Years prior to his tenure as US vice-president, JD Vance expressed his disdain for legal limitations while openly supporting defiance of the judicial system amid the Trump administration’s aggressive actions against federal authority and constitutional principles.
In 2021, Vance forecasted a resurgence of Donald Trump as president and recommended that he “dismiss every single midlevel bureaucrat and civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people.”
“Then, when the courts intervene, stand before the public like Andrew Jackson did and declare: ‘The chief justice has issued his ruling. Let him enforce it,’” he stated during an appearance on the Jack Murphy Live podcast.
The actual statement attributed to the seventh president is debated, yet the ethos persists as the Trump administration disregards federal court directives meant to at least momentarily halt its constitutional subversion and damaging actions against the federal bureaucracy spearheaded by Elon Musk.
With Congress failing to act to safeguard its own powers, it has fallen on government employees, state attorneys general, and unions to retaliate through a cascade of lawsuits—contesting presidential directives that aim to restrict the constitutional entitlement of citizenship for those born in the US, imposing a freeze on federal funding, and dismissing corruption monitors, among other aggressive moves. Nearly 50 legal actions have been initiated in just the past three weeks, marking an unparalleled judicial pushback against a newly elected administration.
These lawsuits have led to several court decisions. They have temporarily halted certain executive orders issued by Trump that involved spending freezes, and they have also restricted Musk, who leads the so-called “department of government efficiency,” from allowing his staff to delve into the financial records of federal departments like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the education department as a tactic to hinder or potentially dismantle them.
However, it soon became clear that the administration was ignoring some of these court mandates, while its supporters decried what they labeled as “rogue judges” for ruling against Trump—with Vance framing the courts as mere bureaucratic hurdles obstructing the president’s implementation of the people’s desires.
This has raised alarms among legal experts, including Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley law school, about a potential constitutional crisis brewing.
“The thought that they would flout court orders is deeply alarming. If they proceed this way, we could face a constitutional crisis unlike any we have experienced, since if the president can breach constitutional laws and ignore court rulings, that’s essentially a dictatorship,” he remarked.
“This is not the domain of the ordinary. What we’ve observed in these first three weeks is without precedent in American history.”
Judge John McConnell has accused the Trump administration of willfully disregarding a mandate requiring the reinstatement of billions of dollars in grants. Another judge, Loren AliKhan, has criticized the administration for not adhering to its legal responsibilities following her directive to the office for budget and management (OMB) to stop the spending freeze.
Vance took to X to respond to the rulings.
“If a judge attempted to instruct a general on how to conduct a military operation, that would be unlawful,” he tweeted.
“Judges should not have authority over the executive’s legitimate powers.”
Musk has called for the impeachment of one of the judges involved in these cases.
On Thursday, Trump celebrated a win when a judge ruled in favor of Musk’s proposition to provide nearly all federal employees, a workforce of around 2 million, with eight months’ worth of pay if they resign immediately. The subject line of the email, “Fork in the Road,” echoed the message Musk used when he acquired Twitter in 2022 and subsequently let go of about 80% of its staff. Following the deadline for voluntary resignations outlined in the email—accepted by roughly 65,000 federal workers—unions reported that involuntary dismissals had commenced.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, lauded the rare judicial victory.
“This demonstrates that the ongoing legal issues won’t ultimately overshadow the will of 77 million Americans who backed President Trump and his agenda,” she stated.
Yet, more often than not, courts have ruled against the Trump administration as it seeks to consolidate its power.
The American Bar Association, representing hundreds of thousands of legal professionals in the US, has denounced what it views as the Trump administration’s “massive threats to the rule of law itself.”
“We are witnessing attempts to comprehensively dismantle agencies and entities established by Congress without pursuing the necessary congressional approval to alter the law,” it noted.
The ABA also criticized “efforts to terminate employees with scant regard for the laws and protections they deserve” and social media statements intended “to inflame tension.”
“This is chaotic. While it may resonate with a minority, it is fundamentally wrong. Most Americans recognize this as erroneous. It also contradicts the rule of law,” it affirmed.
Some of the wave of lawsuits will likely reach the Supreme Court. The administration might, in fact, be inclined to push certain cases to the highest court, which includes a solid conservative majority due to Trump appointing three of its nine justices during his first term, as it aims to further consolidate executive power over issues such as determining ultimate control over Congressional spending allocations.
However, navigating through district and appellate courts before reaching the Supreme Court is unlikely to be a rapid process, and by that time, Musk may have already accomplished a good portion of his objectives in dismantling the work of USAID, the education department, and various other federal entities.
Furthermore, the unpredictability of a Supreme Court that has previously overturned established precedents in eliminating the right to abortion adds another layer of uncertainty.
Chemerinsky is convinced that the Trump administration stands little chance in cases concerning birthright citizenship, funding freezes, and the termination of commissioners overseeing labor rights, consumer protection, and equal employment opportunities, as these breaches violate federal law. He believes the court is also likely to compel the administration to retract its efforts aimed at eliminating individual agencies created by Congress.
But what transpires if the administration heeds Vance’s call to brazenly defy the courts? Chemerinsky warns this could lead to “a constitutional confrontation unlike any we have witnessed.”
“The courts have limited power to enforce their decisions. They may hold individuals other than the president in contempt of court. They could determine who holds responsibility for carrying out the court ruling and impose contempt measures with fines or imprisonment for civil contempt. However, the notion of courts holding a cabinet secretary, attorney general, or secretary of defense in contempt is virtually unparalleled in the United States,” he explained.
“It’s difficult to envision where we will be in four years. Considering what has transpired in just three weeks, it is evident that Donald Trump is asserting expansive executive authority beyond what any previous president has claimed. How much will the courts permit this? There’s no way to predict.”
