It's a crime spree — not a 'constitutional crisis'

The Justice Department has asked a judge to stop or amend another judge’s order, issued Saturday, that blocks Elon Musk from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment systems. The DOJ’s move came after Donald Trump’s allies openly questioned the constitutional authority of independent judges.

“Officials ranging from billionaire Elon Musk to Vice President JD Vance have not only criticized a federal judge’s decision early Saturday that blocks Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records, but have also attacked the legitimacy of judicial oversight, a fundamental pillar of American democracy, which is based on the separation of powers,” the Associated Press reported.

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” Vance said.

Vance is lying, but lying is beside the point.

The point is that the Trump administration appears to be preparing to defy the courts, thus triggering what US Senator Chris Murphy called “the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate.” He went on: “The president is attempting to seize control of power, and for corrupt purposes … he’s trying to crush his opposition … this is a red alert moment … our democracy is at risk.”

With due respect to my senator, I think we’re passed that. Trump is already defying the courts, and as a result, we are already beyond “a constitutional crisis” and in some other stage of decline and fall.

According to a motion filed Friday by 23 state attorneys general, all Democrats, the Trump administration has not complied with an order to stop a federal funding freeze that was implemented last month.

Two weeks ago, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo that froze as much as $3 trillion, including Medicaid.

States sued. Some federal judges handed down injunctions, pending litigation. In response, the White House said it withdrew the memo, but according to these state AGs, the federal funding freeze didn’t stop.

In their motion, AGs allege that “despite the court’s order, defendants have failed to resume disbursing federal funds in multiple respects.” They ask that the administration be ordered “to immediately restore funds and desist from the federal funding pause until the preliminary injunction motion can be heard and decided, a process which is proceeding expeditiously in separate proceedings before this court.”

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According to journalist Jennifer Shutt, the AGs allege that:

• the Trump administration hasn’t begun distributing billions of dollars in funding that Congress approved in the Inflation Reduction Act or the bipartisan infrastructure law.
• the NIH “abruptly cancelled an advisory committee review meeting with Brown University’s School of Public Health for a $71 million grant on dementia care research, saying ‘all federal advisory committee meetings had been cancelled.’”
• Head Start programs were unable to access funds.
• The CDC “renewed stop work orders to a University of Washington program doing global HIV prevention work.”

Connecticut AG William Tong said in a statement that “President Trump is not complying with the court order and continues to defund states. Let’s be clear about what Donald Trump wants to do — Donald Trump wants to defund Connecticut schools. He wants to defund the police. He wants to defund Connecticut highways. He is defunding energy assistance right now in defiance of a court order when so many Connecticut families are desperate for relief. He is defunding Connecticut efforts to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and fossil fuels. He is defying the rule of law and daring courts to stop him.”

US Senator Patty Murray, of Washington, released a briefing on areas in which the administration continues to illegally withhold funding. “President Trump is continuing to block hundreds of billions of dollars in funding from making its way out to families and communities across America who are counting on investments that have been signed into law. While he withdrew his blanket funding freeze — the disastrous [Office of Management and Budget] memo — in the face of nationwide backlash, Trump has so far refused to withdraw the various executive orders he has signed that are illegally freezing enacted funding.”

Murphy said: “the president wants to be able to decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends and he can punish his political enemies. That is the evisceration of democracy. You stand that with the wholesale endorsement of political violence, with the pardons given to every single Jan. 6 rioter, including the most violent, who beat police officers over the head with baseball bats, and you can see what he’s trying to do here. He’s trying to crush his opposition by making them afraid of losing federal funding, by making them afraid of physical violence. So yes, this is a red-alert moment.”

Today, the federal judge who originally blocked Trump’s federal funding freeze sided with the Democratic state AGs, saying that there’s “evidence that some federal grants and loans are still not going out to the recipients.” He ordered that the money be released immediately.

Let’s hope he does, but don’t count it.

Donald Trump has already robbed the first branch of government of its constitutional authority – “the power of the purse.” Now he’s begun robbing the third branch, too. He isn’t leading “a constitutional crisis.”

Just four weeks in, we’re well beyond that.

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