On Thursday, the editor-in-chief of a leading conservative publication called it: President Donald Trump has pushed the country into a “constitutional crisis.” This is according to Brent Scher, who helms the far-right outlet the Daily Wire, in response to news that the administration has disobeyed a court order blocking Trump’s attempt to ban reporters from the White House.
This matter has been snowballing since the weekend, when Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were banned from the White House for reporting what he called “purposefully negative stories.” In response, the outlets filed a lawsuit as media networks – including Fox News – agreed to collectively boycott participation in the White House press pool. Trump was outraged when the lawsuit was assigned to a judge – appointed by Trump himself – who has previously ruled against the president’s attacks on the press. Then over the night, the judge ruled that the administration must restore White House access to affected reporters, but when they showed up on Thursday morning, they were still denied entry. "It appears that the White House may be in defiance of this court order,” noted CNN.
At that point, the matter escalated to the very definition of a constitutional crisis, in which the executive branch of the government refuses to adhere to a judicial check on power as prescribed by the Constitution. Theoretically, now a hearing would be held in which the judge could hold the offending parties in contempt, who would then be arrested by U.S. marshals. But as the Washingtonian explained, “The U.S. Marshals Service is an executive branch agency, and if the head of the executive branch — the President — ordered the Marshals not to enforce a court order, then we’d be in fairly treacherous constitutional waters.”
Scher wasn’t the only one to recognize the situation as a constitutional emergency. “This would be a profoundly stupid way to start a constitutional crisis,” noted free speech advocate Nico Perrino upon the first reports that journalists had been turned away from the White House after the judge’s order. “Let's hope it's just a matter of early morning confusion.” But as it became clear that this was no mistake, a law professor declared, “We've reached the stage where the Executive is ignoring orders from a court. Welcome to the Constitutional crisis - all because the President is too weak a person to deal with negative press.” A prominent economist fumed, “A full blown constitutional crisis.” And as one post asserted, “If we're going to have a Trumpian Constitutional crisis, it's fitting that it be over the most moronic and childish thing possible.”
