“District courts cannot stand athwart, yelling ‘stop’ just because they genuinely believe they are the last refuge against policies that they deem to be deeply unwise.”
—Judge Kenneth K. Lee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, writing separately as a panel overruled a district court and held that the President had the power to suspend the Refugee Admissions Program.
Of course he did. The law and Constitution is clear on that point, but a woke District Court halted the President’s decision anyway. This was unethical as well as illegal, but, as Prof. Josh Blackman writes,
“President Trump is back in office, progressives still challenge virtually every action he takes, and judges in blue states continue to grant relief. No surprise there. But there is a new dynamic. Now, not only are lower court judges resisting the President, but they are also resisting the Supreme Court. In August, Justice Neil Gorsuch rebuked an attempted . Judge Brian Murphy of the District of Massachusetts managed to get reversed twice by the Supreme Court in the same case. “When this Court issues a decision,” Gorsuch wrote, “it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.” Gorsuch added that “[t]his Court’s precedents, however, cannot be so easily circumvented.”
Remember, it is Trump’s opponents who keep accusing him of breaching “democratic norms,” yet the Axis of Unethical Conduct ( the “resistance,” Democrats and the media that carries on their propaganda) is literally defying the greatest democratic norm of all, the Constitution. Blackman calls this attempted usurpation of power by activist, partisan judges “judicial resistance,” in other words, an abuse of judicial power for partisan objectives. It is—this is me and not the professor saying this—grounds for impeachment. President Trump is not exceeding his Presidential authority as the Trump Deranged scream, but rather the judges and courts that are interfering in the Constitutional hierarchy. Unethical, you think? Damn right.
Blackman:
Ethics Alarms 
Are we in danger of a break in the judiciary? If the lower courts keep ignoring the precedents set by the higher courts, why should anyone listen to the lower courts? If some entity, like the President, takes the step to ignore the lower court injunctions instead of litigating the same issue yet again, does that not cross a line from which there is no coming back? Suddenly the judiciary is without fangs because it speaks, but no one listens?
“Yet somehow,” Blackman observes, “everything has gone topsy-turvy. Under the new order of operations, the President takes an action, states bring a lawsuit, a district court judge decides whether the policy goes into effect, and then two or three members of the Supreme Court promptly settle the issue with near finality.”
And Democrats and their allies in the news media, et al, loudly undermine the legitimacy of the Supreme Court: “Trump’s Court”, “Conservative-Majority Court”
Meanwhile, Judge Murphy continues in Massachusetts: Judge blocks vaccine changes by RFK Jr.’s advisory panel – Roll Call
Trump’s old friend judge Boasberg is at it again…apparently mind-reading and pre-trying cases all by himself.
There is precedent for a President ignoring court rulings.
Andrew Jackson ignored the 1832 Supreme Court ruling “Worcester v. Georgia” as he deemed Georgia’s laws in Cherokee territory unconstitutional; he is romored to have said “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”.
Abraham Lincoln ignored Chief Justice Taney’s writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.
I am not suggesting that Trump should ignore the Supreme Court, however it could be politically wise to ignore hyper-partisan lower courts who basically enacting their political preferences from the bench, all the while recent Supreme Court precedent. This will create a constitutional crisis, but maybe that is precisely what is needed to force clarity on the boundaries of the power of the courts. Force the issues in front of the Supreme Court and Congress. The Constitution itself assumes the three branches of government to be equal, and does not support the philosophy of judicial supremacy.
What’s the solution to this?
I saw someone say that judges should have a three-strike rule that if they get slapped down three times by a higher court, it’s automatic impeachment. I don’t like that becauses the way the system is, but if you deliberately go against a SCOTUS ruling that has already slapped you down, then it should be.
Pssst! Professor! It isn’t Schoolhouse “Rocks,” it’s Schoolhouse Rock. As Old Biff admonishes his younger self in “Back to the Future II” when Young Biff says, “Make like a tree and get outa here!,” “You sound like an idiot when you say things like that!”
Glass houses Jack. 🙂