Vice President JD Vance condemned European countries last month for a lack of commitment to democracy as many of them lash out with lawfare attacks against populist leaders.

Vance’s critique applies to more than just Europe, however, as populist leaders across the globe are facing legal troubles from outright election bans to criminal convictions.

Here are the top populist leaders facing the most pressure.

1. Marine Le Pen, France

Right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen and several members of her ascendant National Rally party were convicted of embezzlement on Monday, and she herself has been banned from running in the 2027 presidential election.

Populist leaders from across Europe condemned the verdict, pointing to her significant lead in the polls.

‘Those who fear the judgment of voters often seek reassurance from the courts. In Paris, they have condemned Marine Le Pen and would like to remove her from political life,’ Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said following Le Pen’s verdict.

‘We are not intimidated,’ he added. ‘Full speed ahead, my friend!’

2. Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil

Brazil’s Supreme Court accepted charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro last week over an alleged attempt to remain in office after his 2022 election defeat, ordering the former leader to stand trial.

All five justices ruled in favor of accepting the charges leveled by Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, who accused Bolsonaro and 33 others of attempting a coup that included a plan to poison his successor, current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and kill a Supreme Court judge.

The former president has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and says he’s being politically persecuted.

Under Brazilian law, a coup conviction carries a sentence of up to 12 years. When combined with the other charges, it could result in a sentence of decades behind bars.

3. Calin Georgescu, Romania

Calin Georgescu won the first round of Romania’s presidential elections earlier this year, only for the election to be canceled due to allegations of Russian collusion in Georgescu’s favor.

Georgescu was then taken into custody and has since been banned from running in the election, despite leading in polls.

4. Matteo Salvini, Italy

Italian Vice Premier Matteo Salvini faced years of legal trouble due to accusations that he had illegally detained roughly 100 migrants during his term as interior minister in 2019.

The 2019 incident saw migrants held offshore on a humanitarian rescue ship. Italian courts dropped the charges against Slavini in December.

‘Protecting our country’s borders from smugglers is not a crime,’ Salvini said shortly after the verdict. ‘This is a victory for the League and for Italy.’

5. Imran Khan, Pakistan

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was jailed last month on corruption charges, though many of his supporters have compared his situation to that of President Donald Trump and the charges he has faced.

A Pakistani court sentenced Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, to 14 and seven years in jail after finding them guilty of corruption. They were convicted for allegedly accepting land as a bribe through the Al-Qadir Trust, which they had set up while Khan was in office. Khan, however, maintains his innocence, describing the events as a ‘witch hunt’ in exclusive comments to Fox News Digital. It is just one of the more than 100 cases he is facing.

Khan’s plight has also been highlighted by longtime Trump ally and adviser Richard Grenell, who took to social media late last year when he tweeted, ‘Free Imran Khan!’

6. Donald Trump, United States of America

President Donald Trump has faced waves of legal trouble from his political opponents stretching back nearly a decade to his first administration.

First he faced down the now-discredited Russia collusion claims before once again facing impeachment for negotiating aid for Ukraine. Once out of office, federal and state governments targeted his business dealings with investigations, eventually resulting in his conviction for falsifying business records, a verdict his allies say was bogus.

Trump has acknowledged that populist leaders like him are facing challenges across the globe. He remarked on Le Pen’s ‘very important’ situation in a statement Tuesday.

‘She was banned for five years and she was the leading candidate,’ Trump said. ‘That sounds like this country, that sounds very much like this country.’

Fox News’ Avi Kumar, Benjamin Weinthal and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

The legal resistance to President Donald Trump’s second term is in full swing with more than 120 lawsuits filed since Jan. 20 by states, advocacy groups and individuals targeting his executive orders and policy agenda.

As the lawsuits move through the judiciary, understanding the structure of the federal court system can help clarify how these challenges are likely to unfold.

Article III of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Supreme Court along with ‘inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.’ The Constitution also states that judges shall hold their offices during a period of ‘good behavior.’

The federal judiciary has three main levels: district courts (trial courts), circuit courts (the first level of appeal) and the Supreme Court (the final appellate authority). There are 94 district courts, 13 circuit courts and one Supreme Court.

To hear a case, a court must have personal jurisdiction (authority over the parties involved), subject matter jurisdiction (authority to hear the type of legal issue at hand) and proper venue (the correct geographic location for the case to be tried).

Unlike state courts, which have broad authority, federal courts are courts of ‘limited jurisdiction,’ which means they can only hear cases authorized by the Constitution or federal law. Each lawsuit filed against the Trump administration raises a federal question, giving federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction.

Each district court has at least one United States district judge appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a life term. Plaintiffs who lose at the district court level can appeal to a federal appellate court.

Appellate courts, also known as circuit courts, hear appeals from district courts within their geographic boundaries. Each circuit covers multiple states. For example, the Fifth Circuit includes Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Each circuit also has multiple judges, ranging from six total judges to 29. Appeals to the circuit courts are first heard by a panel of three judges. Parties must file briefs to the court, arguing why the trial court’s decision should either be affirmed or reversed.

After briefs are filed, oral arguments are scheduled during which attorneys from both sides present their case and answer questions from a panel of judges. In some instances, the full court may hear a case in what’s called an en banc session. The Ninth Circuit, due to its size, follows a modified en banc process.

A circuit court’s decision is binding on all lower courts within that circuit. As such, those courts must follow that holding. Other circuits can look to that circuit’s holding as reference, but they are not bound by it.

A case can generally only be appealed once a final decision has been issued. However, some issues can be appealed before a final decision is made via what’s called an interlocutory appeal.

Parties can appeal a circuit court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court by filing a writ of certiorari, which is a request for the court to review the case. The Supreme Court isn’t required to take the case and denies most petitions, granting review in less than 1% of appeals. When cert is denied, the lower court’s ruling remains in place.

A circuit split is when circuits disagree on a particular legal matter. This will generally prompt the Supreme Court to grant cert in a case. If cert is granted, parties must file briefs and conduct oral arguments. 

Each circuit is assigned to a specific Supreme Court justice who handles certain appeals from that region, such as emergency applications and administrative requests. For example, Chief Justice Roberts oversees the D.C. Circuit, the 4th Circuit and the Federal Circuit. The assigned justice may act alone or refer the matter to the full court at their discretion.

The Trump administration has already appealed various decisions to the Supreme Court via emergency appeals. On March 28, the administration asked the court to review a temporary restraining order that blocked the administration’s use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport Venezuelan nationals, including alleged members of the gang Tren de Aragua, from the United States. 

The appeal came shortly after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a 2-1 ruling to uphold the district court’s decision blocking the administration. 

Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing to examine the influx of nationwide orders against the Trump administration by federal district judges. 

Last week, Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed the details of the event, set one day after the House committee’s hearing on the same subject. 

‘Since the courts and the executive branch are on an unsustainable collision course, Congress must step in and provide clarity,’ he said in a statement last week. ‘Our hearings will explore legislative solutions to bring the balance of power back in check.’

The hearing, titled, ‘Rule by District Judges II: Exploring Legislative Solutions to the Bipartisan Problem of Universal Injunctions,’ will feature testimony from John N. Matthews Professor of Law at Notre Dame Samuel Bray, partner at Boies Schiller Flexner Jesse Panuccio, who was previously the acting associate attorney general at the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the chairman of the DOJ’s Regulatory Reform Task Force and vice chairman of the DOJ’s Task Force on Market Integrity and Consumer Fraud, as well as Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts at Georgetown University Law Center Stephen I. Vladeck.

After revealing details of the hearing, Grassley rolled out his own bill to tackle the issue. 

‘These nationwide injunctions have become a favorite tool for those seeking to obstruct Mr. Trump’s agenda,’ he wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. ‘More than two-thirds of all universal injunctions issued over the past 25 years were levied against the first Trump administration. In the past two months alone, judges have issued at least 15 universal injunctions against the administration—surpassing the 14 President Biden faced throughout his four-year term.’

Grassley’s legislation would restrain the lower courts’ ability to issue nationwide orders, and they would no longer be able to stop ‘legitimate executive action’ by granting orders to entities or individuals who are not parties to the lawsuit. 

While similar bills have been introduced by Grassley’s GOP colleagues in both the Senate and House, it is unclear whether the issue will get floor votes, as it would need to amass more than 60 votes in the upper chamber to beat the filibuster. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has not elaborated much on the issue and, when asked about it, he told reporters, ‘At the end of the day, there is a process, and there’s an appeals process. And, you know, I suspect that’s ultimately how it’s going to be ended.’

President Donald Trump has made his frustration with nationwide injunctions clear, urging action on them publicly. 

‘Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country!’ the president said in a recent Truth Social post. ‘These people are Lunatics, who do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect Decisions and Rulings.’

‘If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!’ he continued. 

Democrats have remained relatively quiet while President Donald Trump and Republicans hammer federal district judges for churning out nationwide orders halting his administration’s actions. 

But during President Joe Biden’s tenure, they decried similar wide-ranging injunctions and even sought to remedy the issue with legislation. 

In 2023, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, debuted a measure to give the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sole jurisdiction over any cases with national implications. 

‘When parties are able to choose their judges, it creates the perception that they are able to predetermine their case’s outcome, compromising the integrity of our federal justice system,’ she said in a statement at the time. 

‘Activist plaintiffs should not be able to hand-pick individual judges to set nationwide policy, which is why it’s critical we address the issue of judge shopping in our federal courts. By routing cases with national implications through the D.C. District Court, which has expertise in cases challenging federal agency action, the Stop Judge Shopping Act will strengthen trust in our federal justice system and help ensure major cases are decided based on the law, not the ideological agenda of any one judge.’

The bill wouldn’t have ended nationwide injunctions as Republicans and Trump have sought, but it would give all jurisdiction on such decisions to one court, potentially reducing the probability of such orders being levied against Biden or other Democrat presidents. 

The D.C. court is made up of 11 district judges appointed by former Presidents Biden and Barack Obama, and four were appointed by Trump. The court’s chief judge is Obama-appointee James Boasberg, who is at the center of a key battle with the Trump administration over deportation flights using the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime immigration law. 

A similar measure was proposed by then-Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., in addition to 37 other Democrats in 2024. The bill would have required cases involving broad injunctions to be randomly assigned in order to ‘promote uniformity and fairness.’

Hirono, Schumer and Whitehouse did not provide comment to Fox News Digital when asked if they still supported legislative action and if they backed any of the Republican bills. 

Multiple Republicans in Congress have rolled out legislation this Congress to explicitly prevent district-level courts from issuing such wide-ranging orders, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. 

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, he wrote, ‘The obvious solution is to limit district courts to resolving the cases only between the parties before them.’

‘Under my bill, lower courts could no longer block legitimate executive action by issuing orders to nonparties to the lawsuit. The bill would also make TROs against the government immediately appealable, to make sure that prudence wins out over rash decisions handed down in the heat of a political moment,’ he explained. 

The top judiciary Republican also pointed to past grievances Democrats have had with the practice of nationwide court orders. 

‘Two-hundred forty Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, in 2023, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief warning of the ‘perilous consequences’ resulting from a district judge’s move to block the abortion pill mifepristone,’ he recalled. 

‘Justice Elena Kagan has similarly expressed dismay.’

The brief was filed to plead with the high court to overrule the nationwide injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, which suspended FDA approval of mifepristone. 

‘The consequences of the Fifth Circuit’s decision could extend far beyond mifepristone, for it undermines the science-based, expert-driven process that Congress designed for determining whether drugs are safe and effective,’ the lawmakers wrote at the time. ‘By permitting the district court to disrupt FDA’s current regulation of mifepristone, the Fifth Circuit has countenanced judicial interference that erroneously substitutes the district court’s judgment for FDA’s scientific determination.

Hirono, Schumer and Whitehouse have not been publicly critical of nationwide injunctions during the new Trump administration as district judges across the country manage to halt actions.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the subject as Republicans push legislation to end the practice of issuing nationwide orders.