In the months since President Trump took office again, the courts—especially lower courts—have served as the most reliable check and balance against overreach by Trump and his administration. Courts have fulfilled their constitutional responsibility by refusing to bless blatantly unconstitutional executive orders, calling out government defiance of their orders and generally performing their essential role in our system of government.

That is why Donald Trump has effectively declared war on the courts—putting at risk the backbone of the American justice system. He is engaged in a sustained, and deeply dangerous, effort to threaten and delegitimize our federal judges.

Rather than admit that some of their legal arguments might lack weight, or simply expressing disagreement and filing appeals, Donald Trump, members of his administration, and his allies in Congress have targeted the judges overseeing those cases with explosive rhetoric like “radical Left lunatic,” “troublemaker and agitator,” “radical rogue judges,” and spoken of a supposedly ongoing “judicial coup” and judicial insurrection. They have called for the impeachment of judges based on rulings they disliked, prompting Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in March to speak out against the threat of impeachment as a response to disagreeing with a judicial decision, noting that the appellate process exists for that very reason.

Trump’s Department of Justice, rather than tamping down this rhetoric, has eagerly joined the fray. In July, it launched a highly unusual lawsuit against every sitting federal judge in Maryland. And now, Trump’s DOJ has escalated even further and filed a judicial misconduct complaint against one of the president’s most frequent judicial targets, Judge James Boasberg. Judge Boasberg in March ordered the government to stop deporting Venezuelan migrants under a rarely invoked and incredibly controversial wartime statute—an order which the DOJ seemingly defied.

We worked on the confirmation of judges as counsels in the Senate, one for Republicans and one for Democrats. We have sharply different views about the law and the most appropriate judicial philosophy, but we share a deep belief that we must demand our judges be men and women of integrity, independence and courage. Thankfully, our judges largely possess those characteristics. 

Strong judicial ethics rules are essential to maintaining public trust, and ensuring that courts can continue playing their crucial role in our democracy. It should go without saying when judges speak in political terms, it both violates judicial codes of conduct and hurts the courts’ legitimacy. Recent years have seen regrettable examples of that from judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans.

But the administration’s complaint does not support their allegations that Judge Boasberg behaved unethically or that his conduct undermined confidence in the judiciary. There is no legitimate basis to conclude that Judge Boasberg, in a private conversation about court order enforcement, even came close to that line. This complaint is nothing more than judicial intimidation. As far as we can tell, prior administrations have never filed misconduct complaints against federal judges. Yet, in the first six months in office, the Trump administration has filed two.

Targeting individual judges as a way to intimidate and control the broader judiciary is something we’ve seen in other countries. In Poland, beginning around 2017, the then-ruling party took a series of steps to take greater control of the judiciary, including around discipline and appointment of judges, and even passed a law penalizing judges who criticized those reforms. But this effort was met with a vigorous response by the judiciary, with many judges working to educate the public about threats to the judiciary and rule of law. So far, judges in the United States have similarly responded to the Trump administration’s threats with a refusal to cower and a determination to continue doing their jobs.

Americans of all political parties and ideological persuasions must unite to reject these efforts to intimidate and control the courts. An independent judiciary provides an essential check on abuse of power. If  Trump were to successfully cow courts, our entire system of government would be undermined, and our rights would be forever less secure. Even if, as is likely, the courts do not bend to these attacks, other dangers loom. If the president succeeds in weakening public confidence in the judiciary, he may feel he has more freedom to flout or openly defy court orders. If the public is made to revile judges, threats to their safety may continue to climb.

If the administration has a legitimate legal grievance with Judge Boasberg’s rulings, then the place to challenge them is through the appellate process, as the government already has. But the president and his administration’s habit of attacking judges, with minimal basis, can only be understood as an assault on the legitimacy of the entire judiciary. As the Trump administration continues to defy courts, attack judges and destroy guardrails, it’s vital that these attempts to undermine courts are called what they are: lawless intimidation. 

Noah Bookbinder was a counsel for Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2005 to 2013 and is now the president of CREW. Gregg Nunziata was a counsel for Republicans on the committee from 2005 to 2008, serving as chief nominations counsel beginning in 2006. He is now the executive director of the Society of the Rule of Law.