The News
The Trump administration on Friday accused a federal judge of escalating tensions between the judicial and executive branches after the judge threatened to open a contempt of court inquiry this week over the administration’s deportation flights to El Salvador, The New York Times reported. In a court filing, the Justice Department argued that the contempt inquiry “escalates constitutional stakes” between the two branches.
The government’s accusation against Judge James Boasberg comes amid increasing concerns from legal experts over the White House’s flouting of court orders and its attacks against judges. Another judge this week also said she would open an inquiry into the government’s response to a Supreme Court order asking the US to return a wrongly deported migrant.
SIGNALS
The constitutional emergency is “now,” analyst says
Commentators across the ideological spectrum are sounding the alarm over Trump’s reluctance to comply with court orders over his immigration agenda. The editors of the conservative National Review criticized Trump for refusing to remedy the “obvious injustice” of wrongly deporting a Salvadoran migrant, while a conservative legal analyst noted that the administration’s move to leave the matter up to El Salvador is a “bad faith” reading of the US Supreme Court order asking the White House to facilitate his return. The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer similarly wrote that the White House was “pretending it is complying while refusing to do so.” The New York Times’ Ezra Klein argued that the US is in a constitutional emergency as the government is “disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists.”
US Supreme Court gives Trump wiggle room
The US Supreme Court’s order for the White House to facilitate the return of the wrongly deported migrant was “deliberately vague,” Georgetown law professor Steve Vladec wrote. The Court is “very wary” of drawing a red line with the administration, leaving Trump enough “maneuvering room to not provoke a confrontation,” he told The New Yorker. The justices have also done little to hold Trump accountable for his attacks against judges and his disdain for court rulings, a legal expert told CNN: “If you’re the Trump administration, you might think it’s a good bet that you can continue to be disrespectful to these lower court judges and nothing is going to happen negatively to your legal position as a result.”