The ultimate outcome is one that wasn't really anticipated by the Constitution. The general order of how things are supposed to go is:
1. A US court orders something.
2. The Executive Branch enforces that order, as it is responsible for the DOJ which is in turn responsible for the US Marshals (who enforce court rulings).
3. If those people do not enforce the rulings, Congress brings articles of impeachment and impeaches the President or others responsible.
4. Elect/appoint/elevate a new person to carry out the court order.
The Constitution doesn't really account for the possibility that 1/3 of the Senate would disagree with an ignored court order. So hard to say where it goes from there.
I do think there's a subtle distinction between "listening to the lawful President in defiance of a court order" and "listening to an unlawful President in defiance of the lawful President's order and a court order."
Keep in mind that people like the US Marshals and federal agents get guidance from the President all the time. Think "we won't arrest anyone for federal drug laws in states where recreational marijuana is legal."
The difference seems large enough that you could conceivably respond differently to one versus the other.
A president is unlawful if they defy a court order. Regardless of impeachment/conviction status. They are a traitor, legally speaking. The house or Senate's failure to enforce the constitution makes them traitors as well.
> why would they respect the impeachment verdict from congress?
Supposedly at that stage everyone would stop following their instructions. This may be part of why Trump is so set on replacing huge swaths of the government with loyalists.
This sounds kind of like a majority attack with blockchains. If most of the government officials are against a court order, seems like it just won't happen i.e. even steps 3 and 4.
Conversely, presumably this is by design since a rogue judge could issue a bad court order and presumably there are mechanisms to deal with these that perhaps involve a large enough quorum disagreeing with and ignoring it.
rogue judges are handled by appeals, which is why there are multiple levels of courts, with the idea that if it went all the way to SCOTUS, it's no longer a rogue judge.
It's not about that. It's about drowning the federal government agencies in mounds of paperwork from malicious EOs and the resultant legal cases. Stop the work from getting done for long enough, and the right people will resign, paving the way for new, openly-politicized loyalists to take over.
Some people will be in contempt of court. Trump will issue some pardons, but will he issue pardons for his small helpers? Small helpers will have to worry about the next election.
One of these agencies is not going to comply. And then what? Trump is already pushing the legal “theory” that the judiciary cannot check the executive. This is bound to end up in front of the Supreme Court, and who knows what those guys will do?
We already have a few cases like that where judges are ruling that the executive is not complying with court orders. So good question, what enforcement mechanism does the judicial have if the executive simply does not comply?
In theory, Congress should impeach. And if congress failed, the final option would be "We the People" with the second amendment.
That said, in reality, I don't expect there will be any real pushback. It'll be people attempting to work in the constrains of a new system and life will largely still be mostly normal for folks.
It’s one of the latest examples. In this case it’s amplified by Vance, but he’s been saying that for quite a while now, with his ideas of presidential immunity. And it’s all there in Project 2025.
> Vance said that if Trump became president again, "I think what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'"[14][49]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin
And he didn't quite say that the judiciary can't check the executive. He said that the judiciary can't check the "legitimate power" of the executive. (Of course, that completely misses that the judiciary checks the executive precisely by ruling that something is outside the legitimate power of the executive...)
That's where the battle line is currently drawn. Does the president get to decide that, or does the judge? Is it a fig leaf, or is it a real constraint?
There fundamentally is going to be conflict in any system of checks and balances. Neither the SCOTUS nor POTUS get to unilaterally decide the limits.
Trump hasn't been following convention, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. We also can't just assume he's right. Having the 3 branches hash out a balance is perfectly reasonable and confirms the system is working as intended.
In 2021, Vance said Trump in his second term should fire “every civil servant in the administrative state” and, “when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’” (This refers to an apparently apocryphal quote from the country’s seventh president, who declined to enforce a Supreme Court ruling.)
In 2022, Vance suggested a president could disregard an “illegitimate ruling” in which the Supreme Court would say a president can’t fire a military general.
JD Vance is also on TV all the time basically ignoring the most basic constitutional provisions, and Trump's pimp-daddy Musk is also ignoring the courts. This is a trend.
> Is the federal judge correct here or is he overstepping some of his power
If the judge is overstepping the resolution rests with the legislature (either changing the law, or if the judge is truly ignoring it, impeachment). Or the decision can be appealed. It's not an excuse to ignore the order.
Who is correct is less important than who can enforce an action. Sounds like the DOJ controls the Marshalls that enforce decisions by the judiciary, and the DOJ is controlled by sycophants now that will do Trump’s bidding.
By all means, challenge the research if you find it offensive. It might get conservatives to sponsor a public works project for once.
Removing the data (particularly when it can be archived and served at zero cost to the government) is the only way you can waste taxpayer dollars in this situation. The research has been paid for, taxpaying Americans should be able to access it.
The federal courts' powers of judicial review have been established for over 200 years since Marbury v Madison. The inferior courts are also organised pursuant to the constitution and have full judicial powers (though can be abolished or rearranged by Congress should they decide):
> The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. (Start of Art. 3).
It is good to not GAF about down votes, but do consider the possibility it is because you are confidently incorrect, not because the voters are ill-informed or angry.
It now seems that you do agree that Federal judges actually have the ability to order the Executive branch on matters which are not at the President's discretion, yes?
Your thesis is that only the Supreme Court gets to decide what is and is not part of the President's discretion?
So for the three months with the Supreme Court is out of session, there's no constraint on the President, except by having an emergency session?
Is it part of the President's discretion to imprison Supreme Court judges at Guantanamo?
If he does that, I believe your view is that no Federal judge has the ability to order the Executive branch to stop.
Sounds like you've listened to too many anti-democractic activists for the unitary executive theory - a view common among the rich and powerful, and their sycophants.
The limits of judicial review are absolutely contested, and there's a perfectly respectable argument that Marbury v Madison was a wrongly-decided power grab by the judicial branch (albeit now settled law). But it's a long way from there to the idea that district courts have no JR power. They are fully constitutional and exercise the 'judicial Power of the United States' as does the Supreme Court. Subject to being overturned on appeal, of course.
Webpages and data. And a few of those agencies deal with research, science and technology. Knee-jerk flagging when you don’t like a story is not great.
If I were Trump or Vought I'd be over the moon about this ruling. A lowly district judge telling the president what to put on a federal agency's website. No idea about the legal side, but the optics are great for Trump.
It's hardly a reframe. Whether the content was there before is irrelevant. A judge is dictating the contents of an agency site, at the behest of a private party. A temporary injunction may well be common, but it doesn't mean it isn't a bizarre-sounding decision in this case.
Removing the info, at least much of it, was a crap decision. But this feels like a massive win for Trump.
This is still a strange way to reframe things. America is supposed to be a nation of laws. The Judiciary is one of our checks on the executive, and the executive is supposed to behave in good faith and execute what Congress has passed.
You're essentially saying the executive should have no checks on it.
"A judge is dictating the contents of an agency site, at the behest of a private party."
No, a judge is undoing an executive order from a federal agency that did not pass judicial scrutinty for legalitybased on 200+ years of judicial framework and precidence. Nothing to do with information, politics, etc.
this is exactly what the framework of the constitution allows for and happens dozens of times a day every day in every locale.
Additionally, you performed mental gymnastics to use the the terms "Agency Site" in place of the term "Agency Operating under the Executive Privilege of the Federal Government" and "private party" in place of the "The United States".
This is IMO very cut and dry, will get very little media coverage, and I struggle to think how one falls on "This looks good for person X".
> Additionally, you performed mental gymnastics to use the the terms […] "private party" in place of the "The United States".
"private party" in their comment likely refers to the plaintiff in the case, "Doctors for America", which is a private party.
But I agree with you, though: of course the plaintiff is a private party. Who else would it be, when the government is violating the Constitution? Is upthread expecting the government to sue itself?
There are at least two laws in question. One specifically says that the government must '"provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information
dissemination products,” which HHS defines to include electronic documents and webpages.' (quoting the ruling, which quotes the law) Clearly the government did not do this. The other is the Administrative Procedures Act, which forbids arbitrary and capricious actions by agencies.
Also, if you think the "optics" of this are good, consider whether you want your doctor wasting time trying to find an alternative resource instead of practicing medicine.
This is actually pretty basic U.S. administrative law. A federal agency did an action without following procedures set forth by law, and the judge is ordering them to undo that action.
It's irrelevant what the content is; the judge didn't rule that specific content needed to go back on the website. He undid the action itself.
Yes, to laypeople that distinction doesn't matter. But it matters a great deal to lawyers and to the agencies.
And note: this is not a win for Trump or his administration. It's egg on his face, because he could have accomplished this without the courts being able to undo it...if he had followed the procedures set forth in the APA (which would have required a few weeks). This injunction is likely to last longer than it would have taken for them to do things correctly the first time.
Republicans already control the 3 branches of federal government. They don't need PR wins any more.
That makes sense, and I don't know why you got downvoted. IANAL, and still less an administrative lawyer.
I'm just saying that Trump and Vought are going to make hay with the optics of this. It will seem bizarre to many that the content of a website can be matter for the courts.
I would guess that a doctor saying that she's having trouble dealing with an STD outbreak at a high school because the resources she needs are suddenly no longer available, or she has to take time out of a patient appointment to try to figure out where to find information (which are the some of the injuries alleged in the suit) is a much more compelling issue for most people.
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