Donald Trump hasn’t yet reached the point at which he’s deliberately and explicitly defied federal court orders, but make no mistake: The president and his team have gone to dramatic lengths to circumvent judicial rulings they didn’t like.

Arguably, the most dangerous of such efforts, in which the Republican administration is dancing precariously along a profoundly radical line, is currently underway. The New York Times reported:

A federal judge on Sunday night blocked the Trump administration from deploying hundreds of out-of-state National Guard troops to Oregon, even as President Trump turned to the Texas guard in a widening hunt for military forces to send to Democratic cities.

......Local and state officials filed suit and succeeded: On Saturday, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut — a Trump appointee — blocked the president from deploying 200 National Guard troops to Portland.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote.

“This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation,” she added.

The White House did not take the news well. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller characterized the restraining order as “legal insurrection,” adding that he believed Guard deployments were “an absolute necessity” in order to, among other things, protect “the Republic itself.”...

The aforementioned Times report added, “Judge Immergut, an appointee of President Trump, called an emergency hearing Sunday, then broadened her restraining order to cover ‘the relocation, federalization or deployment of members of the National Guard of any state or the District of Columbia in the state of Oregon,’ telling Justice Department lawyers that the president was ‘in direct contravention’ of her order.”

The Trump-appointed judge went on to note that the White House’s assessment about violent civil unrest in Portland was “untethered to facts.”

All of which is to say, the rule of law is holding on — for now. Watch this space.