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That's not going to work.
What he's REALLY BEEN doing is changing the power balance, which used to be Legislative, Executive, and Judicial with Judicial having final say in most things by ruling on their constitutionality, and elevating the Executive branch. He will ignore judicial rulings as they "don't apply" to his office.
That's not going to work either. It's a bad idea to openly defy judges, because they can easily drain your bank account.
You'll note that even now, Trump lawyers claim they are doing their best to comply with court orders.
Assuming the rule of law is respected
Judges can drain bank accounts of those who don't respect rule of law. That's kind of the point of draining their bank account.
I keep hearing arguments like this, and I'd love to be reassured by them, but they come after watching Trump receive 34 felony convictions with no actual punishment for those convictions, after which he was elected President of the United States of America. It also comes after watching a 4 year long failure to attach (or even try to attach) any consequences to him for Jan 06.
So, you'll forgive me if I'll wait until I hear about bank accounts being drained and that it has any measurable impact on the rate of progress at https://www.project2025.observer/ before I lull myself back into to believing Trump is in any way not untouchable.
There are a lot of things the system can do to stop something like this. So far it's not doing very many of them.
Yeah, well, blame the courts for sentencing him to "Never mind, we cool bro."
That gets tricky. The core argument would be that Trump's speech before the attack is firmly within his 1A rights (and it almost certainly is, 1A speech rights are extremely broad and anything short of a direct call to immediate lawless action is usually protected) and that his not doing anything to stop it once it started is him doing a shit job, but not technically illegal (but hypothetically impeachable, if both houses would agree to it which was never going to happen).
You'd have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he planned for J6 to happen the way it did in a fashion that is definitely not attached to his duties as president in any even vaguely reasonable way to have anything to hang on him at all without an impeachment. Something like hard evidence of him coordinating specifically the attack on the capitol (as opposed to the rally or march to the capitol steps) with the people entering the capitol or their leadership and not merely an otherwise legal protest/rally. Which is a high bar to reach.
I don't mean this to sound argumentative, but every time I make a statement like you replied to I feel like no one gets what I'm saying.
I understand there are reasons things take awhile. I understand our justice system is supposed to be set up that the state needs to make a solid case.
I also understand that Trump has managed to fall through every loophole in every layer of our justice system so far, and avoided any consequences that would cause him actual financial hardship, any sort of punishment whatsoever for his 34 felonies, and any kind of consequences for Jan 06.
So, NOW, when he's at the height of his power, I take no comfort from how our justice system can or should or might work. I will take comfort when I see it actually doing something to meaningfully impede Donald Trump and Elon Musk, which so far I have not seen.
He also received an $83 million judgment, which he already paid. And a $400 million fine, which he will pay.
Also, keep in mind that Trump cannot act alone. Even if he could shrug off a million dollar fine, his employees cannot. And judges will target his employees, until nobody is willing to break the law for him.
And when they do, I'll applaud for them as loudly as anyone else.
Until then, as they say, it's vaporware.
There is no need for judges to target anyone yet, because the Trump admin hasn't been found in contempt.
Do you not comprehend that I no longer feel any sense of hope from what our justice system could or might do in the future, since it has utterly failed to impede him in any substantive way to date? I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying it is meaningless given what has happened to him so far (no substantive impact) until something different happens (substantive impact).
Because so far, he seems to be gaming things really well, and I see no reason to think that will change.
I (and all of us) waited for what our justice system could do for four years. And it did nothing that mattered. I say again:
So, you’ll forgive me if I’ll wait until I hear about bank accounts being drained and that it has any measurable impact on the rate of progress at https://www.project2025.observer/ before I lull myself back into to believing Trump is in any way not untouchable.
Trump has lost several court cases already, and many are just getting started. For example, today Cathy Harris was reinstated to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
If you expect the judicial system to broadly restore the status quo under Biden, then you're probably going to be disappointed. Any victories will be on a case-by-case basis. That's literally how the judicial system operates.
I feel we define consequences differently.
I expected the judicial system to have him in prison, or have made a credible attempt at such, before his cultists could re-elect him. That's why nothing about what it might do in the future has meaning to me. When it does something that matters, that will be fantastic. I hope I'm alive to see it.
Right now we're coming up on 5 years of fluff and Trump pulling change out of his couch cushions then replenishing it with NFTs, gold shoes, and other grift.
So all these assurances ring hollow if I'm to take them as any indication that he won't be able to continue raw dogging the US and the world until he gets sick of it or until arteriosclerosis finally does us all a favor.
Nobody promised Trump would end up in prison. There was a very good chance that a cultist on his jury would have refused to convict. Or he might have been found guilty only on lesser charges and ended up paying a fine. Juries are unpredictable and often disappointing, from OJ Simpson to Kyle Rittenhouse.
It sounds like you expected the judicial system to do what voters failed to do. But the judicial system can't stop Trump from being elected president. That was our responsibility as voters. Don't blame judges when they can't clean up our mess.
I don't think Trump is going to lose any sleep over his employees getting millions of dollars in fines or jail time. He can just preemptively pardon them no questions asked if he could be bothered to remember they exist. Also nearly 50% of voting aged adults actually support Trump ignoring the courts so I don't think there's much anyone can do.
Trump can't pardon employees who are found in contempt of court. Trump might not lose sleep, but the employees will. Most employees, even Trump supporters, won't take an assignment that will lead to losing their life savings.
Does the judge have a computer with a button on it that says drain? What's the process, and can that process be disrupted?
I'm being quite serious.
I answered this elsewhere, but the upshot is that banks treat court orders like checks drawn from your account. Once they are signed, there isn't any good way to stop the funds from being withdrawn.
Ok now the judge is in jail for treason or has all their personal assets liquidated into the Sovereign Wealth fund. What next? A new judge is hand picked and installed, is he going to put his neck out like the last guy?
Jails are administered by judges. Put a judge in jail illegally, and another judge will immediately release them.
Ok, the judge gets swept up in a military tribunal or they just say anyone collaborating with this judge is also guilty of treason. This is all putting aside brownshirts straight up burning down their house and the FBI regrettably failing to catch the culprits.
You can't arrest someone for treason without a warrant. And warrants are signed by judges.
The rest of your hypothetical describes kidnapping and arson. Kidnapping and arson are state crimes even if the perp is a federal employee. The brownshirts would be arrested by state/local police (who vastly outnumber federal agents btw) and tried in state courts.
You do know who appoints the judges, right?
And you think the federal government doesn't have the resources to pull off those crimes without plausible deniability? Or that the right wing militias aren't perfectly constructed to take their own initiative, fight and die for their dear leader anyway?
State judges are elected or appointed by governors.
Judges aren't healthcare CEOs: they are accustomed to being targeted by criminals, they have armed security details, and they have the chief of police on speed-dial.
The federal government might have "plausible deniability" but the perps are still going to be arrested and tried. "Plausible deniability" just means the government will abandon them.
Genuine question because I'm not a lawyer, but why would a state judge specifically need to issue the warrant? And could it come from any red state maga judge?
And yes, the government would absolutely abandon them. But all a dictator (or his public propaganda) needs to say is "unfortunate violence, but that judge got what was coming to him" and the lap dogs will eat it up. There are way more willing martyrs than judges.
Will the chief of police stop the feds from finding a hard-drive full of CP in the judges office, sourced back to some international investigation the feds have jurisdiction over?
Your phrasing keeps implying that naked unconstitutional acts would be met with armed resistance, but that's not what I'm trying to get across. A state judge could pretty fairly label Trump an outlaw today, giving judicial sanction for violent arrest. That doesn't put a bunch of state police on par with Trump engaging the national guard. All he needs is some thin veil of imagined legitimacy and he has the power to "defend" America from any threat.
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.
Well, you can't legally arrest someone without a warrant. We're talking about a situation where the rule of law is being dismantled.
Although, I also wouldn't put it past them to argue that you don't need a warrant to arrest someone for "issuing a treasonous court order" on the grounds that it was done in plain view or that they have probable cause to believe the judge committed said treason, which is a felony and thus doesn't require a warrant.
It's obvious baloney but that doesn't mean it's not a workable veneer of legitimacy.
All arrests end with an appearance before a judge. If it's obvious baloney, the judge will dismiss.
How did it work out of Andrew "the courts have made decision " Jackson?
Jackson probably never said that.
In any case, he wasn't defying the court. He was passing the buck.
This case was between Samuel Worcester and the state of Georgia, and the SCOTUS ordered the state of Georgia to release Worcester. Jackson was not involved and didn't want to be involved (hence the snarky "let THEM enforce it", ie "keep me out of this").
However, the SCOTUS never asked for Jackson's help and ultimately didn't need it.
Yeah I was reading up on it recently and it's surprising that there were people tiptoeing around the Supreme courts decision, but at the end everyone did actually cave and either followed the ruling or it became a non issue.
Who is the THEY doing the draining? Could they be fired? Could a Trump loyalist be placed there instead?
Not legally you say? What if someone didn't care about doing it legally? What if they just fired the person and replaced them. How about that.
THEY is the judge.
Suppose you sued Bob, and Bob was dumb enough to openly defy the judge. The judge could write a court order that says "Bob owes Melatonin $1000" or "Bob owes the court $1000".
For all practical purposes, that order works the same as a check signed by Bob. If it's written to you, then you and your lawyer can take it to the bank. The bank teller will give you $1000 and deduct $1000 from Bob's account. It doesn't matter what Bob says or what Bob's employees say. The bank teller doesn't work for Bob.
The same is true if "Bob" is a DoJ lawyer or even the DoJ itself.
I would like to see how this works if the check is drawn off the president of the United States. I daresay, it's going to be different, at least with this president.
The US has checking accounts just like everyone else. That's how they write paychecks.
And if a bank can draw from the US account when presented with a federal employee's paycheck, it can do the same when presented with a court order.
Because the Supreme Court of The United States of America said as much. The courts basically signed all their real power away in Trump v. America. What I'm sure will eventually be called the Trump Doctrine if the president does it, than it is not illegal. Trump can legally take control over the election process because he's taking it as the president. So regardless of any other law whatever he does it legal.
While trump v America had the wrong ruling, the conclusion your sharing isn't correct.
The ruling shielded the president from personal liability for actions taken as president. It didn't touch the offices ability to be sued or be legally restrained.
If trump, in his capacity as president, violates the law "the president" can be sued and forced to stop, but not trump personally. You can't send him to jail for improperly claiming authority over the FEC, but you can prevent the office of the president from doing so.