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That's not going to work.
What he's REALLY BEEN doing is changing the power balance, which used to be Legislative, Executive, and Judicial with Judicial having final say in most things by ruling on their constitutionality, and elevating the Executive branch. He will ignore judicial rulings as they "don't apply" to his office.
That's not going to work either. It's a bad idea to openly defy judges, because they can easily drain your bank account.
You'll note that even now, Trump lawyers claim they are doing their best to comply with court orders.
How did it work out of Andrew "the courts have made decision " Jackson?
Jackson probably never said that.
In any case, he wasn't defying the court. This case was between Samuel Worcester and the state of Georgia, and the SCOTUS ordered the state of Georgia to release Worcester.
Jackson was not involved and didn't want to be involved (hence the snarky "let THEM enforce it", ie "keep me out of this"). However, the SCOTUS never asked for Jackson's help and ultimately didn't need it.
Assuming the rule of law is respected
Judges can drain bank accounts of those who don't respect rule of law. That's kind of the point of draining their bank account.
I keep hearing arguments like this, and I'd love to be reassured by them, but they come after watching Trump receive 34 felony convictions with no actual punishment for those convictions, after which he was elected President of the United States of America. It also comes after watching a 4 year long failure to attach (or even try to attach) any consequences to him for Jan 06.
So, you'll forgive me if I'll wait until I hear about bank accounts being drained and that it has any measurable impact on the rate of progress at https://www.project2025.observer/ before I lull myself back into to believing Trump is in any way not untouchable.
There are a lot of things the system can do to stop something like this. So far it's not doing very many of them.
He also received an $83 million judgment, which he already paid. And a $400 million fine, which he will pay.
Also, keep in mind that Trump cannot act alone. Even if he could shrug off a million dollar fine, his employees cannot. And judges will target his employees, until nobody is willing to break the law for him.
Does the judge have a computer with a button on it that says drain? What's the process, and can that process be disrupted?
I'm being quite serious.
I answered this elsewhere, but the upshot is that banks treat court orders like checks drawn from your account. Once they are signed, there isn't any good way to stop the funds from being withdrawn.
Ok now the judge is in jail for treason or has all their personal assets liquidated into the Sovereign Wealth fund. What next? A new judge is hand picked and installed, is he going to put his neck out like the last guy?
Jails are administered by judges. Put a judge in jail illegally, and another judge will immediately release them.
Ok, the judge gets swept up in a military tribunal or they just say anyone collaborating with this judge is also guilty of treason. This is all putting aside brownshirts straight up burning down their house and the FBI regrettably failing to catch the culprits.
You can't arrest someone for treason without a warrant. And warrants are signed by judges.
The rest of your hypothetical describes kidnapping and arson. Kidnapping and arson are state crimes even if the perp is a federal employee. The brownshirts would be arrested by state/local police (who vastly outnumber federal agents btw) and tried in state courts.
You do know who appoints the judges, right?
And you think the federal government doesn't have the resources to pull off those crimes without plausible deniability? Or that the right wing militias aren't perfectly constructed to take their own initiative, fight and die for their dear leader anyway?
State judges are elected or appointed by governors.
Judges aren't healthcare CEOs: they are accustomed to being targeted by criminals, they have armed security details, and they have the chief of police on speed-dial.
The federal government might have "plausible deniability" but the perps are still going to be arrested and tried. "Plausible deniability" just means the government will abandon them.
Genuine question because I'm not a lawyer, but why would a state judge specifically need to issue the warrant? And could it come from any red state maga judge?
And yes, the government would absolutely abandon them. But all a dictator (or his public propaganda) needs to say is "unfortunate violence, but that judge got what was coming to him" and the lap dogs will eat it up. There are way more willing martyrs than judges.
Will the chief of police stop the feds from finding a hard-drive full of CP in the judges office, sourced back to some international investigation the feds have jurisdiction over?
Your phrasing keeps implying that naked unconstitutional acts would be met with armed resistance, but that's not what I'm trying to get across. A state judge could pretty fairly label Trump an outlaw today, giving judicial sanction for violent arrest. That doesn't put a bunch of state police on par with Trump engaging the national guard. All he needs is some thin veil of imagined legitimacy and he has the power to "defend" America from any threat.
For federal crimes, a federal judge would issue the warrant. But not a hand-picked federal judge, they would be randomly chosen from within the jurisdiction.
Even if a Trump-appointed judge were randomly chosen, I doubt they would go along with a bogus warrant against another judge. For one thing, judges (like cops) protect their own. For another, the warrant would be appealed and it's quite unlikely that every judge in the line of appeal would play along.
That's not the slam-dunk you seem to think. First, local PD would be present during the search and notice that a hard drive appeared out of nowhere. Next, the forensics team would notice that the only fingerprints on the drive belonged to federal agents. Finally, the judge's password-protected computer would have no record of interfacing with that drive. All in all, those charges would likely be dismissed.
Trump might be an "outlaw" because he is not following the law, but that is not the same as a "criminal" (someone who has specifically violated the criminal code). And only criminals can be arrested.
The consequence for breaking the law is often not arrest, but a lawsuit. And Trump is being sued all over the place.
Trump isn't going to successfully engage the national guard against the state police. For one thing, the national guard is paid by the governor's office. What is Trump offering them?
If the governor tells the guard "Any guardsman who interferes with state police won't get paid and/or will be demoted", then nobody will interfere.
Tell me where the buck stops, because we could go back and forth all day. The only people who can remove Trump from office are the legislative branch, and they already consent to what he's doing. He could just cut federal funding to any state that causes too much of a ruckus.
If they won't hold him accountable for any blatantly unconstitutional activity then nothing can change. Sure, I guess you could imagine a scenario where all of America collectively decides that the states have a right to intercede and remove elected federal officials, but that's no longer playing by the rules of the game.
The judicial branch alone cannot save you, suits can go back and forth and injunctions be ignored in perpetuity. If it causes any real annoyance there's a million levers to pull (pulling funding, national emergencies, the insurrection act, targeted coercion, etc...)
That's true.
We're not talking about removing him from office, though. We are talking about judicial remedies, which usually involve paying restitution to people who have been wronged. And getting those people paid is not as difficult as you imagine.
Governors might care if you cut federal funding to their states.
But judges don't care. And judges don't work for the governor.
There's a reason why judges tend to consider themselves as untouchable. None of this would have any effect on them.
Judges sentence mafia captains and drug kingpins to jail, people for whom extortion and violent retribution are second nature. Why do you think they would suddenly be scared off by Trump's crew of incompetent doofuses?
No, they can't. Nobody has an infinite bank account.
Ok, can a judge freeze a tank or a drone cruising at 50,000 feet? You're banking on every single judge to agree to play civil war chicken? Not even a few of them (such as his personal appointments to the SCOTUS) will back Trump in this?
The judicial system just hemmed and hawwed for 4 years, refusing to lock him up for blatant crimes. Now they're going to grow a spine when he has access to the nuclear launch codes?
If the judicial branch wanted to stop him they could have done it any time on the last 8 years. So either they can't or won't...
Who is the THEY doing the draining? Could they be fired? Could a Trump loyalist be placed there instead?
Not legally you say? What if someone didn't care about doing it legally? What if they just fired the person and replaced them. How about that.
THEY is the judge.
Suppose you sued Bob, and Bob was dumb enough to openly defy the judge. The judge could write a court order that says "Bob owes Melatonin $1000" or "Bob owes the court $1000".
For all practical purposes, that order works the same as a check signed by Bob. If it's written to you, then you and your lawyer can take it to the bank. The bank teller will give you $1000 and deduct $1000 from Bob's account. It doesn't matter what Bob says or what Bob's employees say. The bank teller doesn't work for Bob.
The same is true if "Bob" is a DoJ lawyer or even the DoJ itself.
I would like to see how this works if the check is drawn off the president of the United States. I daresay, it's going to be different, at least with this president.
The US has checking accounts just like everyone else. That's how they write paychecks.
And if a bank can draw from the US account when presented with a federal employee's paycheck, it can do the same when presented with a court order.