Moot Court

When judicial proceedings become constitutional theater

Judge Charles Breyer will hold a hearing Friday on whether to issue a preliminary injunction against Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles. He’ll hear arguments, review evidence, and likely issue a carefully reasoned order.

It might be the most elaborate moot court exercise in American legal history.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already announced that he doesn’t believe district courts should determine “national security policy” and will only abide by Supreme Court rulings. Translation: whatever Judge Breyer decides doesn’t matter, because the Defense Department has declared itself above his authority.

This is how the rule of law dies—not with dramatic confrontations, but with the quiet transformation of real legal proceedings into elaborate performances that everyone knows don’t actually matter.

The irony is devastating: actual federal court proceedings now carry less weight than a law school practice session, because at least in moot court everyone pretends the judge’s ruling matters.

Judge Breyer could issue the most meticulously crafted preliminary injunction in judicial history. But if the executive branch simply ignores it, then constitutional law becomes constitutional suggestion.

When Cabinet secretaries start announcing which courts they’ll ignore, we’re no longer operating under the rule of law. We’re operating under the rule of power, dressed up in legal costumes.

Friday’s hearing will proceed with all the dignity our legal system can muster. The lawyers will argue. The judge will deliberate. The order will be issued.

And it might all be make-believe.

That’s not constitutional government. That’s constitutional theater, performed before an audience that’s slowly realizing the actors have stopped following the script.