this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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politics

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Summary

A federal judge criticized a Trump administration Justice Department lawyer who claimed they didn't have to follow the judge's oral order blocking deportations to El Salvador because it wasn't in writing.

Judge Boasberg questioned why the administration ignored his directive to return immigrants to the US. The DOJ lawyer repeatedly refused to provide information about the deportations, citing "national security concerns."

Frustrated, Boasberg ordered sworn declarations explaining what happened, quipping that he would issue a written order "since apparently my verbal orders don't seem to carry much weight."

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[–] Zzyzx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 1 hour ago

The US is in a constitutional crisis with situations like this, and so many people just don't seem to care or want to acknowledge that it's at that point.

[–] WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 3 points 49 minutes ago

A federal judge criticized a Trump administration Justice Department lawyer

If this is the only consequence of having done it- I’d say they didn’t think they could, they knew they could.

[–] Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 22 points 2 hours ago (4 children)

So what is the judge going to do? Admonish them?

[–] AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world 16 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Judge Boasberg does have one other card he can play, according to FRCJ Rule 4.1(b). If the US Marshal service is unable or unwilling to carry out a federal court order, the Judge who issued the order can deputize individuals to carry it out.

[–] laranis@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Could they deputize, say, the military?

[–] AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Not just the military. I draw your attention to this, emphasis mine

(a) In General. Process—other than a summons under Rule 4 or a subpoena under Rule 45 —must be served by a United States marshal or deputy marshal or by a person specially appointed for that purpose.

Section (b) says:

Enforcing Orders: Committing for Civil Contempt. An order committing a person for civil contempt of a decree or injunction issued to enforce federal law may be served and enforced in any district. Any other order in a civil-contempt proceeding may be served only in the state where the issuing court is located or elsewhere in the United States within 100 miles from where the order was issued.

The line:

a person specially appointed for that purpose.

is interesting because it does not specify who is qualified to be appointed. Now, I am concerned that this language means that Judge Boasberg may only appoint one person, but if he seems it necessary, he could probably get away with appointing more.

[–] WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 2 points 49 minutes ago

Well, he criticized them… so. Lesson learned, right?

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago

He'll move up to SLAMS next

[–] Infinite@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 hours ago

I'm expecting the Judicial will go as far as BASHED

[–] candyman337@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 hours ago

Like at what point does everyone else in the government finally say "ok we have to treat them as treasonous" this is a madhouse full of complacent fools.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 52 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

They feel that they can ignore it because they can ignore it. Stop letting them!

[–] cultsuperstar@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago

Well considering Republicans control every branch of government, they're assuming they can and will get away with it. Even if this goes up to SCOTUS, the conservative justices will let them do what they want. One of them will "dissent" though to try to make it seem like they don't agree. They're probably behind closed doors playing rock, paper, scissors to see who "dissents" each time a hot button topic gets up to them.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 11 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

How do they do that? Their enforcers work for Trump.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 22 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

They can deputize citizens to carry out the orders too

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 11 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Then if the deputies fail you start sheriffizing people.

[–] Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com 7 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Sheriffs are usually elected, not appointed. It’s one of the big reasons decriminalization is so difficult; No elected cop wants to look soft on crime, because their opponents can use it against them in smear campaigns during the next election.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago

Wahoo it's-a me Luigi

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The US Marshalls don't, I thought.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 6 points 1 hour ago

US Marshals are under DoJ.

[–] Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world 59 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

'You felt you could disregard it?'

Well, given that they disregarded it and are now standing before you arguing that they had the right to disregard it, I think it's safe to say that yes, they felt they could disregard it. And given that the migrants were deported anyway, your orders were not only completely ignored, but were also being openly mocked on Twitter by Marco Rubio, and they will receive no punishment for doing so, I think it's safe to say that they were right.

Frustrated, Boasberg ordered sworn declarations explaining what happened, quipping that he would issue a written order “since apparently my verbal orders don’t seem to carry much weight.”

He's about to find out that his written orders carry even less. Remember, the Supreme Court ruled that he can't even be questioned about official acts, much less investigated. Trump could go on his Twitter knock-off tomorrow and tell this guy to go fuck himself with a chainsaw and there's fuck-all this judge can do about it.

[–] torrentialgrain@lemm.ee 11 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

This is kind of insane to witness unfold in real time. These fossils don’t understand that they’ve been stripped from their institutional powers. They are literally not able to understand what’s happening even if it’s totally transparent to anyone watching.

[–] kbotc@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

No, he can be questioned about official acts. The wording is that the judiciary decides what is an official act, so if they decide it is, he cannot be punished criminally for what is otherwise a criminal act. The Supreme Court did a bunch of power grabs for itself and effectively declared that Congress couldn’t do squat other than impeachment against the president and the only check on the president’s power was whether the judiciary agreed with him.

Now Trump’s attacking the judiciary and has made the chief justice have to make a statement that his challenges to his legitimacy will not stand, so I would expect to see a bunch of cases go against Trump just as a judiciary show of force, much like his citizenship emergency challenge where they told him to fuck off and they’d slow walk his case.

Trump could have ended democracy quite easily if he wasn’t in such a damn hurry to get shit done and snubbing all of the power brokers that he needs to implement his plans is forcing a bunch of needless shit. When the economy is fully in shambles in a few months and the ad spend slows down for media companies, I’d expect them to pounce on how much shit he fucked up. It’s wild seeing WSJ realizing the problem that’s coming down the pipeline and the Murdoch rag shitting on him in the editorials rather than WaPo.

[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 143 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Throw. That. Lawyer. In. PRISON. There may be no way to enforce the law on Trump himself, but make lawyers afraid to do his dirty work.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 15 points 3 hours ago

Throw everyone who implemented it in prison. Trump may have made himself an untouchable dictator but just himself.

Remember that loyalty only goes one way, unless it’s in trumps personal interest such as profiting from it. Make him go on record as either pardoning the criminals or dropping them

[–] cotus@midwest.social 37 points 6 hours ago (5 children)

Wouldn't Trump just pardon them?

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I don't think he can. Courts have the power to hold people until they comply with a court order.

Technically so does congress although it's never done.

US Marshalls, however, are a real thing and work for the judiciary.

Edit: ugh, they are responsible for carrying out what the judiciary needs, but it's still part of the executive (DoJ).

[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 111 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Make him do it. Make him do it over and over. New contempt charges every time one of these asshat lawyers refuses a lawful court order. Take up all of Trump's time with having to continuously pardon his own lawyers.

[–] Ferrous@lemmy.ml 24 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

It literally takes trump 20 seconds to tell an aid to start paperwork for a pardon.

After 8 years of watching the legal system completely and utterly fumble any semblance of justice against Trump, it is bizarre to see you hail legal action as the ultimate method of dismantling the Trump regime. Big "I think Mueller is still going to bring Trump down!" energy.

Nothing will change until the ruling class have fear in their hearts, and if the most obstructive and radical thing you can imagine is "waste trumps time by making him pardon an extra 15 people" also happens to be the prevalent mindset of other liberals, then yall are mega doomed.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 19 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Nothing will change until the ruling class have fear in their hearts, and if the most obstructive and radical thing you can imagine is “waste trumps time by making him pardon an extra 15 people” also happens to be the prevalent mindset of other liberals, then yall are mega doomed.

Did anyone say it was the only method on the table?

[–] Ferrous@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Fair enough. That was wrong of me to falsely insinuate.

However, I'd still posit that these sort of milquetoast strategies are so ineffective and distracting, that they ought to not be brought up at all since they defang otherwise radical people and distract from real solutions.

In other words, Trump and team would like nothing more than for the opposition to waste untold millions in legal fees (and weeks of prolonged court time) all to make him auto pen a document over the course of 15 minutes. These suggestions are worth less than nothing.

[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago

Nowhere did I say that was the "ultimate method." Every single thing the orange asshole tries to do should be obstructed and interfered with in every way possible.

[–] Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Make him do it. Make him do it over and over. New contempt charges every time one of these asshat lawyers refuses a lawful court order. Take up all of Trump’s time with having to continuously pardon his own lawyers.

This would be at best a minor inconvenience that Trump would just sign with the auto-pen that he's going after Biden for using.

And we've seen literally dozens of Trump's high-profile lawyers watch their careers end in disgrace once Trump no longer has a use for them. And for every one that crashes and burns, there seems to be two more willing to take his place. Especially now that Trump is immune from prosecution, making it much less risky for them.

[–] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 4 points 1 hour ago

The point isn’t really to inconvenience him though. It’s to cede no ground without documented abuse of power.

[–] deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 4 hours ago

He can't pardon a disbarment, though!

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago

No. You go through the bar and remove their license.

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[–] foggy@lemmy.world 150 points 7 hours ago

He didn't feel he could disregard it.

He successfully disregarded it.

[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 42 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Uh oh! This Judge sounds PISSED! SOON Trump is going to get a STERNLY WRITTEN LETTER! And if they DEFY that? OH Boy! ANOTHER letter will be on the way!

[–] bishbosh@lemm.ee 10 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I'd Like to See Ol Donny Trump Wriggle His Way Out of THIS Jam!

[–] P1k1e@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago

You guys literally got my overweight middle aged ass giggling like an imbecile in my office at work

[–] NimdaQA@lemmy.world 103 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

His written orders won’t do anything either. Who knew the constitution can be so easily ripped to shreds by simply ignoring it.

[–] arrow74@lemm.ee 54 points 7 hours ago

This should have been fixed in the 1800s when Andrew Jackson defied the Supreme Court, but it was ignored and here we are

[–] engene@lemmy.ca 61 points 7 hours ago

Enforce the law! Otherwise, there really is no turning back. US Democracy is dead. Fascism wins. 🇺🇸

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 76 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

☒ Soap box ☒ Ballot box ☒ Jury box ☐ Ammo box

[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago

Promises promises.

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 43 points 6 hours ago

Well if the order wasn't enforced... yes?

These psychos aren't stopped by words.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 10 points 5 hours ago

And if you put it in writing, it’ll be on the wrong letterhead.

Or you didn’t sign it.

Or you signed it with autopen.

[–] Nemean_lion@lemmy.ca 11 points 5 hours ago

They don't give a single fuck about any letter you make, any protest you do. Any law you say they broke. What the fuck are you going to do about ir? Until that answer is armed revolt they will not give a single fuck about anything you do.

[–] Shawdow194@fedia.io 31 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

What a strongly worded condemnation!

Anyway

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[–] Noite_Etion@lemmy.world 13 points 5 hours ago

Judge SLAMS Trump with no legal action whatsoever.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

So the judge is putting Trump in a cell for disobeying the law?

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