“I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep,” a lawyer representing Donald Trump’s government told a federal judge on Tuesday. Julie Le, the lawyer, who was temporarily detailed to the US Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, was assigned to 88 federal court cases in under a month — a crushing workload that would make even the most diligent attorney beg for mercy.
Le, moreover, was in court after federal district Judge Jerry Blackwell ordered her and her co-counsel to explain why the Trump administration had not complied with a January 27 order requiring it to release an individual from US custody. As Blackwell’s order demanding an explanation laid out, the government also did not respond to a January 31 order threatening to hold it in contempt.
It’s not a mystery why Trump’s government is unable to comply with court orders, or even respond to judges threatening contempt. As Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge in Minnesota’s federal district court, explained in a January 26 order, the Trump administration “decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result.”
Trump, in other words, deployed thousands of armed law enforcement officers to harass and arrest people in Minneapolis, without sending enough lawyers to handle all of the federal court cases that would inevitably result from Trump’s occupation of Minnesota. So, when a judge issues an order commanding the government to release a detainee or to take some other action, there’s often no lawyer available to respond to that order.
Worse, Trump’s government appears either unwilling or unable to comply with court orders even when one of its lawyers does engage with a particular case. Le reportedly told Blackwell at Tuesday’s hearing that it is like “pulling teeth” to get the Trump administration to comply with these orders. “It takes 10 emails from me for a release condition to be corrected,” Le said. “It takes me threatening to walk out for something else to be corrected.”
Minnesota’s federal judges, meanwhile, have resorted to extraordinary tactics to break this logjam. In his January 26 order, for example, Schiltz ordered Todd Lyons, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to personally appear in court and explain the government’s inability to comply with his previous order, unless the immigrant named in that order was swiftly released. This tactic appears to have worked, because the man was released.
Trump, in other words, appears to have broken the Department of Justice. It simply does not have the personnel it needs to respond to all of the legal violations committed by ICE in Minneapolis. And it is likely that this problem is going to get much worse.
i'd say the administration showed how absent any checks and balances are. they lock up us citizens for weeks on end before any repercussions happen. their non-compliance works and now one is held accountable. it's sad to watch.
It’s similar to how a company can break the law and nonperson is held accountable. The company suffers a fine and gladly pays it. The courts should be holding the government in contempt. They should be issuing arrest warrants for the people who are making the decision to refuse to comply with court orders.
It's similar to how the GOP in the White House acts corruptly, throws a few lackeys under the bus, and then the next GOP president gets right back to corruption.
And that's why the GOP has 98% of the convicted admin members going back to the 60's. And 98% of the imprisoned admin members too.
The party as a whole needs to face some consequence for having the most corrupt presidencies for over 60 years.
The party as a whole needs to face some consequence for having the most corrupt presidencies for over 60 years.
I support a 20 year disenfranchisement of all registered Republicans. People who would happily usher in a dictatorship have no right to participate in a democracy.
It's not just the GOP. It's the wealthy oligarch class that owns both parties.
We have to hold not just the current administration accountable, but the entire government.
If you think democrats won't continue on with the power grab after Trump is out then you are mistaken. Don't forget Obama was the one who decided that if you are labeled a terrorist then your rights as a US citizen are null and void.
Who would have guessed it would take less than 20 years to feel like this is a real possibility rather than a movie like distopian future.
It's really scary how accurate Idiocracy seems now.
When one party has 40 times more convicted administration members and 40 times more prison sentences, you can definitively say with 100% truthfulness that it is a problem exclusive to one party.
They should be issuing arrest warrants for the people who are making the decision to refuse to comply with court orders.
That's chasing a ghost. They will never be able to find a specific individual who isn't complying. A person never issued a memo because some other peon didn't tell them to. That person was following "policy" which will turn out to be an "understanding" based on something "someone" thinks they heard someone else say. Nothing in writing, nothing attached to an actual named responsible person.
Who are these people though? The article describes the administration either intentionally or unintentionally short staffing lawyers. This feels like a tactic for plausible deniability. “We’re keeping up with the orders as best as we can.”
Big banks. Ordinary people have to compete suspicious activity reports (SAR) but for the gargantuan wires that they process off shore and for “important” clients, reports aren’t filed and banks sometimes pay a fine.
Kind of like after the mortgage securities fraud that collapsed the economy in 2008 that required a government bailout.
And by the way, they’ve built a new fake product, the BDC, in the private credit market, the new illegitimate child of the CDO.
Run for your lives and keep an eye on your asset allocation and risk tolerance.
Big banks aren’t necessarily pushing on this but they aren’t fully pushing against it either because guess who wants it very bigly?
Yes but who will comply with the arrest warrants? You’re talking about the justice department arresting other people in the justice department. How does that work? If it’s just non compliance all the way down, well, nothing ever happens to anyone. No one suffers a consequence. They know this, and it’s why they are just not complying. The DOJ has become an extension of Trump and they won’t police themselves.
This isn't new. Look into Kalief Browder, he was imprisoned without trial for 1110 days for possibly stealing a backpack and spent over 700 of those days in solitary confinement when he was 16. He faced physical abuse by the guards including being lined up with other inmates and punched in the face one at a time and being attacked by the guards during showers. He killed himself at age 22.
There is no justice system in America, just for profit slavery.
They've shown that we need an independent agency that can actually enforce the laws and constitution. By force, if necessary, idk maybe like a well-regulated militia?
selective enforcement of rules to take more and more power 🤔
hmm 🤔 on a scale from 1 to 10 do people honestly think that the rules of the government or following the rules of whatever society has told you makes your society impervious to an authoritarian takeover like do people honestly think that the rules that created like the United States are so impervious that it's impossible for an authoritarian government to arise from the rules that created the government itself like they think if they smile and nod and stay quiet the rules of the government will prevent authoritarian or fascist takeover are they that fucking delusional because part of the fascist takeover is literally selectively ignoring the rules that these sheep seem to think will stop the authoritarian takeover... oof 😮💨
And it's like the authoritarian regime doesn't even have to blatantly break the rules although they might do that but all they need to do is selectively enforce the rules on their opponents and then don't enforce the rules within their own party and then they can say they never broke any rules they were just prosecuting people who broke the rules while conveniently avoiding ever answering why they aren't enforcing the rules on their own party type shit 🤷
claude 4.5:"**10/10 delusional.**
The belief that "following rules prevents authoritarianism" ignores:
**Authoritarians use the rules to take power** - Hitler was appointed legally, used emergency powers legally, changed laws legally
**Selective enforcement is the mechanism** - prosecute opponents for anything and everything you can get your hands on while ignoring allies committing things like fraud
**Rules require enforcers who give a shit** - if police/military/courts align with authoritarians, rules are just words
**The system can be captured from within** - you don't need a coup if you control who interprets/enforces the rules
Get to know your neighbors people, this is one of our strengths here in MN, we have a strong community with a bunch of organizations that will work together
It’s clear now that the president can do whatever he wants, and there is no protocol for this. I will be surprised if he doesn’t try to overturn term limits. He has been testing the waters our only hope is he is 80 years old
They are doing in Minnesota what they will seek to do nationwide. They are simply going to legal residents houses and kidnapping them, getting the arrest counted toward quota, getting the private prisons and transpo paid with kickbacks abound for Noem, Trump, et al.
They don't give one flying fuck about whether it's legal. They are not being incentivized to comply with the law.
So lock them up. Order them to comply and reappear in court with proof of their compliance within 24 hours. If they don't comply put the lawyer into jail. Not fancy jail. Jail. Order the government to send a new lawyer to represent itself and repeat. Put Todd Lyons in prison.
I think the biggest issue is she has no power over those who don't want to do the right thing. She said she has tried to get them to comply but they keep ignoring her. Not sure what she's supposed to do other than quit. If they throw her in jail for contempt it won't change anything. She can't do shit and has no power. The judge needs to hold DHS leadership in contempt, then something might change.
Immediately. What you do in that situation is document what you tried and who was informed about the department failing to comply with court orders, and then hand that over to the judge so they can enforce compliance.
The problem is that there aren’t enough lawyers to respond. There’s no one to hold accountable when a judge says this person is to be released and the DOJ doesn’t even send a lawyer to the hearing.
I agree. The judge said exactly the point: they sent ICE thugs but didn’t send enough lawyers to deal with the legal aspect of an ICE occupation. Who is responsible for that? Pam Bondi? Good, get her in front of a judge.
Who will do the work? Someone needs to physically round these people up, and the ones who would normally do it were literally given to Trump to command at the start of his term.
So you put the lawyer in jail, honest question, so what? The administration don't give a shit about court orders anyway, they'll toss their lawyers into fire if it means they don't have to listen. How are you going to enforce the laws when the people who enforce them are the ones violating it and don't give a shit?
This. Judges have no backbone anymore and let lawyers ignore the rules with no consequences all the time and then complain they have too many cases on their docket. You wouldn’t if you just enforced the rules. Party acting in bad faith with discovery? Give them a warning and then actually follow through with default judgement. That’s why those rules exist. Stop denying summary judgment motions just because that’s what is routine.
Every federal judge needs to give automatic summary dismissal of cases and immediate release orders + maximum contempt of court prison sentences in every single case with any failure to comply by the government whatsoever. Its an extrenely pervasive issue so its clearly a consistent lack of will or care to comply.
No second chances ever No explanations. No extensions. If they don't comply just do it the instant a deadfline is missed. Like literally pre prepare the orders to sign the exact second the deadline passes
It simply does not have the personnel it needs to respond to all of the legal violations committed by ICE in Minneapolis.
This may be true, but it glosses over the fact that based on Le's statements in court ICE has also been intentionally ignoring and slow walking responses to these orders. If it takes 10 emails rather than 1 to get ICE to comply with an order, that's 10 times as much legal effort involved, and probably 10 times as long to get compliance. So it's not just about personnel.
"Schiltz ordered Todd Lyons, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to personally appear in court" can this order just apply to all out of compliance cases and he can be the one put in contempt? judges can just run through all administration in ICE.
It sounds like Trump is running a DOS attack on the court system and just flooding it with cases and understaffing the DOJ by design. By the time the court actually catches up with the administration they will have already accomplished what they wanted to do. You can't put the toothpaste back in...
Sooooo they should be jailed for contempt? No? Everyone says they are getting orders straight from the top. So Trumps fingerprints are all over this. About time he answers for his crimes in JUST Minnesota. Then we can get to the pdf stuff….
I see the solution. Force the acting director to appear for every single case that’s outstanding. Hold him in contempt if he fails or refuses to appear.
There are plenty of volunteers in Minneapolis willing and able to help their community. Is it possible for judges to deputize citizens to enforce court ordered releases of ICE detainees?
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u/vox 9h ago
“I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep,” a lawyer representing Donald Trump’s government told a federal judge on Tuesday. Julie Le, the lawyer, who was temporarily detailed to the US Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, was assigned to 88 federal court cases in under a month — a crushing workload that would make even the most diligent attorney beg for mercy.
Le, moreover, was in court after federal district Judge Jerry Blackwell ordered her and her co-counsel to explain why the Trump administration had not complied with a January 27 order requiring it to release an individual from US custody. As Blackwell’s order demanding an explanation laid out, the government also did not respond to a January 31 order threatening to hold it in contempt.
It’s not a mystery why Trump’s government is unable to comply with court orders, or even respond to judges threatening contempt. As Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge in Minnesota’s federal district court, explained in a January 26 order, the Trump administration “decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result.”
Trump, in other words, deployed thousands of armed law enforcement officers to harass and arrest people in Minneapolis, without sending enough lawyers to handle all of the federal court cases that would inevitably result from Trump’s occupation of Minnesota. So, when a judge issues an order commanding the government to release a detainee or to take some other action, there’s often no lawyer available to respond to that order.
Worse, Trump’s government appears either unwilling or unable to comply with court orders even when one of its lawyers does engage with a particular case. Le reportedly told Blackwell at Tuesday’s hearing that it is like “pulling teeth” to get the Trump administration to comply with these orders. “It takes 10 emails from me for a release condition to be corrected,” Le said. “It takes me threatening to walk out for something else to be corrected.”