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In my last newsletter, I argued that President Trump’s repeated violations of conflict of interest standards have become brazen corruption (see here). His attempts to enrich himself and his family exceed anything seen before in American history. We have to acknowledge that for the first time we have a thoroughly corrupt presidential administration. That alone should motivate every American to find ways to resist this administration and what it is doing to our country. In this newsletter, I focus on a second category of Trump’s actions which create an even greater threat to our system of democracy—his disregard for the rule of law and the weaponization of government for his own self interest. I can’t tell this story with the same authority as the distinguished conservative federal circuit court judge J. Michael Luttig, but I will state the case as I see it. Luttig’s indictment of Trump was published recently in the Atlantic (see here-paywall), and he argues that Trump’s actions spell the end of the rule of law in the U.S. Long the favorite jurist of the conservatives, Luttig broke decisively with Trump after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Here are the actions threatening tyranny that I consider most significant since Trump became President on January 20. Taken together, to me they make an open-and-shut case for impeachment of the tyrant. They demonstrate the wisdom of our founding fathers who worried deeply about the future emergence of a king and put in place a substantial number of restraints and checks and balances. Recent events also demonstrate how a would-be tyrant can undermine the role of Congress and threaten the independence of the judiciary in defeating those checks and balances. To me, the most egregious strategy employed by Trump is the declaration of states of emergency which enables him to take dictatorial powers in selected areas. The first announcement was the state of “war” that we were being “invaded” by immigrants, empowering him under the Alien Enemies Act to take dramatic action not only to seal the border but also to start deporting non-citizens (and even some citizens) without due process. The second was the declaration of a state of economic emergency under the Emergency Powers Act which gave him the power to levy tariffs on every other country in the world in violation of previously negotiated trade agreements of many kinds. A federal court last week ruled this exercise improper, though a federal circuit court has permitted him to continue some of the tariffs while the legal case is considered. In both these cases, it is the failure of the Congress to assert its right under the Constitution to govern immigration and set tariff policy which has permitted Trump’s oversteps. The Republican-led Congress has abandoned the checks and balances, ceding dictatorial power to the President. The third exercise of extraordinary powers which are foundational to the Trump Presidency is his violation of the Impoundment Control Act in order to cut funding to myriad purposes Congress has established. Under the Constitution, Congress appropriates funding and the Executive Department headed by the President spends it under Congressional direction. The President is not authorized, and is in fact prohibited, from impounding or withholding those funds except under extraordinary conditions. Trump, through his designated henchman Elon Musk, has permitted the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to shut down whole areas of federal funding, including foreign aid and medical research. The fourth exercise of tyrannical power is his actions to control independent agencies and institutions over which he actually lacks any authority. He has fired, or attempted to fire, board members and staff at a dozen or more independent bodies established by statute and guaranteed independence. These range from critical agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to less critical but symbolic ones such as the Kennedy Center for the Arts. He has even had his Doge bro physically take over non-governmental institutions such as the Washington D.C.-based Institute for Peace. If all these actions were not enough, Trump has asserted power in at least two other areas which are far beyond his real powers. He has declared his right to end “birthright citizenship” and has attempted to dictate how citizens vote in the 50 states, a right clearly reserved to the States. Both have immediately been held up by the courts. With the Republican-led Congress afraid to challenge Trump’s power grabs, resistance is left to the third branch of U.S. government: the judiciary. As many of his actions have been halted, at least temporarily, by judges, his attacks on those judges, the last remaining check and balance, have escalated. He, his spokesperson, and his vice president have repeatedly condemned “unelected judges,” “woke judges,” “sleazebags,” “radical left activists,” and argued they “are trying to destroy America.” Online and in-person threats to judges have spiked as Trump supporters have exaggerated these claims even further. A growing proportion of federal judges are seeking to create their own security force as they claim they cannot trust the Department of Justice, headed by Trump’s Attorney General Pam Biondi, who has been among the most vocal critics of federal judges, to protect them. One final incidence of tyrannical behavior is Trump’s use of administrative process to compel individuals and institutions to do his will. The most prominent examples are his attacks against law firms and universities. His attacks on law firms were intended to further suppress legal challenges. He singled out large law firms which have provided paid or pro bono legal services to his opponents or which had employed lawyers he considers his enemies. His attacks on universities are conducted under the flag of battling antisemitism, but that has merely been a cover for his attempt to dominate universities, dictating their policies, programs, enrollment and hiring. As I discussed in a previous newsletter, one can explain almost everything Trump does as part of his strategy of domination or his strategy of retribution (see here). Universities are targets of both strategies because he believes they are liberal and “woke” bastions and opponents of his administration. Trump has even used administrative and legal charges to go after a growing number of individuals who he believes offended him in the past (including several members of his own first administration). With the help of Attorney General Biondi, he has himself become the biggest weaponizer ever of the judicial process. His unlucky targets may eventually be exonerated, but their lives and personal finances may be devastated in the process. That is tyranny. Where does all this leave us? Trump’s ability to neuter Congress actually hangs by a thread. His three-vote margin in the House of Representatives could evaporate if a few members acknowledge how their own constituents are being harmed by Trump’s actions and particularly by the budget bill now under consideration. A more independent Senate may be the first to assert itself. While we should look to the 2026 midterm elections, we cannot afford to wait as his tyranny is doing so much damage in the interim. There are a number of officials in his administration who really would like to destroy institutions like Harvard, life-saving programs like PEPFAR which have saved millions of lives in Africa, and life-saving medical research and Medicaid which saves hundreds of thousands of lives domestically each year. By acknowledging that Trump has become a tyrant, we can summon the urgency we need to fight his actions. What are you and I going to do?
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