Carl P. Leubsdorf
President Donald Trump has spent a lifetime in the courts as both plaintiff and defendant, filing lawsuits to justify his actions and benefit his businesses or to defend himself against charges of illegality.
For the next four years, however, he will mainly be a defendant as he forces the federal judicial system to confirm or reject his effort to vastly expand the president’s role.
Already, Trump has precipitated a whole new round of court cases with a broad swath of sweeping executive actions, many based on the unproven theory that the Constitution’s Article II gives the president unlimited power.
Other presidents have sought unlimited power in limited cases. But Trump’s actions represent the most concerted challenge ever to the federal government’s balance of powers, in general — and the power of Congress, in particular.
He is basically daring the courts to stop him, seeking to wield nearly unlimited power until – or if – they do.
Trump has long questioned traditional limits on presidential power. In a 2019 speech to the conservative Turning Point USA Teen Student Action Summit, he said that, under Article II, “I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”
Trump hopes that courts all the way up to and including the Supreme Court – bolstered by his first-term nominees – will uphold that theory and ratify his moves to reshape the government.
That would further erode the limits the Founding Fathers imposed on presidents to protect Americans from the prospect of tyranny.
Article II gives the president “the executive power,” details some specific powers, and says, “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
The Reagan administration’s Justice Department interpreted that language broadly, accepting the conservative legal circles’ view of a “unitary executive theory” that gives the president inherent power over all governmental agencies.
Trump agreed but moved slowly in his first term to apply it. But, in 2020, he used it in seeking to re-classify thousands of non-political civil servants into jobs requiring them to support administration policies.
His 2024 campaign explicitly called for expanding presidential power over the Justice Department and other agencies, and his new administration has taken sweeping, often questionable, actions, justifying them by citing the president’s inherent powers.
They include:
Ending “birthright” citizenship
Trump issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to stop granting citizenship to babies of non-citizens, rejecting the 14th Amendment requirement that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
“This administration believes that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “We are prepared to fight this all the way up to the Supreme Court if we have to.”
A federal court promptly blocked its action, but the administration is appealing. It claims the amendment only refers to the formerly enslaved people freed after the Civil War, a narrow interpretation past Supreme Courts rejected.
Unilaterally halting federal spending
Though the Trump White House quickly reversed its order freezing all federal spending, it unilaterally cut off foreign aid and other federal programs and maintained its right to do so.
A federal judge in Rhode Island disagreed, saying “no federal law” justified such unilateral action.
Administration officials have long questioned the constitutionality of the 1974 law barring the president from impounding funds appropriated by Congress except in certain cases.
Budget Director Russell Vought took that position in a 14-page letter at the end of Trump’s first administration. Trump said in the campaign he would “do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court.”
Nominated to return to the OMB job, Vought refused at his confirmation hearing to promise adherence to the 1974 law.
Firing federal officials
Trump fired an array of officials, including FBI agents who investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, Justice Department lawyers who investigated him, staff members of the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies, both political appointees and those in civil service jobs.
Challenges are certain, either via civil service procedures or lawsuits.
The White House defended the action. “He is the executive of the executive branch, and therefore he has the power to fire anyone within the executive branch that he wishes to,” Leavitt said.
Offered buyouts
In a move resembling how presidential adviser Elon Musk cut Twitter, now X, OPM offered all federal workers a job buyout, effective this Thursday, saying they would be paid until Sept. 30.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., whose state has thousands of federal employees, urged workers to reject the offer, noting there is no authority to pay workers who leave their jobs.
“He doesn’t have any authority to do this,” Kaine said. “Do not be fooled by this guy.”
Fired independent agency personnel
Trump fired 17 agency Inspectors General without giving the required 30 days’ congressional notice, and commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board whose terms had not ended.
Trump has long urged greater presidential control of such panels.
His actions sparked predictable Democratic criticism, but far less from Republicans, who control both houses of Congress. Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, long a champion of the independence of inspectors general, merely joined with Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin in requesting an explanation.
The stakes in these cases are enormous. They’ll redefine the limits – if any — of presidential power, possibly for decades.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Readers may write to him via email at [email protected].
