Lawless acts

JUST UNDER a year ago, on July 1, 2024, the US Supreme Court granted American presidents immunity from prosecution. Back then, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – one of just three dissenting justices – warned the majority was empowering “all future presidents to cross the line of criminality.”

But not even she might have anticipated Donald Trump’s second term. We are long past “the line of criminality.” The rule of law appears to be under threat.

On April 16, James Boasberg, Washington DC’s chief district judge, slammed the US government in a case involving the March 15 deportation of individuals to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

Said the judge in a 46-page opinion: “The court ultimately determines that the government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its order, sufficient for the court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt.”

The language used by the judge is formal, but confirms the assault on law and order under the Trump administration.

Consider Mr Trump’s first 100 days in office.

On day one, he pardoned 1,600 people involved in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol in which insurrectionists attempted to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

But that vandalisation of the seat of the US legislature was a mere prelude to his glut of executive orders, dozens of which have already been deemed unlawful.

The collective effect of this flood of unilateral measures is not just to create the impression of an activist president, it is arguably part of a Trumpian project to extend the limits of presidential power, sometimes supplanting the role of both legislative and judicial branches.

This week’s findings about the US government were foretold months ago.

“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive branch’s legitimate power,” JD Vance, the US vice president, claimed in February. Pam Bondi, one of the least qualified attorneys general, was confirmed in January with an agenda of retribution.

The US president has sought to choke off attempts to have his government’s actions reviewed in court by punishing big firms that take cases.

In March, the American Bar Association warned of “escalating governmental efforts to interfere with fair and impartial courts, the right to counsel and due process.” Judges, too, are targets, being threatened with impeachment.

So it is at home, so it is abroad.

Mr Trump’s call for a “riviera of the Middle East” trammels international law. His wish to annex countries breaches sovereignty. This week, he even suggested US citizens could be deported. This cannot be dismissed as rhetoric. Student visas have been revoked.

Wrong people have been “accidentally” removed without due process. His words constitute a breakdown of the universal value of law and order. This can endanger the world.