It would be an understatement to say that John Roberts is not known for speaking out on the issues of the day.
In this reticence, the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court might be said to merely be following a long pattern of protocol from his predecessors at the top of the judicial branch of our government.
But the chief gives even fewer public speeches and makes fewer appearances than other top judges and justices. He keeps himself to himself. He virtually never comments on the political debates of the day, and only in the rarest of circumstances responds to the views of any elected official.
He understands how improper backbiting would be between the branches of the federal government, especially because members of the legislative and executive branches often find themselves with cases before his court.
But twice in our time Roberts, while clearly uncomfortable doing so, has been forced to speak out about the necessary sanctity of judicial independence.
Both occasions have been in response to radically intemperate comments from President Donald Trump, who doesn’t believe in an independent judiciary. He frequently insults judges with personal attacks, and then lays into their staffs and even family members.
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the president lashed out at a federal district judge who blocked a Trump immigration policy, claiming the order was pure politics.
Roberts issued an unprecedented Thanksgiving Day response to an unprecedented attack: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Roberts wrote. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
But Trump paid no heed to the chief justice. Recently, after another federal district judge put another hold on a Trump immigration policy, instead of going through normal legal channels like a normal chief executive would, Trump called for the judge to be removed from his office.
“This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President,” Trump wrote on social media.
This is true. He was appointed as a federal judge, not elected president. But you know who first appointed James Emanuel “Jeb” Boasberg to the federal bench? President George W. Bush. He is not a troublemaker and agitator. He was Skull and Bones and a forward on the basketball team at Yale, graduated from Oxford, spent five years as a deputy United States attorney in the District of Columbia prosecuting homicides.
And yet, because he disagreed with a Boasberg ruling, Trump said the judge should be impeached. And said it with his usual flair: “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”
You can almost hear the sad sigh with which Roberts was forced to quickly issue another statement setting Trump straight: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Childishly, Trump brushed off the criticism from the chief justice of the United States: ““He didn’t mention my name in the statement. I just saw it quickly. He didn’t mention my name.”
He didn’t have to.
The president is not a king. If he wants to successfully implement his agenda, Trump needs to start governing in a presidential manner.