Loyalty, Fealty and the Destruction of the Constitution and our Entire Form of Governance

Loyalty, Fealty and the Destruction of the Constitution and our Entire Form of Governance

The Department of Justice is no longer the last resort federal agency created to protect Americans, ensuring equal protection under the law, with the US Constitution no longer the guiding light for all laws, all lawyers and all federal agencies. After discharging seasoned DOJ lawyers, attorneys once seeking one of the most prestigious legal jobs in the nation, the shell of the former legal agency has decimated its standards for employment, substituting the once sacrosanct allegiance to the US Constitution as the highest legal authority in the nation with an allegiance to the authority of the President of the United States.

The very notion of a retribution “president” seeking criminally to prosecute his political opposition, willing to excoriate federal judges (even his appointees) openly who do not implement his clear intention, exposing them to vigilantes quite willing to do them and their families harm, is profoundly anti-American and deeply unconstitutional. The President is rather upset that the state bar associations routinely disbar lawyers who are unwilling to honor their bar-admittance pledge to uphold the Constitution above all else. For example, Rudy Guilani was disbarred from several jurisdictions for his flagrant violations of the Constitution. Trump wants a federal rule that prevents such disbarment against federal lawyers. Simply, he continues to believe that government lawyers must obey even his most obvious illegal whims, without fear of losing their licenses to practice law.

Ethical US Attorneys are now fired when they refuse to (or cannot) push the envelope against Trump opponents, efforts that almost always run afoul of constitutional protections. Trump holds his DOJ responsible when they cannot secure grand jury indictments or are routinely tossed out of court for failure to present a viable case. Federal prosecutors used to joke that they could indict the phone book if they wanted, but obviously, there are limits. It is equally clear that between an unsustainable, budget-busting tax cut primarily benefitting the mega-wealthy (under the misnamed “Big Beautiful Bill”), his unilateral declaration of WAR on Iran (costing between $1 and $2 billion/day) and his most obvious antipathy to programs that benefit ordinary citizens, Trump makes it clear that the United States is a plutocracy, at best. US Attorneys must follow orders, and benefit programs for the rest of us must end.

In a recent White House Easter luncheon speech made before his Iran-WAR primetime address, President Trump floated the idea of ending national funding for Medicare, Medicaid and daycare centers and instead leaving it up to the states. Instead, he asked Congress for a whopping $1.5 trillion military budget (which would include his recent $200 billion ask to pay for his WAR): "We can balance the budget. We can have a surplus if you can stop that. And that does not include Medicare, Medicaid—that's even bigger… ‘We can't take care of daycare. You’ve got to let a state take care of daycare. And they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They'll have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for it. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare—all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal [level]. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.” Against what? Iran? Trump told us we annihilated their entire navy, air force and IRGC ability to wage war, but they just shot down an F-15 and still totally control the Strait of Hormuz. I guess no one ever told Trump that swatting at a wasp’s nest is never a good idea, and if there is a new regime in Tehran, it is much more hardline than what preceded it.

Further, those government lawyers unable to circumvent the Constitution or even merely congressional inquiry, however impossible that may be, are going to be removed, even the Attorney General of the United States. “President Donald Trump announced Thursday [4/2] that he was ousting Pam Bondi as attorney general, saying her chief deputy, Todd Blanche, will temporarily step into the role… In a social media post about the move, Trump called Bondi ‘a Great American Patriot’ and loyal friend. He praised her tenure leading the Justice Department and said she would be moving to an unspecified ‘important new job in the private sector.’…

“The decision abruptly ends Bondi’s tumultuous tenure in which she transformed the Justice Department into a tool for avenging the president’s grievances but could not escape his persistent frustration with her handling of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and struggles to prosecute the president’s perceived foes… The move makes Bondi the second Cabinet secretary Trump has ousted in the span of weeks following his decision last month to remove Kristi L. Noem as homeland security secretary.

“Trump is eyeing Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a possible replacement for Bondi, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations… A Trump loyalist who had defended him during his first impeachment and later backed his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, Bondi presented the type of TV-ready persona that the president has appeared drawn to while filling out the Cabinet for his second term.” Jeremy Roebuck, Emily Davies and Perry Stein, The Washington Post, as republished in the Journal of the American Bar Association (of which I am a member), April 2nd.

“Attorney General Pam Bondi had a pretty good idea her days were numbered… President Trump had complained too freely, too frequently, to too many people about her inability to prosecute the people he hates. She was falling short of Mr. Trump’s unyielding, unrealistic demands for retribution against his enemies. She had made mistake upon mistake in her handling of the Epstein files. Her critics were in the president’s ear.” Glenn Thrush and Tyler Pager for the April 3rd NY Times. It is only Trump’s iron grip on the officials, elected or seeking election as Republican candidates, that has transformed Congress into a “whatever Trump wants” legislative body, quite willing to ignore their constitutional mandate. Trump thought his hegemony extended to the US Supreme Court, but his arrogance is wearing thin even in the seemingly pro-Trump body.

The GOP/MAGA base is beginning to show serious fractures, and they seem to have lost support of our nation’s independents. For Trump’s monarchy to continue, he must be assured that voters who oppose him (now a clear majority) be marginalized and their votes limited any way Trump can disenfranchise them.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this rogue and probably demented presidential arrogance must be fully contained if we are to protect our prosperity and American way of life.