Cnn
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Vice-president JD Vance, Elon Musk and other members of the Trump administration openly dispute the secular power of the country’s judiciary, foreshadowing a possible constitutional rupture of the American government.
It is not simply that the new administration flouted a series of federal laws and aroused a flood of legal challenges. It is that some of Donald Trump’s main advisers have questioned whether the decisions about these prosecution would even limit the president.
There are signs that the orders of certain judges have been ignored. On Monday, a federal judge of Rhode Island concluded that the administration had violated the “raw text” of its previous order which was disgusting billions of dollars in federal aid. The judge ordered that funding will be restored to the environment, health and other programs that had been cut.
In a separate case on Monday, in Washington, DC, federal employees told a judge that the administration had not reinstated the workers of the USAID who had been put on leave.
During the fight against affairs, the Ministry of Justice said that the president should have the power to decide how to manage the government and that the judges go beyond.
Chief judge John Roberts may have prescribed the turn of events six weeks ago, when he warned at the end of December that “elected officials from the whole political specter raised the specter of open contempt for court decisions federal. These dangerous, so sporadic suggestions should be rejected deeply. »»
A commitment to the rule of law and the judicial authority is anchored in the American way of life, drawing towards the creation of 1789 of the federal bench at three levels.
Historically, the executive branch, even after having vigorously fought a matter, respected a resolution of the Supreme Court. A notable example took place in 1974, when President Richard Nixon initially refused to give up recordings of oval office bands during the Watergate investigation, but respected when the Supreme Court ruled against him.
Defiance thus invites the American standard that two episodes stand out, both in the 1800s, involving President Andrew Jackson’s refusal to apply the cases of Cherokee and the suspension of the civil war of President Abraham Lincoln of the Brief of Habeas.
“This simply does not happen,” said the professor of constitutional law at Columbia University on Monday, Gillian Metzger on Monday. “But that simply does not happen because there is a very deep standard for monitoring the law and commitment to the rule of law. … If we come to the point where we have the executive power of the government refusing to follow the orders of the court, we are really in “constitutional crises” and the president at this stage violates the duty “to take care” “.
Among the specific functions under Article II of the Constitution, the president “takes care of the faithful execution of the laws”.
Even if their position reflected and sunk, the federal judges benefited from institutional respect over the centuries. However, the first weeks of Trump in power suddenly raised the prospect of the disobedience of judicial orders and a constitutional collapse that takes place.
Many of Trump decrees undoubtedly violate federal laws, for example, involving the breakdown of funds mandated by the congress and the underestimated fire of senior officials. As the multitude of decrees was faced with a meticulous examination of the court, Trump’s main advisers wondered if the judges could block one of his programs.
“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, it would be illegal,” said Vance in a post on X. “If a judge tried to command the Attorney General to use his discretionary power as a prosecutor who is also illegal.
Vance has already alluded to his contempt for the decisions of the High Court, declaring in a podcast 2021 That Trump could respond to unfavorable decisions “as Andrew Jackson did and said,” The chief judge made his decision. Now let it apply it. “”
The researchers say that the commonly invoked line, attributed to Jackson of chief judge John Marshall after the decision of Worcester c. Georgia of 1832, is probably apocryphal.
“The quote is not really appropriate here,” added the law professor at the University of Chicago, Alison Lacroix, who is also a legal historian. “No order was rendered to President Jackson. It was issued to Georgia, “which said authority over the members of the Cherokee nation who live there. (The Supreme Court ruled that federal competence was exclusive, so Georgia did not have the power to control the Cherokees. But Jackson, who had put pressure for “Indian move”, ” refused to apply the order And rather sent troops to force the Cherokees by force, in what has become known as “Trail of Tears”.)))
Meanwhile, Trump expanded his criticism on the justice system on Monday, criticizing the judges to “tell everyone how to direct the country”.
“The judges should govern. They should not dictate what you are supposed to do, “Trump told Radio leader Mark Levin in an interview broadcast on Monday evening.
Call balls and strikes
More relevant to today’s controversy, Lacroix described the concept of judges as “arbitrators”, a concept which, according to her, existed in legal history long before Roberts used the metaphor in his confirmation audiences of the Senate in 2005.
“What we see the administration doing now is essentially saying that there is no arbiter,” said Lacroix, “and all the land exists according to the executive branch. And they are do not have to pay attention to what other players or officials do.
Vance is a graduate of the Yale Law School, just like his wife, USHA, who was the clerk of chief judge Roberts during the 2017 to 2018 session. The two vances would have been exposed to the rooted academic understanding of judicial supremacy.
The unknown history of this historical photo
“At least throughout the 20th century, the established understanding was that it is the obligation of the president and any other civil servant to access the decisions of the Supreme Court,” said Harvard law professor Richard Fallon, specializing in constitutional law and the role of federal courts. “If the president wants to disobey, it would be a deeply consecutive step that would dispute our understanding of what the rule of law requires.”
It is often said, by adapting Alexander Hamilton, that unlike executive and legislative branches, the judiciary does not have the power of “the sword” or “the bag”. But the third branch has sufficiently collected respect for the public and moral authority to fill the membership of its decisions since its creation from the end of the 18th century.
The touchstone for its power as a final arbitrator of the law is the case of 1803 of Marbury c. Madison, This established the power of the Court to examine the acts of the congress and to dismantle those who deemed unconstitutional.
In cases where people refused to follow the orders of the court, the judges held them or evaluated the fines. President Dwight Eisenhower, in a dramatic decision to enforce the decision of the Supreme Court of the Supreme Court, the decision of the Board of Education, of the Supreme Court, Envoy of federal troops In Little Rock when the Governor of Arkansas Orval Fauubus challenged a desegration plan ordered by the court and tried to prevent nine black students from entering the Cantalie.
During these first weeks of Trump’s second term, the judges of the courts of the federal district – the first step of the American judicial power – began to hinder its efforts to transform the federal workforce, freeze the funding of the government and Revise the country’s immigration policy.
On Saturday, a federal judge temporarily prevented the Musk government’s efficiency team from accessing the payment system of the Treasury Department which covers social security services and the wages of federal employees, among other payments.
Musk replied by calling the “corrupt” judge and saying that he “must be charged”.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Katelyn Polantz of CNN contributed to this report.