The U.S. district court judge hearing the Trump administration’s rare challenge to the authority of federal judges in Maryland has long emphasized judicial independence, calling it “fundamental to our rule of law.”

Judge Thomas Cullen — who is overseeing the administration’s pending lawsuit against all 15 Maryland federal judges — told senators before his 2020 confirmation: “Judicial independence is incredibly important, and this has been long and continuously recognized.”

Cullen, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020, also said the founding fathers pointedly “insulated the judiciary from outside pressures,” according to his answers to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

Cullen’s answers are noteworthy because he will rule soon in the Trump administration’s suit that the judges’ lawyer says would compromise judicial independence and the separation of powers. He has two issues before him in the Maryland case: whether to dismiss the suit or temporarily block the order the Trump administration is challenging.

Cullen, a judge from Virginia, was assigned to the suit because a Maryland judge could not hear a case in which they are a party. The judges are represented by Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general.

Cullen was nominated to the bench during Trump’s first term in 2019. His father, Richard Cullen, is a former Virginia attorney general who is a counselor to Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

In Baltimore Sun interviews, people who know the younger Cullen described him as a moderate. Some declined to be named because of discomfort about talking about a sitting judge.

“Thomas is a principled conservative lawyer who is not a pro-MAGA guy. He is of the Virginia tradition of more moderate, centrist Republicans,” said a Virginia lawyer who has worked with Cullen in the past.

University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said Cullen’s “responses to the confirmation process and his treatment of cases since his ascension to the bench show that Trump’s appointment of him as U.S. attorney and district judge will be irrelevant to Cullen’s resolution of this case.”

Cullen was assigned to the case by Elizabeth K. Dillon, the chief judge for Virginia’s western district.

He declined to be interviewed. Judges rarely grant media interviews while cases are pending.

As U.S. attorney, Cullen prosecuted James Alex Fields Jr., an Ohio man sentenced to life in prison for driving a car into counter-protesters at a 2017 “Unite the Right Rally” in Charlottesville, Va., killing one woman and injuring dozens of people. His office also went after members of a white supremacist group.

Cullen declined during the Senate confirmation process to address comments Trump had made about judges during his first term, including calling one who blocked an immigration order “this so-called judge.”

Cullen was easily confirmed, 79-19, by the Senate in 2020. His nomination was backed by Maryland’s and Virginia’s senators, who are all Democrats.

Trump’s Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security are seeking an injunction blocking the Maryland judges from abiding by a standing order in May, preventing the administration from immediately deporting migrants who seek a review of their detention.

The suit is part of Trump’s effort to curb the power of federal judges in Maryland and elsewhere who, according to the administration, have overstepped in blocking many of the president’s executive branch initiatives.

By the order, the judges say they are seeking “a modest, two-business-day hold to allow the court to open a case and assess its jurisdiction” before migrants are deported.

“This suit is an unprecedented and disruptive affront to the separation of powers,” the judges wrote in a memorandum earlier this month.

But Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Hedges told Cullen during a hearing in Baltimore last Wednesday that the order was an overreach and the suit was needed to dial it back. “This is an extraordinary standing order and therefore we are in this position,” Hedges said. “The United States is a plaintiff here because the United States is being harmed.”

On Memorial Day, Trump escalated his attack on U.S. judges in an all-caps, Truth Social post, calling them “USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY.”

The Trump administration’s June lawsuit named all ten of the state’s federal judges — plus five senior judges with limited caseloads — as defendants.

During the Baltimore hearing, Cullen told Hedges, who was arguing on behalf of the suit: “You probably picked up on the fact that I have some skepticism.”

The judge said he hoped to rule by Labor Day.

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