On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Philip Gutierrez issued an order preventing President Trump from revoking DACA protections, and is ordering the administration to reinstate all those who have been dropped from the program.  This is more astounding judicial overreach in a year marred by such actions.  The initial DACA program was a memo, not legislation, not even a legitimate executive order or regulation.  Trump has every right as president to revoke it and enforce that revocation, but this judge has the gall to say he can't.

An earlier circuit court decision handed down in January, blocked Trump from ending DACA in the first place – an action he had initiated last year.  The Department of Justice issued an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to override this decision, but on Monday, the Supreme Court announced that it would not hear it.  While this is standard practice when an issue is being litigated in lower courts, the clear abuse of power exercised by these lower courts should compel the Supremes to consider this a special case.

We have been watching this outrageous judicial usurpation of power for a full year.  It is sheer lawlessness and has to stop.  All public officials swear an oath to protect and defend, not subvert, the Constitution.  What they are doing is a threat to the very legal foundations of our Republic.

There is only one punitive remedy that can be taken against such judges.  Congress can impeach them.  Unfortunately, Congress has impeached only 15 federal judges in its entire history, and only eight of those were actually removed.  A good example is the case of Alcee I. Hastings (another U.S. district court judge), who was impeached for accepting a $150,000 bribe to reduce sentences for two mobsters.  That is certainly a clear-cut case for impeachment, not to mention significant jail time, but so are these overtly partisan decisions made by judges specifically to thwart the irrefutable authority vested in the presidency.

This kind of legal subversion is actually much more egregious, because it threatens the entire legal structure of our country.  If these jurists can successfully usurp the authority of a democratically elected president, it essentially negates the election.  To the extent that this is allowed to stand, our nation is no longer a republic, but increasingly resembles a third-world dictatorship.

There is a precedent to convict for such behavior, but not much of one.  Supreme Court judge Samuel Chase was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1804 for actions described as "tending to prostitute the high judicial character with which he was invested, to the low purpose of an electioneering partizan" (sic).  Unfortunately, the Senate failed to convict, and his case is said to have insulated Supreme Court justices from similar action ever since.

The Supreme Court did hand President Trump a victory on the immigration front this week.  It will not affect the DACA controversy, but puts to rest some other legal challenges to Trump's arrest and deportation of criminal aliens.  Not surprisingly, this was a defeat for the 9th Circuit, where much of the court obstruction to Trump's immigration policies is originating.  The government can now hold criminal aliens indefinitely and can deny bail.

A lower court also ruled this week that the administration could waive environmental regulations to expedite construction of the border wall.  So the week was not a complete loss, but it remains frustrating that certain blatantly partisan jurists continue to abuse their power in obstructing the Trump administration's electoral mandate to reverse President Obama's most egregious unconstitutional actions.