From His AG To The Supreme Court, Is Trump And The GOP Abusing Their Powers To Fire, Hire And Appoint?

Right away at the beginning of his administration, Donald Trump wanted to fire FBI Director James Comey. But Stephen Bannon, White House Chief Strategist, thought the new president didn’t understand the powers of the permanent institutions-the FBI, CIA, the Pentagon and the broader military establishment. He disagreed and offered this argument: “Seventy-five percent of agents do hate Comey. No Doubt. The moment you fire him he’s J. fu--ing Edgar Hoover. The day you fire him, he’s the greatest martyr in American history. A weapon to come and get you. They’re going to name a special fu--ing counsel. You can fire Comey. You can’t fire the FBI. The minute you fire him, the FBI as an institution, they have to destroy you and they will destroy you.”(1)

Firing, Hiring, And Appointing Without Constraint
Stephen Bannon didn’t think the new president knew the powers of even his own office, either or that of a special counsel who could be appointed to investigate everything a president touched. Consequently, it wasn’t a surprise when Donald Trump announced another appointee, William Barr, to succeed his previous Attorney General Jeff Sessions whom he’d fired. He had, after all, sought out his chief defense lawyer who’d backed the firing of James Comey. This included replacing Robert Mueller and criticizing some of his prosecutors for their political donations to Clinton’s campaign. Consider too that Sen. Lindsay Graham has just announced that Donald Trump was “hell-bent” on replacing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by appointing another conservative.

Although the U.S. Constitution spells out in great detail the norms of mutual toleration and institutional restraint among the three branches of government, it doesn’t mean that the rules of “checks and balances” or of “separation of powers” have been respected. To be sure, there’s been many occasions where the executive branch, Congress, and judiciary haven’t struck a delicate balance. The Congress and judiciary has instead lacked oversight in allowing the president to pack the Supreme Court, to sign executive orders that crush civil liberties, and to declare unconstitutional wars. The wording in Article II, which sought to ensure accountability and preempt tyranny, has sometimes faltered at best. The other two branches have at times committed enormous injustices as well.

Everything Changed In 2016
For a presidential democracy to succeed, norms of mutual toleration and restraint must not only be followed, but institutions that are muscular enough to check the president should routinely underuse their power. Tragically, everything changed on March 16, 2016, when President Barack Obama nominated appellate judge Merrick Garland to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the Supreme Court. No one doubted that Merrick Garland was a qualified candidate, and by all accounts he was an ideological moderate. But for the first time in American history, the Republican dominated Senate refused to even consider an elected president’s nominee of the Supreme Court.(2) In other words, the political world had changed. It had become weaponized in favor of the GOP.

In a radical departure from historical precedent, Senate Republicans denied the president’s authority to nominate a new justice. It was an extraordinary instance of breaking the norms of mutual toleration. Within a year, a Republican led White House and Senate got their wish: a conservative justice nominee, Neil Gorsuch, whom they quickly nominated and pushed though. He was followed by a more controversial nominee who was finally appointed with great force, perhaps the most controversial one ever in the Supreme Court’s history due to allegations over sexual harassment. President Trump and the GOP had trampled on the democrat norms of toleration and fairness-in effect, stealing a Supreme Court seat-and gotten away with. For some, it was tyrannical rule by fiat.

“Hell-Bent” And Partisan Powers
Fast-forward to Sen. Lindsay Graham’s shocking, “hell-bent” announcement to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg-who’s suffering from lung cancer-with a conservative. Or the one made by Donald Trump regarding William Barr. Some warn that both are on a mission to overturn traditions underpinning America’s democratic institutions. The unraveling of our democracy and the opening up a disconcerting gap between how our political system works and long-standing expectations about how it “ought” to work is plain to see. Others say Donald Trump’s serial norm breaking rules of mutual toleration and lack of restraint is weakening the guardrails of democracy. Unknowingly, the same may be true of our growing vulnerability to our own antidemocratic tendencies and partisan leaders we back.

Thomas Sowell wrote: “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” The same goes for presidents who not only appoint and fire without limits, but attack federal judges and directors of our democratic institution. This includes a Senate that either obstructs or shoves through appointments and laws without any consequences. But eschewing bipartisan cooperation in favor of chaos or obstruction, or abandoning all pretense of bipartisanship on the counsel of a tiny radicalized coalition or rogue president has a price. Immense powers, like presidential appointments or executive orders, can create a temptation to rule unilaterally. Some call it a dictatorship, something President Franklin Roosevelt found out when tried to pack the Supreme Court.

The Danger From Within
In his book, “Fear: Trump In The White House,” Bob Woodward writes that in 2016, candidate Donald Trump gave him and Bob Costa his definition of president. “More than anything else” said Donald Trump, “it’s the security of our nation….That’s number one, two and three….The military being strong, not letting bad things happen to our country from the outside.” He then added, “And I certainly think that’s always going to be my number-one part of that definition.” The reality was that the U.S. in 2017, 2018, and now 2019 was tethered to the words and actions of an emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader. Members of his own staff have even had to join to purposefully block some of what they believed were the president’s most dangerous impulses.(3)

Little did many realize the real danger might be from within: A small group of radicalized Republicans who’ve enabled the nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.

(1) Levitsky, Steven and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York, New York: Crown Publishers, 2018., p. 163.
(2) Woodward, Bob. Fear: Trump In The White House. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2018., p. 145.
(3) Ibid., p. xxii.