Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday lit into federal judges for what he called a dramatic uptick in “outrageous” decisions threatening to interfere with the separation of powers by exposing internal White House deliberations.
In a fiery speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, Sessions warned that “once we go down this road in American government, there is no turning back.” He vowed to take “these discovery fights to the Supreme Court in emergency postures. … We intend to fight this, and we intend to win.”
Sessions specifically singled out New York district court judge Jesse M. Furman, who ruled that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross could be questioned in an ongoing lawsuit concerning the legality of the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
Furman’s decision, Sessions said, contradicts longstanding statutory provisions that protect certain executive branch discussions from disclosure, in order to encourage free and open deliberations by executive branch officials. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including several liberal states, are arguing in part that the White House added the citizenship question for political reasons.
The judge wants “to hold a trial over the inner workings of a Cabinet secretary’s mind,” and inappropriately allow inquiry into the motivations for the Trump administration’s decisions, Sessions said. – READ MORE