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A group of former federal judges sharply criticized a top Justice Department official this week for characterizing the court fights playing out in President Donald Trump’s second term as a "war" against so-called "activist judges" — remarks they described as unnecessarily inflammatory, and amounting to "pouring oil" on an already fast-burning fire.

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, spoke colorfully last week during a fireside chat hosted by the Federalist Society. Blanche used his time to excoriate federal judges for pausing or blocking some of Trump's biggest executive orders and actions since January, and to urge young lawyers and law students in the audience to fight back. "It is a war," Blanche said, "and it is something we will not win unless we keep on fighting."

The judges "have a robe on, but they are more political, or as political, as the most liberal governor or D.A.," Blanche added. 

His remarks prompted rebuke from the New York State Bar Association and from the Article III Coalition — a group of 50 former federal judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents. 

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This type of rhetoric, "especially when voiced by high-ranking officials — not only endangers individual judges and court staff, but also undermines the public’s trust in the judiciary as an impartial and co-equal branch of government," the judges said in a letter. 

In a series of interviews this week, several former judges told Fox News Digital they were shocked by Blanche’s remarks, which they described as a departure from longstanding Justice Department norms and a threat to the judiciary both as an institution and to the individual judges who serve on the bench.

One judge said Blanche's remarks were "wildly different from all prior decades, and under all prior administrations" he experienced in his more than 60-year career in D.C.

"I've been in Washington since 1974, continuously, and I've never seen anything like it," Paul R. Michel, the former chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Michel formerly served as a special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation, a role in which he personally interviewed former President Nixon. "It's just startling for the deputy attorney general to be functioning as a PR 'hatchet man' instead of a law enforcement official," he said of Blanche's remarks.

Michel and others in the group of retired judges told Fox News Digital that they fear the rhetoric used could further erode public trust in the judiciary — a branch that the framers designed to interpret the law impartially and to serve as a check against excesses of the other branches, regardless of politics or the administration in charge. 

They noted that while parties often disagree with a decision, or a near-term temporary order or motion, both the Justice Department and the opposing parties have a readily available mechanism to seek relief via the appeals process. 

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Parties looking to challenge a temporary order or other form of injunctive relief can proceed with having the district court evaluate the case on its merits, or kick it to the U.S. Court of Appeals — and, in some cases, the Supreme Court, for review, Philip Pro, a former U.S. District Judge in Nevada appointed by President Ronald Reagan, told Fox News Digital.

Federal judges have attempted to issue near-term or emergency orders temporarily blocking some of Trump's biggest policy priorities, including on immigration enforcement, birthright citizenship and sweeping layoffs across the federal government. The administration has responded to the lower court actions by seeking emergency relief from the higher courts, via emergency stays — which Blanche also touted during his remarks last week. 

Judges are "totally reactive" by design, Pro said. "We're sitting in our districts. The cases are randomly assigned."

"There is nothing ‘rogue’ about these decisions," Pro added. "Those wheels grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly well, and that's the way you get resolution."

Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law who attended the fireside remarks, told Fox News Digital in an interview that he is sympathetic to the concerns voiced by the judges, but he also understands the broader issue Blanche may have been trying to get at — which is, the power the courts have to review the actions of the executive branch. 

This has emerged as a particular pain point not only for Trump but for his predecessors as well, each of whom has sought to enact some of their policy priorities via executive order in a bid to sidestep a clunky and slow-moving Congress.

Those actions are therefore more vulnerable to emergency intervention from the federal courts, Blackman said — though the degree to which judges can or should act in this space is the subject of ongoing debate.

"I don't see Blanche's comments as calling for violence," Blackman said. "I think it's more trying to say that there's just this struggle between the executive branch and the judiciary that is not normal," he said. 

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Trump is far from the first president to publicly complain about "activist" judges for hampering his policies — such criticisms stretch back decades and include former presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, among others. 

Still, the judges say they are concerned by Blanche's remarks, which are a stark departure from what they experienced in their own careers, including while serving as federal prosecutors.

"Calling judges ‘rogue’ because they apply the law in a politically unfavorable way is a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the judiciary in our constitutional structure," Allyson K. Duncan, a former judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, said in a statement. 

Michel, the former special prosecutor for the Watergate investigation, noted he worked for two successive deputy attorneys general, in the "exact post Blanche now holds" — but who gave much different marching orders, he recalled.

"Their instructions to me were, ‘Politics are outside the boundaries for Justice Department employees,’ and politics are ‘not to have any influence,'" he said. "We were not to pay any attention to what somebody in the White House might say, or in the media, or elsewhere — we were to be a ‘politics-free zone.’"

"That seemed to me to be entirely appropriate," Michel said. "The power to investigate, the power to indict, and the power to indict and the power to prosecute and convict are awesome, awesome powers," he added.

The group also cited concerns for their colleagues who remain on the bench at a time when public threats to judges have increased, according to data from U.S. Marshals. This includes online harassment, threats of physical violence, and "doxxing" judges at their home addresses by sending them unsolicited pizzas. Some deliveries have been made in the name of a judge's son, who was shot and killed in 2020 after opening the door to a disgruntled individual disguised as a delivery person.

The number of threats made against federal judges in 2025 has outpaced threats from the past 12-month period, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, prompting a push for Congress to take action. 

"Deputy Attorney General Blanche’s remarks reflect a reality the Department of Justice confronts every day: a growing number of activist judges attempting to set national policy from the bench," a spokesperson for the Justice Department told Fox News Digital on Friday in response to a request for comment. 

"The department will continue to follow the Constitution, defend its lawful authorities, and push back when activist rulings threaten public safety or undermine the will of the American people."