S.F. Chronicle Quotes Dean Johnson on Reported Trump Plan to 'Cancel' Ninth Circuit

Dean Kevin R. Johnson spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle for a story about a new book asserting that in 2018, President Donald Trump sought to eliminate the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The Divider, by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, reports that after a Ninth Circuit ruling against one of Trump’s orders to speed up the deportation of migrants seeking asylum in the United States, Trump told then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen “Let’s just cancel” the Ninth Circuit.

“There have been pushes to divide the circuit and appoint more conservative judges,” Johnson told the Chronicle. “But I don’t recall any president calling for its elimination.” This plan, like other Trump initiatives such as family separation, “were without precedent and show the extreme measures that he would propose,” Johnson said.