The Trump administration has not fully complied with a court order pausing the freezing of foreign assistance grants and contracts, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week ordered the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance after hearing claims from federal contractors challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.
Why should they? They will just dispose the judge and the orders after the coup.
So, when a judge orders you to refrain from doing what you planned cause it’s against the law, and then you do it anyway, aren’t there usually consequences?
yes, congress can do something about it…
Love it when those supposed checks and balances work out 🫠
Bring specific people into court, and hold them in contempt.
If they refuse to appear, assume judgement, and seize assets.
You don’t need a fucking army if you can force all their assets to be frozen. Worked for Russia, worked in the Red Scare, and it’ll work now.
Trump may be “off limits” according to SCOTUS but the people that carry out his illegal orders are not.
This is the point. Anyone not complying with the actual court orders should get contempt. Trump can’t pardon them out of shit.
President does have the power to pardon someone for a federal contempt charge. So we’ll get into a wierd situation of perpetual pardons and contempts at some point. We can only pray that that level of recursion breaks the simulation and we can all leave this hell cape.
That may not be the case. I have read that the President’s pardon abilities only cover criminal offenses, and contempt of court that stems from ignoring a ruling is considered a civil offense.
Pdf link warning: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10186
This is something I had found the other week that led me to beleive that he probably could
Contempt needs to happen, like tomorrow. The longer these folks feel above any law the worse our chances of recovery from this get.
If this were civil, that would maybe be a thing.
This is… well its fundamentally different. We’ve undergone a coup. This kind of circle-jerking “But He’s Not Following The Law” by NBC, is well, masturbatory, and intentionally obscures what has happened.
NBC is part of the problem, not the solution. Being in contempt of courts when courts and law have no… why pretend like they do?
Not about civility. Doomers are saying there isn’t anything the other equal branches of government can do, but there is. This is one of those things.
I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word “civil” in this context.
I do. This is not a civil matter. This is 1/3 of the government apparatus fucking with the other two, and the judicial has all the power in this country to compel every citizen to comply.
Is Chase holding Elon’s money? Guess what happens if they don’t comply with a federal court order.
What state does he hold property in?
Does he have stocks? Of course he does. All of these can be seized on paper alone without the Executive branch being involved at all.
I’m even more convinced than before you have not a fucking clue what the fuck you are talking about or what civil means in this context.
Treasury is executive branch
Banks and private asset organizations are not the federal government.
If you’re trolling, fuck off.
If you’re just stupid, educate yourself.
Correct me if I’m stupid, I thought asset seizures need to go through the Department of Treasury, no? Like they can refuse to honor the FDIC, other things if banks don’t unfreeze?
This also all seems to go through the whole “if they comply”. Usually the DOJ enforces things, no?
Nope. They can apply at any banking institutions which are governed by state as well. Is that bank incorporated in any of the 23 states currently suing the Trump admin?
Is Danny Smith the head of said bank?
Any and all of the individuals involved in not complying with a court order can be held in contempt and have assets frozen for defying a lawful order of the court.
Your comment about state authority make me just a little more hopeful…
On the other hand, Trump is already flaunting his ability to choke state resistance by withholding federal funding.
Outrageously unconstitutional but he already isn’t following the courts anyway. I wonder if there’s any way for states to work around that, since most blue states are net negative on federal funds.
Just stop paying up because he won’t comply with the freeze? Then use those funds to paper over the deficit?
Just stop paying up because he won’t comply with the freeze?
In order to “just stop paying up” the states would have to convince their citizens and businesses to stop paying their Federal income taxes and payroll taxes, because that money goes directly to the Federal government without passing through the states’ control first.
As far as I can tell, the only part of the Federal budget revenue that flows through the states and therefore might be able to be blocked is small enough to fit in the “misc/other” slice on a pie chart.
Has there ever been another U.S. President who’s spent this much time fighting the courts?
Good thing the SC thought to shield us from a constitutional crisis when they deemed the president immune to laws last year. Now we don’t have to fool ourselves into thinking this time would be different.
They’re awfully quiet over there. No soundbites except corruption coming out about them, not from them.
Doomerism will doom us all. Fatalism is fatal.
That ruling has been grossly exaggerated by doomers. In practice, the ruling means very little difference for the actual running of an administration. Trump was the first president to ever face prosecution, and plenty of presidents have done incredibly shady things. There has been a decades-long taboo against prosecuting former presidents. And even after what Trump did, the prosecution was still very careful to only go after things that weren’t covered in his duties. The SCOTUS did rule the previous Justice department consensus into law, but they didn’t say that the president has complete immunity for all acts. The SCOTUS set themselves up as the final arbiter of what was an official act or not, but they DID NOT provide absolute immunity. Spreading FUD helps no one.
Also, the ruling only applied to the president, not to his administration. He may not be prosecutable for violating many laws, but his underlings still are. In theory, the president could simply continually issue daily pardons for everyone in the executive branch, pardoning them of all federal law violations. But that’s actually incredibly dangerous for a president to do. For example, if a president were daily issuing a pardon for everyone in the White House, what’s to stop the White House chef from introducing a slow poison into his food that will take several days to take effect? Or maybe Musk would use his new control of the Treasury to literally just steal every penny Trump personally owns. If you don’t use broad blanket pardons, then many lackeys will have to risk criminal prosecution to follow your illegal orders. But if you do use broad blanket pardons, you could end up pardoning people you never intended to. If you’re a president issuing frequent pardons to all of your staff, you could easily end up pardoning someone who is attempting to rob or kill you.
Oh, and many illegal actions employees might be asked to carry out are illegal under both state and federal law. Trump may simply refuse to prosecute any federal violations, but that won’t stop state charges. And while federal agents have some legal protections when carrying out their legal duties, that doesn’t apply to illegal actions. A state can’t arrest an IRS agent for just doing their job, but they can certainly arrest an IRS agent if they decide to become a serial killer. Eventually this kind of conflict can lead to civil war. But that would only increase Trump’s chances of being assassinated. And I bring up assassination because that’s the fate many wannabee dictators end up meeting. Trump himself has faced at least two assassination attempts, and it’s something he likely thinks about daily. He has to realize that if he pushes things far enough, a Secret Service agent might even just take one for the team.
You wrote up a bunch about technicalities of pardons and push back on over reach but it’s actually really simple. If he wants something illegal done, he signs a paper that says to do it and another absolving them for carrying out the order.
Nobody will care about over reach because every functional position in the government is now a political position. If your loyalty wavers for even a second, you’re fired (or worse). Federal oversight is replaced by state surveillance, you can be sure that rogue chef or secret service agent would have eyes watching their every move.
Even if the SC sets themselves up as the final arbiters on legality, that doesn’t protect them from illegal orders targeting them. For example: tough to oppose a president from a jail cell or if all of your assets are seized for the Sovereign Wealth fund.
Your point on state opposition is one that I’ll grant, that’s probably the storybook (legal) ending to this if there was one. The best case scenario would turn into a cold civil war, with states finding ways to oppose the federal government while coordinating some measure of support for each other.
The most likely ending isn’t that or a rogue assassin, but a palace coup. Popular unrest allows the military to step in and overthrow the head of state. The power remains centralized and unconstitutional; you’re now at the whim of the heads of military.
But at least the military industrial complex isn’t beholden to the whims of every foreign government with a blank check. They already have way more power and influence than any random elected politician, and maintaining the US hegemony is their main goal.
So when does the military step in and arrest these fucks? Honestly, I trust them more than him.
Hold another election.
Congress needs to do their job.
If the Executive is not found in contempt when ignoring direct orders from The Judicial, there’s no longer a Constitutional Republic that defines what a President is, or his powers under it, it renders Congress and the Supreme Court meaningless, all that’s left is a Dictator threatening punishment, suffering and death on the citizens, and violent animus towards the worlds nations.
If the Executive is not found in contempt and that contempt finding carrying appropriate consequences, and those consequences actually being applied and enforced when ignoring direct orders from The Judicial, …
Just felt that needed some extending.
Well Judge Ali, whatcha gonna do? Be a little bitch and let Trump roll you over? One of you assholes has to have some stones under that robe.
He’s probably confused by the double negative
Surprised pikachu. Anything doesn’t matter if there’s zero enforcement behind it. Don’t write a court order that you’ve no way to enforce.
Exactly. Who is enforcing any of this?
And …?
Elect a dictator and then act shocked when he gives zero fucks about your opinions. If only there was some way muricans could have seen this coming.
Buy the ticket, take the ride!
I heard there’s a new kid on the block, that has some seizable coffers to cover the bills in the interim.
