Senator warns of US getting ‘closer to a constitutional crisis’ as Samuel Alito’s dissent signals deference to Trump
Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar warned on Sunday that the US is “getting closer and closer to a constitutional crisis”, but the courts, growing Republican disquiet at Trump administration policies, and public protest were holding it off.
“I believe as long as these courts hold, and the constituents hold, and the congress starts standing up, our democracy will hold,” Klobuchar told CNN’s State of the Union, adding “but Donald Trump is trying to pull us down into the sewer of a crisis.”
Klobuchar said the US supreme court should hold Trump administration officials in contempt if they continue to ignore a court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Ábrego García from El Salvador, the Maryland resident the government admitted in court it had deported by mistake.
There’s also not much point in going after the lieutenants. As long as it’s a federal court holding them in contempt, Trump can just pardon them. It’s happened before with Joe Arpaio. State level contempt would work if they could find a way to make that happen.
The only thing I can think of that SCOTUS to do right now to try and head this off would be to make a ruling defining what is or isn’t an official act. SCOTUS needs to sack up rule solidly against Trump. They need to state that, per the Constitution, only congress can declare war. The President has no authority to declare war and no other nations are invading the USA. Therefore, all deportations under the Alien Enemies Act are NOT official acts and therefore they are high crimes and misdemeanors.
This alone would not solve the problem if Trump continues to flip them off and ignore them which seems likely. It would however put the issue squarely in the House’s hands. If this conservative court plainly states that the president’s actions are illegal, the pressure on the House to impeach and the Senate to convict would be huge. With the houses nearly evenly split, an impeachment in the house would only take a few Republicans to cross over. The Senate would be tougher but not impossible. It would take something like 20 Republican Senators to vote with the Dems to convict him.
If that fails to happen, if the House or Senate fails in their duty after such a court ruling, I think we might finally see enough impetus to get major resistance among the people; even more massive protests than we’ve already seen, a general strike, work slow downs, maybe even blue states taking steps to secede.
Criminal contempt has this problem, but civil contempt is not pardonable, because there is no crime to pardon.
Judge Boasberg is trying to proceed with criminal contempt on the “turn the planes around” order. Whatever happens there, it is unlikely to end in convictions that stick.
Judge Xinis is proceeding towards civil contempt. If she finds someone in willful contempt, she can imprison them until they choose to comply. And the evidence standard in civil contempt is “clear and convincing,” not “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
I did not know this. I hope that works.
Couldn’t they reverse the ruling on his immunity? They reversed Roe v Wade with the flimsiest of justification. They could do the same here. I realize I’m being hopeful.
I guess so. I just don’t see them doing that. They will want the next Republican President to benefit from it.