Editor's Note: The following excerpts are from a piece reported by ABC News.

“As the Trump administration's legal tug-of-war with the nation's judges over its controversial policies and actions escalates, constitutional law experts are sounding the alarm that the country could be inching closer to a constitutional crisis. What would a constitutional crisis involve, and when and how would it get triggered?”

“Richard Pildes, the Sudler family professor of constitutional law at NYU Law School, who has been involved in many federal court cases, told ABC News that such apparent defiance of the courts undermines the judicial branch and could have serious consequences.

‘I would say, we are dangerously close to a constitutional crisis. Maybe we're dancing kind of on the edge of a constitutional crisis,’ he told ABC News.’”

“Pildes noted that while courts face a challenge when it comes to enforcing their rulings against the executive branch directly, they can still take some actions to get an administration to comply.

Judges have threatened to use contempt findings and fines, and Pildes said those warnings can be serious.

‘If there are lawyers involved in advising to defy a court order, or participating in defiance of a court order, there can be sanctions against those lawyers. Their bar licenses could be at stake,’ he said.

‘Then, if there are misrepresentations that lawyers make in court, that can also be sanctioned against the lawyers," Pildes added. ‘Sometimes that very sanction is enough to get them to comply. But if it's not, the courts can start imposing fines.’

‘As the executive defiance kind of goes on, more and more officials would have to be involved in going down this path with the executive of not complying,’ he said.”

Read the full article from Straight Arrow News and listen to the full interivew with Pildes here.