Summary
The Democratic National Committee and two other party committees have sued Trump over Executive Order 14215, which claims authority to seize control of the Federal Elections Commission.
The lawsuit argues this violates federal law and threatens free elections.
The order also claims power over other agencies including the SEC, FTC, and NLRB.
Democrats contend this executive overreach contradicts constitutional principles and a century of Supreme Court precedent upholding Congress’s authority to insulate certain agencies from presidential control.
I keep hearing arguments like this, and I’d love to be reassured by them, but they come after watching Trump receive 34 felony convictions with no actual punishment for those convictions, after which he was elected President of the United States of America. It also comes after watching a 4 year long failure to attach (or even try to attach) any consequences to him for Jan 06.
So, you’ll forgive me if I’ll wait until I hear about bank accounts being drained and that it has any measurable impact on the rate of progress at https://www.project2025.observer/ before I lull myself back into to believing Trump is in any way not untouchable.
There are a lot of things the system can do to stop something like this. So far it’s not doing very many of them.
Yeah, well, blame the courts for sentencing him to “Never mind, we cool bro.”
That gets tricky. The core argument would be that Trump’s speech before the attack is firmly within his 1A rights (and it almost certainly is, 1A speech rights are extremely broad and anything short of a direct call to immediate lawless action is usually protected) and that his not doing anything to stop it once it started is him doing a shit job, but not technically illegal (but hypothetically impeachable, if both houses would agree to it which was never going to happen).
You’d have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he planned for J6 to happen the way it did in a fashion that is definitely not attached to his duties as president in any even vaguely reasonable way to have anything to hang on him at all without an impeachment. Something like hard evidence of him coordinating specifically the attack on the capitol (as opposed to the rally or march to the capitol steps) with the people entering the capitol or their leadership and not merely an otherwise legal protest/rally. Which is a high bar to reach.
He also received an $83 million judgment, which he already paid. And a $400 million fine, which he will pay.
Also, keep in mind that Trump cannot act alone. Even if he could shrug off a million dollar fine, his employees cannot. And judges will target his employees, until nobody is willing to break the law for him.
And when they do, I’ll applaud for them as loudly as anyone else.
Until then, as they say, it’s vaporware.
There is no need for judges to target anyone yet, because the Trump admin hasn’t been found in contempt.
I don’t think Trump is going to lose any sleep over his employees getting millions of dollars in fines or jail time. He can just preemptively pardon them no questions asked if he could be bothered to remember they exist. Also nearly 50% of voting aged adults actually support Trump ignoring the courts so I don’t think there’s much anyone can do.
Trump can’t pardon employees who are found in contempt of court. Trump might not lose sleep, but the employees will. Most employees, even Trump supporters, won’t take an assignment that will lead to losing their life savings.