Unmasking Activist Judges Undermining Courtroom Fairness

Deconstructing the Narrative of the Resistance Judiciary

• Question the authority of elite sign-on letters and their political makeup.
• Separate constitutional principle from partisan grandstanding.
• Examine the Comey letter’s claims point by point and ask for evidence.
• Call out selective outrage and demand consistency from former jurists.

If you hear “X number of such-and-such experts” or “former intelligence officials,” you’ve learned to take it with a grain of salt. Appeals to authority are meant to shortcut thinking, not replace it. That skepticism applies even when the signers wear robes in their old photos.

I’m no enemy of the judiciary; I practiced law for years and respect the bench. But respect doesn’t mean surrendering critical thought when retired judges pile onto a political narrative. Their institutional pedigree doesn’t immunize their opinions from partisan bias.

The letter signed by “42 retired judges” attacking the Trump administration over the Comey indictment reads like a press release masquerading as constitutional concern. I initially dismissed it as a NeverTrump-era cohort flexing credentials for clicks. But listening to commentary and then reading the letter made me want to parse the assertions line by line.

First, consider the signatories’ demographics: many hail from blue states and media-friendly circuits. That skews credibility when the goal is broad, nonpartisan moral suasion. If most were appointed by Democrats, why assume their view of prosecutorial overreach is neutral?

The letter includes sweeping assertions that deserve exacting scrutiny. Below I reproduce key quoted lines from the letter and offer a plain-language response beneath each.

• “The rights and liberties of Americans are protected by the Constitution and the Rule of Law.”
  • Check. We agree on the premise; disagreement starts at the application.
• “Those rights and liberties of every American are in grave danger today, as President Donald Trump continues to corruptly abuse the power of his office by directing the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to target his critics and his perceived political enemies for investigation and criminal prosecution.”
  • This is a sweeping claim presented as fact. Where is the contemporaneous record proving a presidential order, not merely prosecutorial discretion?
• “His every threat and every pretextual investigation and prosecution further corrupts America’s democracy and Rule of Law.”
  • Hyperbole does heavy lifting here; calling everything corrupt dilutes real constitutional critique.
• “In the United States of America, the Constitution forbids President Trump from ordering the unfounded prosecution of his perceived political adversaries and his critics.”
  • Certainly the Constitution limits abuse, but the letter conflates suspicion with proved command.
• “While the Constitution does not prevent President Trump from firing federal prosecutors, no prosecutor should ever be fired for refusing to bring baseless charges against President Trump’s political adversaries and critics.”
  • That principle is sensible; the problem is proving motives and labeling ongoing investigations “baseless” before facts are adjudicated.
• “Yet that is exactly what Donald Trump has done. He has fired his own prosecutors because they refused to pursue criminal charges against Americans for whom he harbors personal animus and then he has immediately installed handpicked replacements who have pursued the investigations or indictments that their predecessors declined to bring, despite reportedly having been told that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.”
  • Allegation-heavy and deserving of documentary proof rather than assertion.
• “As a consequence of President Trump’s actions over the past nine months that he has been in the presidency, no American is safe from criminal prosecution, regardless of whether they have violated the law and regardless of their political or ideological views.”
  • This is alarmist. The Constitution and federal courts remain intact as safeguards.
• “For the first time in American history, the bedrock First Amendment right of American citizens to disagree with their president and their government and to express their views and opinions on any matter they wish — including their president — is under unprecedented attack by the President of the United States.”
  • Claiming “for the first time” ignores recent examples of alleged suppression and invites charges of selective memory.
• “All Americans have an obligation as citizens of this great country to speak out against this unprecedented attack on our freedom of speech and to demand that Donald Trump’s attacks on our right to speak freely without fear of being persecuted and prosecuted by our government must stop now.”
  • Vigorous civic debate is welcome, but calling for pressure campaigns aimed at the DOJ blurs separation between courts and public opinion.

Who drafted this letter and how carefully did signers vet it? I don’t know, and the letter doesn’t tell us. What it does provide is a rallying cry for those already inclined to agree, not a forensic case against prosecutorial action.