President Donald Trump’s nominees for key Justice Department positions wouldn’t commit to following federal court orders in all scenarios, raising examples of historical Supreme Court rulings upholding slavery and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Democratic senators pressed Trump’s picks at their Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Wednesday on whether elected officials could flout federal court mandates.
The questioning comes amid concern that Trump’s administration may defy court rulings against his executive actions, following public suggestions by Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk that judges don’t have authority to quash the administration’s agenda.
Aaron Reitz, who’s been nominated to lead the Office of Legal Policy, which reviews department regulations and coordinates judicial nominations, said it would be “too case specific” for him to commit that officials should follow all court orders and that he couldn’t speak for all instances.
“That’s an incredible statement by someone who wants to be part of the Department of Justice,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the panel’s top Democrat.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said that defying a court order is “in its very nature a constitutional crisis” and that Reitz’ comments “send a chill to me and my concerns about the current administration.”
“Your failure in this forum to resolutely state your commitment to abide by court orders, I hope you can understand why that would be troubling to many of the senators before you,” Booker said.
Great Fear
Asked for his views on whether federal officials must follow court orders, John Sauer, Trump’s pick for solicitor general, said “generally if there’s a direct court order that binds a federal or state official, they should follow it.”
But the administration’s would-be top lawyer at the Supreme Court also nodded to the 1944 ruling in Korematsu v. United States in which the justices upheld Japanese internment. “I just wonder whether some historians might think we’d be better off if it hadn’t been followed,” Sauer said.
“As bad as it was, that court order was followed for years,” Durbin said. “There’s a great fear among many people,” he said, “as to whether or not this president would defy a court order.”
Sauer said he’s represented Trump for nearly two years and “I just think that that’s not a plausible scenario,” Sauer said.
Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s lawyer tapped to lead the Civil Rights Division, struck a similar note when asked how she would respond if asked to do something she considered unconstitutional.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) noted several recent high-profile DOJ resignations, including over the administration’s move to dismiss charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
Dhillon said that Trump “has never asked me to do anything that I’ve found to be objectionable, immoral, unlawful or illegal,” and couldn’t respond to such a hypothetical.
Trump Lawyers
If confirmed, Dhillon would take the helm of the DOJ division which handles litigation on voting rights and discrimination.
The San Francisco lawyer who represented Trump is known for arguing conservative positions in cases involving religious liberty, treatment for transgender minors, and censorship on college campuses.
An adviser to Trump’s 2020 campaign, she defended him against efforts to remove him from state ballots for allegedly encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. She also represented Trump against unsuccessful defamation lawsuits brought by adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Dhillon served as vice chair of the California Republican Party, and then as a member of Republican National Committee, where she led the election integrity committee from 2019 to 2021, according to her Judiciary Committee questionnaire.
During the hearing, Dhillon signaled support to the committee for purging voting databases, saying that in her opinion, the Justice Department, “should be 100% in favor of clean voter rolls.” She also said she believes Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in voting procedures, requires intent to discriminate.
Sauer is another of Trump’s personal lawyers who argued last year on behalf of then-candidate Trump in his bid for immunity from criminal prosecution related to Jan. 6.
A former federal prosecutor, Sauer served as Missouri’s solicitor general from 2017 to 2023. In that role, he helped lead the effort to intervene on behalf of Missouri and other states in support of an unsuccessful attempt to challenge the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Sauer has also been involved in other conservative battles, including challenges to Biden administration efforts to cancel student debt and to combat social media misinformation regarding Covid and the 2022 mid-term elections.
Reitz is chief of staff for Judiciary Committee member Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He was previously deputy attorney general for legal strategy at the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
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