A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump slammed the president in the same ruling in which he dismissed a Department of Justice lawsuit that opposed the pausing of some deportations from Maryland.
District Judge Thomas T. Cullen, whom Trump appointed in 2020, wrote Tuesday that the Trump administration’s concerted “smear” campaign against him and the rest of the judicial branch is “unprecedented and unfortunate.”
“Over the past several months, principal officers of the Executive (and their spokespersons) have described federal district judges across the country as ‘left-wing,’ ‘liberal,’ ‘activists,’ ‘radical,’ ‘politically minded,’ ‘rogue,’ ‘unhinged,’ ‘outrageous, overzealous, [and] unconstitutional,’ ‘[c]rooked,’ and worse,” he said.
Cullen continued, “Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate.”
Cullen’s criticism was a footnote in a motion to dismiss a DOJ suit that targeted the entirety of Maryland’s federal branch, which had stopped the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removals.
Chief Maryland District Judge George L. Russell III issued the pause to ensure that migrants facing removal can adequately plead their case to a judge and seek legal counsel, which is something the Trump administration has bypassed in MAGA 2.0.
The DOJ alleged in its suit that Maryland’s federal branch usurped the president’s power to enforce immigration laws—a power it argued is protected by a Supreme Court ruling.
Maryland has been central to the Trump administration’s battle with the judiciary. It is where the White House unleashed nasty insults on federal judges regarding the state’s wrongly deported dad, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It is also where a nationwide injunction was put in place to block Trump’s executive order to deny birthright citizenship to children born to undocumented parents.
Cullen serves in the Western District of Virginia but was tapped to oversee the lawsuit brought forward by the DOJ because all 15 of Maryland’s federal judges were named as defendants.
Cullen, a Richmond native, is a former track star at Furman University in South Carolina and is a graduate of William & Mary Law School. His father, Richard Cullen, is a counselor to Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
