Ex-Federal Judges Call on Supreme Court to Reject Trump Tariffs

Thirty-one former federal judges urged the US Supreme Court to reject President Donald Trump’s attempts to use emergency powers to impose sweeping, world-wide tariffs.

The judges, appointed by Republican and Democrat presidents, said Friday in an amicus brief that most of the tariffs exceeded presidential authority to “regulate” imports. The Trump administration is also wrong, the judges said, that courts have no power to review his determination that a national emergency warrants the tariffs.

“If the President can exercise these powers at any time solely by saying that such an emergency exists, the balance of powers so thoughtfully embedded in our Constitution will become dangerously unstable,” the brief signed by the judges said.

While it’s not uncommon for former judges to submit amicus briefs in federal cases, Friday’s filing was unusual both for the number of judges willing to sign on and the high-profile policy dispute at the center of the case.

Tariffs have become Trump’s signature economic policy, and his administration has sought to pressure the judiciary to uphold them. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in a brief last month the tariffs were necessary to rectify “country-killing trade deficits.”

Trump himself has said he may attend oral arguments on Nov. 5. In public comments, he has oscillated between dire warnings of a second Great Depression should the Supreme Court rule against him and praise for the effects of tariffs the lower court allowed to remain in place during his appeal.

“THE STOCK MARKET IS STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE BECAUSE OF TARIFFS!” Trump wrote Friday on his social media site, Truth Social.

Judges’ Briefs

This isn’t the first time former federal judges have weighed in on a case involving Trump or other high profile matters.

Judge J. Michael Luttig, a George H.W. Bush appointee who has become a prolific amicus filer, submitted a brief last year as the Supreme Court was weighing Trump’s presidential immunity arguments.

In December, six former federal judges filed a brief in support of a Federal Circuit judge who was suspended from her duties over concerns about her cognitive abilities.

The judges’ brief comes amid rising tensions between Trump and the federal judiciary, as judges weigh dozens of legal challenges to the administration’s policies.

Many of those challenges have already reached the high court’s emergency docket. The tariffs case will be the first to come to the court for arguments on the merits.

Judges across the US have scolded federal government lawyers for making false or contradictory statements in court.

The chief judge of Washington’s federal trial court found he had probable cause to hold the government in contempt for disobeying a court order in a deportation case. Another judge overseeing the habeas petition of a wrongfully deported Salvadoran man has repeatedly criticized shifting and incomplete answers she’s received from the administration.

Trump and his allies have publicly blasted judges, and at times their family members, in responses to rulings against him. In March, the attacks prompted a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts after Trump and congressional Republicans called for the impeachment of a federal judge in DC who temporarily blocked the administration’s efforts to deport noncitizens under a wartime powers act.

The case is Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, U.S., No. 24-1287, brief filed 10/24/25.