White House officials claimed to be the victims of a judicial coup amid a battle between federal courts to determine the legality of President Donald Trump‘s attempts to unilaterally impose potentially economically ruinous tariffs on the bulk of U.S. imports.
On Wednesday, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade determined that the president had “exceed any authority” granted to him by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) — a 1970s law that allows the president to implement embargoes and levy sanctions during a national emergency, but has nothing to do with tariffs. Trump has cited the IEEPA as the legal justification to levy steep retaliatory tariffs on the nation’s biggest trade partners, leading to panic throughout virtually every sector of the economy. The following day, a federal judge in the District Court for the District of Columbia also ruled that Trump lacked the appropriate authority under the IEEPA.
The Trump administration quickly appealed the trade court’s ruling on Wednesday, and on Thursday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the ruling.
The White House has been livid over the judiciary trying to stop Trump from imposing tariffs.
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote Wednesday on X, for example, that “the judicial coup is out of control.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt elaborated during a press briefing on Thursday, telling reporters that the “three judges of the U.S. Court of International Trade abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump to stop him from carrying out the mandate that the American people gave him.”
“These judges failed to acknowledge that the president of the United States has core Foreign Affairs powers and authority given to him by Congress to protect the United States economy and national security,” Leavitt argued.
Meanwhile, Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s trade advisers, went on Fox Business to bash the “rogue judges” who blocked the tariffs, before changing the subject when the host pointed out that one of them was appointed by Trump. Navarro also slammed a reporter as “biased” when he was asked in front of the White House about he and the administration’s criticism of judges who rule against them.
Trump could avoid all of this by simply asking Congress to green-light his tariffs — which isn’t likely to happen because even congressional Republicans recognize the damage the tariffs will do to the economy, and would not likely pass legislation allowing them. Trump’s only recourse, then, is to circumvent Congress, and then lash out at the judiciary when it tries to stop him.
Fox News asked Leavitt during the press briefing on Thursday why the president couldn’t ask the Republican-controlled Congress to pass new laws that the courts couldn’t claim he was violating. Leavitt said that “these laws have already been granted to the president by the Constitution and by laws that have been previously passed.”
They haven’t, though, and the president and the White House seem determined to strip the federal judiciary of its core function: interpreting the laws passed by Congress and the edicts issued by the president, and determining their legality.
www.rollingstone.com
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