Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media Sunday that judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power” after a federal judge blocked the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing data within the Treasury Department.
“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal,” Vance wrote on X. “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.”
Elon Musk, the head of Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is a non-cabinet level department, and aims to cut government spending, reposted Vance’s post on X.
On Friday, 19 state attorneys sued the federal government, alleging that Musk’s DOGE team accessing the Treasury Department’s central payment system is a violation of federal law. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer temporarily blocked Musk’s team from accessing the treasury department. Engelmayer did not immediately return a request for comment.
Shortly after Vance wrote on X, he reposted a post from Adrian Vermeule, a constitutional law professor at Harvard.
“Judicial interference with legitimate acts of state, especially the internal functioning of a co-equal branch, is a violation of the separation of powers,” Vermeule wrote.
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The judicial checks and balances are there to limit the power of the other two branches of government. The judicial branch “has the authority to decide the constitutionality of federal laws and resolve other cases involving federal laws.”