'Visceral fury': Trump 'hitting a wall' as judges rush to block his executive orders - eviltoast
Donald Trump's chaotic rush to push through a wave of changes to the government via executive orders is hitting "a wall" with judges who are already expressing anger and frustration in their rulings.That is according to a report from Politico's Kyle Cheney who noted that over nine judges across the ...

Summary

Judges across the U.S. are blocking Trump’s aggressive executive orders, with some rulings expressing deep frustration.

A Trump-appointed judge halted his attempt to place 2,200 USAID employees on leave, while another blocked Elon Musk’s team from accessing Treasury records.

A Reagan-appointed judge condemned Trump’s disregard for the rule of law in a ruling against his birthright citizenship plan.

These legal setbacks are forcing federal agencies to reveal more details and raising concerns over Trump’s expansive use of executive power.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    There is a mechanism for doing this that’s fairly well grounded in the legal system. Go to a federal judge, explain that he’s continuing to break the law even though he’s not supposed to be, and ask for an order authorizing you to go and stop him, by force, with some officially designated force providers.

    The issue is that this is all in Federal Court, and all of the “officially designated force providers” at that level are part of the Executive Branch. So who would agree to enforce this when Trump can just immediately fire them, even if he doesn’t have the legal right to do so? Even the US Marshals, who are intended to enforce stuff like this, are still part of the DoJ under the Attorney General. Can a court compel an AG to take an action if the President can just pardon all of her contempt citations from ignoring it?

    Since these are States that are suing, can a Federal judge authorize State police to take control of a Federal building with the purpose of enforcing a Federal order that Federal forces refuse to enforce (and keeping the Muskovites out)?

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
      4·
      2 days ago

      The issue is that this is all in Federal Court, and all of the “officially designated force providers” at that level are part of the Executive Branch.

      That’s not strictly true. They could call the DC metro police. They could call the Virginia or Maryland National Guard.

      Since these are States that are suing, can a Federal judge authorize State police to take control if a Federal building with the purpose of keeping the Muskovites out?

      Sure. If you have an order signed by the judge, most police of whatever agency are authorized to back you up. Whether they will is up in the air, in this case where everyone surely knows they’re touching off a shit-storm the true magnitude of which there is no way to know. But it has happened before. State Police backed up Archibald Cox when the FBI was ransacking his office. There are scenarios where one police agency with a judge’s order has faced off against another police agency who is trying to just out-stubborn them, and usually the side with the judge’s order wins. And surely the FBI hates Trump by this point. They could still have a bunch of personnel show up with somebody to enter the Dept. of Education by force, and Trump could call them on scene personally and tell them they’re fired, and they could still say, “Sorry, I’ll need that in writing, I am busy, I have to go now.”

      Trump would surely come after the FBI, but he is doing that already. This is like “I can’t leave him, he’ll beat me” when he is already beating you every weekend. If it’s on, let it be on, man. At least keeping it within some kind of legal framework seems like it would be ten times better either than letting him continue to get away with it, or waiting for shit to pop off outside the legal framework.