Judge Blocking Trump Spending Freeze Likened Trump To A ‘Tyrant’

The judge who is trying to force President Donald Trump to resume spending billions of taxpayer dollars once likened Trump to a “tyrant.”

District Court Judge John McConnell Jr., issued a temporary restraining order blocking Trump from pausing federal spending. Trump issued a spending freeze on Jan. 27 in order to assess the mass waste and abuse of taxpayer funds before the Office of Management and Budget rescinded the pause following a flurry of left-led challenges. Now, McConnell has claimed Trump defied his order.

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As the Washington Times summarized it, McConnell has ordered that Trump must restart the spending “across the board, including specifically at the National Institutes of Health and money that was to be spent under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.” But the Trump administration argued that while they’ve restarted some money paused by the original freeze, “other money was still on hold based on other authorities,” according to the report.

McConnell insinuated in his Monday order there could be criminal charges levied against Trump if he doesn’t restore spending, with McConnell citing a 1975 case that held “Persons who make private determinations of the law and refuse to obey an order generally risk criminal contempt even if the order is ultimately ruled incorrect.”

Notably, a newly unearthed video shared by reporter Natalie Winters on X features McConnell (reportedly a former Planned Parenthood volunteer and long-time Democrat donor), essentially comparing Trump to a ‘tyrant’ who has strained the rule of law in the country, which raises serious concerns about impartiality.

Speaking in an interview in 2021, McConnell suggested that under the four years of the first Trump administration, the country essentially came close to “popping” like a balloon “with the challenges that have occurred to the rule of law in this country.”

McConnell also appeared to liken the time period of Trump’s first term to the Civil War era. Calling on a few historical examples, he claimed that “courts stand and enforce the rule of law that is against arbitrary and capricious actions by what could be a tyrant.”

“We’ve [seen] plenty examples of that recently,” he added. “[T]here are plenty of examples over history and there are plenty of examples over the last four years where it’s the courts that kept that balloon from bursting when it was challenged.”

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McConnell goes on to refer to himself as a “middle class, white male, privileged person” who “needs to understand” others — including women, “black,” “transgender,” poor, and rich people — when issuing rulings. This also raises questions regarding impartiality.

“The key to me is that you bring empathy to whatever you do as a judge,” he said. “[Y]ou have to walk in their shoes and understand that the law applies to them where they are, and then you have to apply the law accordingly.”