Is Trump Ignoring The Courts?

 So, all that talk about Elmo inaction and Elmo in charge, and yet:

Multiple agencies are now instructing employees that, contrary to what Elon said (and Trump appeared to reiterate in presser), responding is optional.

The reason why they’re doing so is virtually certainly due to this lawsuit, filed by Kel McClanahan (here’s his website, if you want to support his work). Its theory was a bit different than a lot of other lawsuits: he argued that OPM was violating its own standards under the E-Government Act mandating the existence and substance of a Privacy Impact Assessment before collecting new information.

You can read emptywheel for the details, but the tl:dr is: yes, there is a lawsuit you’ve never heard of, and yes, it is having an impact. Which already means: No, Trump hasn’t signed an EO telling the judiciary to pound sand.

That PIA is the key. 🔑 

Basically, the PIA (which the lawsuit required OPM to acknowledge and implement) means responses to emails by government employees ARE entirely voluntary, and not required.

To cut to the chase, McClanahan filed for sanctions for violations of the E-Government Act, and shortly after, government agencies started responding. OPM told employees:

Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly.

And then DOJ got in on it:

In an email to its workforce on Monday, the Justice Department said that during a meeting with the interagency Chief Human Capital Officers Council, OPM informed agencies that employee responses to the email are voluntary. OPM also clarified that despite what Musk had posted, a non-response to the email does not equate to a resignation, the email said.

And separately, HHS got chary:

One message on Sunday morning from the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its roughly 80,000 employees to comply. That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to. And by Sunday evening, agency leadership issued new instructions that employees should “pause activities” related to the request until noon on Monday.

“I’ll be candid with you. Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing Administration’s priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the below email,” Keveney said in an email viewed by the AP that acknowledged a broad sense of “uncertainty and stress” within the agency.

Keveney laid out security concerns and pointed out some of the work done by the agency’s employees may be protected by attorney-client privilege.

Small wonder Elmo complained that the courts were hashing his mellow.

He really struggles with the concept of a constitutional republic with judicial review. pic.twitter.com/3UjvWtd0Ix

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 26, 2025

It's worked for Trump most of his life. It works for lots of rich, white men and women.

Yup. Doesn’t really work for government, though. Rubio told the court, in the one case where the government didn’t follow the court order, that what they did was basically not subject to that order. That’s not anarchy; it’s an argument that’s been used before. And the court slapped it down.

I’m still waiting for major defiance. I haven’t seen it yet.