5mo ago

Trump administration hasn't complied with order to halt foreign aid freeze, judge says | CNBC

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Trump administration hasn't complied with order to halt foreign aid freeze, judge says

The Trump administration has not fully complied with a court order pausing the freezing of foreign assistance grants and contracts, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week ordered the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance after hearing claims from federal contractors challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.

53 comments

Bring specific people into court, and hold them in contempt.
If they refuse to appear, assume judgement, and seize assets.
You don't need a fucking army if you can force all their assets to be frozen. Worked for Russia, worked in the Red Scare, and it'll work now.
- Trump may be "off limits" according to SCOTUS but the people that carry out his illegal orders are not.
  
  This is the point. Anyone not complying with the actual court orders should get contempt. Trump can't pardon them out of shit.
  
  Remember, he is only immune for official acts. And the courts reserved the right to determine if an act is official. I think they could easily say that openly defying the courts ruling is not an official act. They will wait for something bigger I suspect, but the supreme court judges love power just as much as trump. They are probably excited by the prospect of expanding thier power by giving trump the boot.
- Contempt needs to happen, like tomorrow. The longer these folks feel above any law the worse our chances of recovery from this get.
- Dude, you no longer have a functioning legal system
  You are calling for antibiotics for a patient with no inmune system... trying to jump start a car with a siezed engine
  If anything could work (and I'm not sure it would at this point) is a general, nation wide strike
  
  Not true at all, and not sure why you think that suddenly all parts of the constitution stopped working. Your train of thought is why all these people online are furiously typing and shitting their pants at the same time instead of actually doing something.
- If this were civil, that would maybe be a thing.
  This is.. well its fundamentally different. We've undergone a coup. This kind of circle-jerking "But He's Not Following The Law" by NBC, is well, masturbatory, and intentionally obscures what has happened.
  NBC is part of the problem, not the solution. Being in contempt of courts when courts and law have no.. why pretend like they do?
  
  Not about civility. Doomers are saying there isn't anything the other equal branches of government can do, but there is. This is one of those things.
- Treasury is executive branch
  
  Banks and private asset organizations are not the federal government.
  If you're trolling, fuck off.
  If you're just stupid, educate yourself.
So, when a judge orders you to refrain from doing what you planned cause it's against the law, and then you do it anyway, aren't there usually consequences?
- yes, congress can do something about it...
  
  Love it when those supposed checks and balances work out 🫠
  
  The judge can do something about it. Put people making the orders in contempt of court. If the DOJ won't do anything than deputize some people and drag them in.
Good thing the SC thought to shield us from a constitutional crisis when they deemed the president immune to laws last year. Now we don’t have to fool ourselves into thinking this time would be different.
- They're awfully quiet over there. No soundbites except corruption coming out about them, not from them.
- Doomerism will doom us all. Fatalism is fatal.
  That ruling has been grossly exaggerated by doomers. In practice, the ruling means very little difference for the actual running of an administration. Trump was the first president to ever face prosecution, and plenty of presidents have done incredibly shady things. There has been a decades-long taboo against prosecuting former presidents. And even after what Trump did, the prosecution was still very careful to only go after things that weren't covered in his duties. The SCOTUS did rule the previous Justice department consensus into law, but they didn't say that the president has complete immunity for all acts. The SCOTUS set themselves up as the final arbiter of what was an official act or not, but they DID NOT provide absolute immunity. Spreading FUD helps no one.
  Also, the ruling only applied to the president, not to his administration. He may not be prosecutable for violating many laws, but his underlings still are. In theory, the president could simply continually issue daily pardons for everyone in the executive branch, pardoning them of all federal law violations. But that's actually incredibly dangerous for a president to do. For example, if a president were daily issuing a pardon for everyone in the White House, what's to stop the White House chef from introducing a slow poison into his food that will take several days to take effect? Or maybe Musk would use his new control of the Treasury to literally just steal every penny Trump personally owns. If you don't use broad blanket pardons, then many lackeys will have to risk criminal prosecution to follow your illegal orders. But if you do use broad blanket pardons, you could end up pardoning people you never intended to. If you're a president issuing frequent pardons to all of your staff, you could easily end up pardoning someone who is attempting to rob or kill you.
  Oh, and many illegal actions employees might be asked to carry out are illegal under both state and federal law. Trump may simply refuse to prosecute any federal violations, but that won't stop state charges. And while federal agents have some legal protections when carrying out their legal duties, that doesn't apply to illegal actions. A state can't arrest an IRS agent for just doing their job, but they can certainly arrest an IRS agent if they decide to become a serial killer. Eventually this kind of conflict can lead to civil war. But that would only increase Trump's chances of being assassinated. And I bring up assassination because that's the fate many wannabee dictators end up meeting. Trump himself has faced at least two assassination attempts, and it's something he likely thinks about daily. He has to realize that if he pushes things far enough, a Secret Service agent might even just take one for the team.
  
  You wrote up a bunch about technicalities of pardons and push back on over reach but it's actually really simple. If he wants something illegal done, he signs a paper that says to do it and another absolving them for carrying out the order.
  Nobody will care about over reach because every functional position in the government is now a political position. If your loyalty wavers for even a second, you're fired (or worse). Federal oversight is replaced by state surveillance, you can be sure that rogue chef or secret service agent would have eyes watching their every move.
  Even if the SC sets themselves up as the final arbiters on legality, that doesn't protect them from illegal orders targeting them. For example: tough to oppose a president from a jail cell or if all of your assets are seized for the Sovereign Wealth fund.
  Your point on state opposition is one that I'll grant, that's probably the storybook (legal) ending to this if there was one. The best case scenario would turn into a cold civil war, with states finding ways to oppose the federal government while coordinating some measure of support for each other.
  The most likely ending isn't that or a rogue assassin, but a palace coup. Popular unrest allows the military to step in and overthrow the head of state. The power remains centralized and unconstitutional; you're now at the whim of the heads of military.
  But at least the military industrial complex isn't beholden to the whims of every foreign government with a blank check. They already have way more power and influence than any random elected politician, and maintaining the US hegemony is their main goal.
If the Executive is not found in contempt when ignoring direct orders from The Judicial, there's no longer a Constitutional Republic that defines what a President is, or his powers under it, it renders Congress and the Supreme Court meaningless, all that's left is a Dictator threatening punishment, suffering and death on the citizens, and violent animus towards the worlds nations.
- If the Executive is not found in contempt and that contempt finding carrying appropriate consequences, and those consequences actually being applied and enforced when ignoring direct orders from The Judicial, ...
  Just felt that needed some extending.
Why should they? They will just dispose the judge and the orders after the coup.
Well Judge Ali, whatcha gonna do? Be a little bitch and let Trump roll you over? One of you assholes has to have some stones under that robe.
Surprised pikachu. Anything doesn’t matter if there’s zero enforcement behind it. Don’t write a court order that you’ve no way to enforce.
He’s probably confused by the double negative
So when does the military step in and arrest these fucks? Honestly, I trust them more than him.
Hold another election.
- Congress needs to do their job.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/4/2221481/-JD-Vance-says-Trump-can-ignore-the-Supreme-Court
https://billmoyers.com/story/increasingly-necessity-15-point-guide-surviving-authoritarianism/
Exactly. Who is enforcing any of this?
Has there ever been another U.S. President who's spent this much time fighting the courts?
Elect a dictator and then act shocked when he gives zero fucks about your opinions. If only there was some way muricans could have seen this coming.
Buy the ticket, take the ride!
I heard there's a new kid on the block, that has some seizable coffers to cover the bills in the interim.
And ...?

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