Trump Just Blew a Hole Through the Constitution

Your move, Chief Justice Roberts.

By Charles P. Pierce Published: Feb 11, 2025 12:27 PM EST

Now, it seems, we’ve reached the point in our drama at which the gun placed on the table in act 1 finally goes off in act 3, blowing a hole through the Constitution big enough for the president to walk through. From The New York Times:

A federal judge said on Monday that the White House had defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump administration is disobeying a judicial mandate. The ruling by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court ordered administration officials to comply with what the judge called “the plain text” of a ruling he issued on Jan. 29.

“Each executive order will hold up in court because every action of the Trump-Vance administration is completely lawful,” said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman. “Any legal challenge against it is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the American people.”

Oh, shut up. I am willing to bet that the “American people” would rather enjoy the fruits of government research than, say, beachfront property in Greenland or sending their kids to Gaza to run security for high rollers from all over the world. Rubber, meet road.

Mr. Fields’s statement suggested that the president would ultimately prevail in court, but neither he nor the Justice Department explained what the White House would do in the meantime. It appeared that the administration was trying to win through the legal system’s established procedures, even as officials questioned the legitimacy of those procedures from the outside. To that end, some of Mr. Trump’s supporters accused the judges ruling against the president of overstepping their authority. “Activist judges must stop illegally meddling with the president’s Article II powers,” wrote Mike Davis, who leads the Article III Project, a conservative advocacy group.

Simply put, Mike Davis is full of it, as he was when he said he wanted to drag out “the dead political bodies” of the president’s perceived opponents or when he warned Letitia James that “we will put your fat ass in prison for conspiracy against rights.” It is no violation of Article II rights for a federal judge to issue an order affecting the actions of a president, who maintains every right to appeal the judge’s decision, an option of which this particular president has availed himself as easily as most people breathe.

This is the one the judiciary can’t lose—for all of us, and for itself. Out of pure self-preservation, once these cases reach the Supreme Court, that famous “institutionalist” John Roberts has to decide whether he wants the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary to enjoy its status as an independent and equal branch of government ever again. And even if Roberts and the Eight Wise Souls rediscover the actual law, what if he ignores them, too? Darkness falls.