It’s a constitutional crisis when the president doesn’t care what the Constitution says

 Adam Liptak writes in The New York Times:

There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse.

It can also be obvious, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” he said on Friday. “There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”

He ticked off examples of what he called President Trump’s lawless conduct: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, shutting down an agency, removing leaders of other agencies, firing government employees subject to civil service protections and threatening to deport people based on their political views.

That is a partial list, Professor Chemerinsky said, and it grows by the day. “Systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis,” he said.

The distinctive feature of the current situation, several legal scholars said, is its chaotic flood of activity that collectively amounts to a radically new conception of presidential power. But the volume and speed of those actions may overwhelm and thus thwart sober and measured judicial consideration.

It will take some time, though perhaps only weeks, for a challenge to one of Mr. Trump’s actions to reach the Supreme Court. On Monday, a federal judge said the White House had defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump administration is disobeying a judicial mandate.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump would defy a ruling against him by the justices.

“It’s an open question whether the administration will be as contemptuous of courts as it has been of Congress and the Constitution,” said Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “At least so far, it hasn’t been.”

 

That could change. On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance struck a confrontational tone on social media. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he wrote.

Professor Shaw said a clash with the courts would only add to a crisis that is already underway. “A number of the new administration’s executive orders and other executive actions are in clear violation of laws enacted by Congress,” she said.

“The administration’s early moves,” she added, “also seem designed to demonstrate maximum contempt for core constitutional values — the separation of powers, the freedom of speech, equal justice under law.”

Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford, added that a crisis need not arise from clashes between the branches of the federal government.

“It’s a constitutional crisis when the president of the United States doesn’t care what the Constitution says regardless whether Congress or the courts resist a particular unconstitutional action,” she said. “Up until now, while presidents might engage in particular acts that were unconstitutional, I never had the sense that there was a president for whom the Constitution was essentially meaningless.”

The courts, in any event, may not be inclined or equipped to push back. So much is happening, and so fast, that even eventual final rulings from the Supreme Court rejecting Mr. Trump’s arguments could come too late. After the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are disassembled, say, no court decision can recreate them.

In many cases, of course, the Supreme Court’s six-member conservative majority may be receptive to Mr. Trump’s arguments. Its decision in July granting him substantial immunity from prosecution embraced an expansive vision of the presidency that can only have emboldened him.

Members of that majority are, for instance, likely to embrace the president’s position that he is free to fire leaders of independent agencies.

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Mangino discusses socialite murder trial on Court TV

 Watch my interview on Court TV discussing the socialite murder trial of Penelope McGee.

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Is it time to worry? 'A shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover'

A pitiless crackdown on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions, writes David Smith of The Guardian.

The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun.

With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down.

“They are copying the path taken by other would-be dictators like Viktor Orbán,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut. “You have a move towards state-controlled media. You have a judiciary and law enforcement that seems poised to prioritise the prosecution of political opponents. You have the executive seizure of spending power so the leader and only the leader gets to dictate who gets money.”

Orbán, who came to power in 2010, was once described as “Trump before Trump” by the US president’s former adviser Steve Bannon. His long-term dismantling of institutions and control of media in Hungary serves as a cautionary tale about how seemingly incremental changes can pave the way for authoritarianism.

Orbán has described his country as “a petri dish for illiberalism”. His party used its two-thirds majority to rewrite the constitution, capture institutions and change electoral law. He reconfigured the judiciary and public universities to ensure long-term party loyalty.

The prime minister created a system of rewards and punishments, giving control of money and media to allies. An estimated 85% of media outlets are controlled by the Hungarian government, allowing Orbán to shape public opinion and marginalise dissent. Orbán has been also masterful at weaponising “family values” and anti-immigration rhetoric to mobilise his base.

Orbán’s fans in the US include Vice-President JD Vance, the media personality Tucker Carlson and Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation thinktank, who once said: “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.” The Heritage Foundation produced Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term.

Orbán has addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and two months ago travelled to the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for talks with both Trump and Musk. He has claimed that “we have entered the policy writing system of President Donald Trump’s team” and “have deep involvement there”.

But even Orbán might be taken aback – and somewhat envious – of the alacrity that Trump has shown since returning to power, attacking the foundations of democracy not with a chisel but a sledgehammer.

On day one he pardoned about 1,500 people who took part in the 6 January 2021 insurrection, including those who violently attacked US Capitol police in an effort to overturn his election defeat. Driven by vengeance, he dismissed federal prosecutors involved in Trump-related investigations and hinted at a further targeting of thousands of FBI agents who worked on January 6-related cases.

Bill Kristol, director of the advocacy group Defending Democracy Together and a former official in the Ronald Reagan White House, said: “Flipping the narrative on January 6, becoming a pro-January 6 administration, then weaponising the justice department and talking at least of mass firings at the FBI – that’s further than the norm and very dangerous for obvious reasons.

“If he could do that, he could do anything. Why can’t he order the justice department to investigate you and me and 50 other people? One assumes the lawyers at justice or the FBI agents wouldn’t do it, but if a couple of thousand have been cleared out and the rest are intimidated. I’m not hysterical but I do think the threat is much more real now than people anticipated it being a month ago.”

Borrowing from Orbán’s playbook, Trump has mobilised the culture wars, issuing a series of executive orders and policy changes that target diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and education curricula. This week he signed an executive order aimed at banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports and directed the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to lead a taskforce on eradicating what he called anti-Christian bias within the federal government.

He is also seeking to marginalise the mainstream media and supplant it with a rightwing ecosystem that includes armies of influencers and podcasters. A “new media” seat has been added to the White House press briefing room while Silicon Valley billionaires were prominent at his inauguration. Musk’s X is a powerful mouthpiece, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has abandoned factchecking and the Chinese-owned TikTok could become part-owned by the US.

Trump has sued news organisations over stories or even interview edits; some have settled the cases. The Pentagon said it would “rotate” four major news outlets from their workspace and replace them with more Trump-friendly media. Jim Acosta, a former White House correspondent who often sparred with Trump, quit CNN while Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, was hired to host a new weekend show on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News.

But the most dramatic change has been the way in which Trump has brought disruption to the federal government on an unprecedented scale, firing at least 17 inspectors general, dismantling longstanding programmes, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation’s laws and pay its bills.

Government workers are being pushed to resign, entire agencies are being shuttered and federal funding to states and non-profits was temporarily frozen. The most sensitive treasury department information of countless Americans was opened to Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) team in a breach of privacy and protocol, raising concerns about potential misuse of federal funds.

Musk’s allies orchestrated a physical takeover of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), locking out employees and vowing to shut it down, with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, stepping in as acting administrator. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted on X.

Musk’s team has also heavily influenced the office of personnel management (OPM), offering federal workers a “buyout” and installing loyalists into key positions. It is also pushing for a 50% budget cut and implementing “zero-based budgeting” at the General Services Administration (GSA), which controls federal properties and massive contracts.

Musk, a private citizen who has tens of billions of dollars in government contracts, is slashing and burning his way through Washington with little accountability and has significant potential conflicts of interest. An array of lawsuits is demanding interventions to stop him unilaterally gutting government. Protests are erupting outside government agencies and jamming congressional phone lines.

But critics aiming to sound the alarm that a shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover face intimidation or punishment. Edward Martin, the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, threatened legal action against anyone who “impedes” Doge’s work or “threatens” its people. Martin posted on X: “We are in contact with FBI and other law-enforcement partners to proceed rapidly. We also have our prosecutors preparing.”

Murphy, the Democratic senator, said: “What’s most worrying to me right now is there’s a whole campaign under way to try to punish and suppress Trump and Musk’s political enemies. It started with the pardoning of the January 6 rioters; now everybody knows that they are at risk of having the shit beat out of them if they oppose Donald Trump.

“It extended to the seizure of government funding. It’s clear now that Musk and Trump are going to fund entities and states and congressional districts that support them and will withhold funds from entities and states and congressional districts that don’t support them.”

He added: “Now you have this lawyer who represented January 6 defendants, the new acting DC US attorney, trolling activists online, threatening them with federal prosecution. It’s dizzying campaign of political repression that looks more like Russia than the United States.”

Democrats such as Murphy are determined to fight back but, being in the minority, have few tools at their disposal. Republicans have mostly appeared content to cede their own power. The party’s fealty to Trump was demonstrated again this week when senators in committee voted to move forward with the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F Kennedy Jr as director of national intelligence and health secretary respectively – two mavericks whose selection would have been unthinkable just a year ago.

Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “There had been some lingering optimism that at least some Republican senators would draw the line at some of the more absurd Maga appointees but that hasn’t happened. That also demoralises any potential opposition.”

He added: “What Elon Musk represents is basically a hostile takeover of the government and the complete indifference of the Republican Congress to the ways that it is being stripped of its core constitutional functions is demoralising. It is this mood that nothing can be done or will be done to stop them. You’re seeing that in the business community, in the political community, and it’s a fundamental loss of faith in the rule of law and in our system of checks and balances.”

One guardrail is holding for now. Courts have temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship, cull the government workforce and freeze federal funding. Even so, commentators warn that the blatant disregard for congressional authority, erosion of civil service protections and concentration of power in the executive branch pose a grave threat.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “You’d have to have your eyes fully closed not to be deeply concerned and outraged about the vacuum that Donald Trump is operating in now. In a real sense, US democracy has died this month. It doesn’t mean it’s dead for the long term but at this moment the idea of an accountable representative system, as the framers of the constitution wrote it, is no longer present.”

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Support for Menendez brothers results in prosecutors' demotions

Two Los Angeles County prosecutors claimed in new legal filings that they were demoted and faced retaliation for supporting the resentencing of Erik and Lyle Menendez , reported NBC News.

Prosecutors Nancy Theberge and Brock Lunsford filed government claims alleging they were transferred out of the district attorney's office's resentencing unit because of their work supporting the brothers’ resentencing and for their perceived political association with George Gascón, the former Los Angeles County district attorney.

Theberge’s filing further claimed she was subjected to discriminatory treatment because of her age and gender. Her filing said office leaders treated her differently from younger, male colleagues, “undermining her authority and professional standing.”

Both Theberge and Lunsford had supported the resentencing, and from October they began to attend meetings about the motion for resentencing.

The Menendez brothers were convicted of their parents’ murders in 1989, and in 1996 they were sentenced to life in prison without parole. They remain in a California prison.

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Alabama carries out another execution using nitrogen gas

 The 3rd Execution of 2025

The state of Alabama executed Demetrius Terrence Frazier by nitrogen gas on February 6, 2025 for the rape and murder of Pauline Brown in Birmingham in 1991, reported the Alabama Reflector.

Frazier, 52, the fourth person the state has executed by nitrogen gas, was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m., according to Gov. Kay Ivey’s office.

“First of all, I want to apologize to the friends and family of Pauline Brown, what happened to her should never have happened,” Frazier said when he made his final statement. “I want to apologize to the Black community.”

Frazier also criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for not intervening in his case. Frazier was transferred to Alabama in 2011 while serving a life sentence in Michigan for the 1992 murder of Crystal Kendrick, 14. His legal team had urged Whitmer to take custody of his case and have him transferred back to the state for the crimes he committed in Michigan. Whitmer did not intervene.

A member of the Corrections staff adjusted Frazier’s mask at about 6:10 p.m. and the nitrogen gas began to flow a few minutes afterward. Media witnesses reported that Frazier struggled to breathe for several minutes during the execution.

At one point in the execution, Frazier lifted his legs and his body twitched, according to media witnesses. That is similar to what other witnesses observed from the three other executions that the state carried out using nitrogen gas.

Witnesses said that they observed Frazier take his final breath at about 6:20 p.m.

“It went according to plan like our protocol says,” ADOC Commissioner John Hamm said at a news conference following the execution.

The state executed Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen gas in January 2024. Alan Eugene Miller was put to death under the method in September. Carey Dale Grayson followed in November.

“In Alabama, we enforce the law,” Ivey said in a statement Thursday evening. “You don’t come to our state and mess with our citizens and get away with it.”

The governor said that justice was carried out on behalf of Brown and her loved ones.

“I pray for her family that all these years later, they can continue healing and have assurance that Demetrius Frazier cannot harm anyone else,” Ivey said.

Frazier was convicted of Kendrick’s death in 1993 and sentenced to life in prison. An Alabama  jury convicted Frazier of capital murder in 1996 and recommended he be put to death by a vote of 10-2. While arguing that Frazier should be returned to Michigan, Frazier’s legal team also argued the nitrogen gas protocol violated Frazier’s Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, citing the distress that media witnesses reported among the men who had previously been subjected to it.

The federal courts rejected both arguments. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said they would not ask for Frazier to be returned to their state.

Frazier’s family and supporters petitioned Whitmer to intervene. Frazier’s mother Carol penned a letter that requested Whitmer get involved, and a petition collected more than 4,000 signatures.

“We are disappointed that Michigan chose to ignore requests to intercede, to ignore its own history, and failed to have Mr. Frazier returned to Michigan to complete his life sentences,” Frazier’s legal team said in a statement after Frazier’s execution Thursday. “We are disappointed that Gov. Ivey has not granted clemency, especially under these uniquely unfair and painful circumstances.  Martin Luther King, Jr. said ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ Tonight, we grieve for everyone.”

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U.S. Senator Tillis conceded Trump's actions “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, "nobody should bellyache about that.”

This morning The New York Times asks, is there a constitutional crisis?

 In the United States, Congress, the president and the courts are supposed to keep an eye on one another — to stop any one branch of government from becoming too powerful. President Trump is showing us what happens when those checks and balances break down.

The president can’t shut down agencies that Congress has funded, yet that’s what Trump did, with Elon Musk’s help, to the U.S. Agency for International Development. The president can’t fire inspectors general without giving lawmakers 30 days’ notice, but Trump dismissed 17 of them anyway. Congress passed a law forcing TikTok to sell or close, and the courts upheld it, but Trump declined to enforce it. “The president is openly violating the law and Constitution on a daily basis,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College.

In doing so, Trump has called the bluff of our constitutional system: It works best when each branch does its job with alacrity. Trump’s opponents are filing lawsuits, but courts are slow and deliberative. They can’t keep up with the changes the White House has already implemented. Congress could fight back, but the Republican lawmakers in charge have shrugged, as my colleague Carl Hulse reported. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina conceded that what the administration is doing “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, he said, “nobody should bellyache about that.”

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Texas executes man who murdered pastor during church robbery

 The 2nd Execution of 2025

Steven Lawayne Nelson, of Texas, convicted of beating and suffocating a Dallas area pastor in his church during a robbery was put to death on February 5, 2025, the second execution in the U.S. this year and the first of four scheduled in Texas over the next three months, reported The Associated Press.

Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was convicted of the 2011 killing of the Rev. Clint Dobson, a 28-year-old pastor who was beaten, strangled and suffocated with a plastic bag inside NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington. The church’s secretary, Judy Elliott, 67, was severely beaten but survived.

Shortly before the injection began, the inmate repeatedly told his wife, who watched through a window a short distance from him, that he loved her and that he was thankful and grateful.

 “It is what it is,” Nelson said. When he added that she should “enjoy life,” the woman, Helene Noa Dubois, held up to the window a white service dog that she was allowed to bring into the witness area.

“I’m not scared. I’m at peace,” Nelson added. “Let’s ride, Warden.”

As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began to be administered, he told Dubois, who married him recently while he was in prison, “Let me go to sleep.” The drug appeared to take effect as he said the word, “Love,” the he gasped twice and appeared to try to hold his breath. His head, shoulders and arms trembled for a few seconds before all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 24 minutes later.

Nelson was the first Texas death row inmate executed since Robert Roberson’s Oct. 17, 2024, execution date was delayed in what would have been the first in the U.S. tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

South Carolina carried out the nation’s first execution of 2025 on Friday. Marion Bowman Jr. received a lethal injection for his murder conviction in the shooting death of a friend whose burned body was found in a car in 2001.

Relatives of the victims declined to speak with reporters and released statements earlier Wednesday.

“As a family, we have chosen to take this day to focus on the great memories we have of Clint rather than giving time to his killer,” Dobson’s family said in its statement. “Steven Nelson forever changed our lives, but he has never occupied our minds. ... We miss Clint every day. We miss his laughter and his wit, his advice and his love for us.”

Bradley Elliott, whose mother Judy survived the attack, said: “I hope that today as Mr. Nelson took his last breath that he was greeted by the same loving and gracious Savior that has stood by us through all we have been a part of.” The statement added: “Mr. Nelson, we forgive you and hope to see you when we are called home from here.”

Nelson was a laborer and high school dropout with a long history of legal trouble and arrests that started as early as age 6. Nelson had pleaded for mercy, claiming that he had only served as a robbery lookout and blamed two other men for killing Dobson.

Nelson testified at trial and has maintained that he waited outside the church for about 25 minutes before going in and seeing that Dobson and the secretary had been beaten, and he insisted Dobson was still alive. Nelson said he took Dobson’s laptop and that one of the other men gave him Elliott’s car keys and credit cards.

The victims were later found by Elliott’s husband, the church’s part-time music minister, who didn’t immediately recognize her because she had been so severely beaten.

Trial evidence showed Nelson’s fingerprints and pieces of his broken belt at the crime scene, drops of the victims’ blood on his sneakers, and surveillance video showing him driving Elliott’s car and using her credit cards. Investigators also said the two men Nelson blamed for the attack had detailed alibis.

Nelson’s attorneys appealed on claims of bad legal representation at his trial and sentencing, saying this lawyers did little to challenge the alibis of the other men, or present mitigating evidence of a troubled childhood in Oklahoma and Texas.

While awaiting trial, Nelson was indicted in the killing of another jail inmate. He was never tried on that charge after his guilty verdict and death sentence.

Nelson’s appeals had been denied by state and federal courts. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a stay of execution on Jan. 28, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay hours before the execution.

Three more executions are scheduled in Texas before the end of April. The first is scheduled for Feb. 13. Richard Lee Tabler was condemned for gunning down a strip club manager and the manager’s friend in 2004.

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