Donald Trump and the Courts

In his 2024 year‑end letter, Chief Justice John Roberts invoked Calvin Coolidge’s phrase that the Constitution remains “firm and unshaken” — “True then; true now” — and warned that judicial independence faces four specific threats: violence, intimidation, disinformation and threats to defy lawful judgments, using historical examples from Thomas Paine to an early 19th‑century case. The letter, coming after Roberts’ rare March 2025 rebuke of President Trump’s call to impeach a judge and amid partisan clashes over lower‑court rulings (and a conservative Court that granted many emergency wins for the administration), also arrives before major 2026 cases on issues such as birthright citizenship and unilateral tariffs.