President Donald Trump‘s efforts to reduce the size of the federal government and rein in wasteful spending have been stymied by a slate of judges with long histories of liberal judicial activism.

As part of its effort to improve government efficiency, the Trump administration has moved to restrict grant disbursals through the Treasury Department payment system, cut National Institutes of Health spending on overhead for grantees, fire civil servants, task the Department of Government Efficiency with examining Treasury Department records, offer federal employees incentives to resign, and shutter some federal diversity programs. These measures have all, to some degree, been blocked by judges who have a history of engaging in activism from the bench and supporting Democrats, financially or otherwise.

Judge Paul Engelmayer

Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer issued a preliminary injunction on Feb. 8 stopping DOGE from accessing Treasury Department records, arguing that the inquiries could place sensitive personal information at risk and that the efficiency department likely lacks legal authority. 

Engelmayer has a long history of derailing Trump’s agenda. In 2019, for instance, the judge overturned a federal rule that would have granted healthcare workers greater leeway in opting out of providing procedures, such as abortions, for religious reasons. Hospitals and clinics that didn’t comply with the rule could’ve seen their federal funding cut. The judge said the Trump administration “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” by promulgating the rule.

The judge’s support of liberal policies is more than ideological. Federal records show that while working for the Democratic-aligned law firm WilmerHale, he personally donated nearly $30,000 to Democratic candidates between 1992 and 2010, with Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign being one of the largest beneficiaries. Engelmayer was later appointed to the federal bench by Obama.

Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) said he is drafting articles of impeachment for Engelmayer.

Judge Angel Kelley

Ruling from a federal district court in Boston, Judge Angel Kelley granted a temporary restraining order on Monday against the Trump administration’s attempt to cut “indirect costs” tied up in NIH research grants, which represent funds designated to administrative costs at universities or research centers not directly tied to research. 

Kelley, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, was introduced during her confirmation hearing by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as someone who “has made it a personal mission to bring about change through her role on the bench.” Kelley describes herself as someone who believes “there is systemic racism in almost all systems, particularly the court system,” and that diversity is an important factor in making decisions. 

Among the legal decisions rendered by Kelley was a ruling that a police officer could be punished by his department for calling George Floyd, who was a felon, a “criminal” due to the timing of his statement. Kelley also dismissed a religious discrimination case brought by a hospital employee who was fired for not being vaccinated and several other vaccine-related cases.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson

Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was appointed by Obama to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled on Monday that special counsel Hampton Dellinger, who handles whistleblower issues and Hatch Act compliance, could return to his job after being fired by Trump.

Jackson has a history of handling criminal proceedings for those close to Trump, including Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. She sentenced Stone to over three years in prison after he was found guilty of lying under oath and handed down harsh sentences to people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including a wounded global war on terrorism veteran. 

Before ascending to the bench, Jackson donated at least $1,500 to Democratic candidates, campaign finance records show.

Judge John J. McConnell Jr.

Another Obama appointee, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island John J. McConnell Jr., ordered the Trump administration to reverse its freeze of federal grant funding on Monday, suggesting that the Trump administration officials responsible for carrying out the spending pause could face criminal charges. 

McConnell has perhaps the strongest financial ties to the Democratic Party among the judges who have gotten in the way of the president’s efficiency agenda. A Daily Caller News Foundation report published Monday found that he donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic political committees during his time as a private attorney, including a significant chunk to Obama, who later nominated him to the federal bench. 

McConnell’s wife is also a major donor, giving over a quarter million dollars to Democratic candidates and PACs in the years leading up to her husband becoming a federal judge.

Finances aside, McConnell served as the director of Rhode Island Planned Parenthood for four years and has collaborated with the American Civil Liberties Union, an anti-Trump legal group.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

The judge who blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury Department payment records, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, was nominated to the bench by then-President Bill Clinton in 1997. 

She is the same judge who, in 2024, sentenced anti-abortion activists to prison after they staged a protest at an abortion clinic. As Kollar-Kotelly was sentencing a 75-year-old Catholic woman for praying in front of the clinic, the woman’s husband and attorney pleaded with her for mercy, citing the woman’s advanced age and rapidly declining health. 

“I feel like Paulette is dying,” her husband said. “In my heart, I think she’s having a hard time staying alive.” 

Kollar-Kotelly responded to the plea by sentencing the elderly and ill woman to two years in federal prison and by insulting her faith.

“I would suggest that, in terms of your religion, that one of the tenets is that you should make the effort during this period of time, when it may be difficult in terms of for your husband, to make every effort to remain alive, to do the things that you need to do to survive because that’s part of the tenets of your religion,” Kollar-Kotelly said.

Trump pardoned the anti-abortion activists during the early days of his second administration.

Kollar-Kotelly was also the judge responsible for blocking Trump’s 2017 memorandum attempting to ban transgender people from serving in the armed forces.

Judge George O’Toole Jr.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out its program allowing civil servants to resign but still receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30 in an effort to reduce the number of bureaucrats serving in government. O’Toole later lifted the block, and one senior Trump administration official told Semafor that roughly 75,000 civil servants have accepted the offer.

O’Toole also temporarily blocked part of Trump’s executive order recognizing only two sexes from going into effect, stopping prison officials from moving transgender women to men’s prisons.

Judge John Bates

Washington, D.C.-based District Judge John Bates has the distinction of being a Republican-appointed judge who has historically stood in the way of Trump’s agenda.

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Bates, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by then-President George W. Bush in 2001, ordered government agencies on Tuesday to restore webpages promoting gender ideology, arguing that they had been taken down “without adequate notice or reasoned explanation.”

Bates clashed with Trump in 2018 when he required the president’s administration to continue processing new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals applications. In 2020, the judge shut down a policing panel established by Trump to formulate “law and order” related policy proposals, and in 2022, he blamed the president for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.