Yes. When an attorney is ordered by the court and does not do it, the charge is contempt of court.
I do hope that obama gets angry and gets TRULY vicious with the court. He hasn't done nearly enough to be vicious. There are only veiled threats, he needs to make some REAL ones.
No. When the Government is "ordered" by the Court to have a boss provide an essay, the AG could very well have instead politely declined and instead merely affirmed tha the advocates from the DOJ handling the case IN Court were the proper parties to speak FOR the government.
If the Court then insisted, the Government COULD have more formally and stiffly refused and either taken their chances with a fight as to a possible contempt citation OR sought leave to appeal the assignment of "homework" from a judicial panel.
There were a number of options. It is certainly arguable that the AG took the proper and even fairly mature approach. But as a matter of principle, I would have been more inclined to fight it were I representing the Administration in Court as the AG.