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Comment by reed1234 | Hacker News Reader

It definitely seems to be heading that way but I think it's premature to label it a constitutional crisis. It's only one part of the picture. The Trump admin has abided by court orders before and continues to do so, though sometimes reluctantly. The judicial branch is still trying to resolve the conflict by ruling contempt of court. If this incident doesn't get resolved and the Supreme Court rules on it and Trump ignores that ruling, for example, maybe that would be a full blown constitutional crisis. I think scope matters too.

That doesn't mean that the incident isn't concerning. But I think we should be careful to incite false panic which could cause distrust. Save that panic for the real constitutional crisis brewing.

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Lawyer here - the true consitutional crisis will likely come when the judge holds someone in criminal contempt, and trump pardons them.

There is some unfortunate precedent that allows this. At the time, the ruling was not really that consequential, but obviously, much more so now.

My general view is that pardon power was not really intended to extend to things which are fundamental to the function of another co-equal branch. It was meant to be federal crimes. In the end, Madison/et al felt that impeachment would suffice to protect from pardon abuse.

Contempt of this kind is not really a federal crime - it was considered part of the inherent powers of a court, but there is a statute that now covers it (18 USC 401), so it is unfortunately considered a federal crime and thus pardonable.

So when trump gets pissed off or whatever and pardons whoever gets held in contempt, that's when it's basically a crisis. Because at that point it just means they don't actually have to care. They will just abuse this legal loophole and declare that everything is actually okay, and they have done nothing wrong.

There are other ways, of course, it may become one, but that one seems the most likely path to me at the moment.

I continue to be astounded that the ability of the US president to pardon someone of a criminal conviction exists. It seems like such a blatant contradiction of the separation of powers.

It's not unique to the US. Many countries have it. I must say, sans abuse, it is useful. It is intended for the very few people who fall through the cracks of legal rules.

There was a guy in Poland who was extorted by gangsters. Initially he took an informal loan, but they made him repay it indefinitely, threatening violence. Police failed to help, for unclear reasons. He ended up murdering the extorted. It was a premeditated murder, not in direct defence of his life, etc, and so he got life imprisonment.

He did serve a chunk of his sentence, but in the end was pardoned, on the grounds that he was kind of in a hard place. Without help from the police, he was at the mercy of a gangster, with a constant threat of violence and no perspective of any relief. Link in Polish: https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Bryli%C5%84ski

It's not without controversy in Poland either. It was used in an attempt to quash an ongoing process about blatant abuse of power by two politicians. But I would disagree that the prerogative is totally without merit.

> Lawyer here - the true consitutional crisis will likely come when the judge holds someone in criminal contempt, and trump pardons them.

This already happened in Melendres v. Arpaio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_Joe_Arpaio

On August 25, 2017, President Donald Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio for criminal contempt of court, a misdemeanor.

Sorry, maybe i was not specific enough. I meant when he pardons a meaningful us government official for violating a court order that he didn't give a shit about.

In this case Joe was pardoned for criminal contempt of a court order related to racial profiling.

While it involved immigrants, it's not like he was a member of the US government. He was a state official doing state things, that were, yes, in line with trump's policy objectives. That's fairly different.

It was also two months later.

Back then nobody also cared in the way they do now, and to be blunt, it's hard to get people to care about racial profiling crimes anyway.

The same way nobody cared when the precedent was originally sent.

Honestly, and I am being this direct because you say you are a professional which means you understand exactly what it means, but also understand the consequences of it being as it appears... your explanation sounds like you are experiencing grief and in the first stage of it, denial, to me.

Why did you add "meaningful" as a qualifier, what are on both sides of "meaningful" as a fulcrum of judgement? Why isn't this as bad as it appears?

I would argue it was a proof of concept for executive supremacy over the judiciary and that concept was proven making it a full blown constitutional crisis.

Even assuming what you said is true, from a historical perspective, the SS were not government officials, but a paramilitary "deputized" by their leader and eventually given state legitimacy.

This means the analysis must not be done from a framing of official acts, because in an authoritarian government anything the authoritarian wants is officially sanctioned, and punishment of anything they don't want is also officially sanctioned.

Pardoning contempt, under any circumstances, means that the court cannot compel a person to participate in judiciary process, no? NPR was talking about this back then and stating that the apparent ruling is that the only check on executive power right now is a 60% vote in congress, otherwise the president is above the law. That is a constitutional crisis.

> the true consitutional crisis will likely come when the judge holds someone in criminal contempt, and trump pardons them.

Or federal agents refuse to arrest them.

It definitely seems to be heading that way but I think it's premature to label it a constitutional crisis.

I guess it will be one when it's too late?

I like this reasoning. It is like suggesting that people ignore speed advisory signs because they’ll probably be able to slam on the brakes once they make contact with another car

No, it is not small. I am really surprised that no one has been arrested yet who has been involved with this kipnapping of people. If Donald Trump is sanctioning this kipnapping, he is involved as well and should be arrested as well. That he has not been arrested yet, shows that he is above the law.

>That he has not been arrested yet, shows that he is above the law.

That is your perfect summary of the "unitary executive" which in the past was called even shorter - the King. It has already been decided by Supreme Court - he can't be prosecuted for anything he does as President. And for his subordinates doing his bidding, even if it is illegal, he would write pardons (he may even write pre-pardons like Biden did for Fauci). Thus no constitutional crisis because both things - no prosecution and the pardons - are according to the Constitution.

A commentary on the current Trump situation i heard from the Russian opposition: democracy requires constant maintenance by the people while with autocracy the people are freed from that burden.

That is the next step AFTER contempt of court.

Yes, first there will be two weeks of discovery and depositions, which the DOJ will try to appeal. Then there will be a contempt hearing for some bureaucrat, probably Neom or one of her subordinates. Then that will be appealed to the 4th circuit court of appeals. Then it will be appealed to the Supreme Court if the DOJ loses there.

and then...... nobody will enforce it, because the executive is the one doing the crime.

The court can deputize anyone they choose in order to make the arrest. It's just a question of whether someone in the executive branch shoots the deputies before they can.

Yeah that's where the well-armed militia comes in, they will go in against a nuclear power to capture the president...

Well, ultimately it comes down to a question for the US military: On orders from President Trump, are you willing to violate your oath to the Constitution, and to shoot US citizens? If the answer is "yes", then it's over. But if the answer is "no"...

the generals who make the decisions and who could depose the great leader are already being replaced. Will the foot soldiers remember their oath to the constitution? given how the majority of them are proper Maga, I'm not convinced they will side with the people. the military and law enforcement are there first and foremost to serve the oligarchs, not the people, no matter what a piece of paper says.

There's a lot of layers in between. Lower-level generals (I mean those below the Joint Chiefs and heads of services), colonels, majors, lieutenants. All of them have an oath to the Constitution. They aren't all MAGA. Are they going to follow the Constitution, or the President?

it'll be civil war part 2, of course.

Have they? I believe they still haven't followed the supreme Court order in the return of Garcia and that was a unanimous decision.

If you're in a building, when should you pull the fire alarm? When you smell smoke? When you see smoke? When smoke bellows? When a door is hot to the touch? Only once you see flame?

If an arsonist threatened to burn down your house, should you only call the police once the house is on fire? Is it possible by taking action earlier you could prevent disaster and loss of well being.

The people who wrote the plan this administration is following said: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."[1] The threat has been credibly made and they appear to be successfully carrying it out with minimal forceful resistance.

People who study Fascism, Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, Russia, and Eastern Europe are fleeing the country including Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder.[2]

Trump has stated he wished he had Hitler's generals.[3]

A second in command of the United States armed forces as well as America's top military advisor have both called him a threat to the constitution. [4][5]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/heritage-foun... [2] https://archive.is/jb23b -- https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-fascism-expert-at-... [3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-hitler-did-... [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/12/mark-milley... [5] https://archive.is/d6f9J -- https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-m...

There is definitely cause to sound the alarm, but I didn’t think it’s a full blown constitutional crisis. It’s one district judge against one action by the administration. That doesn’t mean ignore court orders is acceptable and there should be backlash. However, I view a constitutional crisis in this case as more of universal contempt of court. Maybe that is just a semantic argument but this seems to be a discussion about semantics.

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