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District court judges nationwide have been increasingly issuing strong rulings challenging the legality of many of Donald Trump’s policies and executive power grabs, blocking key ones at least temporarily, and sparking angry responses from the president, former judges and prosecutors say.

Since the start of Trump’s second term, lower court federal judges have written sharply critical opinions about his legally dubious policies on immigration, tariffs, Department of Justice (DoJ) prosecutions of political foes and more.

The impact of the court rulings by these judges has been sizable, slowing or halting some of the president’s most extreme policies and prompting Trump and Maga allies to respond with vindictive attacks that have helped to fuel some threats against several judges.

Legal experts say the spate of adverse court rulings has created an often toxic courtroom climate for administration lawyers who have been upbraided sharply by judges for making false or tenuous representations in defense of Trump policies.

Former DoJ lawyers credit many district court judges for acting as crucial buffers against Trump’s power grabs and administration disdain for the rule of law.

“District court judges around the country, appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents alike, are serving as the strongest guardrail against the incursions on the rule of law,” ex-DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich said.

“In one year, DoJ lawyers have lost the presumptions of regularity, competence and reliability that it has taken decades to accumulate. The judges are calling out [the] DoJ for its lawless positions and hollow arguments in the strongest language I have ever seen.”

Bromwich’s analysis was underscored by a study from Just Security on 19 March that revealed more than 210 cases since the start of 2025 where courts have issued strong rulings against administration conduct in three critical areas where it found a “surge of cases”.

Just Security found that courts determined the administration was not in compliance with court orders in 34 instances; courts stated a distrust in government information and representations in 90 cases; and courts found arbitrary and capricious conduct in administrative action in 91 cases.

Among the federal judges who have been outspoken critics of key administration policies – and who were appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents – are Matthew Brann in Pennsylvania, William Young in Boston, and James Boasberg in Washington DC, who Trump has repeatedly attacked on social media.

With tough rulings proliferating against his priorities and policies, Trump has ratcheted up high decibel attacks on judges calling them at times “crooked” or “lunatic”. On 25 March, Trump went further in a talk to House Republicans by urging them to pass a crime bill that “cracks down on rogue judges”. Trump fumed in his talk against “rogue judges that are criminals. They are criminals, what they do to our country.”

The wave of adverse rulings have also spurred Trump’s administration to push back with emergency appeals to the supreme court where conservatives have a 6-3 majority. The high court has mostly backed administration appeals, but delivered a big blow when it ruled against Trump’s tariff policies in February, arguing that tariffs were a congressional, not a presidential power, incensing Trump.

“The decisions that these people make,” Trump said. “I got a decision on tariffs that’s going to cost our country – not me, I do it a different way – going to cost our country hundreds of billions, potentially, of refunds.”

A Reuters report in March found that a whopping 97% of the administration’s emergency filings with the supreme court argue that judges are impeding its presidential powers. In contrast, filings by the Joe Biden administration only made those arguments in 26% of its filings.

Some former judges with conservative pedigrees say the surge in adverse lower federal court rulings have served as important checks on the Trump administration’s attacks on the rule of law.

“The president’s and the attorney general’s contempt for the constitution, rule of law, and federal judiciary has predictably backfired on them,” former court of appeals judge J Michael Luttig said.

“The lower federal courts are the last line of defense of the constitution and rule of law in this president’s war on the rule of law. Honoring their oaths to the letter every day for the past 15 months, these federal courts have risen to this moment of America’s testing, holding unconstitutional or otherwise violative of the law of the United States essentially every signature initiative of Donald Trump’s presidency.”

Luttig’s analysis is supported by a look at several lower federal court rulings against Trump and DoJ priorities.

District court judge Young, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, issued a blistering 161-page ruling in September that called some of Trump’s deportation policies illegal moves to deport non-citizen activists at colleges in violation of their first amendment rights “under the cover of an unconstitutionally broad definition of antisemitism.”

Young wrote that Trump’s conduct violated his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States” and the actions of his administration represented a “full-throated assault on the first amendment”.

Similarly, US district judge Matthew Brann last month issued a scalding opinion that concluded Attorney General Pam Bondi – who was ousted by Trump on 2 April – illegally appointed an unusual “triumvirate” of attorneys at Trump’s whim to oversee a powerful New Jersey federal prosecuting office.

“Why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this district potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure? The president doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants,” wrote Brann, who Democratic president Barack Obama appointed.

His 130-page decision concluded with: “One year into this administration, it is plain that President Trump and his top aides have chafed at the limits on their power set forth by law and the constitution.”

Additionally, a 37-page ruling by Boasberg last month killed a grand jury subpoena for Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who Trump had been waging a public drive against to lower interest rates faster.

Boasberg’s withering opinion came in response to a justice department investigation into congressional testimony by Powell, which the judge suggested was fueled by public allegations from Trump that a costly renovation of Federal Reserve headquarters might involve corruption.

In his 13 March ruling, which Trump quickly attacked on social media, Boasberg wrote: “There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the president or to resign and make way for a Fed chair who will. On the other side of the scale, the government has offered no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the president.”

Two days later, Trump lashed out on Truth Social at Boasberg: “To preserve the integrity of the Judiciary, he should be removed from all cases pertaining to us, and suffer serious disciplinary action, as should numerous other Corrupt Judges that, unfortunately, our Country has had to endure! What Boasberg has done on the ‘Too Late’ Powell case, and many others, has little to do with the Law, and everything to do with Politics.”

Without mentioning Trump by name, Chief Justice John Roberts on 17 March in a talk at Rice University said that growing verbal attacks on judges are “dangerous, and have got to stop”. The timing of Roberts’ comments was notable: they came not only soon after Trump’s attacks on Boasberg, but within weeks of several vindictive comments that Trump leveled at some supreme court judges who voted in favor of its strongly worded ruling last month against Trump’s tariff policies.

Roberts’ warning also came after multiple reports on 60 Minutes, and elsewhere, that threats of violence against judges have risen in the last year.

Trump’s recent attacks on Boasberg were not his first. In March 2025, he ruled against Trump’s illegal deportation of 137 Venezuelan men under the Alien Enemies Act, which incensed Trump who on Truth Social called him a “radical Left Lunatic, a troublemaker and agitator” and urged his impeachment.

Boasberg was then targeted on X by multibillionaire Elon Musk and Trump influencer Laura Loomer, who shared photos of Boasberg’s daughter, while some of their Maga allies even reportedly called for the execution or arrest of Boasberg and the rest of his family.

Former judges are alarmed at Trump’s escalating war against judges. John Jones, an ex-federal judge in Pennsylvania who was appointed by George W Bush, and now is the president of Dickinson College, said he has “zero confidence that the rhetoric from the administration will be dialed back. But the consequences of Trump’s ‘war’ on judges and Trump’s attempts to prosecute his perceived enemies have been manifest. Government lawyers across the board have lost their credibility because of repeated failure to tell the truth.”

Jones, who belongs to the Article III Coalition, a group of about 60 retired federal judges who have asked the White House to curtail their incendiary rhetoric, warned on 60 Minutes: “This is such a toxic environment, where people are taking arms and can identify where a judge lives, and can strike out against a judge or a judge’s family … In very plain English, if we’re not careful we’re going to get a judge killed. It’s just that stark.”

Similarly, Ty Cobb, a former federal prosecutor who was special White House counsel for a year in the first Trump administration, sees widespread legal repercussions from the administration’s battles against judges.

“For the first time since 1826, the government no longer gets the benefit of the doubt about the honesty of their representations,” before the lower courts, Cobb said. “The longstanding ‘presumption of regularity’ has been forfeited because of the overwhelming number of lies which have increasingly infected administration claims.”

Looking ahead, Cobb noted: “Trump’s continuing attacks on the judiciary, over the clearly stated objection of the chief justice, is just fascism at work. He is purposely denigrating the branch of government that must apply the Constitution to his corruption and overreach in order to accumulate more power for himself.”