Writing History – tracking Trump’s actions #3

Dear all – I’ve been busy this past week driving back to Canada which included a stop in Chicago to see family. However, now back in action and ready to look at two more of Project 2025’s objectives: Declare the President above the law and Weaponize the Department of Justice. It seems to me that they go hand in hand.

==> If you are only interested in historical fiction, you may wish to stop reading now. Be assured that the next post will feature historical fiction.

As I’ve said in earlier posts, the deluge of information about what Donald Trump is doing is overwhelming and indeed intended to overwhelm. Such a deluge makes it difficult to step away from the chaos and assess the overall impact or underlying intent. Fortunately, the New York Times has been tracking the actions of Donald Trump’s administration since January 20, 2025, posting and categorizing each day’s new events.

Let’s ask ourselves why Project 2025 emphasizes these two objectives. The first thing that comes to mind is that leaders who are untethered by the law can do anything they – and their backers – want. The ACLU’s assessment is that Project 2025 is “a roadmap for how to replace the rule of law with ring-wing ideals.” Authors of Project 2025 state their objective: “Project 2025 is a historic movement, brought together by over 100 respected organizations from across the conservative movement, to take down the Deep State and return the government to the people.”

If you also weaponize the justice system, an untethered leader can do just about anything.

In the early pages of Project 2025, Rick Dearborn, one of the main architects behind the plan, has this to say about presidential power: “The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power—including power currently held by the executive branch—to the American people. Success in meeting that challenge will require a rare combination of boldness and self-denial: boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will and self-denial to use the bureaucratic machine to send power away from Washington and back to America’s families, faith communities, local governments, and states.”

A little later, on page 66, Dearborn writes: “When a new President takes office, he will need to decide expeditiously how to handle any major ongoing litigation or pending legal matters that might present a challenge to his agenda.”

So, what did I find that I think fits under the category of Declare the President above the law?

• Supreme court decision on presidential immunity (July 24) – this sets the stage for all manner of illegal or anti-constitutional presidential actions.
• Argued that the president has absolute powers over the executive branch that the courts cannot usurp (Feb 9)
• Argued that a court order blocking Elon Musk’s team violates Trump’s absolute authority (Feb 10)
• Announced on social media: ‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’ (Feb 15)
• Asked the Supreme Court to vacate a lower court’s order that temporarily reinstated the head of the Office of Special Counsel (Feb 16)
• Sought to expand presidential power over agencies that Congress made independent (Feb 18)
• Posted a statement and meme on social media comparing President Trump to a king (Feb 19)
• Bypassed Congress to send $4 billion in weapons to Israel (Mar 2)
• Denied refusing to comply with a judge’s order to halt deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act (Mar 15)
• Repeatedly refused to answer a federal judge’s questions on deportations to El Salvador (Mar 17)
• Attacked a federal judge who ordered the administration to halt certain deportations (Mar 18)
• Escalated attacks on the judiciary by accusing a federal judge of trying to ‘usurp the presidency’ (Mar 20)
• Filed a motion seeking to disqualify a federal judge from presiding over a lawsuit (Mar 22)
• Said a judge who blocked deportations should be disbarred (Mar 23)
• Invoked state secrets privilege in declining to provide a federal judge with details about deportation flights to El Salvador (Mar 24)
• Asked the Supreme Court to block a ruling from a federal judge who ordered the administration to rehire thousands of fired federal workers (Mar 24)
• Suggested that federal judges be removed from cases scrutinizing Trump administration policies (Mar 27)
• Said he was serious about running for a third term in office (Mar 30)

When you look at these in aggregate, one might conclude that Donald Trump intends not to be constrained by the judiciary, the separation of powers amongst the co-equal branches of government, or the constitution.

Weaponizing the Dept of Justice is another component of strengthening presidential power. Many of the actions listed above also fit here. I’ve included some actions taken against law firms that worked on Trump’s court cases during the Biden administration.

• A sweeping pardon of all Jan 6th instigators which represents an attack on the justice department (Jan 20)
• Canceled entry-level job offers at the Justice Department (Jan 24)
• Fired prosecutors involved in the cases against President Trump or the Jan. 6 rioters (Jan 27)
• Fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors (Jan 31)
• Directed that all “Biden Era” U.S. attorneys be terminated (Feb 18)
• Picked former aide for top national security job at the Justice Department (Feb 19)
• Quietly pushed to present evidence against Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, to a federal grand jury over comments he made about Supreme Court justices in 2020 (Mar 3)
• Fired the Justice Department’s pardon attorney (Mar 7)
• Forced out a handful of senior career Justice Department officials (Mar 7)
• Gave a speech at the Justice Department that flouted the agency’s independence and aired bitter grievances against his personal enemies (Mar 14)
• Escalated attacks on the judiciary by accusing a federal judge of trying to ‘usurp the presidency’ (Mar 20 – I also put this under Declare the President above the law)
• Broadened campaign of retaliation against lawyers he dislikes (Mar 22)
• Added another law firm, Jenner & Block, to the list of those he targeted with executive orders (Mar 24)
• Considered a major restructuring of the Justice Department; According to NYTimes, these changes will reduce “the importance of powerful units at its headquarters created to hold crooked politicians, lawbreaking businesses and major polluters to legal account.” (Mar 27)
• Issued an executive order to punish WilmerHale, the law firm where Robert S. Mueller III worked before and after he served as special counsel in the Trump-Russia investigation (Mar 27)
• Made a deal with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a law firm, after threatening an executive order that would have punished the firm for its past work against the president (Mar 28)
• Fired two longtime career prosecutors in Los Angeles and Memphis (Mar 30)
• Planned to target another law firm that brought lawsuits against President Trump and his allies (Apr 1)

These actions suggest that the regime intends to weaponize the justice system by eliminating those who might resist or block the president’s efforts, to restructure the DOJ to suit the regime’s objectives, and to threaten prominent law firms that were involved in some of the many cases brought against Donald Trump.

Two previous posts on tracking Donald Trump’s actions:

• One that looks at dismantling the government
• Another that looks at the deportation of 11 million immigrants

Back soon.

FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION – YES, I PROMISE TO CONTINUE FEATURING HISTORICAL FICTION –  FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY. There’s a SUBSCRIBE function on the right hand side of the page. 

M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com.