Trump Team Questions Court Power as Judiciary Stymies Some Policies
As federal employees and labor groups supporting federal workers petition federal courts to step in and stop some of the Trump Administration’s executive actions, members of the Trump team are crying foul, accusing the judiciary of stepping out of bounds.
Vice President JD Vance and billionaire special government employee Elon Musk are just two of the prominent names questioning court decisions, including one that blocked the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing Treasury Department records.
Musk said the “corrupt” judge in the Treasury Department case needs to be “impeached now.”
But it’s the vice president’s statement on executive power that is raising eyebrows in the legal community and beyond.
Vice President Vance, himself a trained lawyer from Yale, wrote on X, “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.”
“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” Vance continued.
It wasn’t clear if the Vice President was referring to the Treasury Department case, or others including the decisions delaying the deadline on the president’s deferred resignation offer and one stopping the termination of federal grant programs.
Nevertheless, the statement is causing concern in the legal community, even sparking the words “constitutional crisis.”
"The battle lines for our democracy have been drawn," said Elizabeth Goitein, Co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. "As anyone who has had an introductory civics class knows, if a president disagrees with a court order, the remedy is to appeal. There’s a reason Trump & co. don’t like that option: they know their actions are illegal and many will be rejected even by Trump’s own SCOTUS justices."
But other scholars think the vice president’s comments on legitimate powers were taken out of context and believe the Trump Administration is not angling to steamroll court decisions.
"I think the tweet, taken on its own terms, is empty because it refers to the 'legitimate powers' of the executive. And the whole question in these cases is whether the executive is acting legitimately or not," said Columbia law professor Jamal Greene. "He has some cover in that sense.”
Meanwhile, University of California Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky told the Washington Post he expects the administration to lose on birthright citizenship, the funding freeze, and efforts to do away with protection for federal workers. However, Chemerinsky says the courts may be more open to upholding the administration on hot button social issues.
Other scholars note the courts have been favorable to expanding the power of the executive and limiting the power of independent agencies.
