Several Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats directed their hypothetical questions at former Missouri Solicitor General John Sauer, whom Trump tapped to serve as U.S. solicitor general.

“Generally, if there is a direct court order that binds a federal or state official they should follow it,” Sauer told ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).

When pressed by Durbin on what Sauer viewed as possible exceptions, the nominee said he supposed “one could imagine hypotheticals in extreme cases.” Sauer cited Korematsu v. United States, a 1944 Supreme Court case involving Japanese internment camps. The case has since been reversed and condemned across the judicial branch, and Sauer noted that “some historians” feel it would have been better for the country if the decision were ignored from the outset.

Other Democrats posed similar questions to Sauer, as well as Harmeet Dhillon and Aaron Reitz, Trump’s nominees to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and Office of Legal Policy, respectively.

“Could the president of the United States refuse, as a litigant before a federal court, refuse to follow [a court] order?” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) asked Reitz.

“Generally speaking, Sen. Coons, parties to a case are bound by a lawful court holding from that court,” Reitz said.

Democratic lawmakers signaled dissatisfaction over the nominees continuing to couch their replies. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said he feared a “constitutional crisis” would ensue if the executive branch flouted orders from the judicial branch. Sauer and Dhillon, who have both represented Trump in his personal legal fights, said they had never been directed by Trump to do anything unconstitutional or illegal.

Republicans during the hearing raised former President Joe Biden’s defiant demeanor toward the conservative Supreme Court after it struck down his $400 billion student loan cancellation plan. Biden bragged last year that he found a roundabout way to write off some student loan debt after the order. That move has since backfired on Biden.

“The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn’t stop me,” Biden said last year.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), a former state attorney general who, along with Sauer, was involved in challenging Biden’s attempts at erasing student loans, accused Democrats of hypocrisy.

“All of the sudden my Democrat friends have found religion on abiding by Supreme Court decisions,” Schmitt said.

The hearing’s underlying theme about the balance of powers comes as the Trump administration faces dozens of lawsuits over some of the president’s controversial executive actions, such as laying off thousands of government workers and freezing avenues of government funding.

Billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, who is serving as Trump’s senior adviser and informal leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, shared a post online this month about how judges issuing adverse rulings are leaving Trump no “other options” than to disobey them.

Vice President JD Vance offered a similar view after a judge in New York temporarily issued a ruling that some translated as banning the treasury secretary from accessing his department’s databases. The court later clarified that it did not order that.

WHAT HAPPENS IF TRUMP DEFIES A COURT ORDER?

Asked about Musk’s and Vance’s sentiments, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office he would only challenge unfavorable rulings through constitutionally sound means.

“I always abide by the courts, and then I’ll have to appeal it,” Trump said.

Still, some judges have raised worries that the Trump administration is flouting orders. A judge in Washington, D.C., found this week that the U.S. Agency for International Development did not abide by his order to resume paying debts to its contractors, but Trump administration lawyers argued the agency had legally withheld certain funds and were diligently working to comply with the order. The judge could in the coming days take action to penalize the administration, including by holding Trump officials in contempt.