OPINION:
President Trump is delivering on his promise to shake up Washington in his second term. That’s why the unelected judges and recalcitrant bureaucrats are fighting so hard to prevent the president from controlling the leadership and budgets of his executive agencies.
This came to the fore with a recent dustup at a tiny agency called the U.S. Institute of Peace. Last Friday, Mr. Trump’s appointees on the government-funded organization’s board of directors voted to appoint a new leader. Hostilities ensued.
The cops had to be called to pacify the Institute of Peace on Monday. Staff sought to combat attempts at oversight and trigger a standoff with the administration. After gaining entry and securing the institute’s “gun safe,” the Metropolitan Police Department proceeded to the USIP president’s office to remove the man barricaded inside.
A police statement described the peaceful resolution: “Eventually, all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building complied with the acting USIP President’s request and left the building without further incident, and no arrests were made.”
Congress created the U.S. Institute of Peace in 1984 to advance peace. At best, that’s what the U.S. Agency for International Development and State Department already do. In recent times, the institute’s idea of “peace” has promoted the continuation of the heroin trade in Afghanistan.
USIP also produces handbooks such as “Education and Training in Nonviolent Resistance” to assist campus agitators and other troublemakers. It holds training sessions such as “The Evolution of People Power” that brought together the sort of left-wing activists who guided last year’s pro-Hamas campus insurgency.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, an activist appointed by President Obama, rejected the institute staff’s demand for an immediate restraining order locking the administration out of the building. She likely realizes the appellate courts may soon crack down on such orders.
Another Obama appointee, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland, had no qualms about sabotaging the administration with a preliminary injunction that says Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency “shall not take any action, or engage in any work, relating to the shutdown of USAID.”
Under the prohibition issued Tuesday, the administration may not close the building, end wasteful contracts, fire insubordinate employees or delete left-wing propaganda from the USAID website.
Although federal rules mandate that plaintiffs in such lawsuits post a bond to cover Uncle Sam’s costs should he prevail, Judge Chuang flouted the requirement by setting the bond at an implausible $100. Perhaps the administration should follow the court’s lead when deciding how much respect his order deserves.
In an interview with Laura Ingraham, the president explained that he is complying with rulings but is not happy about it: “Look at the fraud that we’ve caught. We’ve caught so much fraud, so much waste, so many employees that never showed up to work, and we had a judge from a very liberal state who ruled like that. We have rogue judges that are destroying our country.”
The second-term resistance agitators are bringing cases in as many jurisdictions as possible until they find the right rogue. They went to Judge Chuang because U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in the District of Columbia had already weighed in and rejected the USAID injunction request.
It’s a clear abuse when the same case can be shopped around the country until it lands on a jurist willing to thwart the will of voters. The judiciary could use a shake-up.
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