The \u2018unitary executive\u2019 theory \u2013 backed by some conservative lawyers \u2013 is largely bogus. But it could wreak havoc on democracy<\/p>\n
While Democrats are dithering and debating with consultants about which anti-Trumpian strategy to adopt, courts are confronted with an unprecedented power grab by the president. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are simply not spending money appropriated by Congress, which in turn is unwilling to play its constitutional role and assert the power of the purse. Entire agencies are de facto dismantled \u2013 which is also unconstitutional \u2013 and civil servants protected from removal by a president keep getting pink slips.<\/p>\n
The illegality of it all seems so obvious that one would think defenders of democracy could relax and trust judges to do the right thing. But it\u2019s not just that some judges seem to be in the president\u2019s pocket \u2013 as evidenced by Trump, after his address to Congress, patting the supreme court\u2019s chief justice on the back and thanking him<\/a> for a favor he won\u2019t forget, mafia-style. It is also that some jurists have been itching to defend a further concentration of presidential power \u2013 John Roberts likely among them.<\/p>\n Jan-Werner M\u00fcller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and is a Guardian US columnist<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The \u2018unitary executive\u2019 theory \u2013 backed by some conservative lawyers \u2013 is largely bogus. But it could wreak havoc on democracy While Democrats are dithering and debating with consultants about which anti-Trumpian strategy to adopt, courts are confronted with an unprecedented power grab by the president. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are simply not spending … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}