in an attempt to sidestep a slow-moving Congress.

These actions are therefore more vulnerable to emergency intervention from federal courts, though the degree to which judges can or should act in this area is a subject of ongoing debate, Blackman said.

“I don’t see Blanche’s comments as calling for violence,” Blackman said. “I think it’s more like trying to say that there is this conflict between the executive branch and the judiciary that is abnormal.”

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Supreme Court building (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Trump is not the first president to publicly complain about “activist” judges for obstructing his policies. Such criticisms stretch back decades and include former presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, among others.

However, the justices say they are concerned by Blanche’s statements, which represent a stark departure from what they have experienced in their careers, including while working as federal prosecutors.

Alison K said: “Characterizing judges as ‘rogue’ because they apply the law in a politically unfavorable way is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the judiciary in our constitutional structure,” Duncan, a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, said in a statement.

Michel, the former special prosecutor for the Watergate investigations, noted that he worked with two successive deputy attorneys general in “the position Blanche now holds,” but they issued much different orders.

“Their instructions to me were that the policy was outside the boundaries of the Department of Justice staff, and that the policy had no effect,” he said. “We didn’t have to pay any attention to what someone might say in the White House, in the media or anywhere else. We had to be a ‘politics-free zone.’

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, joined by President Donald Trump, speaks at a news conference about recent Supreme Court rulings in the White House Briefing Room on June 27, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

“It seems to me that this is quite appropriate,” Michel said. He added: “The power to investigate, the power to indict, the power to prosecute and convict are absolutely terrible powers.”

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The group also cited concerns about their colleagues who remain on the bench at a time when public threats to judges have increased, according to data from the U.S. Marshals. This includes online harassment, threats of physical violence and “polling” judges at their home addresses by sending them unsolicited pizza. Some of the deliveries were made in the name of the son of a judge who was shot dead in 2020 after opening the door to a disgruntled person disguised as a delivery boy.

The number of threats against federal judges in 2025 exceeded those made during the previous 12-month period, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, prompting Congress to take action.

“Deputy Attorney Blanche’s statements reflect a reality the Department of Justice faces every day, which is a growing number of activist judges trying to set national policy from the bench,” a Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Friday in response to a request for comment.

“The Department will continue to follow the Constitution, defend its legal authorities, and respond when activist rulings threaten public safety or undermine the will of the American people.”