Will Trump follow Musk or court judges? America’s future depends on the answer ...Middle East

It has been only three weeks since Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office and the country is already on the edge of an abyss. Or as Elon Musk might put it, facing a “fork in the road”, the phrase his Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE, not actually a government department – used in an email encouraging two million civil servants to quit their jobs, suggesting many are wastrels.

Whether the President and his de facto No.2 now respect a growing pile of legal rulings that are stacking up in favour of their critics, may determine the future of America’s experiment with democracy.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that the country’s fate could be sealed within a matter of days.

Early on Saturday, US District Judge Paul Engelmayer delivered the latest blow to Musk’s efforts to seize unprecedented power. Fully seven days after DOGE employees secured access to the US Treasury’s central payment system, which oversees the disbursal of trillions of dollars in government expenditure, Engelmayer issued a temporary restraining order designed to stop Musk in his tracks, at least for now.

The ruling denied DOGE any further access to Treasury Department records that include the social security numbers of millions of Americans (equivalent to UK national insurance numbers), and also blocked access to bank account details, as well as records of tax refunds and assistance payments made by the government to families and individuals.

Further, the judge ordered DOGE to destroy any records it may have purloined from the Treasury Department’s system. While Trump’s new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claims Musk’s team was granted “read only” access to the system, the judicial ruling indicated even if that were true, DOGE could still have scarpered with a trove of valuable data.

On Friday, another judgment sought to hamper Musk’s efforts, approved by Trump, to shutter the US Agency for International Development, the world’s single-largest donor of humanitarian and developmental assistance funding.Hours after Musk had boasted of “feeding USAID to the wood chipper”, Judge Carl Nichols issued another temporary order to stop the government from placing nearly 10,000 USAID employees on leave. The ruling also sought to stop the travel orders issued to the agency’s American staff overseas who had been told immediately to down tools and return home.

At the White House last week, Trump falsely claimed that he wields the power necessary to shut USAID down “in the case of fraud”. But notwithstanding Trump’s insistence that USAID employees are “lunatics”, the agency’s funding is authorised by Congress, and only Congress can invoke the deployment of a wood chipper to destroy it.

Other judgments seeking to tie the President’s hands include a ruling temporarily blocking Musk’s “Fork in the Road” e-mail.

Dominic Cummings is our Elon Musk - without the rocket fuel

With only hours left ahead of a 6 February deadline, US District Court Judge George O’Toole stopped the government from encouraging civil servants to resign, restraining Musk’s efforts until at least Monday night. The Office of Personnel Management, which employs government workers, indicated that the ruling changed nothing apart from the deadline. “The program is NOT being blocked or canceled” it announced in a social media posting which – like a growing number of government pronouncements – appeared only on Musk-owned platform X.

Less than a month after he came to power, Trump and his inner circle already find themselves at a crossroads. Do they adhere to time-honoured principles and respect the courts as a co-equal branch of the government alongside the executive and the legislature? Or, as Musk is already indicating, do they power ahead with their blitzkrieg of activity, the courts be damned?

On X over the weekend, Musk indicated a determination to steam ahead. He argued that at Treasury, his team of young, unaccountable cyber experts were simply making “super obvious and necessary changes” to overcome payment systems that he deemed “utterly insane” and “must be addressed immediately”. He described Engelmayer as a “corrupt judge protecting corruption”. He indicated that “it’s time” for the US to start impeaching judges. He also reposted an argument suggesting that the White House may have no alternative but to defy judicial rulings.

Does Trump agree with him? The country’s entire future now hinges on the answer.

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