Chief Justice Urges Political Leaders to Tone Down Rhetoric

On the day after the Supreme Court issued a decision that sharply curtailed the power of federal judges to block Trump administration policies, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. spoke before a hotel ballroom filled with them.

He didn’t say a word about it.

The chief justice on Saturday gave a public interview with Judge Albert Diaz, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, at a judicial conference in Charlotte attended by lower court judges who will be expected to parse and follow the Supreme Court’s directive limiting their ability to block executive branch policies nationwide.

During the discussion, the chief justice hinted at the stress of the end of the court’s term, which concluded on Friday, a time that he described as “a lot of sharp division and some sharp adjectives.”

During its last session of the term, the justices released six major opinions, including one that found lower court judges had most likely exceeded their authority by repeatedly issuing nationwide injunctions, powerful judicial tools that block an executive action not just for the parties in a case but for the whole country.

Legal experts say the ruling will create complex new questions for lower court judges, as they sort out how to deal with executive actions they believe they may violate the law.

But the chief justice was not asked for — and did not volunteer — any guidance or thoughts on the role of the federal judges who have been flooded with legal challenges to Trump administration policies. He did urge political leaders to limit heated rhetoric about judges.