In a highly unusual legal statement, a US federal judge berated his fellow judge with a succession of individual criticisms, and implied that wealthy financier George Soros was involved in an opinion invalidating Texas’s congressional districts.
Dissenting Opinion Takes Aim at Colleagues
The lengthy dissenting opinion from US district judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee, was published a day after two of his colleagues on a three-judge panel said the recently adopted congressional map Texas implemented earlier this year was likely unlawful because it marginalized non-white voters.
But a significant part of Smith’s dissent attacked US district judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump-nominated judge and the opinion’s author, accusing him of intentionally issuing an opinion before Smith had been able to write his dissent.
“In my nearly four decades on the federal bench, this is the most outrageous conduct by a judge that I have ever witnessed in a case in which I have been involved,” Smith wrote, continuing to provide a step-by-step of his exchanges with Brown as he drafted the majority opinion.
“If, however, there were a international honor for fiction, Judge Brown’s opinion would be a prime candidate.”
Focus Shifts to Billionaire Philanthropist and Public Officials
In a staggering turn, Smith directed remarks to George Soros, Soros’s son Alex and the California governor, Gavin Newsom, who were not participants in the case. The name Soros shows up 17 times in the opinion.
“The primary winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom. The evident losers are the citizens of Texas and the rule of law,” Smith commented.
Newsom effectively persuaded California voters to pass a statewide ballot referendum that will add as many as five Democratic-leaning congressional districts in that state. Newsom publicized the effort as Texas proceeded with its own new map to add five conservative-oriented districts.
Links to External Organizations Emphasized
Smith pointed out that a number of lawyers in the case are associated with organizations that get money from Open Society Foundations, a charitable group. In a footnote, he said: “I emphasize that all of them act, as agents of this court, with honesty and professionalism. Their ideological circumstance does not detract from the fact that they satisfy the best practices of the profession and help this court in the implementation of justice.”
He also charged an expert witness of being a “Soros operative|Soros agent|affiliate of Soros}”.
Partisan Backdrop and Responses
Trump has targeted Open Society Foundations, a primary contributor of progressive entities, and the DOJ is said to be considering options to examine it. The president has said George Soros ought to be in jail.
“It’s all political games, on either side of the political divide. George and Alex Soros have their hands all over this,” Smith stated.
The rebuke comes as judges across the country have faced unmatched threats and intimidation. Some have even begun to speak out in criticism more forcefully.
Legal Challenge Planned
The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has said he will challenge the panel’s ruling to the US highest court and ask the justices to intervene and halt the ruling.
The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, posted a tweet in response to the dissent, expressing her support for it: “Could not have expressed it better myself.”
Specialist Opinion on Strategy
While many right-leaning jurists cheered Smith’s opinion on Wednesday, the strategy could have negative consequences in front of the US supreme court, Richard Hasen, an voting rights expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in a online article on Wednesday.
“Merely as a matter of planning, if Judge Smith’s target is the supreme court, I think he would have been considerably more persuasive if he had been restrained and directed greater emphasis on what he sees as the defects in the merits of the case, rather than to persistently make accusations on the other judges, experts, and lawyers in the case,” he wrote.
“Maybe what he says will find acceptance with some of the supreme court justices, but I anticipate some will be turned off by this tirade.”
