Since Marbury v. Madison, judicial review has been a bedrock principle of American constitutional jurisprudence. Some don’t care for it, given that it presents a limitation on the authority of the president to do whatever he pleases, and yet it has served this nation well. You would think a Yale Law grad would recognize this, even if it meant he had nothing to say in defense of his boss whose knowledge and grasp of law, governance and Constitution ranged from none to none. You would be wrong.

This is a very tricky twit by someone who has shed his hillbilly origins and, a la Ted Cruz, backed a pissant who would normalize hate toward Vance’s wife.

If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.

As with most things legal, the correct answer is “it depends.” If the general’s conduct involved torture, was in violation of a treaty or lacked authority such as a general deciding on his own to bomb Paris, it would very likely be a proper exercise of judicial authority to “tell a general.” Even if not, it would not be illegal, meaning in violation of law, but ultra vires, meaning in excess of his authority.

If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.

This depends as well. If the exercise of discretion, a prosecutorial prerogative generally, was used in an unlawful fashion, say to prosecute or not based on race, a judge would most assuredly have a say in the attorney general’s exercise of discretion. Judges have a duty to assure compliance with the Constitution (even if that duty is observed mostly in the breach), so if the attorney general uses her authority in a manner that violates the Constitution, a judge has a role to play. To fashion it as a “command” is peculiar, just as call it illegal is the wrong word, but it’s unlikely that Vance’s followers will be troubled by his word choice.

Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.

And Vance finally gets to the point of his twit, that neither Judge Engelemayor nor any of the other judges enjoining President Musk’s actions are “allowed” to stop Trump from exercising his “legitimate” power. Vance’s inclusion of the word “legitimate” might seem to provide the necessary squishiness to salvage his otherwise nonsensical assertion. After all, if the exercise of power is legitimate, what possible basis could a judge have to control it?

The problem arises from the determination of what constitutes “legitimate” power and who gets to decide. That authority resides in the judiciary. Remember that old Marbury case, where President Andrew Jackson is reputed to have said, “Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it”?

When the issue before the court is whether the executive has the lawful authority to do something, it is very much in the judge’s control. That’s why they build courthouses. Perhaps the judge’s temporary restraining order will be vacated upon the hearing of the cause. Perhaps the executive will ultimately be vindicated, his authority approved whether by trial or appeal. Perhaps not.

But when a challenge is brought before a judge to the president’s, or his money-buddy’s, authority to take certain actions, the only constitutional response is defend and, should the executive lose, appeal. There is no constitutional option to defy the order of a court, no matter how much you disagree with it or how wrong you believe it to be, under our constitutional order.

Vance calling Musk’s burning down the house a “legitimate” exercise of executive power serves only one purpose, to inflame the groundlings who might be deluded by bad reasoning and inapt analogies, who would then brashly call for their beloved to pull an Andrew Jackson, but this time for real. After all, if it’s illegal, is there not a patriotic duty to fight against this illegality, much as there was a patriotic duty to fight against the stealing of an election four years ago?

If one were to believe the voices of outrage on the twitters, Southern District of New York Judge Paul Engelmayor just stopped Treasury Secretary Scott Bressent from being allowed into his own computer system, from overseeing his own department’s payment system. The alternative to losing one’s head is reading the decision, but too few are sufficiently interested in thinking to be bothered. I am not.

The States contend that this policy, inter alia, violates the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. §§ 551 et seq., in multiple respects; exceeds the statutory authority of the Department of the Treasury; violates the separation of powers doctrine; and violates the Take Care Clause of the United States Constitution.

Whether or not you care about any of this, and many don’t care because of the syllogism*, the duty of a court is to apply law. You can’t just like that when it works in your favor, but either you accept the premise that we are nation of laws or you don’t. If you’re of the view that Trump’s election renders him omnipotent, then don’t bother reading any further and don’t forget to swallow. But just in case you are of the view that the law still matters even when it doesn’t give you everything you want, then consider Judge Englemayor’s findings.

The Court’s firm assessment is that, for the reasons stated by the States, they will face irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief. See Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking. The Court’s further assessment is that, again for the reasons given by the States, the States have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims, with the States’ statutory claims presenting as particularly strong. The Court’s further assessment is that the balance of the equities, for the reasons stated by the States, favors the entry of emergency relief.

Bruce Schneier, who knows his way around cybersecurity, agrees.

Bruce Schneier, a cybersecurity expert at Harvard and the author of a series of books on security vulnerabilities, including “Click Here to Kill Everybody,” called the entry of Mr. Musk’s force “the most consequential security breach” in American history.

Mr. Schneier noted that the intrusion came “not through a sophisticated cyberattack or an act of foreign espionage, but through official orders by a billionaire with a poorly defined government role.”

Yet again, you may not care. You may believe that it’s a risk worth taking. You may believe that it has to be done, so shut your eyes and dive into the abyss. But then, the security of the nation, not to mention the faithful application of its laws, doesn’t care what you believe. More importantly, your belief doesn’t change whether this impetuous action is wrong, ranging from improper to catastrophic. Nor, for that matter, is it up to Trump or Musk. Hard as it may be to believe, they are not our new overlords, and while Trump is the putative steward for a term of office, no one quite knows what Musk is. You think you do, but you don’t, no matter how hard you clench your sphincter.

So Judge Englemayor did what any good judge would do. He shut down, pending hearing before the assigned Judge Jeannette A. Vargas, the wild and crazy shenanigans for which the law makes no exception.

ORDERS that, sufficient reason having been shown therefor, pending the hearing of the States’ application for a preliminary injunction, pursuant to Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the defendants are (i) restrained from granting access to any Treasury  Department payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees, other than to civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties within the Bureau of Fiscal Services who have passed all background checks and security clearances and taken all information security training called for in federal statutes and Treasury Department regulations; (ii) restrained from granting access to all political appointees, special government employees, and government employees detailed from an agency outside the Treasury Department, to any Treasury Department payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees; and (iii) ordered to direct any person prohibited above from having access to such information, records and systems but who has had access to such information, records, and systems since January 20, 2025, to immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any;

What is remarkable about Judge Englemayor’s order is its unremarkability. For those inclined to histrionics like “everything is corrupt,” “it’s all fraud” and “burn it all down,” requiring the Treasury Department to adhere to basic law and not give Musk and his lost boys run of the place will seem outrageous. It’s not. It’s just the law.

I received an email from Satan yesterday evening challenging me to post today about Trump’s revocation of Biden’s security clearance. On the one hand, it was just another in a series of petty moves by a puny man as retribution against those who hurt his feelings. On the other hand, it’s inconsequential, as the limited utility of a former president maintaining his security clearance and getting occasional briefings only applies under normal circumstances, where a current president seeks the advice of a predecessor in office or uses a former president as an envoy for foreign affairs.

Trump won’t be asking anything of Biden, so there will be no need for Biden to be kept up to date during Trump’s term. Maybe the next president will seek Biden’s help. He or she can restore Biden’s security clearance then. Sure, there’s the irony that Trump will give access to state secrets to unvetted kids in Musk’s wake, but that’s a different issue. It’s just a slap in the face of a former president by a current president who uses power as payback like a butthurt child.

But what Satan missed was Trump’s firing of Colleen Shogan. Remember her, the National Archivist who said no to Biden when, on the way out the door, tried to pretend that the Equal Rights Amendment was enacted? The last piece of the ERA puzzle was for the Archivist of the United States to certify that the amendment was enacted and the Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. A “loyal” archivist might have done what Biden wanted. Shogan, however, was not loyal to Biden, but to the Constitution. She refused.

Now she’s gone.

The director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, Sergio Gor, announced in a social media post Friday that Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan had been removed from her position.

“At the direction of @realDonaldTrump the Archivist of the United States has been dismissed tonight,” Gor wrote on X. “We thank Colleen Shogan for her service.”

What possible reason could there be for such a petty narcissist to do such an inane thing?

President Donald Trump has fired the head of the National Archives, after complaining for nearly two years about the agency’s role in the Justice Department’s investigation and eventual prosecution of him over a slew of classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago home following his first term.

It is the function of the National Archives to keep track of classified documents. Most would view this as a good thing. Of course, most have a functional understanding of the importance of maintaining the nation’s confidences. But even worse, Trump’s anger over the National Archives involvement in his hiding top secret documents after claiming to have returned them focused on Shogan when she wasn’t even the Archivist at the time.

Shogan, 49, was not the archivist at the time the agency was attempting to retrieve boxes of presidential records from Trump’s estate in 2021 and 2022. But Trump has viewed NARA with suspicion since the investigation and has openly described its top staff as complicit in efforts to damage him politically.

As with Trump’s purge of inspectors general, there is law that is supposed to apply to such actions as the naming and terminating of the archivist, not that Trump either knows of or care about such trivial matters.

A former director of litigation at the Archives, Jason R. Baron, said he was troubled by Shogan’s ouster. He noted that federal law says the Archivist must be appointed “without regard to political affiliations and solely on the basis of … professional qualifications.” The statute also says the president must notify Congress about why the archivist was dismissed.

There is, of course, no basis for Shogan’s removal, Trump’s factual failing of not know that she wasn’t the archivist at the time he was investigated for his keeping and concealing secret documents.

“No good reason exists for firing Dr. Shogan, as she has faithfully carried out her duties in a nonpartisan fashion in the short time since being appointed U.S. Archivist by President Biden,” said Baron, now a professor at the University of Maryland. “Dr. Shogan had nothing to do with the prior actions NARA staff took in connection with the successful return of boxes of presidential records that had been improperly transferred to Mar-a-Lago at the end of President Trump’s first term.”

But it is her faithful performance of her duties that Trump can’t stand. After all, what if he needs her to be loyal to him and there she is, faithfully performing her duties to the United States of America rather than the Darth Cheeto?

“Notwithstanding what President Trump might choose to believe, NARA is a completely nonpartisan agency, and NARA staff at all times have conducted themselves thoroughly professionally in ensuring that our Nation’s history is properly preserved,” Baron said.

Baron might be wrong again here. NARA was a nonpartisan agency, and is meant to remain a nonpartisan agency. Americans need it to be a nonpartisan agency. Americans need a National Archivist to say no to a president who, like Biden, wants to make a failed amendment part of the Constitution. But will NARA be nonpartisan with whomever Trump names to replace Colleen Shogan given that Trump values nothing more than sycophantic loyalty to him and him alone? Are you happy now, Satan?