Grassley Urges Chief Justice to Address Activist Judges’ Partisan Outbursts, Possible Ethics Violations

Floor Remarks by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
"Federal Judges' Criticism of the Supreme Court"
Wednesday, November 5, 2025

VIDEO

I come to the Senate floor today to express my concern about recent attacks on the legitimacy of the judicial branch of government.

A fair and neutral judiciary plays a very indispensable role in our constitutional structure. Judges wield enormous power, and their decisions determine the legal rights of the parties before them.

One especially potent power of the judiciary is the practice of judicial review. As we all know, the judiciary sometimes decides cases that impact the operation of laws passed by Congress or the actions of the Executive Branch.

We accept this judicial review, because neutral arbiters are necessary in a system based on the rule of law. But this system only works if everyone accepts that the arbiters are, in fact, neutral.

Litigants, the co-equal branches of government, and the American people must be confident that judges are merely saying what the law is, and not what they wish it to be.

Our judicial system also requires respect for appellate review.

The federal courts are hierarchical, and the rule of law depends on public confidence that lower courts will faithfully apply and respect the decisions of the higher courts.

It's no surprise that some people are not always happy with how the Courts exercise judicial power. Criticism is fair, and sometimes warranted, but too often it has strayed into outright attacks on the judiciary as an institution.

Today, however, I'm here to talk about attacks on the judiciary from a particularly concerning place - from within the judiciary itself.

It's one thing for the political branches or the public to criticize the Supreme Court; it's entirely different for federal judges themselves to undermine their own branch of government.

In two high profile instances in the last few months, numerous judges have anonymously - as you might expect - gone to the press to denigrate the Supreme Court.

This ought to be deeply concerning, not only to this Senator, but to the public at large.

On September 4, 2025, NBC News published a report alleging that 12 federal judges gave anonymous interviews, and 10 of them took that opportunity to criticize the Supreme Court.

One judge described the Supreme Court's conduct as "inexcusable," and another judge said that the Supreme Court "is effectively assisting the Trump administration in 'undermining the lower courts.'"

Then we have a big hit piece by the New York Times.

On October 11, 2025, that newspaper ran a story where they sought out judges specifically to criticize the Supreme Court.

The Times approached 400 of the almost 1,500 federal judges with questionnaires. The Times intentionally solicited judges in districts that litigants considered to be unfavorable to the current president.

Of the 400 judges approached, thank God only a small percentage took the offer.

I think this is an important point, [because] then we can draw the conclusion that most federal judges didn't take the bait of the New York Times, because it violated the ethics [rules] of the judiciary.

Only a small percentage did. But that's still a fabulous 65 judges responding to the Times questionnaire, and it happened that some responded with very harsh criticism. They gave the Times, then, the fodder they needed to spin the narrative of a judiciary in crisis.

The Times wrote, "Federal judges called the Supreme Court's emergency orders 'mystical,' 'overly blunt,' 'incredibly demoralizing and troubling' and 'a slap in the face to the district courts.'"

One judge compared their district's current relationship with the Supreme Court to "a war zone." Another said the courts were in the midst of, their words, a "judicial crisis."

I'm deeply concerned, and I hope the public at large is [as well], that these public attacks on the Court from sitting federal judges damage the public's faith and confidence in our judicial system.

When judges call the legitimacy of their own branch of government into question, they erode faith in the institution itself.

My colleague - the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary in the House of Representatives - shares these concerns. Together we sent a letter to Chief Justice Roberts.

We expressed our concern that the conduct of the judges, as reported, may violate the applicable ethical canons. We also asked whether the judicial branch would give guidance to federal judges or investigate this matter.

The document, called the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, is very clear that judges have an obligation to uphold public confidence in the judiciary.

For example, Canon 2 states: "[a] judge . . . should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary."

In 2024, Chief Judge Diaz of the Fourth Circuit applied the canons in resolving a judicial complaint against a judge for authoring an opinion piece lambasting a sitting Supreme Court Justice.

He concluded that the judge in question violated the canons and "diminish[ed] the public confidence in the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary."

Chief Judge Diaz's reasoning appears to apply with similar force to the recent anonymous attacks on the Court.

Anonymous, public comments from sitting judges describing the relationship between the Supreme Court and lower courts as a "war zone" and otherwise attacking the legitimacy of Supreme Court rulings undermines public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.

In fact, it may violate the Code of Conduct.

Judges shouldn't mimic the in-fighting and rhetorical attacks that are so common among us in the political arena. This damages the public's faith in the judiciary.

The Supreme Court is then a uniquely American institution that has played an important role since our republic's founding. And in contrast to the other branches, meaning the political branches of the federal government, it's meant to stand above the day-to-day squabbles of politics.

That's not just the Supreme Court, as I implied, that's every level of the Judicial Branch.

For the most part, the Court does this remarkably well, speaking of the Supreme Court.

We know this because neither Democrats nor Republicans are always happy with the decisions of our highest court. The Court is either too conservative or too liberal, depending on the day and who you ask.

But at the bottom, the job of the Court is not to please us or agree with us, but to say what the law is.

In recent years, we've seen vicious attacks against the Court from a variety of directions, many aimed at weakening public confidence in this important institution. This is bad for all of us.

So today, I'm here to defend the integrity of the Supreme Court, and to urge the judicial branch to address these attacks that are coming from within, mostly by district court judges - the ones that replied to everything anonymously, and really didn't have the guts to stand publicly with their criticism of the Supreme Court.

So, here is my bottom line. I call on the federal judiciary to give clear guidance to federal judges on acceptable public commentary, and to take seriously the public's perception and confidence in the courts.

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