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WE’RE NOW ON THE FAST TRACK TO A HISTORIC CONSTITUTIONAL CLASH  
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David Kurtz
April 17, 2025
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_ It looks like potential contempt proceedings in the Alien Enemies
Act case and the Abrego Garcia case will be running in parallel,
leapfrogging each other for the right to be the Supreme Court’s
biggest test so far of the Trump II presidency. _

US President Donald Trump (R) greets US Supreme Court Chief Justice
John Roberts (L) as he arrives to deliver the State of the Union
address at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 4, 2020.,
Photo by Olivier DOULIERY / Agence France-Presse (AFP) // Talking
Points Memo

 

The Stakes Could Hardly Be Higher

Yesterday’s Morning Memo asserted that the case of the mistakenly
deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia had supplanted the Alien Enemies Act
case at the nexus of the constitutional clash between a renegade
executive branch and the federal judiciary. Within just of couple of
hours that proved no longer to be true.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge in D.C., issued
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blistering ruling
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the Trump administration, finding probable cause
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it had committed criminal contempt of court by violating his order
blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

Boasberg set in motion a process that gives the Trump administration a
chance to correct its error by affirming that it has custody of the
deportees currently being held in a Salvadoran prison or otherwise
face a criminal contempt proceeding that could conclude with Boasberg
appointing a lawyer to prosecute the case if the Justice Department,
as expected, refuses to do so. He gave the administration an April 23
deadline.

It now looks like potential contempt proceedings in the Alien Enemies
Act case and the Abrego Garcia case will be running in parallel,
leapfrogging each other from time to time for the right to be the
Supreme Court’s biggest test so far of the Trump II presidency.

The Trump administration moved yesterday to appeal both cases
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the preliminaries of the contempt proceedings could even get under
way. In a normal world, neither appeal would find any purchase. U.S.
District Judge Paula Xinis’ revised order in the Abrego Garcia case
contains precisely the language the Supreme Court already ratified.
Boasberg’s order isn’t even appealable: He hasn’t found anyone
in contempt yet. But the Trump administration is looking to gum up the
works and delay any reckoning for itself so expect dubious procedural
maneuvering from the Trump DOJ to avoid confronting the bad facts and
bad law it has created for itself.

At the same time that the Trump Justice Department is frittering away
in court the good will and presumption of fair dealing that it had
earned over many decades, Attorney General Pam Bondi is personally
participating in the White House-led
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propaganda campaign to smear
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Garcia. Bondi has publicly made allegations about him that she
hasn’t dared make in court, and once again she’s done it from the
White House proper, demonstrating the complete erosion of Justice
Department independence in her few weeks on the job:

Your occasional reminder that both these cases – which grew out of
the three hastily arranged flights of deportees from Texas to a
Salvadoran prison on March 15 – have taken on the highest
significance because they are poised to test whether President Trump
will abide limitations imposed by the judicial branch and what the
judiciary will do if he doesn’t. These cases tee up the broader
constitutional issues not because of the underlying legal issues
involved but because of the executive branch’s utter brazenness in
defying, stonewalling, dismissing, and disregarding Article III
judges. It’s not just what the administration is doing but how
it’s doing it that is setting up a constitutional showdown.

With the Roberts Court having already blanketed the President with
immunity from prosecution and the Justice Department firmly in his
pocket, it is difficult to envision a scenario where the judicial
branch is able to effectively enforce its orders in face of Trump’s
defiance or to impose enforceable consequences for his failure to
comply. For instance, while Judge Boasberg cited a rule of criminal
procedure that explicitly mandates that he must appoint an attorney to
prosecute criminal contempt if the Justice Department refuses to do
so, Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck suggests
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are constitutional infirmities with the rule itself that may foreclose
this path to accountability.

Trump is acting as if he knows the judiciary is bringing a knife to a
gunfight. He may not be wrong.

White House Defies Another Court Order

Despite a federal court order prohibiting the Trump White House from
punishing the Associated Press for not using “Gulf of America” in
its stories, it has continued to block
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wire service from accessing events it has typically covered, the AP
alleged in a new court filing.

Trump Moves To Revoke Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status

As first reported by CNN, the IRS is making plans to rescind Harvard
University’s tax-exempt status in a potentially existential threat
to the Ivy League school. “Officials at the Treasury Department
asked the IRS’s acting chief legal counsel, Andrew De Mello, to move
ahead with a plan to revoke Harvard’s key status,” the WSJ
reported
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Who Couldn’t See This Coming?

Having secured deals
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several major U.S. law firms, President Trump is now turning the
screws
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those same firms further by suggesting the pro bono services they
agreed to provide can now be used on a variety of Trump
administration’s priorities and as a legal war chest he could tap
himself.

This Is Nuts

I had to read this NYT story
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to fully get that acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin hasn’t just
enlisted the help of uber-Trumpist Michael R. Caputo for his Senate
confirmation battle but has actually hired Caputo _within_ the U.S.
attorney’s office.

DOGE Watch

* Politico
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DOGE comes for AmeriCorps staff in Washington and across the country
* WaPo
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ICE, DOGE seek sensitive Medicare data as immigration crackdown
intensifies
* NYT
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Musk’s Team Is Building a System to Sell ‘Gold Card’ Immigrant
Visas

Rise Up

Organized labor has formed a pro bono legal network
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assist federal workers who have been purged.

The Destruction: Medical Science Edition

* NYT
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Leading Nutrition Scientist Departs N.I.H., Citing Censorship
* WSJ
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Drug Development Is Slowing Down After Cuts at the FDA
* WaPo
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Internal budget document reveals extent of Trump’s proposed health
cuts

Trump Target: Maine

The Trump administration escalated its attack
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the state of Maine by filing a lawsuit against the state’s Education
Department for not banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.

Quote Of The Day

“I’m not screaming, ‘aliens!’ But I always reserve my right to
scream ‘aliens!’”–_Nikole Lewis
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an exoplanetary scientist at Cornell University, on the discovery of a
possible signature of extraterrestrial life on a planet 120
light-years from Earth_

_[DAVID KURTZ (@TPM_dk) [[link removed]]  is TPM's
executive editor and Washington Bureau chief. He oversees the news
operations of TPM. Signal: davidkurtz.88 [[link removed]]]_

* Constitutional Crisis
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* Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia
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* Alien Enemies Act
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* Trump 2.0
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* Donald Trump
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* James Boasberg
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* Pam Bondi
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* Abrego Garcia
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* Supreme Court
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* SCOTUS
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* Justice Dept.
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* Justice Department
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* rule of law
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* seperation of powers
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