{"id":18475,"date":"2025-10-19T17:10:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T17:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=18475"},"modified":"2025-10-19T17:10:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T17:10:24","slug":"bolton-case-assigned-to-judge-who-has-history-with-trump-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=18475","title":{"rendered":"Bolton Case Assigned To Judge Who Has History With Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
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U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, appointed by former President Barack Obama and based in Greenbelt, Md., has again emerged as a key figure in the ongoing tension between the executive and judicial branches, a dispute that has only deepened since Donald Trump\u2019s rise to national politics.<\/p>\n

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Chuang gained national attention in 2017 when he issued a nationwide injunction blocking the Trump administration\u2019s second travel ban, which sought to limit entry from six majority-Muslim countries.<\/p>\n

In his ruling, Chuang said the government\u2019s action could not be separated from Trump\u2019s previous campaign statements, writing that a \u201creasonable observer\u201d could view the order as driven by anti-Muslim sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply because a decisionmaker made the statements during a campaign does not wipe them from the \u2018reasonable memory\u2019 of a \u2018reasonable observer,\u2019\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

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The interpretation that linked campaign statements to official actions was criticized by conservatives as extreme judicial activism.<\/p>\n

The ruling set the stage for a series of legal challenges that would confront the Trump administration over the following four years. Chuang\u2019s influence extended beyond immigration policy, as he later oversaw cases involving the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other executive branch initiatives.<\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s plan to restructure the agency\u2014intended to streamline operations and consolidate oversight of U.S. foreign aid\u2014faced a setback when Judge Chuang temporarily blocked its implementation pending judicial review. Critics characterized the decision as another instance of federal judges impeding actions taken by the elected executive branch.<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s got the Bolton case. The former national security adviser to Trump during his first term is facing 18 felony charges stemming from his alleged mishandling and improper transmission of top secret materials.<\/p>\n

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The case, scheduled for a key hearing on November 21, has attracted significant media attention, due in part to Bolton\u2019s high-profile break with Trump and Chuang\u2019s record of rulings that have limited executive authority.<\/p>\n

Bolton\u00a0said Thursday<\/a>\u00a0that the grand jury indictment against him is evidence that he is being targeted by a politicized and weaponized Justice Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those [Trump] deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts,\u201d Bolton said in a statement.<\/p>\n

In 2020, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against Bolton over his memoir, \u201cThe Room Where It Happened,\u201d alleging he violated his contract by publishing the book without completing a required pre-publication review for classified material.<\/p>\n

The department later opened a criminal investigation to determine whether Bolton had revealed classified information in the memoir.<\/p>\n

The Biden DOJ closed that investigation in 2021. \u201cThis is a complete vindication,\u201d\u00a0Bolton told\u00a0Axios<\/a>\u00a0at the time. \u201cThey\u2019re just giving up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The federal judge who oversaw the case allowed Bolton to move forward with publishing his book, but ruled that he \u201clikely published classified materials\u201d and \u201cexposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolton, in response to the grand jury indictment, also mentioned the Trump administration\u2019s previous attempts to block the publication of the book. He said the book was \u201creviewed and approved by the appropriate, experienced career clearance officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the indictment, a representative for Bolton informed the FBI in July 2021 that one of his personal accounts had allegedly been hacked by Iran. However, the representative did not indicate that the hackers had accessed classified information or that Bolton had shared any government secrets through the account.<\/p>\n

Bolton said the FBI was \u201cmade fully aware\u201d of the hack, noting that \u201cin four years of the prior administration, after these reviews, no charges were ever filed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese charges are not just about [Trump\u2019s] focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct,\u201d Bolton said. \u201cDissent and disagreement are foundational to America\u2019s constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0Getty Images This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, appointed by former President Barack Obama and based in Greenbelt, Md., has again … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18476,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18475\/revisions\/18476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}