‘Slipping into the clutches of an authoritarian’: Trump’s potential defiance of Supreme Court could lead to a full-blown constitutional crisis

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

In this winter of political uneasiness, it is important to look back on Articles I, II and III of the United States Constitution.

High school civics class taught us that the first three articles of the Constitution established the structure of America’s government. Congress, the legislative branch, makes the laws of the United States; the Supreme Court — the judicial — interprets the laws; and the president — the executive — enforces the laws.

Each of the branches are coequal and provide a system of checks and balances. The Framers created this system to ensure that no branch becomes dominant. Each branch of government is vested with the ability to respond to the actions of the others.

The president can veto legislation created by Congress, as well as nominate heads of federal agencies and Supreme Court appointees. Congress confirms or rejects the president’s nominees. It can also remove the president from office in exceptional circumstances.

The justices of the Supreme Court, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, can overturn unconstitutional laws.

For nearly 238 years this structure of checks and balances have held the “Great American Experiment” together, but the experiment has faced challenges in the past. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, as president of the United States, was part of the first potential constitutional crisis when the Supreme Court in February 1803 decided the case of Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review. Years later, in 1834, President Andrew Jackson, unhappy with a Supreme Court decision that favored Cherokee Indians in the region that would eventually become northern Georgia, is believed to have said of Chief Justice John Marshall: “[He] has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

The Civil War saw the nation split in two. President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to run for an unprecedented third and fourth term as president. In the 1950s, southern states defied the Supreme Court’s ruling against segregation in public schools. In more recent times, the country endured three presidential impeachments in 16 years.

Is America in a constitutional crisis today? Adam Liptak of The New York Times recently defined a constitutional crisis as “the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings.” Trump has signed more than 60 executive orders so far, the most in a president’s first 100 days in more than 40 years. As of this writing, Trump has been in office a little more than 30 days.

The orders, which Trump critics say greatly exceed his constitutional authority, range from tariffs on Mexico and Canada, to pauses on foreign aid and crackdowns on illegal immigration. Not to mention, bans on transgender people serving in the military or participating in athletics, revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, firing government employees who are subject to civil service protections and firing inspectors general — the government’s own watchdogs.

Saikrishna Prakash, a former clerk to conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who now teaches law at the University of Virginia told NPR, “The courts, you know, can issue orders and judgments, and, per the Constitution, I think the president is obligated to follow those orders and judgments. But, of course, there’s a practical question, which is how do you get someone to comply with the law?”

More than 10 federal courts have temporarily halted or rejected actions resulting from the new Trump administration’s actions. Last week, U.S. District Judge John McConnell found that the Trump administration has not fully followed his order to unfreeze federal spending and release billions of dollars.

However, statements by top Trump adviser Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance appear to openly challenge judicial authority. The statements have raised concerns that the administration may ignore court rulings it opposes, reported the Brennan Center.

“It’s an open question whether the administration will be as contemptuous of courts as it has been of Congress and the Constitution,” Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told The New York Times.

In the first case to reach the Supreme Court in the wake of the onslaught of executive orders and actions taken within the first weeks of the new administration, lawyers for Trump have asked the justices to let him fire a government lawyer after a federal district judge ordered that the lawyer must be reinstated.

The Trump administration’s emergency application asked the high court to vacate a federal trial judge’s order temporarily reinstating Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Dellinger leads an independent agency charged with safeguarding government whistleblowers and enforcing certain ethics laws. The position is unrelated to special counsels, such as Jack Smith, appointed by the Justice Department.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative bent. If the court constrains the president’s authority to fire government employees, Trump’s potential defiance of the court’s ruling could lead to a full-blown constitutional crisis unlike anything the country has ever experienced.

But if the Supreme Court capitulates to the president, the crisis may be even more grave. With the GOP kowtowing to Trump and in the majority in both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court not imposing any restraints, this country may well be slipping into the clutches of an authoritarian.

(Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino)

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

‘Slipping into the clutches of an authoritarian’: Trump’s potential defiance of Supreme Court could lead to a full-blown constitutional crisis

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