President Donald Trump's administration sued the Maryland federal court system and its 15 judges, alleging misuse of judicial power in rulings against his immigration agenda. District Judge Thomas Cullen, a Trump appointee from the Western District of Virginia, granted the judges' motion to dismiss the case. Cullen expressed early skepticism about the lawsuit's breadth and warned about separation of powers consequences if the executive sued higher courts for policy disagreements. He described the suit as a significant escalation in conflict with the judiciary and suggested appealing individual injunctions instead of suing an entire district.
Cullen normally serves in the federal court system for the western district of Virginia, but since all 15 judges in Maryland's district court system were named as defendants in the case, someone from outside the state had to be brought in to resolve the case. The lawsuit was a highly unusual, broad-strokes attack on the federal judicial system in Maryland, where Trump's immigration agenda has faced several high-profile setbacks.
Cullen described the lawsuit against all of Maryland's federal judges as an escalation in Trump's fight with the judiciary: taking it up about six notches, he said. I think you probably picked up on the fact that I have some scepticism, Cullen told lawyers for Trump's Department of Justice. Cullen also suggested that the Trump administration would have been better served by appealing the specific court injunctions it disagreed with, rather than suing an entire district court system. It would have been more expeditious than,
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