Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Judge Who Blocked Executive Order on Funding for Sanctuary Cities Worked on Immigration Cases For Obama Justice Dept.

Obama's Judicial Appointments Are Politicizing the Courts
And Rotting It From the Inside Out
WJ -The federal judge who on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at denying federal funding to sanctuary cities raised money for former President Barack Obama in 2008 and worked for the Obama-era Justice Department on immigration-related cases. According to Public Citizen, U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick III, who in 2008 was still an attorney in private practice, was a bundler for Obama, raising more than $200,000 for Obama. Public Citizen also reported that Orrick gave $30,800 to the Obama campaign.  Orrick did not remain in the private sector very long after Obama took office. In 2009, he joined the Justice Department. There, Orrick oversaw the Office of Immigration Litigation. In 2012, Orrick was nominated to his current post. He was confirmed a year later.
In its reporting on Orrick, the Washington Examiner noted that during Orrick’s confirmation hearing, he said he would remove himself from “cases involving issues, policies or initiatives developed by the Obama administration” in which he was involved at the Justice Department. Leon Fresco, who succeed Orrick at the Justice Department, was asked about any conflict between the Trump order and Orrick’s past. “In one way, if there’s a lawsuit about a Trump-era executive order then the record is confined to the Trump-era and he does not have to recuse himself,” Fresco explained. “But in the other way, because he was an employee of the DOJ Civil Division, and a lot of who would be litigating this were his colleagues and there was discussion of these matters while he worked there, then he would have to recuse himself.”
At Orrick's confirmation hearings he told the Senate Judiciary Committee he supported the concept that the federal government was supreme in issues related to immigration. “It is important that the country speak with one voice on immigration." He lied. He is also the same judge that blocked the release of the embarrassing and very telling videos of Planned Parenthood's Murder Inc., granting the injunction requested by the National Abortion Federation.