At today's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) spoke about alleged judicial overreach in federal courts blocking President Trump's actions.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The subcommittee will come to order.
00:05Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time.
00:10We welcome everyone here today for a joint hearing on judicial overreach in the federal
00:14courts.
00:17Before I recognize myself, I'd ask unanimous consent that members of the full committee,
00:22but not of the subcommittees, Mr. Moskowitz and Mr. Biggs, be allowed to sit in and participate
00:28in today's hearing.
00:29Without objection, so ordered.
00:33And as a point of personal privilege, before I make my opening statement, Speaker Gingrich,
00:39I've been here now, this is my 25th year on the Hill, and the first time I've had the
00:44pleasure of having you as a witness.
00:48I will cherish that as much as I cherish the time I once carried your bag off of an airplane
00:54in San Diego and found out you were the speaker, but you were also a regular guy.
01:00So with that, I'll now recognize myself for an opening statement.
01:08We are here today because a major malfunction in the federal judiciary has been recognized
01:14by both Republicans and Democrats.
01:17Activist district court judges usurping themselves with their Article III power and imposing
01:25on the nation injunctions beyond the scope of what the United States Congress under statute
01:32has given federal judges.
01:34These rogue judge rulings are a new resistance to the Trump administration and the only time
01:42in which judges in robes in this number have felt it necessary to participate in the political
01:49process rather than participate in the Article III powers given to them both by the Constitution
01:58and by statute.
02:01President Trump was elected to assert many policies, including the deportation of criminal
02:06aliens.
02:08He did so publicly and was elected by a majority of Americans and the vast majority of the
02:14Electoral College.
02:16But he also did so in stark contrast to executive orders of the previous administration.
02:22Time and time again, rogue judges have asserted as though they were five of the nine members
02:28of the Supreme Court their authority when the president was doing nothing more than
02:35undoing a policy of his predecessor, one which they seem to have no problem with in
02:41the previous administration.
02:43Let me be clear.
02:45It should never have come to this.
02:46It is within the Supreme Court's ability to rule appropriately that judges have exceeded
02:55their jurisdiction.
02:57Time and time again, the high court has ruled on the substance of the ruling rather than
03:04on the inappropriate nature of an injunction overly broad and affecting hundreds, thousands,
03:12or millions of people beyond the plaintiffs before that court.
03:17Just last night, a judge halted the administration's plan to end temporary protective status for
03:24about 350,000 Venezuelans that Joe Biden welcomed into this country and gave temporary
03:34protective status to.
03:36Temporary seems not to be a word understood by the court.
03:40If President Biden could give protective status temporarily, how, in fact, could it not be
03:47the prerogative of the next president to undo that status?
03:52Nowhere in that protective status was there an act of Congress or a recognition that temporary
03:57equals permanent.
03:59This is but the latest outrage coming from lower, or at least I might say the lowest
04:05courts.
04:06I have said from the start that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle should support
04:11this legislation.
04:13After all, it was the Biden administration who opposed these universal injunctions and
04:19said they were illegitimate.
04:21In fact, legislation in the last Congress authored by a Democrat is substantially similar
04:27to the one that we offer today and would have the same effect.
04:32To quote the previous administration's Solicitor General, literally the woman who spoke on
04:38behalf of the administration before the court, she said, the government must prevail in every
04:45suit to keep its policy in force, but plaintiffs can derail a federal program nationwide with
04:52just one lower court victory, end quote.
04:57Those words by Elizabeth Prolongar, President Biden's own Solicitor General, were from October
05:042024.
05:05In other words, after almost the entire four years of the Biden administration, they still
05:11believed and believe to the end that this was wrong.
05:15And yet we will probably hear today no support on the other side of the aisle.
05:20In fact, this is not new, but it is not old.
05:26For 180 years of our nation, there were no such injunctions.
05:32Only beginning in 1963 did district courts begin to, in relatively small amounts, believe
05:39that they could do these without multiple plaintiffs from multiple circuits.
05:46From 2001 to 2023, the number grew to 96, but an incredible 64 of those occurred during
05:55only four years, the four years of President Trump, meaning that more than half of all
06:03injunctions in this millennium, this century, were against President Trump in his first
06:10four years.
06:12They used to seem like a lot, but during President Trump's first nine weeks in office this year,
06:18he has already faced more nationwide injunctions than President Joe Biden did in his entire
06:24four years.
06:26The federal judiciary isn't interpreting the law.
06:30It is impeding the presidency.
06:33It is, in fact, not co-equal, but holding itself to be superior.
06:39Since Marbury, Madison, there's no question at all that the third branch says it's the
06:46last word.
06:48And we have accepted that for over 200 years.
06:52But that acceptance is for the Supreme Court making a final decision, not one of over 700
07:00district and appellate judges.
07:02The reality is every judge is considering himself not to be an associate justice, not
07:09to even be the chief justice, but in fact to be a combination of the justice and the
07:14president of the United States.
07:16This demands that we make a change and make it quickly.
07:22When a judge believes that he can order a full plane of criminal aliens back to U.S.
07:28soil, essentially saying that 200 years of a statute is to be overturned by his quick
07:37order without knowing even who was on the airplane.
07:42And finally, demanding that President Trump spend $2 billion in a single weekend, and
07:47I repeat, a weekend, and not tolerating any delay because that money was money that that
07:55judge believed should be spent, even if it was reckless and illegal.
08:01The last one might be understandable because a judge might have misunderstood and thought
08:08that President Biden was still in the White House or that that $2 billion, like the $188
08:14billion that President Biden tried to forgive in student loans, and then, when thwarted
08:19by the United States Supreme Court, found a workaround that he believed was legitimate
08:25and gave away another $8 billion in loan forgiveness.
08:29No question at all, we had a rogue in the White House for four years.
08:34Many today will talk about the current occupant of the White House.
08:37But in fact, most of the rulings that are being overturned are simply undoing rogue
08:45activities of the previous administration.
08:48The No Rogues Ruling Act does not eliminate the ability of judges to make decisions.
08:54In fact, every decision made by a judge on behalf of a plaintiff would still go forward,
09:02but it would go forward only as to the plaintiff in front of him and not a nation as a whole
09:07determined by one judge, neither elected nor appointed to a position of sufficient power
09:14to speak on behalf of the entire nation.
09:17And with that, I would recognize the rank.