Summary
The Democratic National Committee and two other party committees have sued Trump over Executive Order 14215, which claims authority to seize control of the Federal Elections Commission.
The lawsuit argues this violates federal law and threatens free elections.
The order also claims power over other agencies including the SEC, FTC, and NLRB.
Democrats contend this executive overreach contradicts constitutional principles and a century of Supreme Court precedent upholding Congress’s authority to insulate certain agencies from presidential control.
For federal crimes, a federal judge would issue the warrant. But not a hand-picked federal judge, they would be randomly chosen from within the jurisdiction.
Even if a Trump-appointed judge were randomly chosen, I doubt they would go along with a bogus warrant against another judge. For one thing, judges (like cops) protect their own. For another, the warrant would be appealed and it’s quite unlikely that every judge in the line of appeal would play along.
That’s not the slam-dunk you seem to think. First, local PD would be present during the search and notice that a hard drive appeared out of nowhere. Next, the forensics team would notice that the only fingerprints on the drive belonged to federal agents. Finally, the judge’s password-protected computer would have no record of interfacing with that drive. All in all, those charges would likely be dismissed.
Trump might be an “outlaw” because he is not following the law, but that is not the same as a “criminal” (someone who has specifically violated the criminal code). And only criminals can be arrested.
The consequence for breaking the law is often not arrest, but a lawsuit. And Trump is being sued all over the place.
Trump isn’t going to successfully engage the national guard against the state police. For one thing, the national guard is paid by the governor’s office. What is Trump offering them?
If the governor tells the guard “Any guardsman who interferes with state police won’t get paid and/or will be demoted”, then nobody will interfere.
Tell me where the buck stops, because we could go back and forth all day. The only people who can remove Trump from office are the legislative branch, and they already consent to what he’s doing. He could just cut federal funding to any state that causes too much of a ruckus.
If they won’t hold him accountable for any blatantly unconstitutional activity then nothing can change. Sure, I guess you could imagine a scenario where all of America collectively decides that the states have a right to intercede and remove elected federal officials, but that’s no longer playing by the rules of the game.
The judicial branch alone cannot save you, suits can go back and forth and injunctions be ignored in perpetuity. If it causes any real annoyance there’s a million levers to pull (pulling funding, national emergencies, the insurrection act, targeted coercion, etc…)
That’s true.
We’re not talking about removing him from office, though. We are talking about judicial remedies, which usually involve paying restitution to people who have been wronged. And getting those people paid is not as difficult as you imagine.
Governors might care if you cut federal funding to their states.
But judges don’t care. And judges don’t work for the governor.
There’s a reason why judges tend to consider themselves as untouchable. None of this would have any effect on them.
Judges sentence mafia captains and drug kingpins to jail, people for whom extortion and violent retribution are second nature. Why do you think they would suddenly be scared off by Trump’s crew of incompetent doofuses?
No, they can’t. Nobody has an infinite bank account.
Ok, can a judge freeze a tank or a drone cruising at 50,000 feet? You’re banking on every single judge to agree to play civil war chicken? Not even a few of them (such as his personal appointments to the SCOTUS) will back Trump in this?
The judicial system just hemmed and hawwed for 4 years, refusing to lock him up for blatant crimes. Now they’re going to grow a spine when he has access to the nuclear launch codes?
If the judicial branch wanted to stop him they could have done it any time on the last 8 years. So either they can’t or won’t…
Is Trump personally driving that tank?
Once you order the military to break the law, all bets are off. Things aren’t necessarily going to go your way, especially if you’re suddenly a very unpopular leader. I think a randomly chosen soldier would be equally likely to target the White House than another American citizen with that tank.
The judicial system normally acts very slowly. They are the most deliberative branch of government. But they can move much faster when they are being defied.
And frankly it wasn’t their job to “stop” Trump. That was the job of voters, and we failed.
So you concede that the courts can’t do anything when push comes to shove. It’s up to the guy in the tank, the rogue secret service agent, the personal chef with a grudge, etc…
There’s a reason why the main push of the first few weeks were purges of executive officials and telling all federal employees to quit. Anyone left has passed the acid test of loyalty to Trump or is meek enough to “just follow orders”.
Is it a foolproof plan for Trump? Time will tell where all loyalties lay, but their actions have shown where they think the true threat is.
Courts can stop some (not all) of what he is doing now. Which I think is what they are doing.
I don’t think Trump is going to turn the military loose against Americans, if that’s what you imagine as “push comes to shove”. That would be suicidal, for Trump. Especially because of his purges. The people in government who actually get things done had no loyalty to the president, and now they have no loyalty to their departmental leadership. Trump just made it far more likely that the people he needs will sit on their hands when he needs them most.
I mean, in one of the current Trump lawsuits the DoJ is literally pleading that their department is so understaffed and disrupted that they will all have to work overtime to meet a judge’s demands. The judge basically laughed in their face and said if the DoJ can’t get it together then they deserve to lose. Does that sound like a powerful DoJ that we should fear?
I don’t doubt that it wouldn’t end well, but the plan is to use the threat as far as he can take it. Do you want to be the judge to pull that trigger? Have you seen how many “stern warnings” and “last chances” he gets, how they struggle to issue a gag order? Any delay allows him to further solidify his power and insulate the executive from other branches.
An important note is that they don’t care if the government doesn’t get things done. If people sit on their hands, they get fired. As he nosedives the USA into economic depression it will be a harder and harder decision to give up your paycheck just to stick it to the orange guy. Being within the orbit of the dictator gives way more stability than any part of the country he tears down.
Again, judges are used to threats and I don’t think they would find “domestic drone strike” to be a particularly credible response to “pay your workers or I’ll write the check myself”.
Because that’s what we’re talking about here: paying people. If you expect judges to completely reverse what Trump is doing, you’re going to be disappointed. They can’t do it.
And yes, part of the legal process is that lawyers are allowed to delay and judges have to put up with it. But they aren’t allowed to openly defy the judge. And so far, no Trump lawyer has done so.