Liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan launched a thinly veiled attack on President Trump during a judicial conference on Thursday.
Kagan did not mention President Trump by name, but she warned against threats and emphasized that court orders must always be obeyed.
As reported by Politico:
As the Trump administration’s clash with the judiciary intensifies, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan issued a message on Thursday: Stop threatening judges, and always obey court orders.
But Kagan spoke in vague terms and did not say who her warning was aimed at. She did not directly mention President Donald Trump, even as some lower-court judges have already found that the administration has defied their commands.
“That’s just just not the way our system works, not the way rule of law in this country works,” Kagan said at a judicial conference here.
“That’s true for the Supreme Court, and it’s also true for every district court. Unless and until an appellate court or the Supreme Court says otherwise, judicial orders are judicial orders and need to be respected,” she added.
Kagan cautioned the hundreds of judges in the audience not to respond to verbal attacks by lashing out in their decisions, but by carrying out their duties as they normally do.
“The response to perceived lawlessness of any kind is law, and the way an independent judiciary should counter assaults on an independent judiciary is to act in the sorts of ways that judges are required to act,” Kagan said.
The Obama appointee also praised Chief Justice John Roberts for pushing back against attacks on the courts from both the right and the left. And she said the notion that “government officials” could or should ignore court orders was particularly disruptive to the rule of law.
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