From the Newsweek article: [My bold in all cases.]
…
Legal experts have said the president’s public acknowledgment that he has the power to return Abrego Garcia could have significant legal consequences, especially in light of the court order blocking Abrego Garcia’s deportation.
They argue that Trump’s refusal to act—despite admitting he could—may be used as evidence that the administration is willfully defying judicial authority.
…
So what?
…
“The transcript of President Trump’s ABC interview will quickly be raised in the Abrego Garcia case. Trump said that he could get Garcia back, but does not want to do so. The judge can now use that admission as proof of a violation of the order to facilitate his return,” Attorney Jonathan Turley said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
…
So, your quotes indicate they’re talking about the consequences in the case, not about anything that would happen to Trump itself.
Or, if you’re asking why you should care, that’s up to you. But it doesn’t help us to complain that the article isn’t about what you want it to be about.
One might recall that Trump was a friend of the Clintons and seems, by all measures, to have been in the George Wallace camp of Dixiecrat ideology since his youth and never shifted till the South came back to it.
Give me a break. “So what?” doesn’t mean “why should I care?” It means (to spell it out) “what will be the net effect on anything?”
So do me a favor, indeed all of us a favor, since you seem to understand and I don’t. Fight my ignorance. What IS the article about? What will be the “legal consequences”? What am I missing? And I admit I must be missing something.
the legal consequences could be the lawyers on team trump being in very hot legal water themselves.
both glenn kirschner and harry littman have said the lawyers in these cases are on very thin legal ice. they read the judges as being very close to criminal and civil contempt.
Something has to give at some point. “Close to contempt” has been invoked for about two months now in various legal battles against the Trump administration. Seems like the sundry judges are so hesitant to find someone in contempt that there’s no real risk of being in contempt by anyone on the Trump administration’s legal team. When’s the ice going to break?
I keep asking in different places, what would be the actual, physical, scary, legal consequences of anyone– trump, his lawyers, a given agency-- being found in contempt of court? Does anyone know?
I know that if an ordinary citizen like me is found in contempt of court, I will get a fine and possibly time in jail. Maybe other Bad Stuff, too. But in the lofty realms where these threats of contempt are being bandied about, what is truly the big deal?
AIUI courts really have no power to enforce much of anything if departments of justice (i.e., police who are part of the executive branch) don’t carry out their directives.
It sure looks like America™ only functioned due to the honor system. Now that bad actors are operating in bad faith, we’re all just left standing looking at each other going “shit, we never expected this to happen…” and there are no adults left in the room.
If you’ll entertain me winging it without citations for the nonce. Just from reading a lot of Jay Kuo, Mark Elias/Democracy Docket and the like:
Trump, personally, is untouchable by the courts. For now.
A federal agency, as an entity, is untouchable as well.
Individual Trump administration lawyers or individual federal employees are thought to be de facto immune from CRIMINAL contempt due to a presumed reflexive auto-pardon from Trump.
Individual Trump administration lawyers or individual federal employees are thought to be vulnerable to CIVIL contempt that cannot be pardoned by Trump. Penalties would chiefly be fines and disbarment as applicable. Not paying civil contempt fines can lead to various annoyances up to and including a non-pardonable jail sentence.
For better or worse, the Trump administration is actually complying with many – but not all – court judgments. They’re not just digging in by default. One recent example:
A fully-functioning authoritarian regime keeps Mahwadi detained. If the preview text is unclear, Mahwadi was, indeed, released – the judge’s order was obeyed.
Additionally – and I know people think it simply cannot happen – but Trump is still susceptible to impeachment/conviction by the legislative branch. For the nickel it’s worth … I think it can happen, but not soon.
I presume the (WH Press Secretary) Karoline Leavitt play will lean more toward his ethnicity, then, than the whole “radical left, lunatic, activist judges” trope.
So, in short, threatening contempt is toothless in these situations.
My italics.
The only potential “bite” here would be fines, disbarment, or if they’re really bad, a jail sentence. And it’s only flunkies and lackeys who are vulnerable to these “annoyances,” as you aptly characterize them.
I’m guessing trump would not visit them in stir. Or bake them a cake with a file in it.
This is the “there be dragons” area that no one really fleshes out [EDIT: But see two posts down!]. The article below at least acknowledges the concern.