Dear editor:

Since the inauguration, the President has waged a campaign to gain control of the legislative and judicial powers assigned by the Constitution to Congress and the Supreme Court. He appears to have succeeded in taking control of Congress’s legislative power, at least until the next election. His campaign now seems concentrated on efforts to take control of the judicial power of the federal courts.

This is a difficult undertaking for President Trump because the Constitution provides that federal court judges are appointed for life. They cannot be fired by the President. They can be impeached and removed but only for good cause – a process that requires concurrence by a supermajority of the Senate, a very formidable requirement that saved President Trump himself from removal by impeachment during his first term.

Faced with these steep obstacles, the President seems to have adopted a tactic somewhat like a flanking maneuver in battle. Rather than arguing with the reasoning of the rulings he dislikes, the President has taken to personal attacks on the federal judges who have made the rulings, labeling them as “rogue” or “radical” or “leftist” judges whose sole purpose is to interfere with the President’s efforts to carry out his political agenda. Putting aside their simple nastiness, these attacks will not withstand serious analysis.

Federal judges are required to make their decisions by applying the Constitution and the duly enacted laws of the United States and in accordance with decisions of higher courts on the questions raised. The decisions which have prompted Mr. Trump’s virulent attacks have arisen in cases where President Trump’s actions appear, on their face, clearly to be in violation of the Constitution and duly enacted laws. The duty of a federal judge in such cases is clear – the Constitution and laws must prevail.

That is precisely the situation in at least three of the cases which have generated the most press – the Venezuelan deportation case, the tariff case and the birthright citizenship case.

In each of these cases, the President’s actions have disregarded the requirements of the Constitution and laws duly enacted by Congress. In their decisions, the federal judges have painstakingly analyzed and carefully described why the President’s actions are unconstitutional and illegal. The ultimate questions in these cases – the legality of the deportations, the legality of the tariffs, and the meaning of birthright citizenship – have not yet been ruled upon by the Supreme Court and it is presently unclear when, if ever, that will happen.

But can it really be the case, as the attacks imply, that President Trump actually believes the duty of a federal judge should be to carry out the President’s political agenda rather than to faithfully apply the Constitution and laws? Or is the President simply venting because he has been unable to get his way?

The answer, I fear, is more than a little ominous. It seems increasingly likely that the purpose of these attacks is to discredit the federal courts in the eyes of the public as a preliminary step before directing his administration to completely disregard federal court decisions that he does not like. Exactly what would happen if the administration were to adopt such a policy is unclear, but it would undoubtedly create a constitutional crisis that the President could attempt to exploit for the purpose of transferring to the President the judicial power assigned to the federal courts by the Constitution.

It needs to be said again and again that the genius of our Constitution is the division of government power between the Congress, the President and the Supreme Court. The founders warned that our Constitutional Republic depended on this separation of powers, and would not survive if these powers were concentrated in one branch of government. We may be watching that process unfold.

-Alan Cooper, Rochelle