Kate Shaw, a University of Pennsylvania law professor and an ex-Obama White House lawyer, schooled Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Tuesday over his claim on nationwide injunctions against President Donald Trump’s administration.
Hawley, in a testy moment during a Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing, turned to an Axios graph showing how federal district courts issued 64 injunctions against Trump in his first term, a figure that well exceeds the number of rulings that froze policies under both Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
“You don’t think it’s a little bit anomalous?” asked Hawley of the graph.
“A very plausible explanation, Senator, you have to consider is that he is engaged in much more lawless activity than other presidents, right? You must concede that is a possibility,” Shaw hit back.
There were at least 25 nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration from the start of his second term through late April, per a Congressional Research Service report.
That figure is just one short of the total of combined nationwide injunctions against both of Obama’s administrations and the Biden administration, according to Harvard Law Review data.
Their clash comes as the Trump administration continues to face challenges in the courts with executive orders ranging from its deportation efforts to tariffs.
Trump and his allies have proceeded to relentlessly attack judges and courts who have opposed the administration’s agenda in his first few months of office.
Hawley later claimed that judges appointed by Democratic presidents “love” imposing injunctions against the Trump administration.
While Harvard’s figures show that a majority of such rulings were issued by the opposing party’s appointees in Trump’s first term, Shaw noted that GOP-appointed judges did just that against the Biden administration.
Moments later, Hawley sarcastically declared there shouldn’t be nationwide injunctions with a Democrat in the Oval Office, but the decisions are “absolutely fine, warranted and called for” with a Republican in the White House.
“How can our system of law survive on those principles, professor?” Hawley asked.
“I think a system in which there are no constraints on the president is a very dangerous system,” Shaw replied.