Le président Donald Trump a subi une série de défaites judiciaires sur des sujets allant de ses droits de douane et de ses tentatives de restreindre le vote par correspondance à ses efforts pour faire annuler un verdict civil le déclarant responsable d’abus sexuels contre la journaliste E. Jean Carroll. Fait notable, plusieurs de ces décisions ont été rendues par des tribunaux dominés par des juges qu’il avait lui-même nommés.

Selon des commentateurs conservateurs de The Bulwark, l’explication est simple : Trump et ses conseillers ne cessent de mal gérer des principes fondamentaux du droit américain.

S’exprimant jeudi, Ben Parker, de The Bulwark, a cité comme exemple révélateur l’approche de l’administration concernant les citations à comparaître visant la presse.

"The government has always had the legal authority to subpoena journalists when there's classified national security information that gets leaked," Parker said. "And traditionally, they don't. There are a few reasons for this. One of them is, it's got some First Amendment implications. The other one is the government would, honestly, most of the time, rather have a good relationship with the press than constantly be hounding them with subpoenas and maybe criminal investigations and stuff. And so usually it's the people who are leaking the information, rather than the journalists, who are at the end of the criminal investigation process."

Parker a relevé que l’administration Trump avait adopté une posture inhabituellement agressive. "The Trump administration decided, 'Nope, we're gonna subpoena not only these journalists, but also apparently their family members.' And so the court said, like, 'Hey, why don't you slow down, take a beat, and try saying please first?' It's not illegal for them to bring these subpoenas. They could try again after they go through some other process, but it is like, 'Hey, guys, slow your roll here a little bit.'"

Sam Stein, de The Bulwark, a ajouté que l’administration était "supposed to exhaust other processes to try to investigate the leak of that information before going to the subpoena. They did not." Parker a observé que l’administration aurait pu atteindre davantage de ses objectifs politiques si elle avait simplement procédé de façon plus méthodique.

Les deux commentateurs ont ensuite cité comme autre exemple la tentative avortée de l’administration d’obtenir des informations sur des étudiants juifs de l’Université de Pennsylvanie.

"The other one was — again, another thing the administration was forced, after a long legal battle, to quietly retract," Parker told Stein. "You may remember this from the deluge of 2025 Trump administration craziness. They had asked the University of Pennsylvania for a list of all of its Jews, basically. They said — 'I'm not gonna do the voice. I'm not gonna do a German accent, I promise' — they said, 'We're investigating antisemitism. Would you please give us a list of all of your Jewish faculty in the Jewish studies program, all of your Jewish cultural, religious, whatever organizations, and all of the people who belong to those organizations? Please give the government a list of your Jews.' And the school, to its credit, said, 'No.'"

Parker a poursuivi : "After a long fight, the administration has said, 'Okay, we are no longer requesting a list of your Jews. Thank you very much.'"

Stein a estimé que cette tendance constituait "a remarkable string of losses." Ces défaites mettent en évidence une dynamique qui a surpris certains partisans de Trump : les juges nommés pendant son premier mandat, dont beaucoup avaient été sélectionnés avec l’aide du processus d’évaluation de la Federalist Society, ne se sont pas montrés systématiquement déférents envers les positions de son administration. Parker a ajouté que l’administration aurait pu anticiper ces revers si elle avait mieux compris la manière dont les juristes conservateurs — y compris ceux nommés par Trump — abordent le droit.

"A lot of these Trump-appointed judges from his first term are the ones smacking down what he's doing now, because they're sort of pre-Trump ... Federalist Society types," Parker explained. "And they're saying, 'No, you can't just take a state's voter rolls. What the hell are you talking about?'"