U.S. District Judge John Bates assumed control of the HHS website on Tuesday, dictating that web pages be restored in defiance of an executive order by the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
“These judges are waging an unprecedented assault on legitimate presidential authority, all the way down to dictating what webpages the government has. This is absurd,” Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) warned in a social post reacting to the judge’s ruling.
The judge’s order stops the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Department from continuing to comply with Pres. Trump’s executive order (“Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”) asserting that the federal government acknowledge only two genders – male and female.
Judge Bates sided with the plaintiffs, Doctors for America, who seek to thwart Trump’s opposition to radical leftists’ biology-defying gender ideology Fox News explains:
“According to the complaint, the pages and data sets that were either taken down or modified included a report on an HIV medication, pages on ‘environmental justice,’ pages on HIV monitoring and testing and a CDC guide on contraceptives, among others. Doctors for America claim that these pages and reports were either removed or modified to ‘combat what the president described as ‘gender ideology.’”
Bates ordered the HHS to repost the deleted pages while the case is litigated, because he thinks Doctors for America will ultimately prevail in court.
“Truly absurd Judges as website editors!?” technological visionary Elon Musk wrote in a post agreeing with Sen. Lee.
Truly absurd. Judges as website editors!?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2025
We should at least ATTEMPT to fire this junky jurist.
The notion of having a judge job for life, no matter how bad the judgments, is ridiculous!
Enough is enough. https://t.co/lMPq6zWOj5
Musk leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has also been the victim of a judge usurping Executive Branch authority to thwart efforts to stop the waste of taxpayers’ money – prompting Musk to call for the judge’s impeachment.
Reacting to Tuesday’s court order, Musk posted a similar call for the removal of unaccountable rogue judges like Bates:
“We should at least ATTEMPT to fire this junky jurist. The notion of having a judge job for life, no matter how bad the judgments, is ridiculous!”
“Enough is enough,” Musk concluded.