President Trump’s handling of recent court orders has sparked controversy. After U.S. District Judge James Boasberg temporarily halted Venezuelan gang members from being deported on Saturday, Trump called for the judge’s impeachment and suggested invoking the state secrets privilege to withhold their flight information from the court — further escalating the legal standoff. Following continued back-and-forth, Boasberg extended the Justice Department’s deadline to disclose the departure times and locations of two deportation planes that left U.S. soil. The agency now has until Thursday at noon to submit the requested details.
Legal experts now warn that the president’s threats against judges over their orders could undermine the rule of law. “Impeaching judges should be a last resort — not the first thing you think of doing when you disagree with a judicial decision,” says Paul Schiff Berman, a law professor at George Washington University.
In an in-depth interview, Berman discusses whether Trump’s actions could lead to contempt of court charges — and the concerns these developments raise about the future stability of American democracy and the integrity of the judicial system.
Katie Couric Media: Multiple federal judges have stated that the Trump administration is not complying with legal mandates — claims the administration disputes. Is there evidence that the government is defying these rulings?
Paul Schiff Berman: Well, I think we need to be careful about what we mean when we say “defy court orders.” Trump officials are getting closer to the line of outright defiance, but they so far have at least been careful in court not to say that they are outright defying them.
The Trump administration has alleged, for example, that the people sent to El Salvador were already on the plane and in the international airspace, and therefore, outside of the [jurisdiction of the] judge when he issued his order. Similarly, they claimed Brown University doctor [Dr. Rasha Alawieh] had already been sent out of the country before the court order about it.
Trump has also said he wanted the judge who issued the order in the Venezuela case to be impeached, which is inappropriate and problematic. I don’t want to paint a positive picture here, but it’s not the same thing as saying, “I won’t follow the order.”
If Trump were to defy any court orders, would that lead to contempt of court charges or potentially serve as grounds for impeachment?
Trump wouldn’t initially be subject to a contempt of court order, because these cases are typically directed at an administration official, not the president. If someone defies a court order, the head of the agency involved would be the one in contempt. Courts can impose both civil and criminal contempt sanctions, including monetary penalties and possible jail time for officials who continue to defy orders.
In theory, a criminal contempt order could be pardoned by Trump, but a civil contempt order cannot because it’s not a criminal penalty — it’s a daily fine for non-compliance with a court order.
The biggest danger is that if any one of these cases gets to the U.S. Supreme Court and it issues an unambiguous order, and the administration refuses to follow it. That would be such a breakdown of the rule of law that I think it would harm the United States economy. It would make it harder for the dollar to be the world’s reserve currency and send the stock market spiraling. It would be a major step, and I don’t know whether the administration is willing to go that far or not.
As you mentioned earlier, Trump has been calling for the impeachment of certain judges who have issued court orders against him, particularly those involved in blocking the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants. Now, a Republican congressman is pushing forward with articles of impeachment against these judges. Is that legally possible?
Judges can be impeached under the Constitution, but you would need both a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate to vote for impeachment, and that seems highly unlikely. So I don’t think the articles of impeachment are going to go anywhere.
But continued rhetoric about impeaching or attacking judges or not following their orders is part of the breakdown of Democratic governance in the United States that we are seeing. It’s so extreme that Chief Justice Roberts felt compelled to issue a very rare public statement about the calls to impeach judges.
This is significant because he is not just the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; he is the Chief Justice of the United States, overseeing the entire federal judicial system. So his role goes beyond issuing decisions or voting on cases — it includes making sure the judicial system is functioning properly.
As part of this responsibility, he sometimes makes public statements, such as his annual report on the state of the judiciary. In his most recent report, he warned about the growing threat of violent attacks on judges. He’s trying very hard — without ruling on any particular case or the merits of any particular lawsuit — to say that the rhetoric around impeaching judges just because they issue a decision you disagree with is not compatible with what is supposed to be a constitutional democracy.
Impeaching judges should be a last resort — not the first thing you think of doing when you disagree with a judicial decision. The rule of law only works to the extent that people are willing to follow what judges say. And if nobody follows what judges say, the whole society breaks down, and we have a police state.
Court orders rely on a system where the rule of law is respected — so what happens when an elected official refuses to follow it?
It’s important to resist the destruction of American constitutional democracy with every tool that is available. That includes state governments exercising their independent power, as they can in our federal system, and engaging in legal battles. Some of these legal challenges have at least slowed down some of the Trump administration’s plans.
There are many ongoing lawsuits, and these tools must continue to be utilized. We must also recognize that Trump may push the envelope to the point where the entire country goes over the edge and turns into a system that’s no longer governed by the rule of law. While we’re not there yet, there are certainly a lot of bad signs.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
