Judges May Be Days Away from Jailing DOGE Operators

In a development that was and remains wholly predictable the people who have been ignoring or skidding on judicial orders coming out of the DOGE cuts now face the possibility of being jailed for it by judges that have little ability to enforce their orders outside of putting people in jail. It is not like it’s difficult to keep oneself out of the situation. One always has the option of following the court order – not a bad initial position, and even in those situations where a person cannot afford to comply, they can usually walk right in and demonstrate that they cannot afford it and will simply have a judgment for which to account going forward. That’s it. You don’t have to go to jail. This is especially true for people working on behalf of the government where money isn’t an issue since the United States can write checks while in the negative. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that most people, and all judges, expect government actors to be more responsible, more conscientious.

But that’s not this. Or, at least, it doesn’t appear to be viable from the DOGE perspective as they go forward without compliance and without all that much care – seemingly. As reported by Rawstory and  MSNBC legal analyst Adam Klasfeld.

A federal judge will NOT pause his order giving the Trump admin a deadline of 11:59 p.m. tonight to pay all invoices for foreign development funds for contracts completed before Feb. 13.

Well. Yes. Judges are quite limited in their options and that’s one, and if you ignore them over time you will earn yourself a trip to the jail and it doesn’t matter if you are 18 and had been dealing (And miss court dates all the time) or people advising a president. That’s just how it all goes and no one tries to keep it a secret. Musk is not referenced specifically and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where he would be a person targeted for the non-compliance – fair or not – and more likely the person in charge of that department or the ones in court representing a party. More commentary from the article:

Policy Professor Don Moynihan, at the Ford School, University of Michigan, commented that thus far, the “Trump administration broke the law by pausing legitimate spending. The courts told him to knock it off. They didn’t. [The] court is telling them to knock it off again. [The] next step is to find out whether we still have an administration that will obey the courts after the courts call them on their bulls–

No real need to take that at any level beyond what he sets out. IF there is something getting in the way of compliance – which isn’t impossible to conceive – then they simply need to walk in and explain it. Really straightforward. More:

Conservative Andy Craig, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, flagged this comment and noted that courts are quickly losing their patience and moving through the cases.

“I get the do-it-right-now impulse for insisting judges start throwing people in jail for contempt, but I think there’s some misunderstanding of how that escalation ladder works in practice and how extraordinarily rapidly judges are already moving up it,” said the election law and electoral reform expert on Bluesky. “We are at most weeks, possibly days away.”

Misunderstandings can go either way. Opponents to DOGE might expect near instant results, which isn’t realistic. As for DOGE and their view, I don’t think “misunderstanding” is the issue so much as simply not caring or caring deeply and very much wanting the showdown. They may not understand how close they might be – no one really knows what the judge envisions right now but it’s certainly an option. No doubt that even DOGE understands that just ignoring lawful orders invites problems. Weird in that they can always get the case stayed if they simply say “We are going to appeal,” and most of the time the court will stay their order. So they have that option, too – just appeal and buy time. It sure looks like they want that showdown.

So we will see what happens. Standing there in court with a judge about to sign her name on an order could easily concentrate the mind a bit and lead to a change in positions. One wonders how Musk will handle it if someone in DOGE gets yanked. Dunno.

God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter-X at @JasonMiciak and please follow along on Bluesky.

are star hosts being bumped on MSNBC as we speak. (Joy Reid and Alex Wagner) So if you can afford a small donation or a monthly subscription, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Ursula

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