Noah Feldman, Columnist

Court Essentially Says Trump Lied About Travel Ban

The decision by the Fourth Circuit is extraordinary in its rebuke of the president.

May 25, 2017 at 8:22 PM UTC

Corrected

May 26, 2017 at 2:05 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."

The appeals court agrees.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images

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In a remarkable 10-to-3 decision, a federal appeals court on Thursday affirmed the freeze on the second iteration of President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration from six majority Muslim countries. The court said that national security “is not the true reason” for the order, despite Trump’s insistence to the contrary. It’s extraordinary for a federal court to tell the president directly that he’s lying; I certainly can’t think of any other examples in my lifetime.

The decision and the breakdown of the judges voting against the ban -- which includes a Republican appointee -- presages defeat for the executive order in the U.S. Supreme Court, should the Trump administration decide to seek review there. Faced with this degree of repudiation from the federal judiciary, Trump would be well advised not to go to the Supreme Court at all.