Washington – A week after winning the court order, the Trump administration was asked to return to court on Friday to ask the judge to intervene again, believing the administration failed to comply with the order.
Despite the amount of funds that are still frozen in a week, it will take some time to freeze the “conceivable” of freezing, but no “world” can see the government as complying with the court’s orders.
The Trump administration responded that this is not the case. It said federal agencies “work to ensure compliance” work and that there is no need for additional court enforcement when appealing a judge’s order.
The dispute is one of many that have played in federal courts across the country in recent days, as states, nonprofits, doctors, unions, federal employees, immigrants, individual citizens and others are eager to challenge a wave of unilateral and legally suspicious actions by the Trump administration to recreate the federal government.
It is also a growing debate around the federal court’s power to rule the president, if he violates the law, especially given the slight interest of the Republicans who control Congress in their congressional restraints, and the Supreme Court issued a stunning decision last year that found that he had committed criminal liability for official actions during his tenure.
Democrats and other critics began to issue alarms about the Executive Court Order as the administration failed to comply with the orders for funding that penetrated outward into the political arena. When Vice President JD Vance sent out a signal on Sunday, it might indeed have been intentional – when writing on social media platforms X, a judge “does not allow control of the legitimate power of executives,” some of the same critics began to announce that the country is in a constitutional crisis, among other things.
“It is no exaggeration to say that we are staring at the death of democracy right now,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on Monday. “At the heart of our democracy is that we observe the court’s ruling.”
Some state lawyers in prosecuting the government (in funding cases and other cases) agree.
“There’s a lot of talk now: Are we in a constitutional crisis?” General Matthew Platkin, New Jersey, said at a Democratic Attorney General meeting in Los Angeles on Tuesday. “I think we are one. I’m going to wave the flag and say, “It’s already started.” ‘”
Atti, Arizona. General Kris Mayes said she believed “what we are seeing today is a coup against American democracy” and that the country is “on the brink of dictatorship” and “never on a more dangerous position.”
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt agreed to a constitutional crisis, but not at the White House. “The real constitutional crisis is happening within our judiciary where district court judges in free regions across the country are abused by their powers unilaterally to block President Trump’s fundamental administration,” she said.
Levitt said the government would “comply with the laws in the court” while appealing the ruling of “judges who serve as judicial activists rather than the arbitrator of the law’s honesty.”
But others are more cautious – including California. General Rob Bonta was asked if he was in a constitutional crisis on Tuesday, he said: “Not yet.”
Crossing this line will take a “blatant, serious failure to comply with clear court orders” that he said he has not seen.
Asked if Vance’s statement foreshadowed the moment, Bonta said Trump administration officials like Vance were “socializing” the idea that the president should not comply with the court order, in an effort to “sell”, which he said was dangerous.
“I’m not naive at all,” he said. “But it has not been achieved yet.”
Several scholars agreed. They say the legal moment is indeed fulfilling, and Trump clearly tried to replace the constitutional checks and balances with an all-round executive. But the country still faces a cliff between a troubled water and a full-scale crisis, they said.
UCLA law professor Adam Winkler said we “seem to be on the cliff of constitutional transformation,” but it is too early to say whether Trump will successfully bend over other branches of the administration to comply with his will.
Michael McConnell, a former federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush, said that despite Trump’s seemingly repeatedly breaking the law, he has not said the country is in a constitutional crisis.
“The huge orders of controversial orders made everyone gasp. Some are legal, some are illegal. I am very confident that the court will beat the illegal court,” he said. “Now, if the president decides to refuse to comply with the orders of the direct court, we may face a crisis.”
David Cole, Georgetown law professor and former legal director of the ACLU, said Trump’s first few weeks showed “not danger from an organization’s president” as he “engages retaliatory firing, appoints of core positions with inexperienced loyalists, issued execution orders that violated core constitutional principles and ignored clear statutory requirements.”
But, he said, he doubted whether the country would be completely in a constitutional crisis and Trump had completely violated the court.
“No president in history violated the Supreme Court,” Cole said. “If he crossed that line, the political consequences would be huge and Trump would have lost people.”
In addition to public outrage, contempt for the courts may also make the court itself – including the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
“Every government suffers from failure in the court system, sometimes with significant influence on administrative or legislative powers,” Roberts wrote. “However, over the past few years, elected officials in various political fields have raised the ghost of open disregard for federal court rulings.”
“These dangerous suggestions must be rejected,” he said.
American Bar Association. It issued a similar note on Monday when it called on elected officials and lawyers across the country to defend the rule of law.
“We urge every attorney to join us and insist that our government follows the law,” wrote the association’s president William R. Bay. “This is part of the oath we take when we become lawyers. No matter your party or your point of view, it’s necessary to make changes in the right way. Americans expect a lot.”
How the government will proceed from here is partly because its actions do not always reflect its speech.
Sometimes the government does not seem to comply with court orders, even when it was discussed in court, the judge’s assessment in funding freezes. At other times, it acted normally in court, seemingly following orders, even as its senior officials slammed the court and seemed to call for a total rebellion in speeches made in X and elsewhere.
However, there is not a showdown moment for all the difficult topics, and Trump says he intends to completely violate the court’s intentions. Trump administration lawyers have signaled in court documents exactly the opposite, which is much more weight than social media posts.
Trump himself suggested that the court’s ruling holds an impact.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr.
On Tuesday, Trump was in the Oval Office, addressing questions about the court challenges facing his administration as the world’s wealthiest man and Trump’s appointment Elon Musk put federal waste and fraud as the leader of the so-called government efficiency department or doge department, or is around him.
Trump said he always complies with court orders but would continue to appeal against those he disagrees – which he said slowed down his agenda. Musk, who has repeatedly and publicly questioned the legitimacy of the court in recent days, said: “People vote for major reforms of the government, that’s what the people are going to get, that’s the whole purpose of democracy.”
Around the same time, the Court of Appeals denied that the Trump administration’s demands continued in litigation, causing a legal blow to the president’s agenda and adding a lot of losses.
Trump has repeatedly lost in court in recent weeks. The federal judge blocked his executive orders and other actions claiming to rewrite the constitution by declaring a ban on reproductive citizenship; blocked spending plans approved by Congress to cut federal funds to hospitals, researchers and others; fired a large number of federal employees; and allowed Musk and his Doge representatives to enter the Treasury database and other systems.
Scholars point out that these rulings are going on normally, and that the Trump administration has not turned around yet, as if they are not important – sometimes benefiting.
At about 1 a.m. Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer issued a broad order in the Governor’s case without hearing from the administration, and Trump and his administration may not “grant any Treasury access” data system.
Although “civil servants” working for the agency may have access to records, the order denies access to “all political employees, especially government employees and government employees outside the Ministry of Finance”, which is clearly directed at Musk and his team.
Republicans and conservatives responded angrily to this, believing that the order seemed to apply to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said it was ridiculous. Trump called the ruling a “shame” and Vance published a statement about the court not being “allowed” to challenge the president, Musk accused the judge of “corruption” and said he “needs impeachment now.”
However, government lawyers returned to court. They filed an emergency appeal, saying that “the basic democratic accountability requires that the work of each agency be supervised by politically responsible leaders who will eventually answer the president.”
Another federal judge approved the appeal Tuesday, ruling that the order against Musk and Docchi did not apply to Best.
The government that adhered to the legal process achieved victory.
Savage reported from Washington, San Francisco’s principal and Sharp in Los Angeles.
