Trump and Musk are treating the government as if it were a private company that they own and that they can fire people at will, put in place anyone they like, and order the agencies to do whatever they want. When it is pointed out that some of the agencies and personnel are statutorily authorized, their response is simple. They simply declare the statute in question is unconstitutional. Of course they have been taken to court multiple times and judges have weighed in to stop the madness.
Here is just one example.
A judge blocked Donald Trump’s attempt to fire the head of a body that protects whistleblowers and investigates corruption.
Late on Wednesday Judge Amy Berman Jackson reversed the White House order sacking Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), and reinstated him in his post pending a court hearing set for 26 February.
It’s the latest legal roadblock in the president’s breakneck bid to decapitate almost every federal agency, with lawsuits piling up. On Wednesday eight inspectors general, who had been summarily dismissed in mass firings without Congress being given the statutory 30 days notice, filed a lawsuit asking for their sackings to be ruled illegal and for them to restored to their positions.
But Dellinger’s case appears set to test the legal limits of Trump’s ability to dismiss public officials. Dellinger was informed of his firing last week in a one-sentence email that did not specify the cause.
A 1978 act of Congress creating Dellinger’s position specifies that “the special counsel may be removed by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office”.
In her ruling, Jackson wrote: “This language expresses Congress’s clear intent to ensure the independence of the special counsel and insulate his work from being buffeted by the winds of political change.”
…Dellinger was confirmed in his post for a five-year term by the Senate last March after being nominated by Joe Biden.
…The Trump administration did not contest that it had fired Dellinger without cause, but argued that the congressional law requiring a cause was unconstitutional.
…A spate of other agency heads have been summarily fired, many of them resulting in legal challenges.
Days after Dellinger’s sacking, the White House announced that it had removed the head of the Office of Government Ethics, David Huitema, who was also confirmed for a five-year term last year.
Another Biden appointee, Gwynne Wilcox, sued last week after being dismissed from the National Labor Relations Board last month.
I think it is clear what the Trump-Musk strategy is. They are going to take unilateral actions, even if they are illegal, and then tie the matter in the courts with appeal after appeal, all. the way up to the US Supreme Court. The idea is that the process will take so long that by the time that body finally weighs in, the targeted agencies will have been destroyed.
There are so many challenges to Trump that the Supreme Court will not be able to hear arguments on each and every one. They will have to make summary decisions on what the various appeals courts rule. What the Supreme Court will decide is of course hard to predict. They have shown themselves willing top bend over backwards to accommodate Trump and the right wing ideologues.
There are two lines that have to be watched. One is how far the court is willing to breach the separation of powers and allow Trump to ignore explicit congressional legislation, thus making him more like a king or dictator. I think they are willing to go quite far in that direction.
The second issue is what they will do if Trump defies any court orders. Here it will hit close to home. The judiciary is the third branch of government but it has no enforcement mechanism, depending upon the executive branch to enforce its rulings. While they may be willing to clip the wings of Congress, they may be more protective of the courts because it impacts their own power and prestige. So they may not look too kindly on Trump brazenly ignoring any court order.
But nothing is certain in these days of rampant lawlessness.
There’s also the question of whether they’ll realize they’re cheering for the leopards eating faces party BEFORE they cede all power to Trump or if they’ll just cheer him on. They’re not as gullible about this as the electorate but I think they’re still capable of outmaneuvering themselves. And I bet Trump has some grievances with many of them over past rulings.
Seen from the outside it looks like an unbelievable, voluntary collapse of government. As you pointed out, even if litigation starts it will be far too late to undo the damage done, and then what?
It’s quite the whirlwind of action right now, but yet too early to gauge the horrible range of consequences (if they really start to kill agencies like the NOAA tho, there’s going to be all kinds of hell to pay).