Judge Finds Admin Not Complying With Court Order After Musk, Vance Rail Against Judiciary

Trump and those in his orbit seem to be softening the ground to ignore a judge’s ruling, which would spark a constitutional crisis.
BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA - OCTOBER 05: (L-R) Elon Musk, Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance visit back stage during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show g... BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA - OCTOBER 05: (L-R) Elon Musk, Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance visit back stage during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds on October 05, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. This is the first time that Trump has returned to Butler since he was injured during an attempted assassination on July 13. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

It’s quite a split screen: The president, vice president, White House deputy chief of staff and unelected co-president publicly goad each other on to ignore a judge’s order, which would usher in a full-blown constitutional crisis. 

Meanwhile, the Trump Justice Department on Sunday took up nearly a whole page in a short filing to assure a federal judge that it’s in full compliance with that same order, despite vehemently disagreeing with it. 

This divide is a newer, darker iteration of something Donald Trump and his team have been doing for years now: siloing off their most outrageous bombast from the courtroom, with its risk of perjury and contempt charges. But this time, it’s even more dangerous than Trump’s lawyers watering down his constant, false refrain that the 2020 election was stolen in court filings. 

That’s particularly so if the administration is acting more in accordance with the Twitter rants than the DOJ’s vow of compliance — a reality indicated by a federal judge in Rhode Island on Monday finding that, in a separate case, the administration was, in fact, violating a temporary restraining order he had issued.

Softening The Ground

After a federal judge in New York blocked Musk and DOGE from interfering with the Treasury Department’s payment system Saturday, Trump, J.D. Vance, Stephen Miller and Elon Musk all publicly expressed the conviction that the judge had done something illegal, seemingly fabricating grounds to ignore his orders, or another unfavorable one down the road. 

Trump told reporters on his way to the Super Bowl that “no judge should, frankly, be allowed to make that kind of a decision.”

The other three were even less constrained. 

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal,” Vance tweeted. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

Vance has a long, chilling history of dismissing the validity of judicial orders that would stop an all-powerful executive from hollowing out the federal government to staff it with partisan stooges. 

“And when the courts — because you will get taken to court — 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,’” Vance said in 2021 on a podcast while running for Senate.

He reiterated his position in a 2024 ABC interview, when asked specifically about a president defying a Supreme Court order. 

Musk, who has amassed an enormous amount of power in Trump’s administration, tweeted: “A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!” He also retweeted an account called “Insurrection Barbie” that mused: “I don’t like the precedent it sets when you defy a judicial ruling, but I’m just wondering what other options are these judges leaving us if they’re going to blatantly disregard the constitution for their own partisan political goals?”

Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, aired his views on Fox News.

“So, as you’re aware, a radical left judge said that the Secretary of the Treasury cannot access the Treasury computer system,” Miller said. “This isn’t just unconstitutional. That ruling is an assault on the very idea of democracy itself.”

Tiptoeing Up To The Bright Line

The judiciary has no means of enforcing its own decisions; to this point, the separation of powers has been so sacrosanct that presidents (largely) abide by court orders they don’t like, even when they do so grudgingly. For Trump to flatly ignore a court order, for him to openly dare the judge to enforce it, would put the country and democracy in uncharted waters. It’s the bright line that many in Washington fear as the tipping point from Trump’s seizing of extraconstitutional power to ignoring the Constitution altogether. 

In a surreal twist, Trump isn’t going to such lengths to act unilaterally because the opposition party controls Congress; his own party does. He wouldn’t run afoul of the law if he directed his Republican majorities to change spending priorities or wind down federal agencies. But his seeming disregard for his allies in Congress, layered on a projected feeling of invulnerability drawn from a very narrow election win, have led him to do nearly everything from the executive branch.

Given congressional Republicans’ professed indifference to his and Musk’s power grab, the judiciary is the only institution willing and powerful enough to counter him. 

That makes that dividing line between what the DOJ says in court filings and what Trump’s coterie fires off on social media critically important. If there’s a blurring of that line, if the rhetoric of the latter becomes action unconstrained by the former, Trump has brought us to full-on crisis. 

The court order by a federal judge in Rhode Island handed down Monday may indicate which way the winds are blowing — or, at least, that the administration is too incompetent to fully comply with court orders as it takes a sledgehammer to the federal government: The judge found that the Trump administration is not abiding by his decision to block the federal funding freeze. 

“Consistent with the United States Constitution, United States statutes, United States Supreme Court precedent, and the [temporary restraining order],” the judge wrote, the administration must restore withheld funds and continue the regular flow of funding, at least while the restraining order is in place. 

Hours later, the American Foreign Service Association filed an emergency motion in federal court. The complaint? That the Trump administration is keeping its members on administrative leave — in violation of the judge’s order. 

Latest News
173
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for jrw jrw says:

    How many branches does the damn Rubicon have?

  2. Avatar for xcopy xcopy says:

    or, at least, that the administration is too incompetent to fully comply with court orders as it takes a sledgehammer to the federal government

    “We broke it but good and even we cant be sure how it works at this point” is sorta the point.

    But that gives them too much credit. Theyre probing the fences, seeing what they can get away with, and daring the judge—or anyone else— to do anything about it.

  3. OK, what’s next? And how soon?

  4. Constitutional Crisis: Day, what 21?

  5. The federal judiciary doesn’t have an army to enforce its rulings, instead relying on norms and the rule of law. Chainsaw Trump and his minions don’t care about nor respect either, so we are in a world of trouble here.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

167 more replies

Participants

Avatar for heart Avatar for eggrollian Avatar for brutus1910 Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for danny Avatar for mch Avatar for lastroth Avatar for left_in_washington_state Avatar for thebishop Avatar for generalsternwood Avatar for serendipitoussomnambulist Avatar for bboerner Avatar for califdemdreamer Avatar for darrtown Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for coimmigrant Avatar for carolson Avatar for jackofalltirades Avatar for txlawyer Avatar for thomaspaine Avatar for Scoutmom Avatar for iafixture Avatar for john_adams Avatar for marciaann

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher & Digital Producer:
Senior Developer:
Senior Designer: