9 ms·

I took it to mean that agencies no longer have the final say in interpretations of law when it comes to exercising executive power. So for instance if ATF says

by hiatus 2y ago

I took it to mean that agencies no longer have the final say in interpretations of law when it comes to exercising executive power. So for instance if ATF says a banana is a machine gun and the president says "yes", then barring an act of Congress clarifying, it is. I don't see how you go from there to the end of judicial review?

ceejayoz 2y ago
“No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law“ would seem to rule out, say, accepting a SCOTUS ruling against the President, should he insist it was wrongly decided.
- hiatus 2y ago
  Does any law or executive order say "unless invalidated by a court"? Isn't that kind of a given?
  - dclowd9901 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - andrenth 2y ago
      Flagged
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” They are openly contesting the authority of the courts in various statements. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo.amp > Vice-President JD Vance has suggested judges do not have authority over the Trump administration's executive power, as the White House responds to a flurry of lawsuits that aim to stall its agenda. "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power," he wrote on X.
    - svnt 2y ago
      For those unfamiliar -- the quote is from Andrew Jackson, and his stance on the court's invalidation of the US state of Georgia's policies that led to the Trail of Tears. Not a positive model to emulate. AFAIK the only other time this has been done was during the US civil war.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Pre-2016, you’d be correct Today? It’s no longer a given. Trump, Vance, and Musk have all indicated a willingness to ignore court orders. Whether they will go they far is yet to be seen.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      > indicated a willingness It's not even hypothetical, they've already refused to follow court decisions. For example, when Trump seized funds already allocated by Congress, and ignored a court-order declaring it was unlawful. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/trump-unfreezing-federal-grants-judge-ruling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/trump-unfreezing-feder...
  - svnt 2y ago
    If the court cannot have an opinion more valid than the issuer of the EO, then on what authority can they invalidate it? The issuer can always say: that isn't how the law is meant to be read. First they marginalize, then they alienate, then they never have to take the extreme action that people like you would recognize as a problem.
    - all2 2y ago
      Doesn't the EO apply specifically to the executive branch? How is this marginalizing the judicial branch?
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        In the famous Frost/Nixon interviews: > "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” If the President orders the exec branch to ignore the courts on this argument, he hasn’t ordered the judges to do anything, but he is fucking with their power nonetheless.
- derbOac 2y ago
  They are trying to supercede the oath to the the constitution that people in the executive take, and also to supercede the authority of the other branches. It's as simple as that.
- giantg2 2y ago
  If that were the case, then SCOTUS would just invalidate the EO.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    And the President’s order compels them to ignore that contradictory opinion.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      Where does it say that? What other EOs explicitly say that SCOTUS can override them?
      - handoflixue 2y ago
        "No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law" Any employee obeying a SCOTUS ruling is in violation of this EO, unless the President agrees to that ruling. No EO may say that SCOTUS can override them, but no other EO blocks federal employees from obeying SCOTUS.
        giantg2 2y ago
        "Any employee obeying a SCOTUS ruling is in violation of this EO, unless the President agrees to that ruling." You forget the entire framework for EOs. No EO has "except when a court says otherwise". The EOs are subject to checks and balances, such as judicial review. If the EO exceeds its authority (not based on congressional or constitutional means) then it won't be valid. Meaning you can't grant yourself powers that you don't have the authority to grant under the framework. There's case law you can go look at for a history on it.
        handoflixue 2y ago
        You should still be very alarmed by the President trying to claim that authority.
- lmm 2y ago
  A court ruling isn't a matter of law - you can say the ruling was issued wrongly, and you may even be right, but you still have to follow it.
svnt 2y ago
Naive interpretations like this one, of bad faith actions is how we get there. This same assumption of good faith was wholly present in peoples' responses to project 2025 prior to the election. They are not acting in good faith. Try restating the problem: Why is this EO being issued? What problem, other than judicial review, does it solve for the executive branch? EDIT: For those who do not think this contributes anything: can you answer the question?
- galleywest200 2y ago
  >Naive interpretations like this one, of bad faith actions is how we get there. Instead of just dismissing things out of hand like this, maybe you could provide a "less naive" interpretation? Your statement is not helpful either.
  - lobf 2y ago
    That answer can be found in the question they asked. Care to take a crack at it?
  - handoflixue 2y ago
    Fundamentally, an EO says "we urgently need to course correct and do X", which only makes sense if you agree that X is not already being done. So this EO is not just declaring "the Executive Branch will obey me", but also saying "the Executive Branch has been so disobedient that I need to take immediate action to quash that" If you are saying that latter sentence, you should be able to justify it by pointing at the disobedience that caused this issue AND explain why the usual mechanism of "Congress passes a law to address the problem" is insufficient (AND congress is currently aligned with the President politically, so that's a fairly uphill battle to argue) --- As an example, no one should ever need to write an EO declaring "the sky is blue." If you're familiar with history, you might remember that smog used to turn the sky yellow. If someone wrote such an EO back then, you could reasonably conclude the actual purpose of the EO is to declare "it is now illegal to notice that the smog is so bad that it's changing the color of the sky."
    - 2y ago
sterlind 2y ago
If the Supreme Court rules against the Executive, they might order an agency to comply with a ruling or - barring that - hold an agency head in contempt. Under this EO, the agency wouldn't comply, since the agency would assume Trump's read of the law is correct - superceding even the Court's. If they tried to enforce a contempt order, the US Marshals would not comply either. Soldiers that swear allegiance to the Constitution would also have to defer to the President, even if the Supreme Court ordered the military not to obey an unconstitutional order. The problem is the EO commands absolute subservience to the President's view of the Constitution, which makes it impossible for them to comply with Court orders.
- simonh 2y ago
  Right, court orders are enforced by the executive branch. Conventionally court interpretations of the law are definitive and the executive branch enforces them. This order tells executive branch employees, including the police and court officers, that they are required to follow POTUS interpretations over all others. Implicitly that includes over court interpretations.
- lmm 2y ago
  > Under this EO, the agency wouldn't comply, since the agency would assume Trump's read of the law is correct - superceding even the Court's. If they tried to enforce a contempt order, the US Marshals would not comply either. Why? The Marshals enforce blatantly wrong court judgements all the time. Court judgements are court judgements, contempt orders are contempt orders, both can say almost anything. There's no interpreting the law part of enforcing a judgement or order - the court judgement is just as valid whether it's legally correct or not.
dclowd9901 2y ago
He took it that way because without a charitable interpretation such as yours, the wording leaves power assigned vaguely enough end run judicial review. Given this administration's history with attempts to grab power, I'd say your interpretation is _far_ too charitable.

by hiatus 2y ago

ceejayoz 2y ago

“No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law“ would seem to rule out, say, accepting a SCOTUS ruling against the President, should he insist it was wrongly decided.

hiatus 2y ago
Does any law or executive order say "unless invalidated by a court"? Isn't that kind of a given?
- dclowd9901 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - andrenth 2y ago
    Flagged
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” They are openly contesting the authority of the courts in various statements. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo.amp > Vice-President JD Vance has suggested judges do not have authority over the Trump administration's executive power, as the White House responds to a flurry of lawsuits that aim to stall its agenda. "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power," he wrote on X.
  - svnt 2y ago
    For those unfamiliar -- the quote is from Andrew Jackson, and his stance on the court's invalidation of the US state of Georgia's policies that led to the Trail of Tears. Not a positive model to emulate. AFAIK the only other time this has been done was during the US civil war.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Pre-2016, you’d be correct Today? It’s no longer a given. Trump, Vance, and Musk have all indicated a willingness to ignore court orders. Whether they will go they far is yet to be seen.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > indicated a willingness It's not even hypothetical, they've already refused to follow court decisions. For example, when Trump seized funds already allocated by Congress, and ignored a court-order declaring it was unlawful. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/trump-unfreezing-federal-grants-judge-ruling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/trump-unfreezing-feder...
- svnt 2y ago
  If the court cannot have an opinion more valid than the issuer of the EO, then on what authority can they invalidate it? The issuer can always say: that isn't how the law is meant to be read. First they marginalize, then they alienate, then they never have to take the extreme action that people like you would recognize as a problem.
  - all2 2y ago
    Doesn't the EO apply specifically to the executive branch? How is this marginalizing the judicial branch?
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      In the famous Frost/Nixon interviews: > "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” If the President orders the exec branch to ignore the courts on this argument, he hasn’t ordered the judges to do anything, but he is fucking with their power nonetheless.
derbOac 2y ago
They are trying to supercede the oath to the the constitution that people in the executive take, and also to supercede the authority of the other branches. It's as simple as that.
giantg2 2y ago
If that were the case, then SCOTUS would just invalidate the EO.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  And the President’s order compels them to ignore that contradictory opinion.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    Where does it say that? What other EOs explicitly say that SCOTUS can override them?
    - handoflixue 2y ago
      "No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law" Any employee obeying a SCOTUS ruling is in violation of this EO, unless the President agrees to that ruling. No EO may say that SCOTUS can override them, but no other EO blocks federal employees from obeying SCOTUS.
      - giantg2 2y ago
        "Any employee obeying a SCOTUS ruling is in violation of this EO, unless the President agrees to that ruling." You forget the entire framework for EOs. No EO has "except when a court says otherwise". The EOs are subject to checks and balances, such as judicial review. If the EO exceeds its authority (not based on congressional or constitutional means) then it won't be valid. Meaning you can't grant yourself powers that you don't have the authority to grant under the framework. There's case law you can go look at for a history on it.
        handoflixue 2y ago
        You should still be very alarmed by the President trying to claim that authority.
lmm 2y ago
A court ruling isn't a matter of law - you can say the ruling was issued wrongly, and you may even be right, but you still have to follow it.

svnt 2y ago

Naive interpretations like this one, of bad faith actions is how we get there. This same assumption of good faith was wholly present in peoples' responses to project 2025 prior to the election. They are not acting in good faith. Try restating the problem: Why is this EO being issued? What problem, other than judicial review, does it solve for the executive branch? EDIT: For those who do not think this contributes anything: can you answer the question?

galleywest200 2y ago
>Naive interpretations like this one, of bad faith actions is how we get there. Instead of just dismissing things out of hand like this, maybe you could provide a "less naive" interpretation? Your statement is not helpful either.
- lobf 2y ago
  That answer can be found in the question they asked. Care to take a crack at it?
- handoflixue 2y ago
  Fundamentally, an EO says "we urgently need to course correct and do X", which only makes sense if you agree that X is not already being done. So this EO is not just declaring "the Executive Branch will obey me", but also saying "the Executive Branch has been so disobedient that I need to take immediate action to quash that" If you are saying that latter sentence, you should be able to justify it by pointing at the disobedience that caused this issue AND explain why the usual mechanism of "Congress passes a law to address the problem" is insufficient (AND congress is currently aligned with the President politically, so that's a fairly uphill battle to argue) --- As an example, no one should ever need to write an EO declaring "the sky is blue." If you're familiar with history, you might remember that smog used to turn the sky yellow. If someone wrote such an EO back then, you could reasonably conclude the actual purpose of the EO is to declare "it is now illegal to notice that the smog is so bad that it's changing the color of the sky."
  - 2y ago

sterlind 2y ago

If the Supreme Court rules against the Executive, they might order an agency to comply with a ruling or - barring that - hold an agency head in contempt. Under this EO, the agency wouldn't comply, since the agency would assume Trump's read of the law is correct - superceding even the Court's. If they tried to enforce a contempt order, the US Marshals would not comply either. Soldiers that swear allegiance to the Constitution would also have to defer to the President, even if the Supreme Court ordered the military not to obey an unconstitutional order. The problem is the EO commands absolute subservience to the President's view of the Constitution, which makes it impossible for them to comply with Court orders.

simonh 2y ago
Right, court orders are enforced by the executive branch. Conventionally court interpretations of the law are definitive and the executive branch enforces them. This order tells executive branch employees, including the police and court officers, that they are required to follow POTUS interpretations over all others. Implicitly that includes over court interpretations.
lmm 2y ago
> Under this EO, the agency wouldn't comply, since the agency would assume Trump's read of the law is correct - superceding even the Court's. If they tried to enforce a contempt order, the US Marshals would not comply either. Why? The Marshals enforce blatantly wrong court judgements all the time. Court judgements are court judgements, contempt orders are contempt orders, both can say almost anything. There's no interpreting the law part of enforcing a judgement or order - the court judgement is just as valid whether it's legally correct or not.

dclowd9901 2y ago

He took it that way because without a charitable interpretation such as yours, the wording leaves power assigned vaguely enough end run judicial review. Given this administration's history with attempts to grab power, I'd say your interpretation is _far_ too charitable.