A Fake Constitutional Crisis

A Fake Constitutional Crisis

The democrats and their sycophants in the media are screaming “constitutional crisis!” Being Trump haters and the guardians of unlimited government spending they are whining about Trump and DOGE. Andy Kim (D-NJ) “We are at a point where we are basically on the cusp of a constitutional crisis.” Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “The president and his allies’ moves represent “illegal seizures of power” that have thrown the U.S. into a constitutional crisis.” Angus King (I-ME) “We are in the middle of the biggest Constitutional crisis our nation has ever seen & every day we’re inching further from the democracy our founders created.” Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) “We’ve got our toes right on the edge of a constitutional crisis here. Only John Fetterman (D-PA) seems to have kept his cool saying that the courts will decide what is or isn’t constitutional, “There isn’t a constitutional crisis, and all of these things ― it’s just a lot of noise.” Who would have thought that Fetterman would continue to be the only democrat who makes sense rather than nonsense?

What about the media? NPR – which Trump should defund – says “It’s clear President Trump has gone beyond the powers of the executive branch.” But then says “At this moment, the executive branch has not taken the position that it can violate court orders or that it does not need to comply with court orders. So as long as we remain in a system in which the executive follows, or at least states that it has to follow what a court says, I have hope that the system will hold.” Doesn’t sound like a constitutional crisis to me. The Atlantic screams “The Constitutional Crisis Is Here! If Congress won’t stop Donald Trump and Elon Musk from arrogating its power over federal spending, who will? 

Hum. Did NPR and the Atlantic think that Joe Biden’s actions constituted a constitutional crisis? Didn’t Biden ignore court orders, including that of the Supreme Court in his efforts to forgive student debt? The courts said that it was unconstitutional. Biden ignored the ruling and bragged “The Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.” Sounds like a constitutional crisis to me that the left chose to ignore. Hey republicans, why wasn’t this an impeachable offense? Did we have a constitutional crisis when Biden proclaimed that the constitution had been amended – unbeknownst to us all – to include the Equal Rights amendment? No, because we all knew that Biden was an addled delusional old fool.

The left only screams “constitutional crisis” when they are not the ones violating it or advocating an overthrow of it. The left routinely ignores the second amendment and hates the Electoral College. Doesn’t the left always proclaim that the constitution is flawed and needs to be rewritten? How is it that all of a sudden they have embraced the sanctity of a document written by a bunch of slave holding old white men? Isn’t it amazing what Donald Trump can do?

So far Trump is facing over 70 lawsuits. He has won some and lost some. On those that he has lost, he said he will appeal. To date there has been no indication that he will ignore the courts like Biden did. What Trump is doing is trying to exert control over the entire executive branch of the government. So is that unconstitutional?

Perhaps the democrats are confused over our form of government and to what constitutes the executive branch. Primer: the federal government consists of three branches: the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch. The executive branch includes the president’s cabinet and a myriad of federal agencies such as the SEC, the FCC, CFPB, FAA, FTC, USAID and a host of others including the financial regulatory agencies the OCC, NCUA, FDIC and the FED. All agencies whose leaders are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate are within the executive branch. 

Trump says that he has the authority to fire the boards and leaders of these agencies since he has authority over the executive branch. He also asserts that he can have control over their spending even though some budgets are appropriated by the Congress and others come from the charging of assessments. Trump argues that these agencies are not “independent”. His argument is that insulation from presidential authority runs counter to Article II of the Constitution. The President should be able to supervise how they do their job. Trump says these agencies have become unaccountable for their actions and should be reined in. These agencies have exceeded their constitutional authority. 

The Wall Street Journal, often a Trump adversary, is on Trump’s side. It says “The Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department both enforce antitrust and consumer protection laws. But the Attorney General answers to the President, while the FTC Chair doesn’t. This makes no logicalgoverning sense.”

So the issue is who holds the independent agencies accountable for their actions. If they are part of the legislative branch then it would be the congress. However, they are part of the executive branch. Shouldn’t the responsibility then fall to the president? The constitutional crisis may well be the lack of accountability of these agencies. I think Trump wants to have a clear ruling from the Supreme Court on the independence of these agencies and their oversight. 

Again the Wall Street Journal says “The president ordered agency heads to scour every regulation and bit of guidance under their remit and make lists of those that violate the constitution, exceed legislative power, go beyond the clear words of a statute or harm the national interest. The White House is laying the groundwork to declare hundreds of rules null and void on grounds that they weren’t lawful in the first place. Will it get sued? Yes, and the White House knows it. The clear hope is to build on recent Supreme Court rulings that rein in the bureaucratic state.”  Suits? Trump says “bring it on.”

Constitutional crisis? More like constitutional cleanup. It will be interesting to see what the courts have to say about agency independence and about impoundment when the White House decides not to spend monies appropriated by the congress. That should prove interesting.