With each passing day, it seems, the Trump administration seems intent on replaying the leadup to the English Revolution.
Like King James I of England (aka James VI of Scotland), Trump believes that he, to quote James’ tract of 1598, “The True Law of Free Monarchies,” “is above the law,” accountable only to God. He asserted in a July, 2019 speech that Article II of the Constitution means “I have to the right to do whatever I want as president.” Like James’ son, Charles I, who ruled England for 11 years without a parliament, Trump is increasingly governing through executive orders rather than making laws with the House and Senate.
Attorney General William Barr, Trump’s legal theorist, has put forward the notion that the president’s powers are “undivided and absolute.” Even more astonishing, Barr wrote in his June 2018 unsolicited memo to the Trump administration that “The Constitution itself places no limit on the president’s authority to act on matters which concern him or his own conduct . . .” Both Barr and Trump believe that the chief executive’s prerogatives are not to be questioned. It is “presumption and high contempt, “James told Parliament in 1616, “to dispute what the king may do.” Barr said pretty much the same thing in his speech to the Federalist Society in November 2019, arguing that the “presidential power has become smothered by the encroachments of the other branches.” Continue reading.
In a major step toward establishing a Trump dictatorship, the Justice Department moved Thursday to drop the criminal case against confessed felon Michael Flynn, the retired Army general and secret foreign agent who was Trump’s first national security adviser.
The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to step in to lift court orders blocking President Donald Trump from proceeding with his plan to spend billions of dollars on border wall construction despite Congress’ efforts to limit that spending.