A prominent election lawyer says the Trump Justice Department's excuse for ignoring a federal judge's order points to something far more troubling.
Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias warned in an episode of his YouTube show Tuesday that the Trump administration is "willing to slow walk in order to buy time" with the midterm elections just three weeks away.
The case involves taxpayer-funded ads featuring President Donald Trump that the Department of Homeland Security paid to air. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Sunday evening barring the ads, which were challenged in a lawsuit brought by groups including Democracy Forward, an organization Elias chairs. The ads kept running into Monday, Elias said.
In a letter to the court, government lawyers said they emailed the order to DHS counsel more than an hour after it was issued, and that agency counsel did not become aware of the email until the next morning. The lawyers apologized to the court and the plaintiffs.
"You might ask why the lawyers for the government didn't pick up the phone and call the DHS lawyers to say, 'Hey, you have this order,'" Elias said.
He contrasted that pace with how quickly the Trump administration moved to fund the ads in the first place.
"When it is Donald Trump who wants ads glorifying him to influence the midterm elections, things move very, very fast," Elias said. "When it is a federal judge telling the same administration they cannot do these things, things move very, very slow."
Elias said that gap is exactly what worries him as Election Day approaches.
"Every hour that ticks by is the difference between voters being able to vote and voters not being able to vote," he said. "What I worry about as we head towards Election Day is that we'll see similar games."
He urged judges to drop the benefit of the doubt they routinely extend to the government.
"You cannot trust this administration on anything, and certainly not on any matter that the president of the United States cares passionately about," Elias said. "You need to assume that this administration is not acting in good faith."
He called on courts to issue firm orders with short deadlines and to make clear from the start that lawyers face a real threat of contempt if those orders are ignored.
"It is one thing for a judge to say after their court order has been violated that they no longer will give the government the benefit of the doubt," Elias said. "But how about, your honor, you start doing that in advance."