The news cycle moves so fast these days that you could almost forget we had a breathless news cycle over a supposedly imminent constitutional crisis just two weeks ago. The assumptions fueling that transient panic — that the president would ignore court orders forcing him to abandon his efforts to reclaim control over the executive branch — have not materialized. That is generally (although not entirely) because the courts have avoided permanently enjoining Trump from exerting his authority over his administration. The panic has not, however, subsided.
“The Justice Department told Senate Democrats earlier this month that it will not defend long-standing safeguards that prevent the president from firing the heads of ‘multi-member regulatory commissions’ without cause,” Semafor reported on Tuesday. In addition, “Trump signed an executive order that directed all independent agencies to run proposed regulations by the White House.” According to the “legal experts” surveying the scene, the president’s efforts to reclaim his authority over so-called independent agencies, inspectors general, and even his ability to fire his subordinates is unbound by propriety. Indeed, even agencies like the Federal Reserve — an institution designed to be removed from the day-to-day political fray so that American monetary policy doesn’t begin to resemble its disastrous fiscal policy — may see its autonomy erode.
Comments