Judge rules that Trump administration is not in compliance with the law
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A federal judge on Monday said the White House has defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump White House was disobeying a judicial mandate.
The ruling by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court ordered Trump administration officials to comply with what he called “the plain text” of an edict he issued last month.
Judge McConnell’s ruling marked a step toward what could quickly evolve into a high-stakes showdown between the executive and judicial branches, a day after a social media post by Vice President JD Vance claimed that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” elevating the chance that the White House could provoke a constitutional crisis.
Already, more than 40 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration, challenging Mr. Trump’s brazen moves that have included revoking birthright citizenship and giving Elon Musk’s teams access to sensitive Treasury Department payment systems. Judges have already ruled that many of these executive actions may violate existing statutes.
You can read the order here.
Vance is clearly telegraphing the administration’s plan — i.e. to just ignore several layers of black-letter law. The key source of leverage here is going to be the fact that Republicans can’t pass an appropriations bill with votes from their own conference, but we’ll return to that in a subsequent post.