If Supreme Court Ignores The Constitution, Trump Should Ignore Them
... The Supreme Court’s shocking decision on Wednesday to allow a D.C. district court judge to order the Trump administration to disburse $2 billion in federal grant money is a major blow to the separation of powers undergirding our constitutional system of government...
... there’s no reason the Executive branch under Trump should pay any attention to what the Supreme Court says in this case, because it’s trying to assert an authority it simply doesn’t have...
The high court’s decision came down Wednesday, 5-4, with Roberts and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s Democrat appointees to deny the Trump administration’s request. The majority didn’t give a reason for this denial, which is too bad, because the ruling should trigger a constitutional crisis.
In a blistering dissent, Associate Justice Samuel Alito slammed the majority for giving a green light to the lower court’s judicial overreach. “Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars?” Alito wrote. “The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.”...
Alito is right to be stunned. Here is a case in which a district judge, Ali, is explicitly claiming for himself executive authority to disburse federal funds and determine the time and manner in which the funds will be disbursed - powers clearly vested not in the judiciary but in the executive branch...
... it’s almost certainly a violation of the U.S. Constitution...
Related
Neither Force Nor Will The rule of the black robes needs to end, by William Pettinger, 7 March 2025:
... the Supreme Court just allowed a lower court to command the federal government to disburse foreign aid before ruling whether the president’s attempt to withhold the funds was lawful. Justice Alito’s dissent excoriated the Court’s abdication of responsibility as “a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers.”...
This latest round of chipping away at the executive power builds on the last century of judicial activism...
Supporters of the judiciary’s supremacy may point to Hamilton’s argument in favor of life tenure for federal judges in Federalist 78 to argue for a more robust view of the judiciary’s power to review federal laws and executive actions. Doing so, however, overlooks the core of Hamilton’s argument.
Hamilton did not support a life-tenured judiciary because judges could never encroach on the legislature’s or executive’s powers. He argued that life tenure for judges is a safe policy because judges “have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.”
Hamilton later acknowledged in Federalist 78 that judges can stray from their constitutional duty: “If they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.” He did not think the executive was bound to enforce the “will” of any judge—only their reasoned, constitutional “judgment.”...
Neither the common law tradition nor the Founders’ political theory support the idea that individual judges can place themselves in charge of deciding how executive departments are run. When faced with a brazen disregard for the limited role of the judiciary, President Trump and his lawyers should consider the legal tools used by previous presidents to curb the federal courts’ overreach.
