If you’ve been following what’s been going on with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorship, you know it’s been a long road. In one of the cases, the government (aka The United States) was ordered to produce some documents by the court.
They ignored the order. 
The plaintiffs actually had to file an emergency motion to basically ask the court “hey, can you twist their arm a little more, please?”. It’s a dangerous notion to think that the executive branch is above the rule of the judicial branch. Once you remove that very important check, the balance of power is lost.
We’ve already lost the unofficial “forth check”: the press. Our democracy can’t afford to lose another.