There are three of them on the 4^th Circuit, those who unanimously ruled that construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline must stop pending those judges’ personal review of the Interior Department’s record of decision for permitting pipeline construction in the national forest.

These judges don’t care that the 4^th Circuit has no jurisdiction over the pipeline or cases related to it. The recently concluded debt ceiling law explicitly stripped the 4^th Circuit of jurisdiction, limited questions about the pipeline to constitutional questions, and placed those questions solely within the jurisdiction of the DC Circuit.

The Wall Street Journal‘s editors concluded their editorial with this:

Three willful judges have improperly usurped the power of Congress and the executive branch. Judges who refuse to honor proper orders from the political branches are begging to have the political branches ignore their rulings.

These three judges also have violated their oaths of office and have thereby rendered themselves vulnerable to impeachment and removal from the bench.