# The Supreme Court and the Trump Administration **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [March 5, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175 "2025-03-05T20:52:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/61 "2025-04-15T22:48:18Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > My money says the final response from the DOJ will be something like: “Yeah? Or what?” “Bailiff, place the Attorney General under arrest.” It’s not impossible. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/62 "2025-04-15T22:50:08Z")
Keep hope alive! ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/63 "2025-04-16T01:26:45Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Bailiff, place the Attorney General under arrest.” > > It’s not impossible. I would pay ever so much to see that happen. And don’t forget Little Marco. The bailiff could pick him up and carry him out of the courtroom like a kitten. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/64 "2025-04-16T01:33:25Z")
It is just as possible as Trump not being President in a few months, right? ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/65 "2025-04-16T01:38:13Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > “Bailiff, place the Attorney General under arrest.” > > It’s not impossible. It wouldn’t last the afternoon. [Congressional Research Service: Can the President Pardon Contempt of Court? Probably Yes.](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10186) ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/66 "2025-04-16T01:40:39Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Keep hope alive! I have hope that courts will limit some of Trump’s overreach, and that the administration will sometimes obey court rulings. I have hope MAGA will be repudiated in future elections. What I do not see is fixing our failed democracy by locking people up. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/67 "2025-04-16T01:52:01Z")
The president can pardon criminal contempt. We’re talking about civil contempt in this scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/68 "2025-04-16T02:05:52Z")
It will just go down like Bugs vs Daffy. Contempt season! Pardon season! Contempt season! Pardon season! ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/69 "2025-04-16T02:23:01Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The president can pardon criminal contempt. We’re talking about civil contempt in this scenario. There’s always a law review article out there saying what you want, but for the record: [Pardoning Contempt: Reconsidering the Criminal-Civil Divide](https://virginialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Weisbuch_Book_OnlineUpdate%20(1).pdf) If they put Bondi in jail, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia is still in El Salvador, what then? Is SCOTUS going to approve filling up federal jails with every Republican Justice Department attorney? Here’s why I really think the Republicans on SCOTUS will save Bondi, and her underlings, from jail: Bondi would just be following her boss’s orders. Trump is the biggest contempt of court villain. Those six justices would find a way to keep him out of jail, and it is too unfair to only punish underlings.. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/70 "2025-04-16T02:33:37Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > If they put Bondi in jail, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia is still in El Salvador, what then? Is SCOTUS going to approve filling up federal jails with every Republican Justice Department attorney? The purpose of civil contempt is to induce compliance. I doubt Bondi, or any other of Trump’s snowflakes, is going to be able to tough it out in a jail cell for very long before she cracks. If it were Hegseth he’d crack about half an hour after they confiscated his flask. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/71 "2025-04-16T02:50:00Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Contempt season! > Pardon season! > Contempt season! > Pardon season! Shoot him now! ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/72 "2025-04-16T02:54:09Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The purpose of civil contempt is to induce compliance. I doubt Bondi, or any other of Trump’s snowflakes, is going to be able to tough it out in a jail cell for very long before she cracks. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro served four months each for contempt of congress. The question isn’t who is the bigger snowflake. The question is why we’d think defying a cruel dictator is less scary than a few months in a jail where Bondi would get the [Al Capone treatment](https://www.easternstate.org/explore/exhibits/al-capones-cell). And SCOTUS-facilitated or commander in chief-ordered release would seem in the very near horizon. Attempted incarceration, as a MAGA control technique, has been tried. Does not work. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/73 "2025-04-16T03:00:57Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > The question is why we’d think defying a cruel dictator is less scary than a few months in a jail where Bondi would get the [Al Capone treatment](https://www.easternstate.org/explore/exhibits/al-capones-cell). Trump is a wounded animal right now. “Liberation Day” cost him a lot of credibility and I don’t see how he gets it back. Hell, Bondi has already openly challenged him by saying DOJ isn’t going to be sending American citizens to foreign prisons. His bromance with Elon is on the rocks. The Freedom Caucus is outright refusing to pass his budget. At least nine Republican senators are onboard with legislation to block his tariffs, and the president pro tempore is one of them. The point is coming where his spell over the Republican party is going to break, and once it does, a lot of things are gonna happen pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/74 "2025-04-16T04:13:13Z")
Keep telling yourself that fantasy. The one thing I have witnessed over and over and over for the last 10 years is how DJT has finally gone too far and everything is about to turn against him. It has ended up being a bullshit fantasy. Every. Single. Time. I see no reason to expect anything different now. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/75 "2025-04-16T04:20:26Z")
> **[Say not the Struggle nought Availeth](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43959/say-not-the-struggle-nought-availeth)** > > Say not the struggle nought availeth,      The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth,      And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;... ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/76 "2025-04-16T12:31:15Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > The one thing I have witnessed over and over and over for the last 10 years is how DJT has finally gone too far and everything is about to turn against him. > > It has ended up being a bullshit fantasy. Every. Single. Time. > > I see no reason to expect anything different now. [“We got him!”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9mbhr4YYRg&t=3s) > [@Smapti](#): > > [Say not the Struggle nought Availeth | The Poetry Foundation](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43959/say-not-the-struggle-nought-availeth) If the power of verse were sufficient to purge absurdity, corruption, and indifference from the world, Shel Silverstein would have been emperor. Sadly, this is not the case. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/77 "2025-04-16T13:24:40Z")
When they say “we cannot effectuate…” what I hear is: Who’s this? _This is Nayib_. Nayib, what happened? _Well we_-… You get it straightened out? _No, we had a problem… and uh, we tried to do everything we could._ What do you mean? _Well, you know what I mean. He’s gone, and we couldn’t do nothing about it._ [pause] _That’s it._ What do you mean? What do you mean? Uh… _He’s gone. Uh, he’s gone._ [pause] _And that’s it._ ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/78 "2025-04-16T14:52:46Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > It has ended up being a bullshit fantasy. Every. Single. Time. > > I see no reason to expect anything different now. Yeah - I agree. But I’m not sure we’ve ever before had a situation in which he blatantly defies a SCt order. IMO, that is where this is heading. And a lot of folk blather about this or that signaling “the end of democracy” or “the end of checks and balances.” But if we get to the point where the Bill of Rights is not applicable to protect individual freedoms, IMO, that is a whole new level of constitutional crisis, the likes of which we have not seen recently. If it ever gets to that point, it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Are the Supremes so chickenshit that they will decline to issue an order that they believe Trump will defy, because they know they have no practical enforcement mechanism and don’t want to prove their irrelevance? (The crazy thing is, it seems as tho Trump is TRYING to get to that point. That is, if he is not able to get the SCt to clarify that he can do whatever he wants to whomever he wants. All he has to do is have his buddy Bukele slip the guy onto a plane and have him dropped off somewhere with no explanation - and the whole thing goes away…) ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/79 "2025-04-16T15:26:07Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > The crazy thing is, it seems as tho Trump is TRYING to get to that point. I agree. In talking about this, my wife suggested that the Supremes might try to find some middle ground to let both sides claim victory. In a normal world, that might be likely. But that means a compromise, and Trump doesn’t do compromise. In his zero sum brain, he hasn’t won unless the other side loses. If they try something like that, Trump will just push again for a clear and unambiguous victory. One of two things will happen: the Supremes will capitulate, issuing a mealy-mouthed opinion (6-3) that repeats some empty words about institutional boundaries, signaling their surrender, and Trump wins and democracy is over. Or, one or two of the so-called principled conservatives actually discover some real principles, realizing that if they don’t push back _now_ the whole judicial branch is castrated, and they issue a forceful opinion (5-4) demanding compliance while knowing they have no way to enforce it. If the latter happens, it’s on. Everyone with any kind of institutional role gets to choose between Trump and the law. But, personally, I believe the former will happen. There can be no middle ground, because Trump doesn’t do middle ground. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175/80 "2025-04-16T15:30:24Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > The one thing I have witnessed over and over and over for the last 10 years is how DJT has finally gone too far and everything is about to turn against him. > > It has ended up being a bullshit fantasy. Every. Single. Time. Father Time is undefeated. Further, quoth Rush: “_Changes aren’t permanent / But change is_”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-supreme-court-and-the-trump-administration/1015175.md?page=5)