Thanks for sharing here!

*clerked 🤦‍♀️

The judiciary isn’t powerless. It just doesn’t send in the marshals. It bogs things down. It shines bright lights. It narrows procedural options until compliance becomes the only way forward. (6/6)

Even if discovery doesn’t force compliance, it ramps up the heat:
• Embarrassment
• Leaks
• Paper trails
• More potential legal exposure
It forces internal accountability that political pressure might not. (5/6)

#2 – Turn on the floodlights.
Judges can order extensive discovery: documents, emails, internal comms, depositions of officials. They can compel the DOJ to explain, on the record, why they’re defying orders. That’s risky—politically and legally. (4/6)

This doesn’t require confrontation. It’s procedural. A judge can say: “Given ongoing noncompliance, this motion is stayed.” Multiply that across dockets and it grinds things down fast. (3/6)

#1 - Procedural gridlock.
Courts can slow DOJ’s machinery to a crawl. Judges can deny or delay motions, hearings, and filings in other cases until compliance is met. You want something from the court? Not until you follow the last order. (2/6)

Can confirm.

Unless things have become completely unhinged since I left, this is 100% correct. I guess it’s likely both are true.

Ugh, Barnett was the absolute worst prof I had in law school.

📌

I left the federal govt in 2016 before he was inaugurated

The grandpa on the other hand was listening to the Hegseth confirmation hearings on full blast with his phone tucked in the front of his tshirt.