Amid national news reports of a federal judge's ruling that President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election likely were criminal, the reaction in the judge's home base of Orange County, California, was mostly one of proud expectedness.

"So Dave Carter!" read one text message to a reporter, with emojis of a hand flashing the peace sign and a face wearing shades. 

Another: "Judge Carter!!!"

And another: "You see why we all love dad? When push comes to shove he stands tall."

U.S. District Judge David Carter of the Central District of California. (Photo via Meghann M. Cuniff)

The monumental order Monday from U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of the Central District of California drew national attention and praise from the House of Representatives' Jan. 6 Committee, and national media pundits remarked on the rarity of a U.S. trial judge wading into such a politically contentious issue. But in the legal community where Carter has been a fixture since the 1970s, the order epitomized his fearlessness and patriotism that so many have long known.

"This is vintage Judge Carter at its best," said Kate Corrigan, a criminal defense lawyer with Corrigan Welbourn Stokke in Newport Beach. "The whole opinion is him being not just a judge but a true American and lover of democracy. It just oozed that."

Issued on the judge's 78th birthday, the 44-page ruling is the first time a U.S. judge has considered possible crimes committed by a sitting president. It ensures the Jan. 6 Committee will get 101 of the 111 emails Trump's lawyer John Eastman sent between Jan. 4-7, 2021, using his Chapman University account. Carter concluded the crime-fraud exception applied to a draft memo for Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani that otherwise would be protected by attorney-client privilege, concluding Trump and Eastman "more likely than not" conspired to obstruct Congress. But it also goes beyond the emails and calls for accountability in the Jan. 6 attacks, with the judge writing: "If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the court fears January 6 will repeat itself."

Questions of judicial activism have long followed Carter, who was recused by a colleague from a lawsuit over homelessness in 2018, then had a major injunction vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a related case, with the panel saying the judge "impermissibly resorted to independent research and extra-record evidence." But he's also long had a reputation for seeking big cases and an innate ability to resolve complex issues.

"He has always been that way, and he has inspired me and some other younger judges—we're not really young anymore, but we were at one time—to try to walk that same faith," said Justice Thomas Goethals of California's 4th District Court of Appeal, Division 3 in Santa Ana.