Is the conflict of the Trump administration with the judges a constitutional crisis? What to know

While the fight against the legal war of the Trump administration with the country’s judges on its controversial policies and actions degenerate, experts in constitutional law seem to be the alarm that the country could be closer to a constitutional crisis.

What does a constitutional crisis imply, and when and how would it be triggered?

During the weekend, the administration challenged the directive of a federal judge issued by the bench to transform two flights carrying alleged members of Venezuelan gangs in Salvador, after which the president and his senior officials said they would do before with the deportations despite the court said, while continuing a call.

Administration lawyers have taken a similar position when the judges ordered reductions in financing from the USAID and other agencies have been restored or for expenses which are not to be described, according to court documents.

“Dangerously close”

Richard Crouts, the professor of the Sudler family of constitutional law at the Nyu Law School, who has been involved in many cases of the Federal Court, told ABC News that such a challenge towards the courts undermines the judiciary and could have serious consequences.

“I would say that we are dangerously close to a constitutional crisis. Perhaps we dance in a way on the verge of a constitutional crisis,” he told ABC News.

James Sample, an expert in constitutional law at Hofstra University, who was involved in federal affairs, agreed that the country was on the “precipice” of such a crisis, noting that the courts are limited to be able to enforce their decisions.

However, he noted that the courts are designed to be deliberative with business.

“The courts essentially say that we have to slow down,” Sample told ABC News. “The executive [branch] can finally get what he wants. … But if the executive gets what he wants without a process, not only individuals lose, but we all lose justice. “”

What is a constitutional crisis?

The sample said that constitutional researchers have deferred, which defines exactly a constitutional crisis.

“The only thing we can say with certainty is that it is not a switch,” said the sample about the constitutional crisis. “It is not a binary. It is a position on a spectrum.”

The judge of the Supreme Court retired Stephen Breyer echoed this feeling in an interview with CNN this week.

“No one really knows. People have different opinions about it,” he said.

The sample said that the Trump administration’s actions are close to the worrying part of the spectrum-a development, he said, which could never have been planned by the founders of the country.

“What we live is not a blitzkrieg against [political] adversaries, but rather a blitzkrieg on the part of the executive against the rule of law itself. This is a decisive characteristic of a crisis for the rule of law, “said the sample.

Past crises have been isolated

Aside from the succession of Confederate States leading to the civil war, ABC News experts spoke with previous examples of constitutional crisis ended up exploding, as when President Franklin D. Roosevelt threatened to go ahead with a military court against a Nazi sympathizer of Long Island during the Second World War.

The United States Supreme Court finally gave the President the power to move forward, according to Crudes.

In some cases, the executive power intervened to enforce the judicial orders, as when the president of the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower, ordered the National Guard to ensure that the States followed the decision Brown c. Brown v. Board of Education of the United States Supreme Court ending segregation in public schools.

“All these [past examples] are in a way an individual and discreet question, not a sort of more omnipresent or systemic contempt for courts and law decisions by executive power, “said Corrodes.

The actions of the Trump administration have put the courts in unexplored waters

The actions of the Trump administration, on the other hand, said experts, are unprecedented due to the speed both of which the administration adopts Trump policies and the opponents of the administration’s measures before the court.

“The executive has a certain ability to modify the facts on the ground before the courts can act and it can be difficult to undo some of these actions, even if the courts end up concluding that they were illegal,” said Prouse.

The sample, from Hofstra, compared it to a computer being therefore overloaded that it cannot process the information.

“The volume of what is happening, and the speed at which it is undertaken is crushing the constitutional hard drive,” he said.

The situation has been played in the past two weeks because Trump said he would respect the judicial orders which have issued temporary ban on his policies, such as deportations, mass licensees of federal workers and the discharge of transgender soldiers; However, court documents have indicated that these orders were not followed in many cases.

Trump and his allies, including billionaire Elon Musk, also continued judge James Boasberg on social networks after issuing the bench a temporary ban on the administration in a case contesting the president’s decrees to expel Venezuelan migrants.

“We have not historically seen the idea of ​​attacking judges [or] Attack the courts for the decisions with which we disagree and attacking the system itself, “said the sample.” This is a problem. “”

Tools that the courts can use to repel

Despite the unprecedented decline in the courts, the experts said that the judiciary had tools to prevent a crisis.

Cruts noted that if the courts are faced with a challenge when it comes to directly enforcing their decisions against the executive power, they can always take measures for the administration to comply.

Judges have threatened to use conclusions and fines of outrage, and pages said that these warnings can be serious.

“If there are lawyers involved in the Council to challenge a court order or to participate in contempt for a court order, there may be sanctions against these lawyers. Their bar licenses could be at stake,” he said.

“Then, if there are false statements that lawyers make before the court, this can also be sanctioned against lawyers,” added Cruma. “Sometimes this sanction is sufficient to make them conform. But if this is not the case, the courts can start to impose fines.”

“As the executive challenge continues, more and more civil servants should be involved in the taking of this path with the executive not to comply,” he said.

The sample noted, however, that if a court had chosen contempt, it could test the constitution more because the service of American marshals, which is under the court of executive power, would be involved in the application of an order.

“It is not eccentric to believe that the Trump administration, faced with a contempt of contempt, would only just tell the US Maréchaux service not to apply it,” he said. “This dates back to this same principle that glue which maintains the constitutional structure together is not only the law, it is the standards.”

There has already been a decline in the higher level of the judiciary to the rhetoric of Trump.

Chief judge John Roberts reprimanded the calls to dismiss the judges with a rare declaration this week.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that indictment has not been an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a court decision. The normal appeal examination process exists for this purpose,” he said.

Trump rejected Roberts’ declaration in an interview with Fox News, saying that Roberts had not directly mentioned it by his name. Trump and his allies continued to verbally attack the federal judges who issued ordinances and temporary ban injunctions on the implementation of his policies and his decrees.

The role of the public is crucial to avoid crises

Sample and pages have declared that, taking into account their actions so far in the past two weeks, it is unlikely that the congress controlled by the Republican will set up to slow down the rhetoric and the action of Trump and force him to comply with the courts … to have a public opinion to play a big role in the preventing country from entering a crisis, they stressed.

“The tool, the arrow in the quarry of the courts is the legitimacy and the faith of the public in the legitimacy of the process being played with these decisions. One of the things which is the mark of a civilized society is that if the citizens believe that a process was fair,” said Sample.

Cruts noted that the Watergate scandal took place and that the president of the time, Richard Nixon, was forced by the Supreme Court of the United States to publish audio cassettes which involved him on unprecedented offenses, public opinion had already turned against him and his allies in the Congress to the point that he had resigned.

Corrections added that public opinion can be expressed by the economy, that federal leaders look carefully. The commercial and stock market markets are generally weakened if governments and the rule of law are disrupted and this could force the executive to rethink its resistance to the courts, he said.

“If we arrive at [a constitutional crisis]You can easily imagine a lot of agitation that would really appear on the market in the economy. People will stop wanting to invest here, “he said.

The sample said that the country’s current polarization would make public consensus more difficult, but he thought that, generally, the Americans would denounce everything that leads to a crisis.

“Even if you are hardcore Maga, and you think that Donald Trump is a benevolent authority, there can happen a time when the next leader, with authoritarian trends is, from your point of view, not so benevolent,” he said. “So, if the Americans want to repel authoritarianism, they must get up and be willing to say that I oppose authoritarianism, even if it could produce the short -term results I want.”