Federal judges are becoming "super legislators" and blocking President Donald Trump's national agenda, Attorney General Jeff Sessions complained Saturday.
"This is a question of raw power," Sessions commented at the Federalist Society's 2018 National Student Symposium at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, reports Politico.
It's a question about who gets to determine the policy questions that America faces, Sessions continued, "our elected representatives, our elected president, or unelected, lifetime-appointed federal justices."
Single federal judges have issued nationwide rulings on several of Trump's key agenda items, including ending his proposed travel ban and stopping Obama-era immigrant rules.
The rulings can even remain in place when another federal court agrees with the administration. For example, this past week, a Maryland federal judge upheld Trump's call to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but earlier injunctions from federal judges sitting in California and New York have kept parts of the controversial program intact.
Sessions acknowledged that there have been times Republicans sought out similar battles in conservative-friendly courts.
The attorney general said he's optimistic that the Supreme Court will overturn some of the nationwide injunctions in the future.
"We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will soon send a clear message to the lower courts that injunctions ought to be limited to the parties of the case," he said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.