George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley described Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York’s latest lawsuit against the Trump administration as “truly insane” on Monday.
James announced the lawsuit over cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services Sunday, claiming the Trump administration was “sabotaging” the federal government, according to Fox News. Turley told “America Reports” guest-host Aishah Hasnie that James had a pattern of targeting political opponents.
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“The problem for the Trump Administration is they file before favorable courts in blue states and they’re getting these national injunctions and it has gotten to the point of being absolutely absurd,” Turley said. “It means that a president cannot govern unless you can basically run the course with 677 district court judges, any one of which can issue a national injunction. So you’ve gotta win every case 677-0 if you want to implement policy. Well, the justices have said, including liberal justices like Justice Kagan, that this is truly insane, and this is just the latest such lawsuit to try to limit what this president can do.”
James, who promised to investigate President Donald Trump during her 2018 campaign for office, filed suit against Trump in September 2022, alleging he overstated the value of real estate holdings in order to obtain loans, obtaining a ruling in February 2024 from Judge Arthur Engoron that Trump was to pay $354 million, with additional penalties pushing the total amount owed to over $450 million.
“People need to think about the implications of what’s happening. It means that if you can be elected as a president, but effectively the presidency is going to be run at the discretion of district court judges issuing national or universal injunctions. That’s not really how this is supposed to work and the constitutional basis for these orders are extremely dubious,” Turley said.
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“Some of these orders I find to be overtly unconstitutional, but they have to work their way through the system, and… what these Democrats know is that in the usual course of things, it will leave a president in his third year before he can actually implement policy and that’s what’s insane about this,” Turley continued. “Now, on May 15th, the Supreme Court is going to look at national injunctions, and many of us are hoping that Chief Justice Roberts and the court will finally bring some semblance of order to all of this, and deter these district court judges, because you leave a system that’s running on people being able to vote, and presidents, to effectuate change, including looking for waste and in this case, downsizing government. We have to get back to that. The argument on the 15th is enormously important.”
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
