House Speaker Mike Johnson Gonna Holy Water All The Courts

Republicans vs. rule of law, part gazillion.

The judicial branch is currently the only thing standing even a little bit in the way of King Trump getting to do all the cruelty he wants to, immediately, all of the time.

His administration already has 133 legal challenges pending, including its right to send people to foreign torture prisons with less due process than literal Nazis got during World War II, the right to not spend the money Congress has appropriated, and the right to fire thousands of civil servants just because Elon Musk and Big Balls think it’s a good idea. Among other things! And judges have already issued at least 15 nationwide injunctions against his administration.

And boy is Trump, and therefore Republicans and the Moses of Congress Mike Johnson, pig-biting mad about all that!

After MEAN Judge James Boasberg, who happens to be the chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, had the gall to tell Trump he could not send people to foreign prison with no due process a week ago, Trump stomped his shoe lifts and yowled that he should be IMPEACHED for having the audacity.

Among his many other TruthSocial IMPEACH THE JUDGE rants.

So Rep. Brandon Gill, a new little Ted Cruz from Texas, eagerly introduced an impeachment resolution against Judge Boasberg, wanking in his filing and on social media that Judge Boasberg was “guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors” for telling Trump to turn that plane around. District judges Paul A. Engelmayer, John Bates, and Amir Ali have also had impeachment resolutions introduced against them by Trump lackeys, for having the audacity to do their jobs and tell the Trump administration NO, instead of doing whatever it takes to get him what he wants, like obedient Aileen Cannons.

But that strategy has problems. Judicial impeachment would require hearings in the Judiciary Committee in the House, then it would go to the Rules committee, then the whole House for debate and a vote, then a trial in the Senate where it would have to get a two-thirds majority, etc etc., and all of that would take too long to stop judges from committing the crime of telling Trump NO, even if every Republican in the House and two-thirds of the Senate were willing to vote that a judge committed HIGH CRIMES (when they clearly did not).

So now House Speaker Johnson, crypt ghoul Darrell Issa, Jim Jordan and his greasy combover, and runnin’ Josh Hawley are exploring other options to get judges to fall in line and forget about that separation-of-powers thing that the Constitution so inconveniently harps on. An idea Johnson is running up the flagpole: Just defund all the district courts. Or maybe only the disobedient ones? He is not an unreasonable man!

Today he held a press conference to fume that “in the past 100 years, 67 percent of injunctions were issued against one president, and that’s Donald J. Trump. [...] That’s a problem. A dangerous trend. [...] It violates separation of powers.” And GET THIS, some of those judges were even appointed by DEMOCRATS!!

Could it be that the reason there have been so many injunctions is because a certain failed gameshow host who kept US military secrets in his golf club shitter and lied to the FBI about it, committed 34 felonies, hinkied up his buildings’ loan and insurance paperwork, and assaulted E. Jean Carrol in a Bergdorf’s dressing room does not care one bit about what the law says? Could it be that the judicial branch acting as a guardrail to the other branches is how things are supposed to work?

That is how it used to work! But, possibly while Johnson was checking his kid’s porn playlist on the Covenant Eyes app, Jesus slid into the father of the year’s DMs and told him it was his holy mission to deliver unto Caesar Trump whatever his enlarged heart desires, so that Trump may have infinite power to go after refugees, trans kids who want to play soccer, trampy harlots who would rather have abortions than die of sepsis, and journalists with the audacity to write unflattering stories. And so here Johnson is, ready to use his mighty sword to destroy those disagreeable courts however possible!

“The judiciary committee is looking at alternatives” to getting rid of the judges that don’t kiss Trump’s hairy asshole, he told reporters. “One of the bills that I really like that’s already been through committee was authored by Representative Darrell Issa, and that would limit the scope of federal injunctions. [...] We do have authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have the power of funding over the courts. [...] Desperate times call for desperate measures and Congress is going to act so stay tuned for that.”

District court judges wouldn’t be able to issue federal injunctions? Did anybody tell that nice fella in Amarillo, and all the Trumpers who flock to his one-judge district? Somehow we bet he gets an exception.

After his press conference Johnson told Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman that he didn’t mean it as a direct threat.

“I'm trying to illustrate we have a broad scope of authority over the courts.”

Uh huh, very normal, like when you’re driving people in your car and tell them you could floor it and take everybody hurling over a cliff, just to illustrate the kind of powers driving a car bestows.

Issa’s no-nationwide-injunctions bill passed out of committee last month, but Johnson’s got extra-hotpants for it now that the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit heard the DOJ’s appeal in that disappear-anybody case yesterday, with government lawyers arguing we don’t have to tell you shit or do shit, because PLENARY AUTHORITY FOREVER. It seems unlikely that such a piss-poor attitude will fly, and more likely that the administration will be told to fuck off, and then the case will wind up at the Supreme Court.

The audacity of making government lawyers go through such a hassle! The very gall of not letting them disappear whoever they want into secret prisons! Wouldn’t it be nice if they got rid of the whole DC circuit altogether, and a certain six agreeable judges got to rule on everything?

And on the Senate side, Josh Hawley has also introduced a bill that would prevent judges from being able to issue nationwide injunctions. Every time we type his name we also have to include this gif. That’s just how it is.

Anyway, will Republicans succeed in this power grab to give themselves almost completely unchecked powers? Who fucking knows, man.

But Trump better see them doing something to protect him! That’s the only job they have left, after all, since he took their power of the purse away. Dance harder for daddy! Dance!

[Roll Call / The Hill ]

Follow me on Bluesky!