When did Jackson defy the Supreme Court?
It’s not just “a handful of employees”-it’s a general ignoring the the Judicial Branch has any authority at all.
Which our Constitution has done, and each time it’s been caulked over or duct-taped. This was quite a common occurrence when our nation was still young; it’s much more alarming now that we’ve grown older and more rigid.
Not seeing where your cite supports that claim. Can you quote the part you think does? This part, btw, is just speculation by the article’s author:
Makes for juicy reading, but not much more.
Moderator Note
Let’s keep political potshots out of GQ. No warning issued, but stick to the question in the OP.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
France has had seventeen constitutions in that time.
So we are continuuing to find out what happens.
I don’t think you can put this down to “a few staff not knowing what to do”. It’s several days later and CBP is still defying court orders and wouldn’t even let Democratic Congressmen that went to Dulles talk to CBP officials.
If the Republican party mainstream doesn’t censor Trump for this, then de facto the US only has one arm of government now, the executive. Trump is directly challenging the rule of law.
Your cite doesn’t support the claim that they are still defying it. It only covers through Sunday.
Here is another report, its from 2AM on Feb 1st, article to come out in the morning.
https://twitter.com/charesilver/status/826447357105491968
US Marshalls reportedly refusing to enforce Federal court orders and CBP still not complying with them. Note this is from a reporter who writes for Vice and the Nation, not some random person on twitter.
A related question: suppose there isn’t any proof that the officials doing the refusing are doing so on orders from higher up (I don’t know whether that’s the case here or not; I’m sticking to the generalized hypothetical of the OP). Would the courts have any cause of action against the executive, besides perhaps forcing them to say officially that their people should obey the orders?
Yes. Generally the law will require either a very senior official to do something ("The Attorney-General shall do X . . . ") or an agency (“The Internal Revenue Service shall do X . . .”) As long as X is done, the law has been satisfied, so this doesn’t require the Attorney-General personally to discharge every duty imposed on him; he is free to arrange for X to be done by one or other of his vast staff of officers and employees. But if X isn’t done, then it’s the A-G’s job to see that it gets done, and he can’t excuse himself by saying “well, I told Officer Blob to do it, but he won’t”; the courts will sanction the AG for not getting X done. Similarly if the duty is imposed on a agency, the courts will sanction the agency (and, where appropriate, its chief executive) if the duty is not discharged. The incompetence or insubordination of staff is the AG’s problem/the IRS’s problem, but it doesn’t provide them with any defence to a complaint about their failure to discharge the duties imposed on them.