Judge James Robart of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington made headlines earlier this week after he blocked President Donald Trump’s travel ban on certain Muslim countries. But, this isn’t the first time that Robart caught the attention of the public due to his activist leanings.
In 2016, Robart made a controversial remark while presiding over a case regarding the alleged excessive use of force by Seattle Police. During the dramatic hearing the judge noted that according to FBI statistics, 41 percent of the deaths from police shootings involved black people, even though they only take up about 20 percent of the population in the cities where these incidents occurred.
After citing these statistics and ruling against the Seattle Police Department, Robart declared, “black lives matter,” according to Townhall.
Aside from this, Robart is known to offer his services for free to help refugees with their legal needs.
Although a person is of course entitled to his or her own opinions and political beliefs, Robart’s case is very different since he is a servant of the state and a U.S. federal judge. As someone who upholds the law, he should not allow his personal opinion, or better yet, his liberal mentality to influence his decisions that would affect the entire country.
But then, given his track record, it seems Robart is using his current position to advance his liberal interests, even if this means going against Trump, whose only intention with the travel ban was to ensure the safety of the public.
Also, Robart’s move to block the travel ban works well for leftists on a technical level since cases handled by the Western District of Washington are forward to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which has a reputation of being the most liberal court in the U.S.
Hopefully, the Department of Justice will do the right thing and uphold Trump’s executive order on the travel ban.
