Summary
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in blocked foreign aid within 48 hours, citing noncompliance with a 13-day-old court order.
The freeze, imposed by Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, halted funding for USAID and State Department programs, affecting hundreds of millions of dollars owed to nonprofits and businesses.
The cutoff forced tens of thousands of layoffs and jeopardized critical aid projects. Despite the Feb. 13 ruling, no payments resumed.
This follows another case where a judge found the administration failed to unfreeze trillions in domestic grants and loans.
Whatcha gonna do, judge? Ask again? Wait until deadlines pass? Delay has always been Trumpy Dumpty’s strategy to maximize harm. No conquences means nothing to lose.
But instead of poking a dictator who doesn’t GAF, how about holding congress Republicans accountable since, you know, they “control” finances. You start dragging them out in cuffs, I betcha it will get someone’s attention, fast!
The ordinary response:
The next step is the DoJ sends the US Marshalls to arrest the President for failure to comply with a federal court order. Let’s hope they follow through.
Congress is not withholding the funds, so they are not committing a crime. That’s part of the reason for the accountability executive order, obscuring responsibility.
The DoJ is owned by Trump, so I don’t think they’ll be doing that.
The DoJ is an executive agency, under the President, currently run by Pam Bondi and Emil Bove. Anyone in that organization who moves against the President is getting fired, whether or not that is legal.
And just like that, Trump fires the US Marshalls.
This is the interesting bit - he might try that. As far as I know, something changed in 1969 about the structure of the federal marshals, and the courts no longer hire their own marshals. A comment from an American well versed in law would help clear things up.
Interesting. I suppose it being an executive order does keep it to the executive branch. It’s late over here and the brain hurts.
Too bad there isn’t a law that requires the legislative brance to exercise powers of checks and balances. Maybe that’s something to note for America 2.0.
The federal courts took the first step, ruling the action unconstitutional. We’ll see if the DoJ dispatches the US Marshalls with a warrant for failure to comply. If not, they will be complicit.
The courts can directly order the Marshalls to enforce their rulings. But yes,the Marshalls do roll up under the DOJ. So what happens when the courts give the order is anyone’s guess.
Failure would result in a constitutional crisis.
Another one? Toss it on the pile.
There hasn’t been one yet. It’s defined as a situation in which a major political dispute cannot be clearly resolved on the basis of the particular government’s constitution or established practice. All steps must be taken until our system has been proven to fail.
You mean like when a person who organized an insurrection, and was found not eligible for office, still takes office?