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NEWS DECEMBER 7, 2020 ¦ 9

Judges Face New Test: How to Get Trump
Officials to Comply With Their Orders

By Jacqueline Thomsen

L-R: Judges Emmet Sullivan, Sallie Kim and Jesse Furman.

U Credit: Sullivan ( Diego Radzinschi/ALM) Kim (Jason Doiy/ALM) Furman (Rick Kopstein/ALM
.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the Dis- their statements highlight just how frequently the
trict of Columbia expects his orders to be Trump administration has failed to follow the or-
followed. It’s an expectation for federal judges ders issued by federal courts.
in general—but one that has increasingly been de- “I think a lot of judges really haven’t been pre-
fied by the Trump administration. pared for the defiance that they’ve seen from this
In a recent series of lawsuits over the postal ser- administration. I think that there’s kind of an at-
vice’s handling of mail-in ballots ahead of the titude from the administration that we can fudge
November presidential election, Sullivan said he things, we may be able to run out the clock,” said
had reason to believe officials weren’t acting in line Kenneth Manning, a professor of political science
with what he ordered, to the point he said Postmas- at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “The
ter General Louis DeJoy may have to appear in court courts and the judges, I don’t think have really been
to explain himself. prepared for that.”
Even further underscoring the judges’ frustration In some instances, the malfeasances take place be-
were remarks he made just days earlier in the same fore a judge can even issue a ruling. DOJ attorneys
case, after parties claimed USPS officials weren’t fol- earlier this year told a pair of judges in D.C. and the
lowing Sullivan’s earlier rulings. “I do expect full Southern District of New York they made false state-
compliance,” Sullivan said at the time. ments in initially defending an administration policy
The case is the yet another instance of a federal excluding New York state residents from a U.S. De-
judge questioning whether Trump officials are fol- partment of Homeland Security travel program,
lowing their orders. And while those judges don’t triggering one of the judges to order an exhaustive
call into question the credibility of the Justice De- review of how the lies ended up in his courtroom.
partment attorneys arguing in their courtrooms,
¦ Continued on PAGE 10

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