Rule of law: Are we in a constitutional crisis?

The harrowing question of what happens if a president defies a federal court order “has hung over the United States since President Trump’s second term began,” said Ian Millhiser in Vox, and “now that long-awaited crisis may be upon us.” On March 15, federal Judge James Boasberg issued an injunction halting the deportation of two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. Told the planes were already “in the air,” Boasberg verbally ordered the administration to return the deportees to U.S. soil. But “the planes kept flying,” said Adam Liptak in The New York Times.

Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed the government hadn’t defied a judicial order, saying the administration followed Boasberg’s written order, which didn’t mention the planes. That was all too legalistic for Trump, who called for the impeachment of the “Radical Left Lunatic” Boasberg. Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) duly filed articles of impeachment. House Speaker Mike Johnson went even further, saying Congress has the power to impeach judges and “eliminate an entire district court.” Meanwhile, Bondi is citing “state secrets” to withhold from Boasberg further information about the flights, effectively arguing that the administration is immune from judicial review. The question now is not whether we’re in a constitutional crisis, but “how much damage it will cause.”

Boasberg has the “facts and the law” on his side, said National Review in an editorial. He’s well within his power to temporarily block migrants from being deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which “has never before been invoked outside of a congressionally declared war.” Still, Trump and Bondi have “just cause to complain” about how other federal judges have bent the law “past its recognizable contours” to thwart Trump’s agenda. Unjust rulings can be appealed. But when appeals can take years, in a system that lets any of more than 600 district-court judges issue a “nationwide injunction” nullifying a presidential order, “grave objections” are legitimate. Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama both expressed “frustration” with the injunction system, said Sam Baker in Axios. Over Obama’s eight years, district courts issued a then-record 12 rulings freezing presidential policies. In the first two months of Trump’s second term, judges have issued at least 15.

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We’re not in a constitutional crisis, said Michael Tomasky in The New Republic. “We’re in crises, plural.” Yes, Trump’s agenda has met with a salvo of injunctions. But when that agenda includes ending birthright citizenship (guaranteed by the Constitution), seizing Congress’s power of the purse (violating the separation of powers), and snatching people off the street to be deported without a court hearing, what do you expect? Trump is “at war with the rule of law” itself, said Tom Nichols in The Atlantic. With congressional Republicans too loyal or “too scared” to oppose him, “judges now stand alone” as our last defense against his “authoritarian project.”

“This won’t end well for Trump,” said J. Michael Luttig in The New York Times. He can bluster all he wants, but Republicans lack the votes to remove judges by impeachment, and sooner or later the Supreme Court will have to “step in and assert its undisputed constitutional power to say what the law is.” Let’s hope so, said Mark Joseph Stern in Slate. But if we’ve reached the point where the fate of America’s 250-year experiment in freedom and democracy depends on at least two unpredictable conservative justices ruling against a Republican president, then we are already “in a dark place.”