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By Sophie Clark
Live News Reporter
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JD Vance has said "judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power," sparking backlash from constitutional law experts and Democrats.
"If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power," Vance wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Experts are saying the vice president's criticism of judicial rulings against the president's agenda is ignoring the three branched separation of powers integral to the U.S. Constitution.
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The vice president has been contacted via email for comment.
Why It Matters
The United States has three equal branches of government: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial.
Vance made his statement following several court-mandated halts on key parts of the Trump administration's agenda, creating concern that the Trump administration will ignore rulings made by one of the branches of government. This would create a constitutional crisis.
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What To Know
Since returning to office, Trump has faced several pauses to his sweeping agenda due to lawsuits filed against his directives.
Courts have currently put a temporary pause on the Trump administration's birthright citizenship overhaul, attempts to buy-out federal workers, the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) access to the Treasury database, and more.
Lawsuits are also being filed by FBI workers against the Department of Justice (DOJ), and by transgender people against the push to remove their gender from government documentation.
Vance was moved to post his thoughts on the separation of powers due to the ongoing case in federal court over DOGE's legitimacy, as he has been reposting X posts from Tom Cotton and Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule, who are making a similar point to Vance: that the judiciary is interfering with the president's authority when it comes to Elon Musk and DOGE.
Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, has said in her Substack, Civil Disobedience with Joyce Vance: "The idea that the courts can't step in and hear cases like this is ridiculous. So, what are Vance and Cotton outraged about? Apparently, it's the fact that the courts have decided it's worth learning the truth about DOGE before passing on its legitimacy."
Federal courts hold the power to halt a president's agenda due to the foundational governmental principle of American democracy that is a system of checks and balances.
Founding Father James Madison quoted Montesquieu in Federalist Paper #47, which lays out the ideals of the three branches of government, saying: "'There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates,' or, 'if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.'''
For people working to oppose the president, the courts are their only option at the moment, as Republicans control the House and Senate as well as the White House.
Several experts including Joyce Vance and Katie Phang, MSNBC's legal contributor and correspondent, as well as Democratic lawmakers such as Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, have said that the Vice President, who has a law degree from Yale, is ignoring the separation of powers inherent to the Constitution.
What People Are Saying
Governor JB Pritzker: "JD Vance is saying the quiet part out loud: the Trump administration intends to break the law. America is a nation of laws. The courts make sure we follow the laws. The VP doesn't control the courts, and the President cannot ignore the Constitution. No one is above the law."
JD Vance is saying the quiet part out loud: the Trump administration intends to break the law. America is a nation of laws. The courts make sure we follow the laws. The VP doesn’t control the courts, and the President cannot ignore the Constitution. No one is above the law.
— Governor JB Pritzker (@govpritzker.illinois.gov) February 9, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Judge John Coughenour, who struck down Trump's birthright citizenship order: "The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain."
Federalist Paper #47, James Madison: "Legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts.
"No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded."
Katie Phang: "Yale Law wants its degree back. And Vance needs to go back to school to learn about separation of powers..."
Adrian Vermeule: "Judicial interference with legitimate acts of state, especially the internal functioning of a co-equal branch, is a violation of the separation of powers."
What Happens Next
Although the Trump administration is currently experiencing set-backs from the courts, as the lawsuits make their way up the court system to the Supreme Court, which holds a conservative majority, the courts' rulings on what is and is not constitutional may turn in the president's favor.
Philip Joyce, a University of Maryland public policy professor, told the Associated Press: "What's constitutional or not is only as good as the latest court decision."
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