CNN —In an annual report weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court criticized what he called “dangerous” rhetoric by some officials about disregarding decisions from federal courts, emphasizing the value of an independent judiciary.
Roberts wrote in the report, which was made public by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, that officials “from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings.” “These harmful recommendations, no matter how infrequent, must be categorically disregarded.”
The chief justice did not specify which officials he was referring to, and in recent years, both Democrats and Republicans have made references to disregarding court decisions.
Nevertheless, Roberts’ year-end remarks came just days before a president who has frequently denounced the federal judiciary as rigged takes office on January 20.
Trump’s policies, especially those related to immigration, may put the incoming president at odds with the Supreme Court, which he has contributed to by appointing three conservative justices during his first term.
“Every administration loses in the legal system, sometimes in cases that have significant consequences,” Roberts wrote.
However, he continued, “for the past several decades,” both parties have complied with court rulings and avoided the kind of constitutional conflicts that occurred during the civil rights era when certain southern states refused to comply with court orders to integrate.
Roberts specifically cited the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations’ choices to implement school desegregation orders.For example, in 1957, in response to officials’ attempts to overturn Supreme Court rulings declaring segregated schools unconstitutional, President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to integrate its schools.
“Public officials,” he added, who he did not identify, had “sadly” tried to intimidate judges by “implying political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations,” Roberts bemoaned. “Those attempts are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed,” he cautioned.
As in previous years, the chief justice refrained from directly addressing the issues and problems that are developing within the Supreme Court itself.
These issues include persistent ethical concerns, the weeks-long controversy this year surrounding contentious flags raised at Justice Samuel Alito’s homes, and declining public trust in the country’s highest court.
Vice President-elect JD Vance expressed skepticism about his commitment to Supreme Court rulings in a number of interviews prior to the election. Vance encouraged Trump to react to unfavorable court decisions “like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling,'” as previously reported by The New York Times in a 2021 podcast. Let him enforce it now.
The probably apocryphal quote was a reaction to a Native American decision that Jackson opposed in 1832.
Trump has frequently attacked federal courts, including the Supreme Court, for making unfavorable rulings. Earlier this week, in response to a federal appeals court decision in New York that upheld a jury’s verdict finding that the former president sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll, a Trump campaign spokesperson denounced the “political weaponization of our justice system.”
Democrats have also publicly considered refusing to uphold court rulings. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a representative from New York, came under fire last year when she implied on CNN that the Biden administration “ignores” a district court ruling that would have prevented the Food and Drug Administration from approving the abortion pill mifepristone.
In June, the Supreme Court halted that ruling and dismissed the case contesting the drug’s broader availability.
Roberts has frequently emphasized the value of an independent judiciary and raised concerns about threats of violence against judges in his year-end report. In a similar spirit, he emphasized two years ago that “a judicial system cannot and should not live in fear.”
Roberts also noted in this year’s report that attacks on the judiciary and other branches had been accelerated by “hostile foreign state actors.” According to him, “bots sometimes skew court rulings by fabricating or exaggerating stories to sow division in our democracy.”
The revelation comes at the conclusion of a year in which the conservative 6-3 majority granted former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution, and on a timeframe that allowed Trump to avoid a federal trial in two cases before the November election. This fall, the court will hear arguments about transgender care bans and a First Amendment challenge to a bipartisan TikTok ban.
“The role of the judicial branch,” Roberts stated, is “to say what the law is.”
Yet, he continued, “judicial independence is undermined unless the other branches are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees.”