The Historical Case for President Trump Ignoring the Courts

There is a strong historical precedent for President Trump to ignore the courts to enact his agenda.

Over the weekend, President Trump was blocked by the courts from sending in National Guard troops to restore order in the city of Portland that is under ANTIFA occupation.

Judge Karin Immergut, from the comfort of her bench, stated that sustained attacks on ICE from ANTIFA thugs in Portland as police are ordered to stand down did not warrant federal action. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Immergut’s pontificating “untethered from reality.”

“They have been disrespecting law enforcement. They’ve been inciting violence,” Leavitt said. “We are appealing that decision, as you know, we expect a hearing on it pretty quickly, and we’re very confident in the president’s legal authority to do this.”

President Trump has considered sending the National Guard to Portland regardless of the court order, being unwilling to put ICE officials in a precarious position by a system that does not care whether they live or die. Predictably, leftist governors happy to allow continued lawlessness to plague their states are calling President Trump an authoritarian.

“This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power. The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

“They think they can fool us all into thinking that the way to get out of this crisis that they created is to give them free rein. That plan will only work if we let it. The state of Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago. I’m not afraid, I am not afraid, and I won’t back down,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said.

There is a strong historical precedent for President Trump to ignore the courts to enact his agenda. While courts have risen to become graven idols in modern society, this has not always been the case throughout American history. The Founding Fathers viewed the courts in a much different light, and iconic presidents such as Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln flouted the courts when they believed it was necessary and just – and are lionized by history for doing so.

The Founding Fathers believed the courts were the “least dangerous branch” of government, as Alexander Hamilton stated in Federalist No. 78. Under the original intent of the Constitution, the judiciary would have “neither force nor will, but merely judgment,” being unable to create or enforce its own edicts. This has drastically changed throughout the years.

Thomas Jefferson once warned that allowing judges the final say on constitutional interpretation would result in “the despotism of an oligarchy.” In the landmark Marbury v. Madison (1803) case, the Supreme Court decided to rule in favor of a massive power-grab for themselves through the doctrine of Judicial Review — the power for courts to declare laws unconstitutional. If this alien concept of Judicial Review were in the text of the Constitution, the document would have never been ratified.

Two of the most iconic presidents held in highest regard in the modern era by Republicans – Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln – outright defied court orders to impose their agenda for the good of the people. President Jackson refused to enforce the SCOTUS decision of Worcester v. Georgia (1832) because he believed states’ rights were being impeded by the ruling in favor of the Indian tribes. The iconic quote popularly attributed to Jackson goes: “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

President Lincoln’s run-in with the courts came as a result of his unilateral suspension of habeas corpus. He did so in order to detain individuals suspected to be Confederate sympathizers found along military routes between Philadelphia and Washington D.C. in the midst of the Civil War. When Chief Justice Roger B. Taney found Lincoln’s actions to be unconstitutional and ordered a prisoner to be freed, President Lincoln refused to comply. He justified it to Congress by saying: “Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”

Virtually every great leader throughout history has faced a situation similar to what faces President Trump at this moment. Republicans have failed to conserve anything because they never exercise authority to help the common people. It is another story when it comes to monolithic corporations and the military-industrial complex, but Republicans have historically hidden behind procedure excuses to justify their lack of action on behalf of the people. To defy the courts and repel ANTIFA from cities, President Trump would show the mettle that defines great historic leaders. He must be willing to run afoul of the political class and its biases to make America great again.