US Marshals’ Duty to Protect Judges Faces Test in Trump DOJ

The US Marshals Service faces potentially competing obligations, as President Donald Trump flexes presidential power, to the executive branch that houses it and to the federal judges it’s sworn to protect.

The Marshals Service is part of the Justice Department and led by a director appointed by the president. It also has a hand in another branch of government, as its primary mission is to protect federal judges and enforce their orders.

Recent moves by Trump administration officials to disregard court orders, and signs that key Justice Department appointees are taking more of their cues from the White House, have fueled concerns the inherent conflict in those dual roles could come to a head if a political appointee asks the agency not to enforce a certain order.

The Marshals Service is one of the few federal agencies, if not the only one, “that has two masters, so to speak,” which has “always been a friction point,” said John Muffler, former Marshals Service chief inspector.

“What may be happening now is not new, but certainly there is a lot of attention on what they’re doing, and who they’re answering to,” he said.

Concerns about the agency’s competing duties come as judges face increasing threats. Trump and his allies have publicly criticized judges hearing high-profile legal challenges to his administration’s actions. Justice Department officials have also come under scrutiny for not fully complying with court orders against the White House immigration agenda.

Judge Robert Conrad, director of the Administrative Office of the US Courts, is expected to warn Congress at a judiciary budget hearing on Wednesday about how increasing threats to judges “erode the rule of law,” according to testimony published ahead of his remarks.

Former Marshals Service Director Ronald Davis has called on Congress to make the marshals an independent agency, or pass measures that would better insulate it from political influence. In an interview, he described a “structural gap” in the agency’s chain of command that could, hypothetically, expose it to improper political influence.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) raised the prospect of creating an independent protection agency for judges at a congressional hearing on court resources in February. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s courts panel, said at the hearing it was a “legitimate” and “truly bipartisan” question and asked the judge testifying before them to take the idea back to the judiciary.

‘Competing Codes’

Federal law states that the primary role of the Marshals Service is “to provide for the security and to obey, execute, and enforce all orders” of the federal courts. Another statute says the agency is a bureau within the Justice Department “under the authority and direction of the Attorney General.”

These could be interpreted as “two different competing codes,” Davis said.

“What would happen if someone says, ‘I disagree with that court order, don’t enforce it?’ Or, ‘I don’t think that judge deserves a protection detail, don’t provide it,’” Davis said. “You would have that conflict. And if the director refused to comply with the executive order, then they could be removed without any problems.”

Conflicts between the courts and the Marshals Service do occur, such as in smaller disputes over individual detention issues, said Carl Caulk, former assistant director for the marshals. There have also been past instances where the attorney general has ordered actions from the marshals directly. During the Civil Rights Movement, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered marshals to escort James Meredith, a Black student, to classes at the University of Mississippi.

Former Marshals Service officials said that determinations about when a judge receiving threats merits a protection detail are typically made at the executive level by individuals in both career and politically appointed positions. It would be unusual for one person to reject a security detail that was assessed as necessary, they said.

Those threat assessments are “very much formula-driven,” though do involve some individual discretion, Muffler said.

Decisions about how to spend funds for judicial security are similarly collaborative, both within the Marshals Service and between the agency and the federal courts, Caulk said.

Judicial security funds are provided in both the Justice Department budget for the Marshals Service and well as in the federal courts’ budget. Though there can be a “healthy difference of opinion at times” between those involved in allocating money, that practice is “not generally subjected to a political process at all,” Caulk said.

Potential consequences of this conflict were raised at an April Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Trump’s nominee to lead the marshals. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the panel’s top Democrat, asked Gadyaces Serralta, currently US Marshal for the Southern District of Florida, if he’d commit to enforcing all judicial orders if confirmed.

Serralta responded by quoting part of the federal statute stating that the agency’s “primary role and mission” is to enforce court orders and keep judges safe. Serralta also said the Marshals Service is “apolitical.”

Government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington also raised concerns about the politicization of the Marshals Service in testimony submitted to the Senate panel.

It pointed to reports that marshals had been dispatched to help workers with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency to an agency building as well as the Justice Department’s memo authorizing them to make immigration arrests.

“The administration’s increased exercise of authority over the USMS raises questions about whether the agency is positioned to prioritize the needs of the judiciary over the political goals of the president,” CREW wrote.