Summary
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in blocked foreign aid within 48 hours, citing noncompliance with a 13-day-old court order.
The freeze, imposed by Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, halted funding for USAID and State Department programs, affecting hundreds of millions of dollars owed to nonprofits and businesses.
The cutoff forced tens of thousands of layoffs and jeopardized critical aid projects. Despite the Feb. 13 ruling, no payments resumed.
This follows another case where a judge found the administration failed to unfreeze trillions in domestic grants and loans.
The next step is the DoJ sends the US Marshalls to arrest the President for failure to comply with a federal court order. Let’s hope they follow through.
Congress is not withholding the funds, so they are not committing a crime. That’s part of the reason for the accountability executive order, obscuring responsibility.
Interesting. I suppose it being an executive order does keep it to the executive branch. It’s late over here and the brain hurts.
Too bad there isn’t a law that requires the legislative brance to exercise powers of checks and balances. Maybe that’s something to note for America 2.0.
The federal courts took the first step, ruling the action unconstitutional. We’ll see if the DoJ dispatches the US Marshalls with a warrant for failure to comply. If not, they will be complicit.
The courts can directly order the Marshalls to enforce their rulings. But yes,the Marshalls do roll up under the DOJ. So what happens when the courts give the order is anyone’s guess.
Failure would result in a constitutional crisis.
Another one? Toss it on the pile.
There hasn’t been one yet. It’s defined as a situation in which a major political dispute cannot be clearly resolved on the basis of the particular government’s constitution or established practice. All steps must be taken until our system has been proven to fail.
You mean like when a person who organized an insurrection, and was found not eligible for office, still takes office?
I’m not saying he’s innocent, but he wasn’t convicted of having anything to do with it. That’s not a constitutional crisis, it’s a failure of our court system.
And just like that, Trump fires the US Marshalls.
This is the interesting bit - he might try that. As far as I know, something changed in 1969 about the structure of the federal marshals, and the courts no longer hire their own marshals. A comment from an American well versed in law would help clear things up.
The DoJ is an executive agency, under the President, currently run by Pam Bondi and Emil Bove. Anyone in that organization who moves against the President is getting fired, whether or not that is legal.
Importantly, as of a few days ago any agency in the executive branch has to defer to the president and attorney general for interpretation of the laws, so if the president says the court order is illegal then the DoJ doesn’t have to do anything.
The DoJ is owned by Trump, so I don’t think they’ll be doing that.
You’re probably right, but our failing system is still intact. Once a constitutional crisis occurs, our system will be definitively proven to be a failure, and will require revision or replacement.
Is it intact?
Technically, yes. The unconstitutional actions taken by the executive branch have been challenged by the judiciary branch. If the executive branch does not comply, the next step is pressing charges. Failure to do so would be a constitutional crisis.
This is far from the first time that a president overstepped their authority. Trump was checked in his last term over the Muslim ban, for example. Even Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus without authority.
This would be the first time in US history that the president is not held accountable for failing to comply with a federal court order.
They already have refused to abide by the orders… And then all we got was “Well, we’ll check back later, and see if you complied yet”.
He didn’t openly reject the order. He is appealing.
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5293132/trump-vance-constitutional-crisis-court-rulings
So, USAID dollars are moving now? Last I checked, no, and the lawyer said “I don’t have any answers to your questions”…
Again, I didn’t say anything is working. I said our constitutional government is still intact. Read the link above, or do your own research on constitutional crisis and what it entails. It not simply a failure to follow protocol. It would require us to redefine the foundation of our democracy.
After that