Attorney General Pam Bondi argued several judges ruling on Trump administration cases need to be removed from their positions because “they cannot be objective” in their decisions.
District court judges have halted many of President Donald Trump’s executive actions, highlighting the legal battles taking place as the new administration aims to shrink the size of the federal government. Three of those judges are Washington, D.C., district judges: Beryl Howell, Ana Reyes, and James Boasberg.
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Bondi targeted the three specifically during an appearance on The Ingraham Angle on Thursday, though she suggested more than just those three should be removed from their posts.
Responding to a statement from Howell accusing the Department of Justice of “a strategy designed to impugn the integrity of the federal judicial system,” Bondi said, “Many judges need to be removed, Judge Howell included, Judge Reyes, Judge Boasberg.”
“These judges obviously cannot be impartial. They cannot be objective,” the attorney general added. “They are district judges trying to control our entire country, and they are trying to obstruct Donald Trump’s agenda.”
Howell and Boasberg were Obama appointees and Reyes a Biden appointee.
All three have, to varying degrees, met the ire of Trump and his Cabinet, who have seen their judicial orders as overstepping:
Howell has criticized the DOJ for trying to remove her from a case punishing a major law firm, Reyes has denied the Trump administration from banning transgender people from the military, and Boasberg temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out deportation flights, saying migrants are allowed to challenge whether they qualify for deportation.
Boasberg was also just assigned to the case concerning the Signal intelligence leak, in which a journalist was able to enter a group chat where five Cabinet members and other top defense officials were discussing attack plans on the Houthis in Yemen. He was randomly assigned to the case.
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Signal is a commercially made end-to-end encryption application available on most mobile devices. Critics of the intelligence leak, however, have questioned why the app was used for sensitive communications. When asked by host Laura Ingraham on Thursday if Signal would still be used by government officials, Bondi said she “think[s] Signal is a very safe way to communicate.”
“I don’t think foreign adversaries are able to hack Signal,” the attorney general added, “as far as I know.”