The Trump administration has not fully complied with a court order pausing the freezing of foreign assistance grants and contracts, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week ordered the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance after hearing claims from federal contractors challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.
Doomerism will doom us all. Fatalism is fatal.
That ruling has been grossly exaggerated by doomers. In practice, the ruling means very little difference for the actual running of an administration. Trump was the first president to ever face prosecution, and plenty of presidents have done incredibly shady things. There has been a decades-long taboo against prosecuting former presidents. And even after what Trump did, the prosecution was still very careful to only go after things that weren’t covered in his duties. The SCOTUS did rule the previous Justice department consensus into law, but they didn’t say that the president has complete immunity for all acts. The SCOTUS set themselves up as the final arbiter of what was an official act or not, but they DID NOT provide absolute immunity. Spreading FUD helps no one.
Also, the ruling only applied to the president, not to his administration. He may not be prosecutable for violating many laws, but his underlings still are. In theory, the president could simply continually issue daily pardons for everyone in the executive branch, pardoning them of all federal law violations. But that’s actually incredibly dangerous for a president to do. For example, if a president were daily issuing a pardon for everyone in the White House, what’s to stop the White House chef from introducing a slow poison into his food that will take several days to take effect? Or maybe Musk would use his new control of the Treasury to literally just steal every penny Trump personally owns. If you don’t use broad blanket pardons, then many lackeys will have to risk criminal prosecution to follow your illegal orders. But if you do use broad blanket pardons, you could end up pardoning people you never intended to. If you’re a president issuing frequent pardons to all of your staff, you could easily end up pardoning someone who is attempting to rob or kill you.
Oh, and many illegal actions employees might be asked to carry out are illegal under both state and federal law. Trump may simply refuse to prosecute any federal violations, but that won’t stop state charges. And while federal agents have some legal protections when carrying out their legal duties, that doesn’t apply to illegal actions. A state can’t arrest an IRS agent for just doing their job, but they can certainly arrest an IRS agent if they decide to become a serial killer. Eventually this kind of conflict can lead to civil war. But that would only increase Trump’s chances of being assassinated. And I bring up assassination because that’s the fate many wannabee dictators end up meeting. Trump himself has faced at least two assassination attempts, and it’s something he likely thinks about daily. He has to realize that if he pushes things far enough, a Secret Service agent might even just take one for the team.
You wrote up a bunch about technicalities of pardons and push back on over reach but it’s actually really simple. If he wants something illegal done, he signs a paper that says to do it and another absolving them for carrying out the order.
Nobody will care about over reach because every functional position in the government is now a political position. If your loyalty wavers for even a second, you’re fired (or worse). Federal oversight is replaced by state surveillance, you can be sure that rogue chef or secret service agent would have eyes watching their every move.
Even if the SC sets themselves up as the final arbiters on legality, that doesn’t protect them from illegal orders targeting them. For example: tough to oppose a president from a jail cell or if all of your assets are seized for the Sovereign Wealth fund.
Your point on state opposition is one that I’ll grant, that’s probably the storybook (legal) ending to this if there was one. The best case scenario would turn into a cold civil war, with states finding ways to oppose the federal government while coordinating some measure of support for each other.
The most likely ending isn’t that or a rogue assassin, but a palace coup. Popular unrest allows the military to step in and overthrow the head of state. The power remains centralized and unconstitutional; you’re now at the whim of the heads of military.
But at least the military industrial complex isn’t beholden to the whims of every foreign government with a blank check. They already have way more power and influence than any random elected politician, and maintaining the US hegemony is their main goal.