This is an opinion column.
It was likely the plan all along: Ask forgiveness later rather than permission now.
Or don’t ask at all.
And don’t listen. Don’t acquiesce.
Don’t abide by the law. By the U.S. Constitution.
Donald Trump swore (again) to uphold that sacred document, but two months into his second presidency, in his hands it might as well be toilet paper.
Trump’s propensity for law defiance is, of course, signed, sealed and convicted — 34 times. Thirty-four felonies, for which he received not an ounce of punishment, nor expressed a spit wad of remorse.
You wouldn’t put a convicted bank robber inside a bank vault and not expect them to pocket a few bills. Or at least try.
Trump appears to be trying his best to defy every conceivable law, to eschew every Constitutional edict, to cackle at governmental checks and balances with every stroke of his presidential pen.
The only branch that can (or seems willing to) stop him — Congressional Republicans have rolled over to Trump like puppies craving a belly rub — is the judiciary.
Which is a scary thought. Scary since Republicans have spent years packing the federal courts with their own, with friendlies who would bow to their will. Now, to Trump’s will.
In his first term, Trump appointed 226 federal judges. He’s appointed three Supreme Court justices, including one (Neil Gorsuch) whose seat should have been filled by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, but Republicans refused to acknowledge the nomination.
Former President Joe Biden appointed 228 federal judges during his four years in the White House, including more Black women than any president in U.S. history.
But the elephant had already left the barn and joined the circus. Republican appointees accomplished their mission: Strip from women the right to choose what to do with their bodies and squash affirmative action — send abortion back to the dark ages and back alleys and end legitimate, moral efforts to undo the effects of more than a century of racial and gender discrimination and bias against the disabled and others.
That seems to have been just the warmup. Trump strode into the White House with the swagger of a fighter bouncing into the ring knowing the fight’s fixed in his favor. At the bell he danced, preened and stuck out his chin.
With executive order after executive order, he dared anyone to take a swing as he defied legal and constitutional parameters and skirted the boundaries of presidential powers.
As of Tuesday, 127 such lawsuits have been filed against the administration since Trump took office, according to a database maintained at New York University. They are also being tracked by U.S. News & World Report as they are filed.
Numerous multi-state lawsuits have been filed, including one challenging funding cuts by the National Institutes of Health that could severely impact research institutions, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Legal experts theorize that was Trump’s plan all along, to ignite a scattershot of legal actions that would allow him to argue the relatively little-touted notion of “unitary executive theory,” which espouses that the president has sole and full authority over the executive branch without any influence from Congress.
In short, if Trump won in courts packed with conservative appointees, he would be king and everyone in the executive branch would be his subjects.
Let them catch pens.
Except this: He’s getting punched in the nose. By the courts.
Over the weekend, Trump defied an order from the chief judge of the Washington, D.C., District Court, James Boasberg, to turn around two flights containing hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members, then drew the ire of SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts for calling for Boasberg to be impeached.
In a rare public spanking, Roberts wrote: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
After that one-two, Trump (and his DOGE ball buddy and cornerman Elon Musk) on Tuesday took an uppercut from U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, who ruled their dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was likely unconstitutional. Chuang ordered providing USAID employees access to “email, payment, security notification, and all other electronic systems,” and ordered Trump/Musk to pause efforts to shut down the department.
The shutdown had already endangered a successful multi-year program led by Dr. Michael Saag, an infectious disease specialist at UAB to attack HIV/AIDs in Africa.
Some legal experts worry that Trump vs. the Law of the Land may ignite a constitutional crisis.
For now, Trump’s nose is bloodied and his ego is bruised. But it’s far too early to call this fight. Far too early to call it anything other than lunacy.
Maybe immoral as Musk jumps into the ring, reportedly with max-allowed donations to six Republicans in Congress who’ve supported taking action against judges who gut-punch Trump’s plans.
And certainly dangerous.
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Let’s be better tomorrow than we are today. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at rjohnson@al.com, and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, Instagram @roysj and BlueSky.