"Pathway to a crisis" - legal experts assess Trump's standoff with the courts over federal overhaul

Record ID: 1965283

  • Title: "Pathway to a crisis" - legal experts assess Trump's standoff with the courts over federal overhaul
  • Date: 12th February 2025
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, UNITED STATES (FEBRUARY 11, 2025) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROFESSOR JAMES SAMPLE, HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, SAYING: "And if you get to the point where we as a as a country and this would be true if there were a Democrat in the White House. It's true if there's Donald Trump in the White House. If you get to a point where the executive branch s
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Constitution DOGE Federal agencies Musk Trump courts judges
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: US
  • Topics: North America,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA004035010022025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:Elon Musk and Donald Trump lashed out at federal judges on Tuesday (February 11) who have blocked the president's biggest initiatives, in some cases challenging the independence of the judiciary, though Trump later said he would abide by court rulings.
    Musk took to his X social media platform to attack the judge who ordered U.S. health agencies on Tuesday to temporarily restore websites they took offline in response to an executive order by Trump. The order remains in place while the parties prepare legal briefs for a longer injunction.
    Trump on Tuesday blamed "highly political judges" for slowing his agenda, but later in the day he and Musk met with reporters in the Oval Office and the president said he would accept court rulings and appeal those that go against him and against Musk's drive against wasteful spending.
    There is little modern precedent for an administration to ignore court orders and doing so would bring the country close to a Constitutional crisis.
    UCLA constitutional law professor Mark Peterson, said the administration's words and decisions have put it "on a pathway to a constitutional crisis", but one that is "not yet activated."
    Some members of Trump's Republican Party in Congress, whose appropriations and laws the president was alleged to be violating, defended the courts.
    A spokesperson for the judiciary did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    Trump has a history of blasting judges who rule against him. Leaders of his own party distanced themselves from him when he was running for president in 2016 when Trump suggested a judge's Mexican-American heritage biased the judge against him.
    Musk has a history of testing the patience of judges and his X messaging platform last year defied a court order in Brazil directing it to block some accounts. The platform eventually complied.
    A federal judge said on Monday that the Trump administration had defied a court order that temporarily preserved federal spending on grants and loans that fund many state programs. Justice Department lawyers had told the judge the administration thought it was complying and did not object to the judge clarifying his intentions.
    More than 50 lawsuits have been filed against Trump initiatives that progressive advocates and Democratic state attorneys general allege break a variety of laws that govern spending, administrative procedure, protections for federal workers, freedom of religion and more.
    (Production - Tom Rowe)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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