A federal judge chastised the Trump administration in a ruling this weekend, repeatedly calling the government “unserious” as he blocked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attempt to limit medical treatment for transgender children.
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, a Biden appointee who makes a point to include his pronouns as part of his signature on case rulings, also blasted the Department of Justice’s lawyering, saying it took a “spaghetti-at-the-wall” approach to legal arguments.
Judge Kasubhai also raised the prospect of holding the administration in contempt, saying he feared his orders would be ignored otherwise.
“As noted at oral argument, the court has observed that in the area of administrative law, a consistent theme has emerged in which agencies under the current administration have adopted a ‘break it and see if they can get away with it’ approach,” the judge wrote.
At stake in the case is a Health and Human Services Department policy that threatens to cut off federal funding for medical services that provide puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments or surgical procedures to assist in a gender transition.
Judge Kasubhai accused the department of a “bald-faced lie” and “attempts to gaslight” the court by downplaying the importance of Mr. Kennedy’s declaration.
And he found that the policy not only violates procedural law in how it was issued, but that Mr. Kennedy went beyond his legal powers with his threats to withhold money.
“The defendants’ unserious approach to governance stumbles far below the necessary commitment to a constitutional democracy that requires the rule of law to be regarded, respected and honored as sacred,” the judge said.
The Justice Department argued Mr. Kennedy had a First Amendment right to ruminate on his thoughts on transgender treatment issues.
Judge Kasubhai expressed offense to that suggestion.
“Defendants cannot bully or gaslight this court into ignoring the many procedural and legal flaws of the Kennedy Declaration by invoking one of the most sacred principles of our constitutional democracy — the freedom of speech — when that principle comes nowhere close to being implicated,” he wrote.
Judge Kasubhai joins a long list of federal judges who have complained that the Trump administration is breaking legal norms and defying orders. The chief federal judge in Minnesota in January counted more than 90 orders he said the government had violated in that court alone.
Trump lawyers have challenged those numbers, but also argue that ideologically antagonistic judges are crossing lines in their rush to rule against President Trump.
A federal appeals court in Washington last week delivered a rebuke to a prominent Trump legal opponent, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, erasing his attempt to pursue criminal contempt of court against the president’s team.
