US judiciary launches task force on security, independence after Trump criticism

March 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. federal judiciary on Wednesday launched a task force focused on ensuring the continued security and independence of the courts as Republican President Donald Trump and his allies ramp up their criticism of judges who block his agenda.
The Judicial Security and Independence Task Force's launch was detailed in a memo that was reviewed by Reuters that was issued following calls by Republican lawmakers to limit the reach of judges' rulings, reduce the judiciary's funding or impeach judges who have ruled against Trump's administration.
Judge Robert Conrad, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, did not mention Trump in the memo sent to judges and court officials nationally.
He said the task force would be chaired by Baltimore-based U.S. District Judge James Bredar and would "identify, analyze, and propose responses to ensure the continued security and independence of courts and judges."
"Through its efforts, it is hoped that the security of individual judges will be enhanced and that judicial independence will be assured," Conrad wrote.
Bredar, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, is himself among the numerous judges hearing the 130-plus lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's actions.
Earlier this month in a lawsuit brought by 19 states under Democratic leadership and Washington, D.C., Bredar ordered the administration to reinstate 25,000 workers at 18 agencies who lost their jobs during Trump's purge of the federal workforce.
During a Wednesday hearing, Bredar said he could narrow his ruling, citing a "great reluctance to issue a national injunction."
Bredar did not respond to a request for comment. The Administrative Office declined to comment.
The task force's members include U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan, who chairs the judiciary's security committee, and U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington.
Bates, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush, is among six judges who have issued rulings against the administration. The judges are now facing impeachment resolutions filed by Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Trump himself last week called for impeaching one of them, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, who blocked him from using wartime powers to deport Venezuelan migrants.
That prompted a rare rebuke from Chief U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who said in a statement "impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision," which can be appealed.
The events have helped fuel concerns about the security of judges.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday warned that Congress' power over the judiciary covered its funding and included the authority to eliminate entire district courts.
The Republican-led House is expected to soon take up a bill that recently advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee that would prevent district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions blocking policies.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Scottish Sun

29 minutes ago

• Scottish Sun

Putin will exploit Middle East chaos to hit Europe with never-seen-before attack, Ukraine warns as tyrant meets Iranians

Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) VLADIMIR Putin could be plotting to exploit the crisis in the Middle East to launch an attack on Europe, a Ukrainian government insider has warned. The alarm was raised as today Putin became the first world leader to meet the Iranians after US President Donald Trump launched a wave of strikes on the Ayatollah's nuclear sites. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 7 Vladimir Putin is feared to be plotting an attack on Europe Credit: Getty 7 Putin met today with the Iranians Credit: Reuters 7 An explosion of a drone lights up the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv Credit: Reuters 7 Planes are left burning on a runway during operation Spiderweb, which Putin could take inspiration from Russia has warned Trump has opened up a "Pandora's Box" with his B-2 bomber blitz over the weekend - which Vlad himself slammed as "unprovoked aggression", despite his own illegal war in Ukraine. However, a senior Ukrainian insider warned Putin will be rubbing his hands with glee as he plans to exploit the crisis while the West's eyes are turned to the Middle East. The cunning tyrant may even attempt to mimic Ukraine's elaborate Spiderweb operation that blitzed strategic targets inside Russia. A Ukrainian source told The Sun: "The West should be prepared that the Spiderweb operation may be reconfigured and deployed by Russia as a hybrid attack on any Nato Eastern flank nation. "That would be the major Article 5 test that the Alliance has not experienced yet." Humiliated Putin was left reeling after Ukraine's spectacular raid that - after 18 months of planning - inflicted billions of pounds worth of damage, leaving his bomber fleet in tatters. Daring agents smuggled drones and explosives deep inside the sprawling country before unleashing a coordinated assault on June 1. More than 100 drones were hidden in trucks across Russia before being deployed to five air bases - thousands of kilometres from the Ukrainian border. At least 41 of Putin's prized aircraft were wrecked in the attack - including Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and Tu-160 bombers and A-50 spy planes. Delivering such a decisive blow has left Ukraine's enemy scrambling. Bodies pulled from under rubble after Vladimir Putin bombs Kyiv killing 28 as EU chief says 'fight or learn Russian' But a Ukrainian government insider has warned it would also have left Putin's cronies eager to learn from the clandestine operation - and look to mimic it. The source said it could spell disaster if Vlad uses it as a blueprint to launch an attack on a European country. They told The Sun: "We have seen how quickly Russia managed to adapt and learn from Ukraine. "It's not only Nato states that are learning lessons from Ukraine, it's the adversaries too. "There was a time when Russia was two months behind Ukraine in its drone technology, now it is ahead with fibreoptic drones. "Ukraine is catching up and trying to develop techniques to best tackle those. "We have already seen Russian espionage and sabotage acts in Europe. "We can now be almost 100 per cent sure that they have taken on the Spiderweb as an example of something they can mimic in, for example, one of the Baltic states. "That's where the attribution of the operation will be very hard to achieve, but the consequences could be quite significant both for the country/countries in question and for the unity of Nato." The insider believes conniving Putin could sign off an assault while world leaders grapple with the spiralling conflict in the Middle East. With the Trump administration turning its sights to Israel and Iran, and security challenges in China, Europe has largely been left to fend for itself. After more than a week of Israel and Iran trading blows, Trump unleashed bombs on three nuclear sites in Iran - with Tehran threatening to retaliate. 7 Combat work by an M109 A3 gun crew on June 17, 2025 near Kostiantynvka, Ukraine Credit: Getty 7 It comes as the EU's top diplomat warned Moscow has a plan for long-term aggression against Europe. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas last week said Putin's determination to throw huge sums of money at his military suggests he is scheming to use his armed forces elsewhere. She pointed to the fact Russia is spending more on defence than the EU's 27 nations combined. Megalomanic Putin is set to invest more on defence than his nation's heath care, education and social policy combined, Kallas said. She warned lawmakers in Strasbourg, France: "This is a long-term plan for a long-term aggression. You don't spend that much on military if you do not plan to use it. "Europe is under attack and our continent sits in a world becoming more dangerous." Both Kallas and the Ukrainian source noted a series of acts of sabotage and cyberattacks - including Russian airspace violations and attacks on energy grids, pipelines and undersea cables. The insider added: "Russia never misses out on devious and cunning techniques. Especially with the upcoming Nato summit. 'UK must bolster defence or pay will blood of its people', Penny Mordaunt warns by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital) BRITAIN will pay with the blood of its people if more money isn't spent to bolster the UK's defence, Penny Mordaunt has warned. The ex-defence secretary has urged the government to "wake up" and fund the UK's security properly before it's too late. Former Navy reservist Mordaunt argued that Britain is "emboldening our enemies" if we fail to invest in other forms of deterrence. She warned the consequences with be "incalculably grave" if the government does not open up the treasury purse. Ms Mordaunt told The Sun: "I'm confident that if you prepare for war, you invest in it, you train for it, then conflicts don't start. "Because your foes know it is not worth them doing that. They're going to lose. "The consequences of retaliation against them are too great." READ MORE HERE "During last year's summit, China was conducting military exercises in Belarus, sending a clear signal. "Russia may be distraught with the fact that one of its strongest allies in this war against Ukraine is getting bombarded, but at the same time, they may well use the opportunity of Europe being distracted and the US fully withdrawn to conduct a hybrid attack on Europe." Acts of sabotage have previously been pegged at attempts to undermine Europe's support of Ukraine by military officials and experts. But there are fears Russia could test Nato's Article 5 security guarantee that pledges an attack on any of the allies would be met with a collective response. And with no sign of a peace deal being thrashed out between Moscow and Kyiv despite international pleas after more than three years of war, an assault on the EU appears to loom closer. Germany's foreign intelligence service (BND) Bruno Kahl last week warned against underestimating Russia's threat to the West. He told the Table Today podcast: "We are very certain, and we have intelligence evidence for this, that Ukraine is just a step on the path to the West. "They want to catapult Nato back to the state it was in at the end of the 1990s. They want to kick America out of Europe, and they'll use any means to achieve that." It comes as Nato heads of state are set to meet at a crunch two-day summit this week in The Hague - with setting a new target for allied defence spending the primary issue up for discussion. Allied nations are expected to agree a new defence investment pledge and pour billions of dollars into elevating security-related spending.

Leader Live

29 minutes ago

• Leader Live

Russian attacks on Ukraine kill at least 10 people, most of them in Kyiv

Russia fired 352 drones and decoys overnight, as well as 11 ballistic missiles and five cruise missiles, Ukraine's air force said. Air defences intercepted or jammed 339 drones and 15 missiles before they could reach their targets, a statement said. The strikes came nearly a week after a Russian attack killed 28 people in Kyiv, 23 of them in a residential building that collapsed after a direct missile hit. Russian forces for several months have been trying to drive deeper into Ukraine as part of a summer push along the 620-mile front line, though the Institute for the Study of War said progress has failed to make significant gains. 'Russian forces are largely relying on poorly trained infantry to make gains in the face of Ukraine's drone-based defence,' the Washington-based think tank said late Sunday. Russia also has pounded civilian areas with long-range strikes in an apparent attempt to weaken Ukrainian morale. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said preliminary data indicated that Russian forces used North Korean missiles in the Kyiv strike. He called Russia, North Korea and Iran, which has provided drones to Russia, a 'coalition of murderers'. Mr Zelensky said Ukraine's defence and new ways to pressure Russia will be the two main topics in his visit to the United Kingdom on Monday. Mr Zelensky is set to meet with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer ahead of this week's Nato summit in The Hague. French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the latest strikes demonstrated Russia's 'unlimited cruelty' by deliberately aiming at civilian targets, and promised more European sanctions on Moscow. Drones and missiles hit residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure in numerous districts across Kyiv, emergency services said. The most severe damage was in Shevchenkivskyi district, where a section of a five-story apartment building collapsed. Six people were killed in the district, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Ten others, including a pregnant woman, were rescued from a nearby high-rise that also sustained heavy damage. Dozens of vehicles were burned or mangled by flying debris. The Russian attack also damaged the entrance to the Sviatoshyn subway station in Kyiv, slightly injuring two people, said Timur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv's military administration. He said more than 30 people were injured across the city. Underground subway stations have served as shelters for those seeking protection from aerial attacks. During almost nightly strikes, stations across Kyiv are often filled with people waiting out the danger. Elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian short-range drone attack killed two people and wounded 10 more in the Chernihiv region late on Sunday, authorities said. Three children were among the wounded, according to the regional administration head, Viacheslav Chaus. Another person was killed and eight wounded overnight in the city of Bila Tserkva, around 53 miles south west of the capital. Meanwhile, Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 23 Ukrainian drones overnight into Monday.

Daily Mirror

30 minutes ago

• Daily Mirror

'Trump let Iran make nukes he's mad about - he's at war for a Nobel Peace Prize'

If there is one disease which lies behind the constant spasms of horror with which our days our currently blighted, it is the human race's inability to remember what happened five minutes ago. Once upon a time, journalists would go to the pub, and then bed. Sometimes they'd go to bed with each other, because they'd been to the pub. But they'd wake up in the morning and go "blimey, an earthquake in Japan. I had better find a good story of my own about this". And they would have to go deeper into a story and its origins. Today they don't drink, barely know their colleagues, and wake up to emails from a 24-rolling news ecosystem that demands constant feeding. Journalists think "blimey, everyone else is ahead of me" and scramble to catch up. No-one has time to think, which is why no-one has told you that Donald Trump just bombed Iran for making nuclear weapons that Donald Trump let them make. I wish I was making this stuff up, but no-one's got time for that. It's imperative people start remembering how we got to the cliff edge, because we did it by skipping about blindfold and if we don't stop soon we're going to go right over. America gave Iran nuclear technology in 1957. The aim was 'atoms for peace', to create wealth, and allies in the Middle East. After years of the world's greatest democracy propping up a cruel monarchy, the shah fell, the mullahs arose, and Iran was in less-friendly hands. The 1980s was taken up with a war against Iraq, but in the 1990s two Gulf Wars and continued US tinkering led the mullahs to the not-entirely-mad opinion that a nuclear weapon was the best way of keeping the Great Satan at bay. Israel, quite reasonably, was less than chuffed. And as technology sped up it became imperative to find ways of stopping Iran getting a weapon that apocalyptic fundamentalists would see very little reason not to detonate, slap-bang in the middle of a resource-rich, conflict-heavy trade route. And so in 2015, six countries signed a deal with Iran. In return for checks that it wasn't building The Bomb, everyone was open for business. And for three years the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action worked. Germany, China, Russia, France, the UK, China and the US lifted economic sanctions, and every 90 days would ratify everything was non-nuclear and tickety-boo. But such a vague agreement could not withstand the arrival of Donald Trump, whose tiny hands happily dismantled everything that made Barack Obama look good. In 2018 when Benjamin Netanyahu - yes it really is all the same people - gave a speech claiming his spy agency Mossad had stolen 100,000 documents showing Iran had lied and was enriching uranium, Trump saw a 30-second clip and decided it must be true. It might have been. The other nations in the deal didn't think so. But rather than renegotiate, send in inspectors, react as any sane human might, Trump just went "nah", and pulled out of the deal. The other countries tried to keep it going. The International Atomic Energy Authority said there was no enrichment. But the US whacked the regime with sanctions, and Iran said it too would pull out unless they were lifted. They were not. In 2020 the IAEA said Iran had tripled its uranium stockpile, a year later it blocked access to inspectors, and by 2023 it had weapons-grade material. Over the same period, Iran's population suffered. A third were ground into poverty. The economic woes weakened the regime just enough to make it lash out. Iran was behind terror attacks worldwide, former Republican Guards were linked to planned assassinations of ex-Trump officials, and it faced internal protests too. Then Iran funded the October 7 massacre by Hamas. Cue Netanyahu, who was leading a rickety coalition and facing jail the moment it fell, cue the war in Gaza, cue pro-Palestine protests, and cue a lot of blaming Iran. This isn't hard to figure out or remember. It's just that the constant churn of new things to hold our attention never scrolls back to the start of the liveblog, or delves into the third page of search results. Iran is definitely run by a bunch of rotten eggs who could well have been pulling the radioactive wool over the world's eyes in return for a financial boost to stabilise their rule. But the best way of fixing that wasn't walking away from the only half-arsed deal anyone had. It was making a better deal, and if Trump had actually written his own biography rather than paying someone else to make him look good, he might have known how to do it. Trump's withdrawal was supported by Israel and Saudi Arabia, with 63% of US voters, most of the planet and his own advisers screaming at him not to. It was "a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made", he insisted. "It didn't bring peace and it never will." And so he destabilised and raised the oil price with sanctions, screwed regional trade which meant the price of wheat rose and people starved across several countries, and gave fresh targets to jihadis. Back in office for a second time, Trump wants a legacy and more than anything he wants the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama got, largely for diplomatic efforts with the Muslim world. Trump pledged to end the war in Ukraine "on day one" and it only got worse; he suggested building a golden beachside golf club in Gaza, and got laughed at. So his eye turned to Ayatollah Khameini, and the country which the US has done so much to make worse, for so long. Anyone with an ounce of realism in their body might wonder at the convenience with which the B-2 bombers and their bunker-busting payload were able to fly in unmolested, after the Israelis had suddenly switched attention from Gaza to take out the Iranian air defences a week earlier. It does seem odd that the imminent threat Netanyahu had predicted in 2018 bloomed 7 years later, 6 months after Trump returned to office and only after his other draft entries for the peace prize had evaporated. We might also ponder why the US president with the worst personal polls in history at this point in his leadership might be in want of some surgical strikes to appease his Muslim-hating base, and whether it would do him any harm if there were a couple of small terror attacks on US bases that would give an excuse to bomb the mullahs to the table. And having thought this far, we could ask ourselves how close to the edge of nuclear catastrophe Trump will allow the world to careen before he picks up the phone to "make a deal" which will be the bigliest, most beautiful peace deal of all time. And whether it will be worse than the one we used to have, before he ripped it to shreds out of petulance and exploited the disastrous consequences for the sake of vanity. With Iran alone, Trump has cost the world trillions. Now he is about to march an entire planet to the gates of hell, just so he can look good for marching everyone back again. And this plan works if he is a diplomatic genius able to unpick decades of crapola, and capable of remembering why and how it happened in the first place. But when all he watches is 24-hour rolling news, with constant updates about new stuff that isn't new at all, the best we can hope for is that the Nobel Committee gives him the prize now, just to make him stop.