Stanley Woodward Drives Trump's Court Fights, Seeking 3 Judges' Recusal
Updated
Updated · CNN · Oct 24
Stanley Woodward Drives Trump's Court Fights, Seeking 3 Judges' Recusal
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Oct 24
Summary
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward has moved to the center of Trump’s legal agenda, handling an Alaska election suit and personally arguing a daylong hearing over Trump’s Washington golf course plans.
Three recusal pushes in one week underscored that role: Woodward targeted Judge Ana Reyes in Washington and senior judges Patrick Schlitz and John Tunheim in Minnesota, accusing them of bias against the administration.
Monday’s golf-course hearing showed how he is operating inside DOJ — stepping in for career lawyers, objecting repeatedly on executive-privilege and confidentiality grounds, and telling Reyes, “Yell at me, not him.”
Woodward, a longtime Trump-allied defense lawyer who joined DOJ about a year ago, has also signed unusually combative filings echoing Trump’s tone, including attacks on plaintiffs in the East Wing ballroom case.
The shift is effectively redefining the associate attorney general’s job from civil-litigation overseer to frontline courtroom defender of Trump’s priorities, even as Woodward draws criticism from both judges and some conservatives.