By Joel B. Pollak
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang of Maryland, who ruled Tuesday that cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were likely unconstitutional, is a long-time Democratic Party activist with a left-wing history.
Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have exposed USAID as a source of wasteful spending, as well as funding for left-wing groups tied to the Democratic Party and controlled by Democrat operatives.
Following a review, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over the administration of USAID and cut 83% of the programs. That provoked howling among Democrats and the mainstream media, and a rush to the federal courts.
Chuang issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s cuts, ruling that President Donald Trump had effectively ended the agency’s basic functions, which Chaung said could only be done by an act of Congress.
Opponents of USAID argue that it was originally established by an executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy and that the president therefore has more sweeping powers over that agency than a typical department.
Chuang had a long left-wing résumé before he was nominated to the federal bench in 2014 by President Barack Obama, who preceded Chuang at Harvard Law School. Like Obama, Chuang became an editor on the Harvard Law Review. During his tenure, the journal took an interest in Critical Race Theory, republishing several articles from its archives, including “Whiteness as Property,” which argued affirmative action had a racially “redistributive” function.
Chuang would go on to donate thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates for public office, and served as vice president of the Montgomery County District 16 Democratic Club. He was also on the board of directors of the Coalition of Asian Pacific American Democrats of Maryland. It was no surprise, then, when he blocked President Trump’s “travel ban” in March 2017, though the ban, in amended form, was upheld by the Supreme Court.
Critics hope that Chuang’s current injunction against USAID cuts will suffer the same fate. Meanwhile, Democrats’ “lawfare,” and their forum-shopping for sympathetic left-wing judges, remain central to their political tactics.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.