The head of a legal watchdog organization who clerked for one of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointments has accused Chief Justice John Roberts of malfeasance in allowing lower courts to commit “judicial sabotage” against President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda.
In an interview with actor and comedian Joe Piscopo for the latter’s podcast on Friday, Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, referenced a recently filed lawsuit against Roberts targeting him in his role as head of the U.S. Judicial Conference, as well as Robert J. Conrad, director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
The complaint alleges that both the Judicial Conference and the Administrative Office have engaged in regulatory actions that exceed their constitutional mandate, arguing such actions fall outside the judiciary’s core responsibilities of adjudicating cases and providing administrative support.
The lawsuit also contends that records maintained by the U.S. Judicial Conference, under Roberts’ leadership, should be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as a consequence of the alleged regulatory actions.
In his interview with Piscopo, Davis accused Roberts of refusing to do more to rein in lower federal courts that have imposed a record number of nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration despite several instances where he said the president’s Article II authorities were being trampled.
“I actually like the Chief Justice. I clerked for Justice [Neil] Gorsuch, and I like him personally, John Roberts, but I would say this to the Chief Justice: you have failed to do your job as the Chief Justice of the United States when you have allowed these radical activist judges to sabotage the president’s Article II powers,” Davis said.
“This is an assault on American voters. This is a repudiation of American voters by lifetime appointment, paycheck-protected federal judges who have no—who have no reason to be in this political lane. This is not judicial review. This is judicial sabotage,” he added.
“And I say this to these judges: when you take off your judicial robes, climb into the political arena, and throw political punches, expect powerful political counterpunches from the Article III Project because this is unacceptable. This is dangerous to our republic when these activist judges become political actors. And is the president supposed to report to 670 district court judges around the country for everything he does?” Davis said.
“That’s exactly right. It’s insane. And now this is a lawsuit that was—do you work, are you working with [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller on this, if I may ask?” Piscopo said in response, referencing the lawsuit against Roberts, which was filed by America First Legal, a legal organization founded by Miller.
“Well, I have to be careful what I say on particular lawsuits on who I’m working with,” Davis responded.
“The Article III Project is an independent outside organization. We are very much aligned with President Trump, but we are very actively going to defend the President of the United States, Donald Trump, like we did before the election when we ferociously defended him against the unprecedented Republican lawfare,” he continued.
“We turned lemons into lemonade. Everyone thought Trump was toast after the Mar-a-Lago raid, and now he’s back in the White House, and we’re going to continue to support President Trump every step of the way, every day for the next four years to make sure he succeeds,” Davis added.
The America First Legal lawsuit comes as Trump and several of his top officials have criticized what they say are “activist” federal court rulings, most of them from judges appointed by Democratic presidents.
Trump has endured an unprecedented number of nationwide injunctions, which were fairly rare but were also widely imposed against him during his first term.