Trump moves closer to court crisis

Conservative lawyer John Yoo — a Trump ally who has advanced one of the most sweeping theories of presidential power — told Fox News Digital: "I worry that there might be some people in the administration who would actually like to defy a judicial order. Which I think would be a terrible mistake."

• "If the courts can't render reliable decisions, then our legal system doesn't function," Yoo added. "If our legal system doesn't function, the country is in really bad shape."

State of play: Senior members of the Trump administration and the MAGAverse have been talking for months about simply ignoring court orders they don't like. Now, the talk is being tested.

• A senior White House official told Axios' Marc Caputo of the deportation fight: "It's the showdown that was always going to happen between the two branches of government."
• Trump lawyers have made narrow arguments in court that the administration didn't intentionally violate the order by Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to halt the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

Over the past week, administration legal tactics also grew more aggressive. Lawyers refused to turn over information Boasberg requested, and petitioned a higher court to have him removed from the case.

• The Justice Department asked that Boasberg and another federal judge, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, be removed from pending cases — requests that are almost never granted. Trump said the Senate should impeach Boasberg, which drew a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.
• Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island said the administration's stance on freezing federal funding undermines "the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government." Last month, McConnell wrote that the administration was violating "the plain text" of a temporary restraining order.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Monday that in the deportation case, the administration "acted within the confines of the law ... within the president's constitutional authority, and under the authority granted to him under the Alien Enemies Act [of 1798]."

• "We are quite confident in that, and we are wholly confident that we are going to win this case in court," she added.

Between the lines: The Trump administration is "playing games that verge on defiance," Jack Goldsmith, an expert in national security law, wrote on Substack.

• But the fact that administration lawyers are arguing they haven't defied judges' ruling is still important, legal experts told Axios. "There's value to the administration in the plausible deniability," Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck said.

And Trump's angry rhetoric about out-of-control judges hasn't extended to the Supreme Court.

• Those factors leave off-ramps before a full-blown constitutional upheaval.

Go deeper: Tests of Trump power on fast track to the Supreme Court.