The “nope” to a court order is a red flag.

The Justice Department argued that the documents need not be released because “it did not rely on such recordings to establish Flynn’s guilt or determine a recommendation for his sentencing.” Moreover, “Prosecutors also failed to release an unredacted version of portions of the Mueller report related to Flynn that the judge had ordered be made public.”

Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tells me, “Even if the district court’s order to release the Flynn-Kislyak transcripts goes further than justified by the sentencing matter before the court, I would’ve thought that, in a government of laws, the only way to avoid compliance is to take an appeal to a higher court.” The government made its arguments to the court, did not obtain a stay to our knowledge and did not seek an emergency appeal. From all appearances, the Trump administration has deliberately and willfully defied a court order.

I wondered about that when the story was reported on Friday. The judge ruled make it public and the DoJ said “No and here’s why.” It was my understanding that the “here’s why” bit takes place in court, and that once the judge says make it public anyway, you don’t get to just say no and here’s why. You have to go to court to say why, and if you’ve already done that and the judge ruled against you…that’s the end of the road. “We decided to ignore the court order because reasons” doesn’t look good from anyone, and especially not from the Department of [ahem] Justice.

“Normally when prosecutors don’t want to make something public for national security reasons, etc., they file a document under seal with the judge explaining that reasoning and requesting relief from the presumption that things should be made public,” says former prosecutor Mimi Rocah. “The fact that the government didn’t do that here is puzzling. Instead, they took a very unusual tact of refusing the judge’s order publicly. which suggests that they didn’t think the judge would go along with keeping the material under seal.” Rocah continues, “While it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have legitimate motives, the disrespectful and atypical nature of their action makes me suspicious. And it certainly doesn’t mean the judge is just going to say, ’Okay, let’s just forget I asked.’ ”

If I were the judge I’d be feeling pretty annoyed. I’d be all “Pretty soon I’m just another fella around here!” about it.

Make no mistake, Trump’s conduct resembles conduct that was the basis Impeachment Article 3 against Richard M. Nixon. (“In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has failed without lawful cause or excuse to produce papers and things as directed by duly authorized subpoenas issued by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.”)

Emphasis added.