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WASHINGTON (CN) — Congressional Democrats are eyeing transformative legislation that would strip control of the U.S. Marshals Service from the White House and the Justice Department, as lawmakers sound the alarm about potential conflict between the courts and the Donald Trump administration.
The bill, unveiled Thursday morning and obtained by Courthouse News, would rewrite federal law to reestablish the law enforcement agency under the authority of the federal judiciary, with a director and U.S. marshals appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and an administrative board.
The Marshals Service — tasked with providing security for federal judges and courts — currently operates at the discretion of the attorney general.
The bicameral group of Democrats behind the bill, which includes California Representative Eric Swalwell, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and California Senator Alex Padilla, have argued that the Trump administration should not have authority over the Marshals Service while the president and his allies attack federal judges who have ruled against his agenda.
“The USMS, the nation’s oldest federal law enforcement agency, risks being ensnared in Trump’s efforts to upend our constitutional order,” the lawmakers said in a statement.
Trump in recent months has stepped up attacks on judges who have issued rulings hamstringing a cascade of executive actions. The president said U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington should be impeached after he issued an order halting mass deportations of Venezuelan migrants. Other people in Trump’s orbit, including Vice President JD Vance, have suggested in passing that the White House could ignore rulings from federal courts and even the Supreme Court.
Some lawmakers and legal experts have argued that the Trump administration is already flouting court rulings. The White House has so far failed to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man the Supreme Court ruled had been wrongfully deported from Maryland and should be returned.
And judiciary officials have warned that rhetoric from the White House could put federal judges in danger. U.S. Courts Administrative Office Director Robert Conrad, testifying before Congress last week, argued that threats of harm or impeachment “erode the rule of law.”
Lawmakers sponsoring Thursday’s bill pointed to a “potential conflict” looming between the duty of the Marshals Service to secure the judiciary and its status as a law enforcement agency that answers to the Justice Department and the president.
The White House could order the Marshals Service to ignore a court order or ask the agency to stop protecting judges, they said, pointing to the Trump administration’s early move to end security details for former officials such as Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.
Handing control of the Marshals Service over to the federal judiciary would put judges in charge of their own security, the Democrats reasoned.
“Today, independent judges must rely upon the executive branch, whose cases are often in front of them, for personal security,” said Swalwell. “We’re in a constitutional crisis that necessitates a structural change to protect judges from political violence and intimidation.”
Raskin added that congressional action was necessary to counter the “outrageous” rise in attacks on federal judges.
“Our legislation will ensure that the U.S. Marshals can perform their duties without political interference or coercive pressure from the president or anyone else in the executive branch.”
If made law, the Democrats’ measure would establish a U.S. Marshals board, which they said would be modeled on the existing board for the U.S. Capitol Police. The administrative body would be composed of the chief justice and members of the U.S. Judicial Conference. Marshals for each judicial district would be selected by the chief justice and the board.
And while the measure would wall off the Marshals Service’s judicial security activities from the executive branch, it would allow the attorney general to request the agency’s assistance on other law enforcement matters, such as investigating fugitives, issuing subpoenas related to unregistered sex offenders and locating missing children.
Congressional Republicans, who control both chambers, have been largely hostile to federal judges ruling against Trump administration actions. The House last month passed a bill aimed at clamping down on federal district courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions that have so far thrown a spanner into the White House’s agenda. Senate Republicans are reportedly looking to get the bill’s language included in a budget reconciliation package.
Some lawmakers have also heeded the president’s calls to remove some judges, unveiling articles of impeachment against Boasberg and a handful of other jurists. But GOP leadership has been largely dismissive of that effort, suggesting that none of the judges who ruled against the Trump administration have committed impeachable offenses.
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