Obama Judges Attack DHS For Noticing Their Colleagues’ Activism

As leftists’ judicial coup against President Trump continues, a pair of Obama-appointed judges appeared on a rabid anti-Trump podcast to attack the administration for highlighting their colleagues’ activism on the bench.

In their Friday appearance on the Legal AF podcast, District Judges Esther Salas and Beth Bloom took aim at a recent X thread by Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival. Titled “Worst of the Worst, District Judge Edition,” the social media posts document several Democrat-appointed judges’ recent activism in immigration-related cases involving the Trump administration.

Among those highlighted are cases involving apparent judicial sidestepping of the Supreme Court’s Mullin v. Doe ruling on Temporary Protected Status for foreign nationals and the government’s efforts to deport Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

[READ:[READ:Rogue Judges Are Helping Temporary Migrants Sidestep Key SCOTUS Ruling]

Salas, whose son was killed several years ago by a “disgruntled attorney,” accused Percival of “mischaracterizing” the judges’ rulings and claimed that the posts amounted to “intimidating any future judge by saying, ‘You wanna go on the Worst of the Worst list next week, judge? You wanna do that, or fall in line?” She further characterized the tweets as “anti-democratic.”

Bloom similarly called Percival’s posts an “intimidation tactic” and said they represent “unjustified attacks that are designed for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to bring others to do harm.”

At no point in his posts did Percival threaten or call for threats against the judges. He named the judges, summarized how they’re ruling in the cases before them, and described how those decisions are at odds with the administration’s policy agenda.

The Legal AF episode also featured remarks from Speak Up for Justice founder and Los Angeles trial attorney Paul Kiesel. The supposedly “nonpartisan” group’s founder has “previously donated to the campaigns of Democratic Party-connected campaigns and organizations,” according to the Capital Research Center.

It’s quite baffling to watch two supposedly neutral judges equate mere criticisms of their rogue colleagues’ work to an intimidation and call-to-violence campaign. Even more absurd, however, is their willingness to appear on a notoriously anti-Trump podcast to do it.

A trip to the Legal AF podcast’s YouTube page reveals a program littered with antagonism toward the president and his administration. The channel has published similar click-bait content about the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Legal AF’s left-wing bias makes sense when considering that it’s a product of the MeidasTouch Network (MTN), a self-professed “independent” and “pro-democracy” “news” outlet that boasts similar animosity toward the president and Republicans.

MTN was founded by the same leftist brothers who launched the MeidasTouch PAC, which worked to Democrats’ advantage during the 2020 election. Leftist billionaire George Soros’ Soros Fund Management led an investment effort that poured funds into MTN this year. The outlet reportedly did not disclose the terms of the deal but said in a statement that “it will use the money from Soros and additional unnamed investors to add more digital creators and journalists to its growing, 24-hour online news operation,” as described by Bloomberg.

The investment is seemingly on par with Soros’ bid to expand his financial influence in American media markets, as The Federalist’s Mark Hemingway previously reported.

Friday’s interview comes following years of leftist threats against the Supreme Court’s conservative justices for ruling in ways Democrats find unfavorable.

In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ominously warned Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh that they’d “pay the price” if they ruled against the left’s preferred abortion precedent. Things only got worse from there, with the 2022 leak of the draft Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade prompting a wave of death threats against the conservative justices.

This included left-wing anarchists showing up at the homes of these justices with the apparent attempt to intimidate them into changing their votes. The Biden administration enabled such actions by declining to prosecute the alleged crimes and encouraging activists to continue the demonstrations.

The fallout from the opinion’s leak culminated in the attempted assassination of Kavanaugh at his home, where he lived with his family. The would-be killer has since received a light sentence from a Biden-appointed judge.

[ExplosiveReport:[ExplosiveReport:As Dobbs Majority Faced Death Threats, Liberal Justices Slow-Walked Release]

Other notable incidents throughout the past year include a then-Michigan Democrat Senate candidate fantasizing about hurling beers at Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Clarence Thomas delivering a speech virtually instead of in-person due to “security threats,” and an attempted swatting incident at Barrett’s residence.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood