Trump’s criticism of judge shows limits of staff’s influence

WASHINGTON — Late Friday night, some of President Donald Trump’s top advisers huddled on the phone to craft a response to a court ruling that blocked the White House’s refugee and immigration ban. On Saturday morning, Trump lashed out on Twitter at the “so-called judge” and called the judge’s decree “ridiculous.” Later Saturday, Trump followed that tweet with another: “What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?” The episode illustrated just how little ability anyone in the White House has when it comes to restraining the president — not his lawyers, his aides or his family. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, said Saturday that Trump’s tweet “shows a disdain for an independent judiciary” and “raises the bar even higher” for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch. In 2008, President George W. Bush said he disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling upholding the rights of prisoners at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but said his administration would “abide by the court’s decision.” During his 2010 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama rebuked the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens’ United campaign finance, though he opened his remarks by noting that his criticism was “with all due deference to separation of powers.” Trump’s Twitter attacks were a sharp contrast to his measured, statesman-like introduction of Gorsuch during an address to the nation Tuesday night. Sen. Patrick Leahy, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Gorsuch must show an ability “to be an independent check and balance on an administration that shamefully and harmfully seems to reject the very concept.” Robart’s ruling temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order halting the entire U.S. refugee program and stopping all entries from seven Muslim-majority countries.