Trump's War on the U.S. Constitution

The Plum Line Opinion \


Trump’s deeply worrisome New York Times interview reveals a lawless president


To see Trump's contempt for the rule of law displayed so nakedly is more unsettling than usual.


Digby:


"Dahlia Lithwick summarizes just a few of the other unresolved questions posed by Donald Trump's asymmetrical warfare against the United States Constitution and the rule of law: 

 'Can the president truly continue to enrich himself and his family by leveraging his office to benefit from foreigners? Can the president really fire the FBI director and admit he was thinking about the Russia probe while doing it? Can the president leak classified information to the Russians in the Oval Office? Can the president’s son take a meeting with Russians who are promising dirt on Hillary Clinton? Can he do that with multiple campaign advisers in the room? Can the president’s son-in-law attend such a meeting and still retain his security clearance? 

 Today, we have a new set of questions to toss on the pile: Can the president really pardon himself and all his friends, family, neighbors, and pets, plus fire Robert Mueller, plus threaten his attorney general?' 

"Answers to those questions are in short supply, Lithwick writes. The system was not designed for a Trump. 

'The Framers erected an edifice of law intended to constrain power, and the president believes that framework is made of spun sugar and cobwebs. The United States is a nation built upon, as John Adams told us, “a government of laws and not of men.” The Trump administration adheres to no law, and whatever men or women keep faith with the law rather than him are discredited as biased against the president. This only goes one way: Norms are for losers, and laws are for poor people. And now Trump has his dream team of mob lawyers and mad dogs hard at work proving that the only lawyer without a disabling conflict of interest is the one pledging fealty to him.'