Public Notice - Trump is assaulting his own legitimacy

Defying the courts could bring a steep cost.

David R. Lurie
Feb 11, 2025

Donald Trump’s cronies are threatening to defy the authority of the federal courts. If they follow through, the nation’s rapid descent into dictatorship will be complete, and the risk of the first challenge to the legitimacy of the federal government since the Civil War could soon be upon us.

Over the past several weeks, Trump and consigliere Elon Musk have embarked on an unprecedented barrage of illegality, including an attempt to destroy whole government agencies and misappropriate (and likely misuse) government and personal data on a massive scale. In the face of compliant Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, the only brakes on the MAGA crime spree have come from a handful of federal judges who have issued injunctive decrees prohibiting some portions of the criminal scheme.

In recent days, Trumpers have engaged in bad faith efforts to evade some of the judicial constraints. But there are limits to the effectiveness of that strategy. And other orders they cannot fake complying with — such as the ruling keeping Treasury data out of Musk’s hands — have clearly made Trumpers’ blood boil.

Hence the now open threats by Musk, his sidekick Vice President JD Vance, and others to challenge the proposition — which has been foundational to our constitutional structure since 1803 — that the courts have the exclusive power to decide what the Constitution and laws of the United States mean and require, and can issue orders that bind everyone else (including the president) to comply.



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