22 March—Now that Donald Trump is floating the idea of U.S. ownership of Ukraine’s electric power system, ostensibly to make the besieged country more attractive for us to aggressively defend, two things come to mind: First, it’s a foot in the door for eventual annexation of Ukraine to make it the 54^th state, after Canada, Mexico, and Greenland. Second, since Joe Biden’s good-for-nothing son could be a highly paid do-nothing director of a Ukraine gas company, why shouldn’t a Trump good-for-nothing son be a highly paid do-nothing director of a Ukraine electric company—and, of course, funnel money to daddy in the bargain?

While on Donald Trump, he declared yesterday that Defense Department contingency plans for a possible—hypothetical?—war with Red China would not be shared with his incorrigible senior advisor and BFF Elon Musk because Musk’s extensive business interests there, including but not limited to Tesla, pose potential conflicts of interest: “Elon has businesses in China. And he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.”

The White House had assured us whenever it may have been that Musk would recuse himself if any conflicts of interest arose between his business dealings and his DOGE juggernaut.

Sure. Sounds good. But perhaps says it all. We never know what happens behind closed doors and under tables. And they are Donald Trump and Elon Musk, after all, for whom truth is an alien concept.

While still on Donald Trump, then, even though self-interested flunkies—most of whom are sitting in Congress and none of whom have any integrity—have called on him to ignore court orders, he and his legal lackeys have said they’d abide by court decisions, as required, and follow the appeal process all the way to the Supreme Court. That’s nice to know. For all it’s worth.

So what would happen if Trump—or any president—defied a court order—any court order? That’s contempt of court, which could be civil or criminal, depending on whether a court wants to compel compliance or punish obstruction.

A recalcitrant president needn’t worry about criminal contempt because, among other things, he can simply instruct his Justice Department resources, specifically U.S. marshals, to sit on their hands. And proactively or reactively he can issue pardons for anyone, perhaps even himself.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court has held that a pardon cannot stop courts from punishing cases of civil contempt. But if the president can order marshals to stand down, who can be counted on to enforce civil contempt citations? Good question.

Good answer: The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which govern federal trial (generally district) courts, specifically enable those courts—but not circuit (appellate) courts or the Supreme Court—to appoint people other than U.S. marshals, when necessary, to enforce civil contempt orders.

So, assuming a rogue president decides to tell the Supremes where to go when he doesn’t like a ruling—because enforcement of any federal court order is up to agencies answerable to him as well as the Constitution—a district court can nevertheless empower just about anybody to enforce the order. And of course the Supreme Could wouldn’t stand in the way.

Although a few presidents have defied SCOTUS to a certain extent, non-U.S. marshals have never been needed to do what a president has forbidden U.S. marshals to do. Yet . . .