Analysis: As Trump team overhauls government, a constitutional crisis looms

Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk and others in the Trump administration are openly challenging the centuries-old power of the nation’s judiciary, foreshadowing a possible constitutional breakdown of American government.

Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk and others in the Trump administration are openly challenging the centuries-old power of the nation’s judiciary, foreshadowing a possible constitutional breakdown of American government. It’s not simply that the new administration has flouted a raft of federal statutes and prompted a flood of legal challenges. It’s that some of Donald Trump’s top advisers have cast doubt on whether rulings on those lawsuits would even constrain the president. There are signs that some judges’ orders have been disregarded. On Monday, a federal judge in Rhode Island found that the administration has violated the “plain text” of his earlier order unfreezing billions of dollars in federal aid. The judge directed funding to be reinstated to environmental, health and other programs that had been cut off. In a separate case Monday, in Washington, DC, federal employees told a judge that the administration had failed to reinstate USAID workers who were put on leave. In fighting the cases, the Justice Department says the president should have the authority to decide how to run the government and that the judges are overreaching. Chief Justice John Roberts may have presaged the turn of events six weeks ago as he warned at the end of December that “elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.”