A federal judge late Friday froze parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Jenner & Block, one of two firms linked to the Robert Mueller investigation Trump has sought to punish.
The temporary restraining order, announced by Judge John Bates at the end of a hastily scheduled Friday hearing, pauses parts of the order instructing agencies to terminate contracts with the firm and its clients, as well as the order’s directives seeking to limit the firm’s access to federal officials and buildings.
The Jenner & Block hearing unfolded minutes after a different judge in the same courthouse heard a similar request from the law firm WilmerHale, which was also targeted by Trump in an executive order issued this week.
stupid question.
if a judge were to be the subject of an executive order… could that judge block that executive order, too?
Asking before a friend needs to block an executive order…
The President doesn’t have authority over Courts like that.
Congress regulate the scope of the Courts per Article III Section 1 of the Constitution. However, the Courts have the ability to rule any law unconstitutional that changes their authority too much.
Congress cannot get rid of the supreme court. It must always exist. But they can reduce the size to a single judge.
Hypothetically speaking, Congress can change the Justice system to be a single court with a single judge. Now they can reduce the size, but they can only impeach judges out of their job. So if they reduced the size to a single judge, they would have to wait until all the other justices died off or impeach the eight they want to get rid of.
The President only has the power to appoint Judges. And also Executive Orders only apply to the Executive. So EOs don’t apply to Congress or the Judicial.
All that said, nothing stops the President from arresting Judges and throwing them in jail until the President gets his way. No President does that because that would likely lead to a very bad place for the US.
Of course that only applies to Presidents who give two shits about the country. So to answer your question, normally no. With Trump? I mean it wouldn’t surprise me if he started disappearing judges he didn’t like.
if the executive and agencies that are tasked with enforcing “the law” (vs the executive’s instructions) ignore judicial rulings, it’s kind of a moot point. Republicans and right-wing media have spent 30 years rotting out the conceptual foundations of “ethics”, “integrity”, and “values” to the point that the only qualification for leadership positions is fealty to Trump. The people they are hiring reject principles or integrity, to achieve power.
Regardless, The historical norm is that judges who have a stake in a case recuse themselves, but we know the game has changed. It seems unlikely an EO would target a named individual, and it can’t direct the judiciary or create new law or crimes……
At some point, we may be down to the level of the guy executing the arrest warrant or holding the keys to the jail cell or cutting the power lines to the courthouse being cognizant and responsible to their oath before their orders.
If that seems hopeless - start communicating ideas about loyalty to founding principles, the constitution, the laws, and the people. Enforce traditional and shared values rather than arguing and causing people to entrench into factions. It’s time to act, get that shit out there rather than reposting news articles or battling trolls
