‘Startling,’ ‘Lawless,’ ‘Disturbing’: Legal Experts Unanimously Sound the Alarm Over Trump in The Free Press
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
The Free Press asked “seven of the sharpest legal minds in the country from across the political spectrum” to weigh in on the start of the second Trump administration, and whether it is acting lawlessly.
And all seven — several of whom come from conservative backgrounds — expressed serious concerns.
Michael McConnell, who formerly served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit after being appointed by President George W. Bush, submitted that the “Trump White House is sabotaging itself with its unbridled hostility toward the courts” and is hurtling toward a confrontation with the Supreme Court “that would wreak certain damage both to the presidency and to the courts, and thus to our constitutional republic.”
He wasn’t the only conservative to express concerns. Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy, suggested that the “real question now is why the administration is acting lawlessly.”
“Is there a strategy? The somehow less disturbing possibility is that, having been the victim of ruinous lawfare—the leveraging of the government’s law enforcement and intelligence apparatus against a political enemy—Trump is merely exacting retribution, as promised during the campaign,” continued McCarthy.
Similarly, Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, observed that “Evidently for Donald Trump, law is nothing but politics. So it’s not surprising that he would apply his tactics for political battles in the legal realm: Always be on the attack. Never admit error. Stoke grievances. Proclaim false victories. Posit conspiracies. Condemn betrayal. Decry tyranny. Own the libs. Redefine reality. Sow chaos. Improvise on the run. And so on.”
More left-leaning experts like the University of Chicago’s Aziz Huq and Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig were even more strident.
“What is so startling about the Trump administration is the fact that it has openly, repeatedly, and unashamedly engaged in what is plainly unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination,” argued Huq.
“We need to recognize—and name—the form of government we are living in right now. Its closest analogue is the Mafia,” asserted Lessig.
“The consensus is striking—and perhaps surprising, given the ideological diversity of these contributors,” concluded The Free Press’s editors. “All agreed that the president’s legal tactics reflect a dangerous willingness to ignore statutory and constitutional constraints—and that he must be reined in quickly.”
