Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday strongly criticized President Donald Trump — without naming him — for his attacks on judges, arguing that the rhetoric of the president and his allies threatens democracy, according to Politico.
Politico reported that Jackson, speaking at a legal conference in Puerto Rico on Thursday, recognized that judges nationwide are facing “relentless attacks and disregard and disparagement.”
“The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity,” Jackson said, according to Politico. “The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”
Jackson’s comments come as Trump’s attacks on judges and the legal establishment have escalated, with calls to impeach judges who rule against him, executive orders targeting law firms representing his perceived enemies and the arrest of a state judge for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest.
The justice did not say Trump’s name but said she was speaking on “the elephant in the room,” according to Politico.
The same night Jackson delivered her condemnation, Trump took aim once again at the judicial system, telling students during remarks at the University of Alabama that “the courts are trying to stop me from doing the job that I was elected to do.”
“Judges are interfering, supposedly based on due process, but how can you give due process to people who came into our country illegally?” Trump asked.
Jackson’s resistance has been on display as the Trump administration’s many legal battles continue play out — with a few landing in front of the Supreme Court.
In a case last month, she condemned the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration, describing it as “whisk(ing) people away to a notoriously brutal, foreign-run prison,” and adding, “For lovers of liberty, this should be quite concerning.”
In a separate case about the Trump administration’s cancellation of teacher training grants, Jackson derided the Department of Education’s “robotic rollout” and called out its “highly questionable behavior.”
Jackson, an appointee of President Joe Biden, is not the only high court justice who has rebuked Trump’s rhetoric toward judges. In a highly unusual statement in March, Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back against Trump, though he also did not mention him by name.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in the March statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
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