Opinion | The President Is on a Mission to Destroy the ‘Enemy From Within’

There is a growing body of evidence, however, that the Trump administration plans to defy the courts and argue that the judiciary has to step back and give Trump a free hand.

The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Hannah Natanson and Jonathan O’Connell reported on Feb. 8 that the goal of the Trump administration continues to be

to gut the civilian work force, assert power over the vast federal bureaucracy and shrink it to levels unseen in at least 20 years. The aim is a diminished government that exerts less oversight over private business, delivers fewer services and comprises a smaller share of the U.S. economy — but is far more responsive to the directives of the president.

While Trump and Musk have received the most attention, Vought is the key architect of the strategy to give Trump unequaled power by treating the president as if he were the chief executive of a private sector corporation, as opposed to a public figure limited by the checks and balances of the tripartite executive, judicial and congressional branches.

Vought is a proponent of the “unitary” theory of the presidency under which the chief executive may consider all federal workers as employees required to follow the agenda of the president.

The clear implication of Vought’s overall argument is that federal workers’ first allegiance must be to Trump and not to the letter of the law.

Peter Shane, professor emeritus of law at Ohio State and currently a scholar in residence at N.Y.U., flatly rejected Trump’s claim that extreme policies are needed to counter the threat of a “Marxist power-grabbing Democratic left.” Shane replied to my inquiry by email:

That claim is doubly wrong. First, I do not know of anything that the federal government does that could credibly be called Marxist; it’s just a scare word that some smart marketing expert realized would animate the MAGA base.

Second, progressive presidents — calling Biden, Obama, or Clinton leftist is likewise a bit of a stretch — are able to do what they do because of discretion vested in the executive branch by statute.

One goal underlies the Trump agenda, Shane wrote:

Putting into the president’s personal control all levers of government power — the power to make and enforce policy, decisions on where and how much to spend money, the ability to deploy force to impose the president’s agenda.

The Trump administration is drawn to this approach toward governing, Shane continued, in response to underlying political trends:

Because of polarization in Congress and MAGA’s unwillingness to compromise, right-wing presidents need to lean in to claims of inherent constitutional power in order to hollow out the administrative state without regard to legislative limits.

I asked Shane what he believes are Trump’s most egregious abuses of power so far. He replied with a list:

The scariest move (because most obscure and potentially difficult to unwind) is the letting loose of Musk and his minions to storm through federal information systems with a kind of “shoot now, aim later” approach.

The most egregious from the point of view of incipient authoritarianism is the attempt to rework the civil service system so that anyone doing policy-relevant work is fireable at will by the president (the Schedule F idea).

The most threatening to Congress as an institution are the cutting off of program funding — Vought has made clear that Trump will challenge laws intended to compel the executive branch to spend appropriated funds — and the firing of administrators, such as N.L.R.B. or F.E.C. members, protected by statute from discharge at will.

In terms of individual rights, the attempt to limit birthright citizenship and the purging of all D.E.I. activity within and beyond the government top the list.

In terms of outright killing people, even the temporary cessation of U.S.A.I.D. funding is likely to have that effect. And all of this is a package that makes a mockery of Trump’s oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

While acknowledging that in part they are speculating, Jack Goldsmith, a law professor at Harvard who served in the George W. Bush administration, and Bob Bauer, who served in the Obama administration and now teaches at N.Y.U., believe that the trio of Trump, Musk and Vought have a radical plan based in large part on the Trump administration’s belief that it is battling an enemy within.