White House Spox Attacks ‘Partisan Activist’ Judges, Vows More Deportation Flights Amid Judicial Pause

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attacked Judge James Boasberg, who temporarily paused Trump’s deportations, during Wednesday’s briefing — calling him a “partisan activist” and attacking his wife’s political contributions.

Leavitt began the exchange by introducing her “new media seat” for the day:

We have Katie Pavlich. Katie is the editor of Townhall.com, which is a subsidiary of Townhall Media. It’s a leading conservative news and opinion outlet based right here in Washington D.C. with writers and journalists reporting around the country. Last year, Townhall Media had 60 million unique users and 1.4 billion page views with a broad reach on a number of social media platforms. With that, Katie, please kick us off.

Pavlich, who is also a Fox News contributor, asked, “Given the back and forth with this U.S. District Judge and the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, does the President plan to send new and additional flights of Venezuelan gang members, now designated as foreign terrorists, from the U.S. to El Salvador or elsewhere? Can Americans expect to see those flights sometime soon?”

Leavitt replied, “Americans can absolutely expect to see the continuation of the mass deportation campaign that has been successfully led by this president, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and also our Secretary of State Marco Rubio.” She then pivoted to the judge, “Since you brought up the judges, I would like to point out that the judges in this country are acting erroneously. We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. They are trying to dictate policy for the President of the United States.” Leavitt added:

They are trying to clearly slow-walk this administration’s agenda, and it’s unacceptable. As the president said last night, we will continue to comply with these court orders. We will continue to fight these battles in courts. But it’s incredibly apparent that there is a concerted effort by the far left to judge shop, to pick judges who are clearly acting as partisan activists from the bench in an attempt to derail this president’s agenda. We will not allow that to happen.

And not only are they usurping the will of the President and the chief executive of our country, but they are undermining the will of the American public, tens of millions of Americans who duly elected this president to implement the policies that are coming out of this White House.

Pavlich asked another question before NBC’s Garrett Haake pressed further on the flights, “I want to follow up on Katie’s question, actually. You said the mass deportation campaign would continue, but she asked about the flights specifically. Will those flights to El Salvador continue while this case is being appealed?”

“We don’t have any flights planned specifically, but we will continue with the mass deportations. And I would just like to point out that the judge in this case is essentially trying to say that the president doesn’t have the executive authority to deport foreign terrorists from our American soil,” Leavitt replied, adding:

That is an egregious abuse of the bench. This judge cannot, does not have that authority. It is the opinion of this, of this White House and of this administration. That’s why we’re fighting this in court. And it’s very, very clear that this is an activist judge who is trying to usurp the president’s authority. Under the Alien Enemies Act, the president has this power, and that’s why this deportation campaign has continued.

And this judge, Judge Boasberg, is a Democrat activist. He was appointed by Barack Obama. His wife has donated more than $10,000 to Democrats, and he has consistently shown his disdain for this president and his policies, and it’s unacceptable.

Haake interjected, “I wanted to go about the idea of these people are all foreign terrorists, but Judge Boasberg was originally appointed by George W. Bush and then elevated by Barack Obama. I just feel like I should clear that up.”

“Well, let me just say something to that effect, Garrett. 67% of all of the injunctions in this century have come against which president? Donald J. Trump. Let me say that again. 60% of the injunctions by partisan activists in the judicial branch have come against President Donald Trump, and 92% of those have been from Democrat-appointed judges,” Leavitt concluded.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.