WASHINGTON – The legal underpinnings of the nation remain strong, Chief Justice John Roberts said in an annual report Dec. 31 that looked ahead to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Roberts’ year-end report on the federal judiciary doesn’t mention President Donald Trump’s attacks on judges or warnings from some of Roberts’ liberal colleagues that the Constitution and the rule of law could be at risk.

Instead, the former history major extolled the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, which he said continue to survive through national discord.

Roberts cited President Calvin Coolidge’s comments at the nation’s 150th anniversary that “amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics,” the “two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken.”

“True then; true now,” Roberts wrote.

Trump tested courts

Roberts, who oversees the federal judiciary in addition to his leadership role on the Supreme Court, also said the responsibilities for living up to the promises of the Declaration of Independence rest on all three branches of government and on every American.

“Those of us in the Third Branch must continue to decide the cases before us according to our oath, doing equal right to the poor and to the rich, and performing all of our duties faithfully and impartially under the Constitution and laws of the United States,” he wrote.

Notably, throughout the year, Trump’s sweeping assertions of presidential power and criticisms of judges who have ruled against him have tested the courts.

In March, in fact, Roberts issued a brief, but rare, rebuke after Trump said a judge who tried to stop him from deporting hundreds of Venezuelan migrants should be impeached.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said at the time. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court’s three liberal justices, has been more outspoken – both about Trump’s comments and about rulings from her conservative colleagues she argued showed preferential treatment for the administration.

In one dissent, Jackson said the majority gave the president “the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate.”

Justices criticized district judges

There was not just tension among the justices, but also between the high court and lower courts, over the rule of law.

Two of the conservative justices – Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – said some federal judges seemed to be deliberately ignoring previous Supreme Court decisions when faced with Trump administration disputes.

“Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Gorsuch wrote in a particularly pointed statement joined by Kavanaugh.

Cases filed in district courts against the federal government increased by 9% between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2025, according to Roberts’ annual report. But the figures do not specify what share of them were triggered by actions taken by the Trump administration.

Roberts emphasizes judicial independence

Roberts, in the report, emphasized the strength of the judiciary.

He noted that one of the many charges the Founding Fathers laid against King George III in the Declaration of Independence was his control of judges.

The Constitution corrected that flaw, Roberts said, giving judges life tenure and salary protections to safeguard their independence and “their ability to serve as a counter-majoritarian check on the political branches.”

“This arrangement,” Roberts wrote, “has served the country well.”