Critics say the Trump administration is on a ‘lawbreaking spree.’ Can the courts stop him?

An avalanche of lawsuits are trying to avert a brewing constitutional crisis, Alex Woodward reports. President Donald Trump’s unprecedented power grabs within his first three weeks in office have provoked an opposite and equal reaction in the form of an avalanche of lawsuits. Now, how far the president can plunge the United States into a constitutional crisis could depend on a handful of federal judges.

Americans should be prepared for the administration to ignore them, “unless and until there's real enforcement, either by law enforcement or by the Supreme Court,” says Ty Cobb, a former White House counsel during Trump’s first administration. “The real question is, will Trump honor those orders?” Cobb tells The Independent. “I think the real question is not whether the courts are going to do their job, but whether or not, once they do their job, it’ll have much effect on Trump, unless and until the Supreme Court intervenes, because that’s the only court he seems to listen to,” he says.

The president, convinced of his own supreme authority, has handed de facto control of the levels of government to the world’s wealthiest man, an unelected troll whose private business interests intersect with the government he is actively disemboweling. A bulk of those lawsuits were filed in Washington, D.C., where dockets are quickly filling up with litigation outnumbering the judges presiding over them. Democrats in Congress, who have had months to prepare for this moment, appear to be struggling to respond to the pace of the president’s actions.

But judges across the country are already derailing Trump’s plans, which have rapidly unfolded within less than a month of his second term, barely giving his opponents time to react before his administration reveals another series of dizzying actions. Enforcement of those court orders will be up to the federal agencies Trump and his allies are currently purging of insufficiently loyal personnel. But at that point, Trump will have successfully flooded the zone with what his opponents see as unserious and illegal actions given serious weight by a press he demonizes, as part of a broader right-wing plan to shift the so-called Overton window — the range of politically acceptable ideas — to legitimize anti-democratic ideas.

“He’s highly confident that the new watermark will be deeper inland than it was when he started. There's no doubt about that,” Cobb tells The Independent. “There is a bright thread running through, beyond bombast, ego, and a desire to smash government, any government,” he writes. ”Over and over, their actions violate the law — either the Constitution, or statutes, or both. Some moves may be designed to dare the courts to sanction these power grabs. More likely, it seems increasingly clear, they don’t care.”.

This time, there are no figures within his administration telling Trump that something is a bad idea, or politically untenable, or illegal. “At this stage, I don’t think they care,” Cobb says. The White House has resolutely defended Trump’s actions, though it is unclear whether the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel is even reviewing them. “Every action taken by the Trump-Vance administration is fully legal and compliant with federal law,” special assistant to the president and principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement to The Independent.

“Any legal challenge against it is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly elected President Trump to secure the border, revitalize the economy, and restore common-sense policies,” he added. Congressional Republicans aren’t worried, either. Trump’s firing of 17 nonpartisan inspectors general drew only a strongly worded letter from Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who noted that Trump is required by law to send a 30-day notice with an explanation for removing them. Grassley did not call on Trump to rescind the firings.

“What we have seen from Elon Musk and DOGE indicates an astounding disregard for the law,” they wrote. “We demand that Congress act immediately to investigate the full scope of activities undertaken by Elon Musk and his representatives.”. With a Republican-controlled Congress, federal courts are acting as the “first line of defense” against Trump’s agenda, according to Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.

The Brennan Center’s Waldman says that Trump’s administration isn’t merely pushing “boundaries” of the rule of law, but committing an “anti-constitutional lawbreaking spree” — and Republicans in Congress have “utterly abdicated.”. “And people should not expect that to slow down,” he tells The Independent. “If anything, they should expect the next two years to be a frantic assault on the Constitution.”.

Waldman argues that federal courts “have a duty to step up,” but “ultimately, public opinion will matter most.”. “The real-world consequences — swooning stock markets, shuttered health clinics, and more — have yet to take hold,” he writes. “Perhaps the new administration has made an indelible bad impression on those beyond its loyalists. We will find out how many people truly care about the rule of law.”.