Readers React: Blame Trump’s unlawful acts, not the courts, for ‘government by injunction’

To the editor: Joseph DiGenova wants you to believe that during the Trump administration, courts have handed out injunctions like candy at Halloween. But as a veteran Washington attorney, he knows that courts apply a rigorous test before providing preliminary relief in a lawsuit via an injunction.

This test requires a plaintiff to show that he is facing an irredeemable loss and has a solid case, that the temporary relief he seeks will not significantly harm the other side, and that the injunction is in the public interest.

DiGenova complains that courts have restrained the Trump administration with 26 injunctions. However, blame for the administration’s numerous losses in court lies with the fact that its policies simply are unlawful.

DiGenova advocates that Congress tinker with court rules on injunctions. In other words, he would abet President Trump’s ongoing attacks on the judiciary. Contrary to DiGenova’s hysterical claim, the current, well-settled rules for issuing an injunction pose no threat to the rule of law.

Chris Ford, Phoenix

The writer is a lawyer.

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To the editor: DiGenova is demonstrably wrong. U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tiger has not “unilaterally decided what our national border priorities are.” Congress has done so, in no uncertain terms.

Congress has stated that any person can apply for asylum who arrives in the United States, “whether or not at a designated port of arrival.” What Judge Tiger has ruled is that “whatever the scope of the president’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden.”

By definition, a judge applying the laws written by Congress is not acting “unilaterally.” We expect our federal judges to act when a president tries to ignore the law. That is what “checks and balances” is all about.

John Hamilton Scott, Sherman Oaks

The writer is a lawyer.

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To the editor: Why not identify DiGenova for what he is currently is instead of his former job as a U.S. attorney in the 1980s?

DiGenova has been called one of the president’s fiercest defenders. He was briefly part of Trump’s legal team, and he embraces deep-state conspiracy theories. He has been described as “playing the role of lawyer” for Trump on television.

Why not refer to him as someone who is known for promoting conspiracy theories about the Justice Department rather than as something he has not done for 30 years?

Andrew Medway, Burbank

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