Category: Soul Food

ABA Journal, DOJ files complaint against federal judge for alleged hostility against government lawyer

Her Excellency, Attorney General Bondi, would like the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to please, pretty please say some bad things about Judge Reyes. And what, you may ask, was the burr in the Attorney General’s saddle? 

A few days ago, Judge Reyes held a hearing in the case of Talbott v. Trump, challenging an executive order requiring the expulsion of transgender troops from the military, and specifically defaming all transgender people as dishonorable, untruthful, and undisciplined.

As an aside, I have to hand it to Orange Mussolini; if anyone knows how to recognize someone who’s dishonorable, untruthful, and undisciplined, that would be him. 

Anyway, during the hearing, the judge was really tough on the unnamed Justice Department attorney who had the misfortune of trying to defend Trump’s words and actions. The ABA Journal writes,

­­The Associated Press and Law 360 report that during the hearings, Reyes:

  • Raised her voice and demanded an answer from a government attorney about whether President Donald Trump’s executive order showed animus by calling “an entire category of people dishonest, dishonorable, undisciplined.”

  • Engaged in a rhetorical exercise regarding discrimination. Reyes declared that graduates of the University of Virginia School of Law would be barred from her courtroom because they are “liars and lack integrity.” She then told the government lawyer who was a University of Virginia School of Law grad “to sit down.” According to the ethics complaint, the directive “served no legitimate judicial purpose and transformed an attorney appearing before the court into an unwilling participant in the judge’s unnecessary demonstration.”

  • Asked the government lawyer what “Jesus would say to telling a group of people that they are so worthless, so worthless that we’re not going to allow them into homeless shelters? Do you think Jesus would be, ‘Sounds right to me’?” she asked. The complaint says the question “placed DOJ counsel in an untenable position of either appearing unresponsive or speculating about how an incoherent hypothetical aligns with Judge Reyes’ personal religious beliefs.”