A MAGA Judge in Texas Was Called Out by a Colleague for Trying to Steal a Case in Rhode Island |
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Donald Trump’s Department of Justice thinks it has found a way to deal with the many judges who refuse to tolerate its unethical behavior: forum shopping key cases to MAGA judges across the country who are much more likely to reward underhanded tactics. The administration road tested this method in immigration cases by shuttling noncitizens to Southern detention centers within the jurisdiction of far-right courts. DOJ lawyers then pulled a similar trick to enforce a subpoena against a Rhode Island hospital that provided gender-affirming care to minors—only to see it blow up in their face. On Wednesday, Judge Mary S. McElroy shot down a federal subpoena seeking medical records and personal data of these children. She castigated department attorneys over their “appalling” and “reckless disregard for the duty of candor” and described them as “unworthy of this trust at every point.” Remarkably, McElroy also called out the ultrapartisan federal judge, Reed O’Connor, who tried to enforce the illegal subpoena from his Texas courtroom.
On this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode of Amicus, co-host Mark Joseph Stern spoke with Madiba Dennie—deputy editor of Balls and Strikes and author of The Originalism Trap—about McElroy’s incandescent takedown of the DOJ and the pliant judges bolstering its agenda. An excerpt from their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mark Joseph Stern: Judge Mary McElroy did not just tell the Justice Department it had no authority to demand all this highly sensitive information based on healthcare “fraud” that wasn’t fraud at all. She also scorched the DOJ lawyers—and specifically one high-ranking official, Lisa K. Hsiao—for deeply unethical behavior. She wrote that Hsiao’s assertions to the court were “at best, deceptive, if not intentionally and knowingly false.” And she said the “presumption of regularity”........