Recent court orders that delay or block President Donald Trump Blitz’s policy has raised the ghost that the executive branch could openly pay the federal judicial system and raise questions about how the judges would react.
Any decision of the administration to oppose the federal courts would immediately notice deep constitutional issues regarding the division of the powers that each branch of the government has supported for centuries. This is largely because this would test the power of the courts to implement decisions that should be the last word.
The problem reached a fever over the weekend when the Trump administration deported hundreds of alleged band members in Salvador, despite the federal judge’s order that the law on enemies of alien enemies of the 19th century could not be used.
Asked on Sunday night if his administration violated the judge’s order, Trump replied: “You will have to talk to the lawyers about it.”
Legal experts say there are few options to force compliance with her statements. Judges could hold an agency or civil or criminal contempt official – but that’s why.
The fears that the Trump administration may deliberately penetrate a model of not following court decisions that she disagreed with was intensified last month when a federal judge in the genus of Island told the Trump Administration that he could not reduce the administration of the administration of the prior and the borrowed payments, after the heads of the Damkoi, The judge.
A day earlier Vice President J. “Judges have no right to control the legal authority of the executive power,” he writes in part.
The most likely response from the court, if the administration is to oppose its Edict, will be to hold the agency that acts as an order or a civil contempt order that will allow a judge to impose fines on the government for its compliance, experts told CNN.
“So you, any appropriate defendant, whether the Secretary of the Ministry of Finance or any other official, and fines are escalated (with the ongoing failure),” says Michael Dorf, a professor of constitutional law at Cornell Law.
But the problem with this, Dorf added, is that the agency or employee can also ignore the fines imposed.
“If they were first ready to give up the order, they might be ready to oppose the sanction order,” he said.
For the time being, the Ministry of Justice has undertaken the usual approach to appeal to the higher court regarding the preliminary orders that have blocked various enforcement actions. The Law on Alien enemies has already been appealed before the US Court of Appeal.
Asked in the White House last month whether he would comply with the court decisions, Trump replied that he would do so.
“Well, I always follow the courts and then I will have to appeal it – but then what it has done is that it has delayed momentum and that gives crooked people more time to cover up the books,” Trump said. “So yes, the answer is that I always respect the courts, I always keep myself. And we will appeal, but the appeals take a long time. “
Other official sanctions from the court, although based in a deep history, also come with many potential problems when applied to the executive branch. If a judge decides to undergo criminal contempt, for example, it will have to be initiated by the Ministry of Justice – which means that it is very unlikely to be given the control of the president over that department. The US Marshals Service, which applies the federal court orders, is also part of the Ministry of Justice.
“Judges are very difficult to use this – and maybe the right way – because it is such a hammer. The threat of sending someone to prison is something like a last resort, “says Karl Tobias, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Richmond.
Judges who hold government entities or scientists with contempt are not unheard. In 2021, US District Judge Royce Lambert in Washington, Colombia County, kept the city’s prison in civil contempt but did not require any sanctions. The judge, appointed to former President Ronald Reagan, instead directed a prison at the Ministry of Justice for potential civil rights violations after failing to receive the treatment of a Capitol rebel in need of surgery.
And presidents who do not respond to court orders, though new, are also not unprecedented. The then President Richard Nixon is known to have opposed the court order to overturn the White House tape records during Watergate’s investigation. He eventually did it, but only after the Supreme Court ruled that he had to hand them over.
Punishment can be political rather than legal
David Cole, a professor of law in Georgetown, who has repeatedly argued cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of the US Civil Freedom Union, predicts that the most common punishment with which the president will face the denial of the court order would be not legal.
“The answer,” Cole predicts, “will be to punish the Republican Party.”
But Cole noted that during Trump’s first term of office, the White House often lost major legal disputes, complained to the judge who issued them and then did what every previous administration did after a loss: appeal.
Despite “much punching of norms,” Cole said he believed that people were transferring Vance’s publication for X and other past statements.
“If the president opposes an order, it will cause a political storm,” Cole said. “And he knows this, so it’s very unlikely to do it.”
Dorf said the difference between how the Trump administration responded to unfavorable court decisions during the first term and is now “the full consent of the Republicans in Congress to Trump”.
This support, he said, prevented the possibility of Congress to use its power as an impeachment to punish Trump or others for a potential non -compliance with a court order.
Some Republicans have defended the role of the federal judicial system or repelled back to the idea that the White House may oppose the decisions that are in Trump’s program.
Among them is Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, a Republican at the Senate Judicial Commission, who last month said he supported the “legitimacy of the federal judicial system” and the trial.
“I didn’t agree with the opinions before,” he said. “That is why God made the appeal of the courts. That is why God has made the US Supreme Court. “
Katelyn Polantz by CNN has contributed to this report.
This story was originally published on February 12th. It was updated after the decision of the Law on Foreign Enemies and the deportations of El Salvador on March 15.
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