A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Federal courts are weighing legal challenges to many of President Trump's recent executive orders. In some cases, the judges have ruled against him, which got us wondering, who enforces a judicial ruling against the president? So we called up Tara Grove. She teaches law at the University of Texas, Austin, with a focus on the constitutional separation of powers. Tara, so anything in the Constitution about a scenario where the president refuses to obey a judge's order?
TARA GROVE: So the Constitution does give the federal courts the judicial power, which some people say means people have to abide by their orders. And federal judges can give increasingly intense, enthusiastic orders. But at the end of the day, the really important thing is that presidents have complied with federal court orders. One example is the Nixon administration. So as some may remember, there was a big fight over the tapes related to the Watergate scandal. This went to court. During the litigation, President Nixon's lawyers indicated that they might not abide by a Supreme Court decision that said you have to turn over the tapes.
During the oral argument, President Nixon's attorney suggested that President Nixon might not abide by that order. At the time, Justice Thurgood Marshall did not take kindly to that suggestion. When the Supreme Court ultimately did issue its decision, President Nixon did comply. And one important thing to know about that history is that members of Congress, including members of Congress in President Nixon's own party, made it quite clear that he would be impeached if he failed to comply with the Supreme Court's decision. President Nixon complied. Now, as it turned out, that the release of the tapes did, in fact, destroy the Nixon administration. And President Nixon resigned...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GROVE: ...Two weeks after the decision. But this is an example where everyone came together and said the president must comply with judicial decisions.
MARTÍNEZ: So it sounds like it requires some measure of solidarity then.
GROVE: Yes.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, earlier this week, we had Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut on the show. And he told my colleague, Michel Martin, that President Trump's attempts to expand presidential power have put the country in a constitutional crisis. Let's listen to that for a second.
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CHRIS MURPHY: The president of the United States does not have the power unilaterally to suspend all federal programs. And he certainly does not have the power to suspend those programs and then decide on his own which entities get money and which don't.
MARTÍNEZ: Tara, do you believe that line has been crossed here?
GROVE: So far, federal courts have said that it is not lawful to suspend all programs. And there's been some concern about whether folks have complied with that. It's quite possible that executive officials just haven't quite figured out how to get the money out again. There's always the charitable reading of how the executive officials are acting. So I think we're in a very uncertain period right now. It's only been a matter of days since we've had both the declaration of no spending, and then the federal court order following up and saying, actually, many of these funds have to go out.
MARTÍNEZ: How does the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity factor into all of this, if it does?
GROVE: So the recent ruling was really just about criminal liability for the president. And the Supreme Court declared that it is very, very difficult - not impossible but very, very difficult - to hold the president liable, accountable for criminal violations. Presidents have had immunity from actions within the outer perimeter of their office, from civil suits, for a very long time. That actually comes from another case involving President Nixon, Nixon v. Fitzgerald. So that kind of presidential immunity has been around for a long time.
MARTÍNEZ: So it sounds like we're in kind of a whole new world. Everyone's paying attention to how it's all going to play out.
GROVE: It sure feels that way.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Tara Grove is the Vinson & Elkins Chair in Law at the University of Texas, Austin. Tara, thanks again for joining us.
GROVE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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