John Roberts’s Rebuke of Trump Isn’t What It Seems

The exchange, such as it was, only underscored the problem. Roberts almost certainly meant an “independent judiciary” in the traditional sense that it stands apart from the other two branches of government, including the presidents who appointed the various judges. Trump apparently thought that Roberts meant “independent” in a partisan sense, meaning that it is neither Democratic nor Republican, which he tried to refute by pointing to the “opposing view cases” filed there.

In reality, Trump does not believe in an independent judiciary that fairly and neutrally adjudicates the legal cases and controversies that come before it. His rubric for interpreting judicial decisions is much simpler than that. Judges who rule against him are biased and corrupt. Judges who rule in his favor are paragons of the American legal profession. Look no further than how the president described Judge Aileen Cannon, the controversial Trump appointee who hamstrung his classified documents prosecution with a series of flawed rulings last year.

“They were saying she was slow, she wasn’t smart, she was totally biased, she loved Trump,” Trump told the assembled personnel in remarks at the Justice Department headquarters last week. “I didn’t know her other than I saw her the couple of days that I was in court, and I thought her decorum was amazing. Actually, she was brilliant, she moved quickly. She was the absolute model of what a judge should be, and she was strong and tough.”