The media isn’t known for telling the truth. But now Homeland Security is getting involved.
That’s why DHS poured cold water on an absurd mainstream media attack.
A high-ranking Trump Department of Homeland Security official is calling out the “liberal media” for what he described as an absurd response to his social media series exposing judges he says are sabotaging ICE operations and putting federal officers at risk.
Percival’s “Worst of the Worst” Series Draws Media Pushback
James Percival, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, posted a series on X last week titled “Worst of the Worst, District Judge Edition,” highlighting the risks ICE agents face while enforcing the law and accusing certain judges of working to “sabotage” those operations.
After his posts, Percival said DHS was contacted by a Chicago Sun-Times reporter about whether “a social media post like this risk[s] additional threats” in the context of “ongoing threats to federal judges.” Percival fired back on X, telling followers, “Witness the absolute absurdity of the liberal media response to my new series, Worst of the Worst, District Judges.”
Percival emphasized that “legitimate fact based critiques of judges and their rulings is fair game in a free society,” and noted pointedly that “the media has no issue with it if the judge is conservative” — pointing to the intense criticism and, in some cases, violence directed at conservative jurists like Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. In 2022, Kavanaugh was the target of an assassination plot after an armed California man traveled to his home with a pistol, ammunition, zip ties, pepper spray, duct tape and burglary tools, and Barrett has testified she has had to wear a bulletproof vest in response to threats.
DHS Calls Out Specific Judges for “Judicial Sabotage”
In his series, Percival called out district judges in the sanctuary jurisdictions of Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland and California. He wrote that earlier this month, Northern District of Illinois Judge Matthew Kennelly, a Clinton appointee, ordered a nationwide pause on the termination of temporary protected status for migrants from Burma “even though these decisions are not subject to judicial review, even though we have been vindicated by the Supreme Court on TPS four times, and even though the Seventh Circuit summarily reversed him on the same issue only days before.”
“This is judicial sabotage,” Percival wrote.
He also targeted Central District of California Judge Hernan Vera, a Biden appointee, who Percival said recently “entered an order micromanaging DHS’s use of force policy with respect to violent anti-ICE agitators in Los Angeles,” describing the agitators as “protesters” and “legal observers” while calling DHS’s defensive actions “violent.”
“Agitators in Los Angeles have assaulted DHS employees, thrown objects at them, engaged in arson, and even tried to breech a federal facility,” Percival wrote. “Judicial micromanagement of use of force in these contexts puts our officers at risk.”
Federal Court Pushes Back, Defends Judicial Independence
In response, a spokesperson for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois told Fox News Digital that “the Code of Conduct calls on federal judges not to comment publicly on pending cases,” and that judges are required “to decide each matter independently, based on the law and the facts—not political pressure, public reaction, partisan interests, or fear of criticism,” adding that disagreements with rulings should be pursued “through the appellate process.”
