Why Trump Decided to Engineer a Constitutional Crisis Now

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. The first constitutional crisis of Donald Trump’s second term is hurtling forward as the Justice Department continues to conceal information about the administration’s alleged defiance of a judicial order halting its illegal deportation policies. At Monday’s hearing, Boasberg said to the Justice Department lawyer: “You’re saying that you felt that you could disregard” his instruction to turn the planes around “because it wasn’t in the written order. A different Justice Department, facing a hearing over its alleged defiance of a court order, would send in a pretty high-ranking official to say: “Please, I assure you, I speak on behalf of the administration, we would never defy your order, we take all of this very seriously—there’s been an innocent mistake.” But that’s not what this DOJ did. There’s this kind of creepy pincer happening now, and the vibe is less and less “I’m in a court of law trying to abide by the norms and conventions” and more “You ruled against me, so now you have to be impeached.” We know that Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t like it when Trump threatens to impeach judges, and sure as night follows day, the chief issued a statement that implicitly criticized Trump’s impeachment threat.