Biden, Obama-appointed judges oversee bulk of Trump cases
by Zach Schonfeld and Ella Lee - 04/16/25 8:00 AM ET
The Gavel has broken down the more than 200 lawsuits challenging major Trump administration actions and it found that most of the cases — 72 percent — have been assigned to judges appointed by a Democratic president.
The bulk of those cases are being overseen by those appointed by some of President Trump’s top political foes — former Presidents Obama and Biden.
The judges don’t always rule against Trump, but their flood of injunctions — and plaintiffs’ attempt to bring their cases in favorable courts — has led Trump to lash out by calling many of them Democratic activists and insisting they don’t have the power to tell him how to conduct his administration’s business.
Here’s the full breakdown of judges, by which president appointed them:
Trump: 33
Biden: 69
Obama: 66
W. Bush: 16
Clinton: 26
H.W. Bush: 2
Reagan: 12
The skew is no accident. Plaintiffs are regularly filing their lawsuits in “friendly” courts along the coasts in places like Boston, San Francisco and Seattle, where suits have a higher chance of being assigned to a Democratic appointee.
Long gone are the days when North Texas’s single-judge divisions were the epicenter of politically charged lawsuits during the Biden administration. Here’s a look at the most common venues:
District of Columbia: 107
District of Massachusetts: 23
District of Maryland: 19
Western District of Washington: 10
Northern District of California: 9
Southern District of New York: 9
The lack of balance also reflects recent presidents’ focus on appointing judges to the federal bench.
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https://thehill.com/newsletters/the-gavel/5250822-biden-obama-judges-trump-cases/
