A legal expert said President Donald Trump is carrying out a “blitzkrieg on the law and the Constitution” through his use of executive orders designed to transform the federal government.
Since entering the White House less than two weeks ago, the president has challenged birthright citizenship enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment and fired 18 inspectors general at some of the country’s top federal agencies in a flurry of executive orders.
Experts and historians say Trump’s actions indicate that he is more willing than previous presidents to run roughshod over the Constitution.
“Without any doubt Donald Trump is the most lawless and scofflaw president we have ever seen in the history of the United States,” Laurence Tribe, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, told the Guardian.
He said Trump 2.0 is carrying out “a blitzkrieg on the law and the constitution. The very fact that the illegal actions have come out with the speed of a rapidly firing Gatling gun makes it very hard for people to focus on any one of them.”
“That’s obviously part of the strategy,” he added.
Tribe also said the Trump administration’s chaotic effort to pause federal aid”was a clear usurpation of a coordinate branch’s [Congress’] exclusive power of the purse.”
The Trump White House ultimately rescinded the order that sparked confusion about funding for Social Security, Medicaid and educational programs.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, concurred with Tribe that Trump is flouting federal law in his second go-round in the White House.
“A stunning number of his executive actions clearly violate the constitution and federal law,” Chemerinsky told the Guardian. “I cannot think of any president who has ever so ignored the constitution as extensively in the first 10 days of office as this.”
He continued: “I certainly doubt that any president has done so much lawless so quickly that affects so many people.”
“The freeze of federal spending potentially affects tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people,” Chemerinsky said.
Originally published on Latin Times
