On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts, in a not-so-veiled swipe at Donald Trump, stressed that the U.S. Constitution’s “main innovation” was the creation of an independent judiciary. Our Constitutional system of government only works, he emphasized, if powers shared between the three branches of federal government remain equal and balanced, and it is up to the Courts, not Trump, to decide what makes it so.
Roberts’ remarks followed the Trump regime’s astonishing flurry of demonizing attacks against the judiciary. On April 25, Attorney General Pam Bondi called judges who won’t legitimize Trump’s power grabs “deranged,” then, with characteristic bombast, warned the judiciary, “we will come after you and we will prosecute you.” That same day, Kash Patel had a Wisconsin Judge perp walked out of the courthouse in handcuffs because she allowed a defendant to exit from a side door to the main hall where everyone else, including the FBI, was waiting. Three days later, Karoline Leavitt intimated that Trump could have Supreme Court justices arrested.
Roberts can well see that Trump’s henchmen are attacking the judiciary as the last line of defense against an authoritarian coup. Perhaps more difficult to see is that Trump’s attacks, in concert with his deliberate weakening of national security, are acts of sabotage: He is wrecking our constitutional form of government in an effort to replace it with something else. From this perspective, it is difficult to see Trump’s strategy as anything short of treasonous.
A president projects his own criminality
Throughout his first 100 days, Trump engaged in wild and unprecedented acts of retribution against the rule of law and anyone who tried to hold him to it. Last week, describing Trump’s EO to punish and extort law firms that represented his political adversaries, a federal judge observed that, “No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue” in an attempt to march the country toward totalitarianism.
Aside from metastasizing power grabs, the most common thread running through Trump’s EOs-- announced through a series of White House propaganda papers issued every other day-- is Trump’s projection of his own crimes onto others. Anyone trying to map Trump’s elusive plan of governance need only look at what he attacks in his orders: those are his intentions. On his first day in office, for example, Trump issued an EO “Ending the weaponization of the federal government,” dialing weaponization of government power to unprecedented and unconstitutional levels.
Dripping in propaganda, it regurgitated Trump’s grievances about efforts to hold him legally accountable for his crimes, falsely proclaiming that:
The American people have witnessed the (Biden) administration engage in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community…
The prior administration and allies throughout the country engaged in an unprecedented, third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process (with) numerous Federal investigations and politically motivated funding revocations…
Trump then turned these accusations into a plan of action targeting political opponents, the intelligence community, the judiciary, and members of the bar in ways never before seen in American history.
On brand, Trump accuses others of treason
Determined to rule by EO fiat in order to bypass both legislative and judicial branches, Trump has issued a slew of incongruent declarations too wide ranging to list. To squelch dissent, he describes critics as ‘enemies of the state,’ and accuses them of treason.
Trump’s presidential memorandum about “leakers” of government information describes as “treasonous” any disclosure of sensitive information for the purposes of undermining foreign policy, national security, or Government effectiveness. ‘Undermining,’ of course, is whatever Trump says it is, which means any criticism can be deemed ‘treason.’
It’s a bold intimidation campaign meant to facilitate prosecution and imprisonment of critics in the near future. In this regard, Trump is modeling authoritarians unbridled by a pesky First Amendment, including Russia’s Putin, El Salvador’s Bukele, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and China’s Xi Jinping.
While his left hand attempts to silence critics, Trump’s right hand is actively sabotaging national security, by:
Step by step, agency by federal agency, Trump is systematically disabling any institution that could block his acquisition of power. Standing alone, each act weakens national security in ways that can’t be measured because the consequences have not yet materialized. Taken in concert, they reflect Trump’s intentional subversion of national security interests.
Treason
Treason, a federal crime, is defined by the Constitution as ‘levying war’ against the nation; it also includes “giving aid and comfort” to our enemies. Trump credibly has been accused of treason for aiding Russia’s interests over our own. In 2023, his actions in fomenting the J6 attack were also deemed treasonous when the Colorado Supreme Court found that he engaged in insurrection, a decision with roots in the Constitution’s definition of treason.
In a decision they may already regret, the Supreme Court found a workaround to avoid Colorado’s application of the 14th Amendment on grounds that had nothing to do with—and did not disturb—Colorado’s finding of insurrection.
Treason is defined as the betrayal of one’s country; it is hard to imagine a deeper betrayal than an American president questioning the basic applicability of the US Constitution while he actively subverts it.
I have no illusion that the spineless Republican party is prepared to rein Trump in at this juncture; as one Senator admitted, they are all too “frightened” of retribution to do their Constitutional duty. So for now, thanks to a feckless Supreme Court and cowardly federal legislators, we are a nation held hostage by a lawless president of questionable sanity and his power-drunk sycophants.
As America wonders how bad it will get before he is stopped, at least we are learning a valuable civics lesson: we are learning why the Constitution prohibits traitors from being elected.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns can be found in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, Howey Political Report, Indiana Democrats’ Kernel of Truth, Inside Indiana Business, MSN,Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News, South Florida Gay News, State Affairs, and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
