'Everyone Is at Risk': Trump and His Cronies Obliterate the Rule of Law
There's nothing hyperbolic about what just happened in DC.
The unraveling of the rule of law in the United States is almost complete. Not only is there evidence indicating that Department of Justice officials lied to a federal judge, floated saying “fuck you” to court orders, and fired a star DOJ lawyer for refusing to play along, but the far-right majority of the Supreme Court – in a ruling that has been widely distorted as mere procedural housekeeping – just effectively suspended the Constitution’s limits for presidents.
If this seems hyperbolic, please read on.
Let’s start with Trump v. CASA, in which a 6-3 majority technically held that so-called “[u]niversal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” The justices accordingly granted a “partial stay” of three injunctions entered by lower courts that had halted Trump’s executive order attempting to outmaneuver the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship by birth. The Court took up the issue of universal injunctions in this particular case gratuitously – on an allegedly “emergency” basis after its traditional term had already ended, the theory being that the Trump administration would suffer “irreparable harm” in not being able to deny birthright citizenship in the interim.
Although the decision is roundly being touted as narrow and discrete, the exact opposite is the case.