Noah Feldman, Columnist

Trump's Unworthy Attack on a Federal Judge

The ruling that blocks the president's travel ban isn't "ridiculous." It's smartly argued.

February 5, 2017 at 4:13 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

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It’s no surprise that President Donald Trump initiated a Twitter attack Saturday on federal judge James Robart for freezing the executive order on immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. The ultimate fate of the order will depend on proceedings in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied the government's emergency request to reinstate the ban, and possibly even the U.S. Supreme Court. But because judges issue rulings, not press releases, it’s also up to civil society and the news media to defend the judge and the rule of law from the president’s bluster.

So here’s the legal truth: The Seattle-based judge’s decision, which unlike earlier rulings against the order forces the entire executive branch to comply, was completely legitimate. Rather brilliantly, Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, cited the precedent of the federal judge in Texas who in 2015 froze President Barack Obama’s executive order on immigration. Turnabout is fair play. The same judicial power that thwarted Trump’s predecessor is now being used against him.