The US administration is, at present, regularly violating the law and ignoring court orders. Indeed, these very releases are patently in violation of multiple federal laws -- they're simultaneously insufficiently-responsive to meet the requirements of the law requiring the release of the files and fall afoul of CSAM laws by being incompletely redacted.
The challenge, as we're all experiencing together, is that the law is not inherently self-enforcing.
> ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence," Schiltz said, adding that he counted 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases.
"Allegations" from the exact judges whose orders aren't being enacted? The orders in question are pretty simple: release this guy. Don't take this guy out of state. It's pretty clear when they're not being followed. This guy is not a slouch:
Did you notice that one article I linked involved a DoJ lawyer admitting that she couldn't convince ICE to obey court orders that she was trying to transmit to them? That's beyond an allegation and into admission. How is that not evidence?
The problem is that it's always specific to a particular case. So, if one guy isn't being released according to court order, they could order someone held in the courthouse jail until he is, and probably just the threat will get him released. But then 1) nobody ends up in jail, because they're not in contempt anymore and 2) it doesn't do anything for any other cases, and there are so many other cases. This sort of contempt where a judge can just order it is "civil contempt" and is meant to convince someone to comply with the court order, it can't be used to punish someone longer than that (criminal contempt can, but you need an actual prosecution, trial, etc).
You might think "ok can't they be held in contempt for the pattern of ignoring court orders" and, well, you'd think so. But that looks a lot like a universal injunction or a class action and SCOTUS has deliberately been nerfing those.
If they've simply been committing crimes then judges don't have anything to do- they'd have to be prosecuted by someone, or I guess sued civilly, but that won't put them in jail either and takes forever.
Furthermore, there are numerous allegations that the documents that have been released contain CSAM, which (referencing the PDF above) may fall afoul of 18 U.S.C. 2252–2252A.
In addition, one need only glance at the action in US courts to see egregious violations of the Constitution and valid court orders playing out daily.
Yes, the Abrego Garcia and Öztürk detentions are two very newsworthy cases that have actually reached the point of a final judgement in the district courts, as opposed to "merely" preliminary injunctions against the government.
(It's also worth noting that almost none of the government's appeals to their losses in preliminary injunctions have been on the merits as to whether or not their actions were legal, but rather on the grounds of "no one should be allowed to challenge our actions," which has also been a fairly losing argument for everybody except SCOTUS.)
Allegations are literally evidence. "He attacked me" is an allegation of a crime and is evidence that would be used in conjunction with other evidence to prosecute said crime.
They keep illegally appointing unqualified hacks as US attorney in defiance of the mandate they're approved by the Senate (Essayli, Habba, Halligan, Sarcone, Chattah) - judges have found at least five of the appointments illegal. As one example: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/28/judge-los-angeles-t...
They've repeatedly violated court orders to either return immigrant detainees or release them. "This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks.": https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/27/politics/patrick-schiltz-judg...
His targeting and shakedowns of Universities, law firms, and media companies is transparently illegal jawboning.
Everything about the tariffs is obviously illegal which he confirms every time he opens his mouth since he's relying on 'national security' justifications to issue them without Congress and he keeps insisting they're punishment for some random perceived slight.
Some sillier things like renaming the Kennedy Center -- the law that established it literally said that it couldn't be renamed without Congress -- so Trump firing everyone on the board and then appointing a bunch of his flunkees to vote for the name change doesn't cut it.. https://beatty.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/beatty.house.gov...
It's a literal onslaught of illegality so I can't tell if you haven't read a news article since 2025 or if you're trolling.
There's more than enough credible reports of CSAM in the Epstein Files dump - more than enough for me to not go and download even a single file of them myself, simply because German law does not care about why you are in the possession of CSAM, even if you took the picture yourself.
The legal situation regarding CSAM is very strict no matter which country, and I better hope no one here will actually be dumb enough to provide actual links.
If those reports are true then what we have is not just an effective deterrent for download and distribution of the set, but legally prosecutable malware targetting anyone who does, empowered by the Interpol CSAM database to which the DOJ should probably already released the offending material.
It's a tricky issue. In many countries it's not illegal and quite common for children to run around naked in public, during the summer on beaches for example, and so millions of people have holiday photos that are technically CSAM in their possession that they don't even know they have.
CSAM has a meaning identical to child porn but doesn't make that meaning explicit. Drawn or generated depictions of child nudity can be considered CSAM in some jurisdictions.
The US administration is, at present, regularly violating the law and ignoring court orders. Indeed, these very releases are patently in violation of multiple federal laws -- they're simultaneously insufficiently-responsive to meet the requirements of the law requiring the release of the files and fall afoul of CSAM laws by being incompletely redacted.
The challenge, as we're all experiencing together, is that the law is not inherently self-enforcing.
[flagged]
How about court orders?
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/ice-violations-judge-...
> ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence," Schiltz said, adding that he counted 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/frustrations-from-judge-prosecu...
[flagged]
"Allegations" from the exact judges whose orders aren't being enacted? The orders in question are pretty simple: release this guy. Don't take this guy out of state. It's pretty clear when they're not being followed. This guy is not a slouch:
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/27/patrick-schiltz-jud...
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230...
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230...
Did you notice that one article I linked involved a DoJ lawyer admitting that she couldn't convince ICE to obey court orders that she was trying to transmit to them? That's beyond an allegation and into admission. How is that not evidence?
More on these ignored court orders:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/28/ice-illegally-detai...
A specific case:
https://www.startribune.com/judge-orders-detainee-returned-m...
At this point you're taking a piss, this is not a honest discussion stance.
Judges themselves complained about their own orders being ivolated/ignored. Repeatedly.
> you're taking a piss
"You are taking a piss" -- you are currently urinating.
"You are taking the piss" -- you are mocking me or this.
Thank you. Sadly can't edit it anymore but I'll remember it next time.
If someone violates a court order don’t they get arrested?? Can’t the judge pronounce the perpetrators should be arrested instead of just complaining?
This is exactly the breakdown of the system that people are sounding the alarm about.
The problem is that it's always specific to a particular case. So, if one guy isn't being released according to court order, they could order someone held in the courthouse jail until he is, and probably just the threat will get him released. But then 1) nobody ends up in jail, because they're not in contempt anymore and 2) it doesn't do anything for any other cases, and there are so many other cases. This sort of contempt where a judge can just order it is "civil contempt" and is meant to convince someone to comply with the court order, it can't be used to punish someone longer than that (criminal contempt can, but you need an actual prosecution, trial, etc).
You might think "ok can't they be held in contempt for the pattern of ignoring court orders" and, well, you'd think so. But that looks a lot like a universal injunction or a class action and SCOTUS has deliberately been nerfing those.
If they've simply been committing crimes then judges don't have anything to do- they'd have to be prosecuted by someone, or I guess sued civilly, but that won't put them in jail either and takes forever.
There's no one in 2026 honestly saying "But what crimes has he committed???" its just concern trolls, sealions, bots, and some nazis.
As noted above:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ38/pdf/PLAW-... : the Attorney General was to have produced the entirety of the Epstein files, with very narrowly-enumerated redactions, in December. She has not done so.
Furthermore, there are numerous allegations that the documents that have been released contain CSAM, which (referencing the PDF above) may fall afoul of 18 U.S.C. 2252–2252A.
In addition, one need only glance at the action in US courts to see egregious violations of the Constitution and valid court orders playing out daily.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26513988-trorder0128...
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230...
Allegations aren't evidence. Has the Administration actually been found guilty of violating the law - if that is even possible.
Yes, the Abrego Garcia and Öztürk detentions are two very newsworthy cases that have actually reached the point of a final judgement in the district courts, as opposed to "merely" preliminary injunctions against the government.
(It's also worth noting that almost none of the government's appeals to their losses in preliminary injunctions have been on the merits as to whether or not their actions were legal, but rather on the grounds of "no one should be allowed to challenge our actions," which has also been a fairly losing argument for everybody except SCOTUS.)
> Has the Administration actually been found guilty of violating the law - if that is even possible.
Obviously administrations can violate the law. Otherwise this is just an autocracy with term limits.
>if that is even possible
yes.... any administration can be found guilty of violating law, and should be dealt with accordingly.
>Allegations aren't evidence
Allegations are literally evidence. "He attacked me" is an allegation of a crime and is evidence that would be used in conjunction with other evidence to prosecute said crime.
Evidence is evidence - of which there are enormous amounts of.
Are you expecting the administration to prosecute itself?
That's why there is separation of powers or ought to be.
They illegally fired the IGs responsible for whistleblowers and fraud in every department; https://www.nycbar.org/press-releases/firings-of-inspectors-...
They illegally withheld funds (impoundment) from congressionally authorized/mandated expenditures and relied on pocket rescissions to defund programs they didn't like: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/pocket-rescissi...
They keep illegally appointing unqualified hacks as US attorney in defiance of the mandate they're approved by the Senate (Essayli, Habba, Halligan, Sarcone, Chattah) - judges have found at least five of the appointments illegal. As one example: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/28/judge-los-angeles-t...
They've repeatedly violated court orders to either return immigrant detainees or release them. "This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks.": https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/27/politics/patrick-schiltz-judg...
The EPA illegally convened a secret panel of climate deniers to issue a sham report in order to repeal the endangerment finding: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/climate/energy-department...
His targeting and shakedowns of Universities, law firms, and media companies is transparently illegal jawboning.
Everything about the tariffs is obviously illegal which he confirms every time he opens his mouth since he's relying on 'national security' justifications to issue them without Congress and he keeps insisting they're punishment for some random perceived slight.
His illegal firing of Federal workers without the notice required: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/25/nx-s1-5544317/federal-probati...
Some sillier things like renaming the Kennedy Center -- the law that established it literally said that it couldn't be renamed without Congress -- so Trump firing everyone on the board and then appointing a bunch of his flunkees to vote for the name change doesn't cut it.. https://beatty.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/beatty.house.gov...
It's a literal onslaught of illegality so I can't tell if you haven't read a news article since 2025 or if you're trolling.
[flagged]
How can illegal firings be not illegal?
How can legal firings be illegal?
No way I can see!
[flagged]
[flagged]
There's more than enough credible reports of CSAM in the Epstein Files dump - more than enough for me to not go and download even a single file of them myself, simply because German law does not care about why you are in the possession of CSAM, even if you took the picture yourself.
The legal situation regarding CSAM is very strict no matter which country, and I better hope no one here will actually be dumb enough to provide actual links.
If those reports are true then what we have is not just an effective deterrent for download and distribution of the set, but legally prosecutable malware targetting anyone who does, empowered by the Interpol CSAM database to which the DOJ should probably already released the offending material.
Use encryption
> even if you took the picture yourself.
I'd hope the punishment is more severe in that case!
It's a tricky issue. In many countries it's not illegal and quite common for children to run around naked in public, during the summer on beaches for example, and so millions of people have holiday photos that are technically CSAM in their possession that they don't even know they have.
CSAM must be for sexual gratification usually. A medical anatomy textbook isn't CSAM.
And now you're in court strenuously arguing that you weren't sexually gratified by the photo of your kid in the tub.
Obviously most people are sensible most of the time but sometimes they are not.
More than that. CSAM is evidence of abuse. Hence the "A".
And nudity is not required.
CSAM has a meaning identical to child porn but doesn't make that meaning explicit. Drawn or generated depictions of child nudity can be considered CSAM in some jurisdictions.
"CSAM isn’t pornography—it’s evidence of criminal exploitation of kids."
That's from RAINN, the US's largest anti-sexual violence organisation.
Yep. Germany is very very strict for example. Even textual descriptions fall under that law.
> I'd hope the punishment is more severe in that case!
I'm talking about kids making photos of themselves. Which has been an issue multiple times in the past.
That might be intentional tbh, to make the database toxic to limit the spread.