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After the 2024 elections, as Democratic officials came to terms with just how limited their powers would be after Donald Trump’s second inaugural, it was an open secret that the party’s strategy focused heavily on the federal courts. Every time the Republican White House took a provocative step, Democrats said, there’d be a lawsuit with a credible chance of success.
Two months into the president’s second term, things are largely going according to plan: The president keeps making legally dubious moves; his opponents keep going to court; and judges keep siding with plaintiffs. As The Washington Post summarized, “In more than a dozen cases — and in three major rulings this week alone — a federal judge has ruled that the administration either has violated the law or has probably done so. The total works out to one such finding about every four days.”
In the West Wing, the president and his team have responded to the developments with an astonishingly aggressive campaign attacking the legitimacy and integrity of the federal judiciary. There’s been a related reaction on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers are eyeing a variety of possible remedies, up to and including impeaching judges who’ve dared to rule in ways the White House doesn’t like.
When pressed for a justification, GOP officials tend to point to a rather specific assertion. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri wrote via social media, for example:
District Court judges have issued RECORD numbers of national injunctions against the Trump administration — a dramatic abuse of judicial authority.
This has quickly become a go-to talking point for Republicans. At a White House press briefing on Wednesday, for example, press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to justify her offensive against the courts by arguing that “67% of all of the injunctions in this century have come against which president? Donald J. Trump.”
Around the same time, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan appeared on CNN, where the Ohio Republican complained that the Trump administration has confronted “15 injunctions ... in an eight-week time frame.”
This reminds me of a problem from two years ago.
After Trump’s 2020 election defeat, his legal troubles went from bad to worse. In fact, in 2023, over the course of roughly five months, the Republican was criminally indicted four times, across multiple jurisdictions. In each instance, prosecutors issued detailed indictments, pointing to extensive evidence of Trump’s many alleged felonies.
This left observers with a couple of straightforward choices.
- Maybe Trump was repeatedly indicted because of the evidence suggesting he was guilty of wrongdoing.
- Maybe Trump was repeatedly indicted because of a massive conspiracy launched by a corrupted justice system.
The first option made sense. The second option was quickly embraced by practically everyone in Republican politics.
Nearly two years later, the political world is confronting a related dynamic.
- Maybe the Trump administration keeps losing in court because it’s taking steps at odds with the law.
- Maybe the Trump administration keeps losing in court because nefarious judges, including some appointed by Republican presidents, are executing a secret partisan vendetta, and the biased plot is being exposed episodically through frequent White House setbacks.
As was the case two years ago, the first option makes sense. But once again, the second option has been embraced by practically everyone in Republican politics.
In 2023, the GOP’s case against prosecutors was based on ridiculous and faulty assumptions. In 2025, the party’s case against judges is eerily similar.