Tracking Trump in Court: The Scope of Executive Power Tested

The Supreme Court is creating discord within the judiciary with its repeated grants of emergency relief for the Trump administration, while empowering the president to fight any lower court judge’s ruling.

That was demonstrated again as the Supreme Court paused multiple lower court decisions against President Donald Trump via brief, unexplained orders. One temporarily barred immigration authorities from targeting people based solely on their ethnicity, language, and job locations in the Los Angeles region.

The conservative majority’s approach is leading some judges to voice frustration about the lack of guidance they’re getting and critics to argue the justices are overstepping.

The high court now appears to be on a collision course with other major disputes over tariffs and Trump’s attempted firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

A federal judge blocked Cook’s firing while writing she was “not persuaded” that past high court orders on agency firings meant she had to side with Trump.

It also comes as the administration attacks lower court judges who have issued the initial rulings against Trump’s policies, with many of those decisions later being overturned by the conservative justices.

“Many of our district judges are under enormous pressure right now,” said Marin Levy, a Duke University law professor. “Those who are deciding cases involving the executive branch have faced widespread harassment and the possibility that their orders will not be met with compliance.”

The tensions came to a head when Justice Neil Gorsuch admonished judges not to “defy” orders as the court in a 5-4 vote lifted Boston district judge William Young’s decision temporarily stopping Trump from cutting medical research grants.

Young in a subsequent hearing in his courtroom offered an apology, though he added that, “I simply did not understand that orders on the emergency docket were precedent.”

Other trial judges also pushed back. “This court is doing its best to adjudicate this case under the governing legal standards; here, there is little precedent to follow where the Supreme Court did not explain its reasoning in the stay order,” US District Judge Susan Illston said.

Such an exchange shows that “this is not a very workable situation for the judiciary,” said Payvand Ahdout, a University of Virginia law professor.

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Updates with new story on the Supreme Court's recent grants of emergency relief for the Trump administration.