In September 2023, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan established his own Alaska Federal Judiciary Council. Its purpose is to recommend candidates for vacancies in the U.S. District Court for Alaska. Along with evaluating each applicant’s character and experience, he claimed the Council would seek candidates with “an unflinching commitment to the rule of law.”
I suspect he’s really looking for activist judges. That might explain why the Council has done its work behind closed doors and why Sen. Lisa Murkowski is unwilling to agree with his selection process to fill the two District Court vacancies in Alaska.
Either way, if the rule of law was really important to him, he’d stop turning a blind eye to the actions of the outlaw occupying the White House.
“Where do these initial three Judges come from?” President Donald Trump wrote last week in a social media post after a three-judge panel on U.S. Court of International Trade (ITC) unanimously ruled he violated the law by ordering tariffs under the guise of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. “How is it possible for them to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America?”
In March, Sullivan implied that Judge Sharon Gleason, Chief of the U.S. District in Anchorage, has been doing the same thing in Alaska. He promised “to make sure Alaska does not get a federal judge who sides with the far-left radical enviros on every case.”
That’s not an accurate representation of Gleason’s record. She ruled against environmentalists in at least two oil development cases. According to Jeff Feldman, a former attorney from Anchorage, about 80% of her opinions have been upheld on appeal. More importantly, he pointed out that Sullivan was out of line to suggest “a judge’s rulings are both wrong and politically motivated” because it “undermines faith and confidence in the judiciary.”
Sullivan seems to have learned that sordid trade from watching Trump do it every time he loses in court. Of course, he gets away with it largely because cowards like Sullivan refuse to defend the rule of law.
This time, Trump’s post about the ITC ruling wasn’t his typical rant about so-called “radical left judges.” That’s because Timothy Reif was a Senior Advisor to the administration’s Trade Representative when Trump nominated him to serve on the ITC.
It’s not just Reif who Trump thinks betrayed him. Another judge he appointed rejected his Alien Enemies Act justification for deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. Another ruled they should have been given the opportunity to challenge their deportations. Yet another concluded they deported a 20-year-old Venezuelan man in violation of a legally binding settlement.
Trump-appointed judges ruled against him in a case involving New York City’s congestion pricing program and a First Amendment complaint filed by the Associated Press. The three justices he appointed to the Supreme Court have let him down too.
That’s why he went looking for a scapegoat.
“I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges,” he wrote after blasting the ITC.
Don McGhan probably gave him that idea and vetted every candidate submitted by The Federalist Society during his two years as White House Counsel.
But later, Trump “realized that they were under the thumb of a real “sleazebag” named Leonard Leo” who “probably hates America.”
What does that say about McGhan’s judgment? Or Senate Republicans who confirmed every nomination he submitted?
The real story is since returning to office Trump has routinely violated the law. Through May, three-quarters of the 128 rulings issued by federal judges have gone against him. He’s been on the losing side in 72% of those issued by Republican-appointed judges.
What’s worse than that pathetic record is the one he piled up during his brazen attempt to overturn the 2020 election. He lost 60 of the 63 rulings issued during that two-month stretch.
However, despite that steady stream of embarrassments, Trump is still president. And Sullivan wants to be absolutely sure that the most powerful person in America doesn’t call him a sleazebag because the judges he recommends have the audacity to value the rule of law over the demands of his master.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
