FAQ ABOUT LAWSUITS AGAINST TRUMP, RULES OF MY PAGE, AND MORE – READ ALL THE WAY THROUGH! (updated June 5, 2026)
by Anne P. Mitchell, Esq., attorney, law professor, federal law author, legislative advisor, and veteran
NOTE: I spell things the ‘British’ way, it’s how I was brought up. Get over it. If you “correct” me in a comment I will block you, what cheek! (Also a British saying.)
Before we get to the FAQ, here are the three rules: 
Rule 1. DO NOT private message me with questions or that post that you feel you must share with me. If you private message me because you couldn’t comment on a post of mine because I turned off commenting, well, that’ll get you blocked – no, you are *not* the exception to “commenting is now turned off”.
Rule 2. Do NOT post links in comments on my page. It’s not that I have a problem with them, it’s that Facebook penalizes posts that have links in the comments. 
Rule 3. Do NOT call it the “shadow docket”. It is the emergency docket, and it ONLY deals with administrative matters, never the merits of a case. The term “shadow docket” was made up to make it seem more sinister.  Yes, absolutely this administration has appealed to it more than any other administration in living memory.  But the use of a tool doesn’t make the tool sinister, it would be like calling a hammer “murder implement”. 
Rule 4. I do not allow anything generated with AI on my page, at all. It’s too prone to error. Also if you name-call, swear, virtue-signal, post an image,  post something sourced from an anonymous account, attempt to hijack a post with an unrelated comment (that’s just plain rude), or post pessimistic views that *don’t align with the facts*, I will simply delete your comment without further warning (this *is* the warning) and if you do it repeatedly you will be, you guessed it, blocked. My page is known for civil, on-point, polite discourse, and this is how I keep it that way.
Ok, here we go with the FAQ!
– “But who will enforce it if he just decides to ignore a court order?” The answer to this one is at the end because it’s a bit lengthy.
First:
– Other than the three ICE cases* related to immigration (such as Abrego Garcia, and the planes in the air), the president and the administration *have followed *all* court orders* in the more than *300* cases (and I know, because I’m tracking them all for you)! So people NEED TO STOP saying that they aren’t listening to the courts, aren’t following court orders, and that “they don’t care about the constitution”. (*I’m not saying that ICE violating court orders isn’t bad, it is – I’m saying that other than that they are following all court orders, and at this point there are hundreds of court orders.)
– The president DOES NOT have the power to abolish agencies, period. Not by saying it, not through his staff, not through executive order (which are not laws). If Congress passes a law creating an agency, only Congress can revoke that.
– The president CANNOT revoke or undo a law, only Congress can do that or, in some cases, the courts (if they find the law unconstitutional or in violation of another law).
– When Mr. Trump acts in his capacity as president, he is acting AS THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, not as an individual. People saying things about suing him personally are showing a stunning lack of understanding of our system of government.
– Since January 2025 more than 500 lawsuits have been filed against Trump, Doge, and their actions. The overwhelming majority of the motions for restraining orders (TROs) and injunctions have gone against them.
– There have been many lawsuits about the personal Information that Musk and DOGE had been accessing , and in each of them the court has restrained Musk and DOGE from accessing that information. Many of you have asked “but what if they already have that data?” The court will order them to destroy any data that they have already taken, and while of course there isn’t really a way that they can prove that they destroyed it, they will have to say under oath that they destroyed it (under penalty of perjury, which is a criminal offense) and they will not be able to use it without revealing that they violated the order, kept a copy, and perjured themselves.
– No, he *cannot* deport U.S. citizens. First, there is the First Step Act, a Federal law which says, essentially, that the Federal government is *required* to house Federal prisoners as close to their own homes as possible so that their families can visit them, and which also requires that if the prisoner is in a facility that is more than 500 miles from their home that the government *must* transfer them to a closer prison. Second, there is the little matter of the Constitution and its 8th amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and the El Salvador prison (CECOT) is notorious for just how cruel it is. In no situation would CECOT *not* be considered cruel and also unusual.
– No, he cannot suspend Habeas Corpus. The Constitution is very clear that Habeas can be suspended *only* in the case of a rebellion or invasion that threatens the public safety. Period.
Habeas Corpus means “present the body”, and is the mechanism by which someone being held in detention can force the agency detaining them to bring them before a judge. It is a foundational element of due process.
– No, he cannot declare martial law. This is another red herring that they want you to fear. To quote the Brennan Center on Justice, “In short, Congress has placed clear and wide-ranging restrictions on the president’s ability to use the military domestically. A presidential declaration of martial law would violate these rules. The Constitution does not grant the president “conclusive and preclusive” power over the issue of domestic military deployment. On the contrary, it gives most of the relevant authority to Congress. Therefore, under Youngstown, the president would not have the constitutional authority to override the restrictions Congress has put in place, and a unilateral declaration of martial law would not survive a legal challenge.”
– “But who will enforce it if he just decides to ignore a court order?” I get asked this one SO much! And note that to date, in the more than 300 lawsuits against Trump and the administration, other than the first two immigration cases they have not refused to follow a court order even once. So this is all just future-tripping.) Anyways, here’s how it breaks down.
First, the enforcement arm for the Federal courts is the U.S. Marshal service.
The U.S. Marshals serve warrants and subpeonas, and make arrests, on behalf of the Federal courts. In addition, as written right into our Federal law, “It is the primary role and mission of the United States Marshals Service to provide for the security and to obey, execute, and enforce all orders of the United States District Courts, the United States Courts of Appeals, the Court of International Trade, and the United States Tax Court, as provided by law.”
Of course, the U.S. Marshals are overseen by the Department of Justice, which is part of the executive branch. BUT the Marshals are on the ground in the courts, just like bailiffs in regular state courts. So if something were ordered by the judge to happen on the spot, the Marshals would do what they are supposed to do.
With respect to enforcing contempt orders, technically, *in theory* Trump could order the DOJ to order the U.S. Marshals to not execute a lawful order of the court.
HOWEVER…
There are two things about this: first, disobeying a court order almost *has* to happen in order for the House to start taking seriously their duty to impeach (once impeached the Senate would have to convict in order to remove Trump from the office of the President – we’ve seen how this went last time, but that was then… this is now).
But second, there is a workaround specifically for when a court is being thwarted by the DOJ. The court can escalate the charge to criminal contempt (the crime being committed is refusing to follow the court order). At that point the court can apply to the Attorney General (also in the executive branch) to have an administration attorney assigned to prosecute.
AND the law very clearly states: “The court must request that the contempt be prosecuted by an attorney for the government, UNLESS THE INTEREST OF JUSTICE REQUIRES THE APPOINTMENT OF ANOTHER ATTORNEY. IF THE GOVERNMENT DECLINES THE REQUEST, THE COURT MUST APPOINT ANOTHER ATTORNEY TO PROSECUTE THE CONTEMPT.”
Did you catch that “must”? MUST APPOINT ANOTHER ATTORNEY. Not may. Must.
So, the answer to “What can the court do if they simply refuse?” is, they’ve got ways. Our system of government has zero loopholes for someone to *actually* be king, no matter what they say.
Also, for those of you asking “what about the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity?”, what the ruling said was that the president has broad immunity for official acts within the scope of being the president. Disobeying the law is not a presidential act, in fact it’s the opposite, as the president is sworn to uphold the law. Moreover, while it has never been tested, it is generally understood that the one person that the president cannot pardon is himself.
ABOUT THE STRUCTURE OF THE FEDERAL COURT SYSTEM
The U.S. is divided into 94 Federal judicial districts, with each having a U.S. District Court. This is the court in which you file a Federal lawsuit (whether civil or criminal), and which will conduct the initial trial.
Above the District Courts are the U.S. Courts of Appeal, which are arranged in “circuits”, so, for example, the “9th Circuit” refers to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which receives cases from the District Courts in Alaska, Arizona, and the Central District of California.
Appeals courts *only* decide on whether the law has been applied correctly, they *never* hear questions of fact, because the lower court is the trial court and the trier of facts (this is true for all court systems, in all states, not just Federal courts).
Cases from the U.S. Courts of Appeal are appealed to the Supreme Court. The party appealing to the Supreme Court has to *apply* for the case to be heard by the Supreme Court by submitting an “application for a writ of certiorari” – also known as a “writ of cirt”. ‘Certiorari’ is from the Latin for “to be more fully informed”.
The Supreme Court gets on average 5,000-8,000 applications for cert every year, granting only about 80 (so fewer than 2% of cases appealed to the Supreme Court are accepted). The denying of an application for cert means, and *only* means, that the Supreme Court chose not to hear the case. In point of fact, the application most likely *never made it to the justices at all*, because their clerks triage the applications, so the application for cert being denied means *absolutely nothing* about the merits of the case. So when you hear on the news that “The Supreme Court let stand the lower court’s ruling” or “The Supreme Court rejected…” or something similar, that is shoddy reporting, and poppycock. The *only* thing coming out of the Supreme Court that means *anything* about a case is if they approve the application for cert, hear oral arguments on the case, and then release an *actual opinion about the case*.
P.S. What do Beetlejuice, the Candyman, Bloody Mary, the Kool-Aid Man, and Jake from State Farm all have in common? You can summon them by saying their name.
Notice whose name is not on that list? Mine.
I don’t want you to get frustrated when I don’t respond when you tag me in someone else’s post. I want you to understand that I don’t have the bandwidth to run to answer questions on someone else’s post, or to correct the inaccuracies in someone else’s post. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you – it means I just don’t have the bandwidth to answer to or correct other peoples’ posts for you. And there are dozens of you every day, it would be a full time job just to respond to all the taggings. So, I don’t.
Don’t take it personally, it’s just how it is. I have to draw the line, and keep my boundaries, so that I can post *here* on my own page and be of service to as many people as possible.
You understand, don’t you? It’s not you, it’s me. (Well, ok, it’s you, but not in a bad way.)
This isn’t aimed at anyone in particular – it’s aimed at everyone.
Please respect it.
P.S. To subscribe to my Notes from the Front newsletter, where you get all of my court updates directly in your inbox (and if you choose to upgrade to the paid version ($5 a month) you’ll also get all of the original source documents like orders, TROs, etc.), go here: https://annepmitchell.substack.com
Source