President Donald Trump is an “aspiring dictator,” likened to both Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Roman emperor Augustus Caesar, according to a Presidents Day Salon piece that warns his presidency is leading to the downfall of American democracy.
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FIRST ON FOX: In the heat of the 2024 election cycle, the name Project 2025 was on the lips of Democrats and mainstream media figures everywhere, until it was not.
President Donald Trump’s win ushered in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its de-facto leader, Elon Musk. At the same time, Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, launched DOGE committees in Congress, and Project 2025 appeared to fall to the political wayside.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, who wrote the foreword to Project 2025 and whose organization published the anthology, said voters’ collective voices ushered in Trump and DOGE’s current work, not necessarily the policy proposals of Washington’s conservative "do-tank" or scholars inside-the-beltway writ-large.
"The American people delivered a clear mandate in November: dismantle the bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy that is the Deep State. And the latest polling – a 53% approval rating - confirms overwhelming support for President Trump’s efforts to do just that," he said.
PROJECT 2025 REMAINS NONPARTISAN, TRUE TO 1980S GOOD-GOVT INCEPTION DESPITE WILD OUTCRY: KEY FIGURES
When asked about liberals’ panic over Project 2025 and how it has been muted with the rise of DOGE, Roberts suggested the left will latch onto anything to make an issue out of it if they believe they can make gains.
"The Left has no new ideas—just unpopular ones. When they fail to win on substance, they simply choose to attack. First, it was Project 2025. Now, it’s DOGE. Different name, same baseless fearmongering," Roberts said in a Monday interview. "But make no mistake: the American people are ready for real change, and we’re not backing down."
Trump, himself, repeatedly dispelled allegations he and Project 2025 – a thousand-page policy proposal product of the conservative Heritage Foundation – were joined at the political hip.
Meanwhile, Heritage leaders past and present, like Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese and Roberts himself have rejected claims there has been anything radical about Project 2025.
"In the first one, in 1981, it was much more organizational, with information on structure and organizational norms, where – later on in 1989 – it was much more individual policy issues-based," he said.
The quadrennial work has been published under various titles and compositions since the 1980 presidential cycle, with some exceptions.
Nonetheless, Project 2025 became styled as a "right-wing boogeyman" talking point on the left.
TRUMP PLANS FIRST PRESIDENTIAL VISIT TO HELENE-RAVAGED NC
Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., founded the "Stop Project 2025 Task Force" last year, comparing the project to a "Blitzkrieg" and saying that lawmakers must understand it and "prepare ourselves accordingly."
At the Democratic National Convention, both Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, held up copies of Project 2025 on stage.
"It is a radical plan to drag us backwards, bankrupt the middle class, and raise prices on working class families like yours and mine," said Kenyatta, who has since been elected DNC vice chairman along with gun control activist David Hogg.
The Project’s rumored reputation became fodder for constituents at town halls as well, including in one swing-seat congressional race where a Republican’s incredulous response led to a viral moment, according to Politico.
PROJECT 2025 ISSUES BLISTERING RESPONSE TO HARRIS VIA DOZENS OF INDEPENDENT FACT CHECKS
New Jersey Rep. Tom Kean Jr. was asked about Project 2025 at such an event and responded he had never read the document.
"The first time I’ve ever heard of being supportive of it was when I was accused of supporting it," Kean reportedly replied.
DOGE’s ruminations about reforming or trimming the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – which have enraged the likes of its proverbial "founder" Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. – were, however, mirrored in the policy proposal anthology.
"Elon Musk and the guy who wrote Project 2025, Russ Vought, are trying to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," Warren said Monday. "If they succeed, CEOs and Wall Street will once again be free to trick, trap and cheat you."
Vought did not write Project 2025. He was credited as the author for Chapter 2, which analyzes the executive office of the president.
DOGE MEETS CONGRESS: GOP LAWMAKER LAUNCHES CAUCUS TO HELP MUSK ‘TAKE ON CRAZYTOWN’
Former Chase-Manhattan Bank Vice President Robert Bowes called CFPB "highly politicized, damaging, and utterly unaccountable" in a section of the project he authored.
"It is unconstitutional. Congress should abolish the CFPB and reverse Dodd–Frank Section 1061, thus returning the consumer protection function of the CFPB to banking regulators," Bowes wrote.
Recent media headlines have tried to tie DOGE to the project, with critical stories headlined "Project 2025 Architect" in reference to people like Vought.
Roberts said Trump’s team should be the beneficiary of such headlines, in that "he and his team deserve the credit" – and that it is a welcome sight that people who embody Heritage’s guiding principles are being tapped for top positions in the new administration.
"Heritage is thrilled to see President Trump appoint so many hardworking patriots who put America First. Russ is one of the great statesmen of our age—a brilliant, principled leader with the vision and intellect to take on ‘The Swamp’ and win."
"Between Russ at the helm of OMB and Elon at the helm of DOGE, they will rein in wasteful spending, restore fiscal discipline, and ensure that our government serves the people—not the other way around."
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One of Trump and Musk’s more recent major endeavors – taking an ax to USAID – is more a project of DOGE, while Project 2025 suggests a more measured approach to rein in the agency’s expenditures and politicization.
That project section, authored by former agency COO Max Primorac, describes USAID as having been "deformed" by the Biden administration to pursue a "divisive political and cultural agenda."
Primorac suggests the next administration "scale back" USAID’s global footprint and return it to pre-COVID budget levels while "deradicalizing" its programs and cutting its international affairs accounts.
Additionally, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli wrote in Project 2025 that the president should "pursue legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security" and that it has not "gelled into one DHS" as was its goal when founded after 9/11.Cuccinelli had argued that breaking up DHS along "mission[-related] lines" would lead to a more effective government apparatus.
Instead, Trump and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem have expanded DHS’ role versus the Biden administration, including the addition of former ICE acting Director Tom Homan as border czar.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Monday on CNN’s “The Source” that President Donald Trump has America “staring the death of democracy in the eyes.” Partial transcript as follows: COLLINS: Senator Murphy, as we look at the developments that have happened, in
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Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" that President Donald Trump had decided not to "abide by the Constitution in honoring Congress' role in the creation of the agencies."
The post Ilhan Omar: Trump ‘Has Decided’ He Will Not Abide by the Constitution appeared first on Breitbart.
While nearly two dozen states are suing to stop President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, some legal experts, such as Hans von Spakovsky with the Heritage Foundation, say the order is perfectly legal under the 14th Amendment and should be upheld by the courts.
"I strongly believe that Donald Trump is correct, that we need to enforce the 14th Amendment as it was originally intended," Spakovsky told Fox News Digital. "No doubt there will be lawsuits against it, it'll get to the U.S. Supreme Court, and if the court follows the actual legislative intent and history, they will uphold what Donald Trump has done."
As Trump has moved quickly to clamp down on illegal immigration, his most controversial move yet was to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants.
The order titled the "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship" states that "the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States" when that person’s parents are either unlawfully present in the U.S. or when the parents’ presence is lawful but temporary.
TRUMP ADMIN HITS BACK AS ACLU LAUNCHES LAWSUIT ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP: ‘READY TO FACE THEM’
Twenty-two Democrat-led states and the ACLU are suing to stop the order, arguing that it violates the 14th Amendment, which states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The lawsuit argues that "the President has no authority to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment or duly enacted statute. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth."
However, Spakovsky, who is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an authority on civil rights and immigration, told Fox News Digital that the 14th Amendment was never meant to include the children of individuals in the country illegally or temporarily and that this broad interpretation has led to widespread "birth tourism" and abuse.
He said the key phrase often overlooked today is "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," which necessitates the immigrants’ loyalties be to the U.S., not to some foreign power.
"The 14th Amendment has two key clauses in it. One, you have to be born in the United States, but you also have to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. All those who push birthright citizenship just point to that first phrase and ignore the second," he said. "I've done a lot of research on this. I've looked at the original passage of the 14th Amendment and what that phrase meant subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. According to the original sponsors of the 14th Amendment in Congress was that you owed your political allegiance to the United States and not a foreign government."
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"That means that children born of aliens who are in this country, and it doesn't matter whether they're here legally, illegally, as diplomats; if their parents are foreign citizens when they are born they are citizens of their parents' native land, they owe their political allegiance to and are subject to the jurisdiction of those native lands, not the United States. So, they are not citizens of the U.S.," he said.
According to Spakovsky, the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War to acknowledge citizenship for former slaves and their descendants, was not used to confer birthright citizenship to illegal aliens until more than 100 years after it was adopted by Congress.
PRESIDENT TRUMP'S BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP EXECUTIVE ORDER FACES LEGAL CHALLENGES FROM 22 STATES
As Democrats and left-wing groups prepare to launch a legal war with the Trump administration over the order, Spakovsky said he is confident the Supreme Court will rule in Trump’s favor.
"The problem with birthright citizenship is it gives rights as an American citizen to individuals who have absolutely no loyalty to and no connection to the U.S. government, our culture, our society," he said. "The Supreme Court should uphold it because the original meaning of the 14th Amendment is clearly not recognizing birthright citizenship."
A New Jersey mayor and other leading Democrats have blasted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on a worksite which they say resulted in undocumented residents as well as a U.S. citizen being "detained."
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka slammed the operation as an "egregious act" and a violation of the Fourth Amendment after agents reportedly swooped in to raid a business establishment "without producing a warrant."
Baraka said that one of those detained is a U.S. military veteran who "suffered the indignity of having the legitimacy of his military documentation questioned."
TRUMP BORDER CZAR TOM HOMAN REVEALS ICE TEAMS ARE ALREADY ARRESTING ‘PUBLIC SAFETY THREATS’
"This egregious act is in plain violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees ‘the right of the people be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures….’" Baraka wrote in a statement.
"Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized," Barak said, adding that he is "ready and willing to defend and protect civil and human rights."
It is not clear if the U.S. citizen in the Newark case was taken into custody, with an ICE spokesperson telling Fox News that the U.S. citizen was asked to produce identification.
"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement may encounter U.S. citizens while conducting field work and may request identification to establish an individual’s identity as was the case during a targeted enforcement operation at a worksite today in Newark, New Jersey," an ICE spokesperson told Fox News in relation to Thursday’s Newark operation. "This is an active investigation, and, per ICE policy, we cannot discuss ongoing investigations."
ICE raids have ramped up across the country this week as President Donald Trump looks to clamp down on illegal immigration, a key campaign promise. Trump’s "border czar" Tom Homan has said ICE agents will focus on the "worst first, public safety threats first, but no one is off the table. If they're in the country illegally, they got a problem."
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New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim joined Baraka in condemning the raid.
"We are deeply concerned about the news of an ICE raid in Newark today. Our offices have reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to demand answers," the senators said in a joint statement.
"Actions like this one sow fear in all of our communities — and our broken immigration system requires solutions, not fear tactics. We will continue to work with Mayor Baraka and other local officials to gather more information to ensure all New Jerseyans are safe and their dignity and rights are protected."
Baraka, a progressive Democrat, has been mayor of Newark since 2014 and is running for New Jersey governor this year. He has called for a "progressive overhaul" of the blue state and his campaign agenda includes reparations, sanctuary state laws, baby bonds, and a universal basic income."
Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., also slammed the raid in a statement.
"Already, Trump’s attacks on immigrant communities are hitting home and we will not back down," she said. "We will always fight for the dignity and rights of everyone in our district and across the country."
In the first days of the Trump administration, ICE has made more than 460 arrests of illegal immigrants, including those with criminal histories that include sexual assault, domestic violence and drugs and weapons crimes. Arrests took place across the U.S., including Illinois, Utah, California, Minnesota, New York, Florida and Maryland.
Agents arrested nationals from a slew of countries, including Afghanistan, Angola, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Senegal and Venezuela.
Fox News’ Bill Melugin, Stephen Sorace and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
President Trump bucked tradition on Monday when he did not place his hand on the Bible while taking the oath of office during his second inauguration.
Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath, telling Trump, who was walking toward him, to raise his right hand and repeat the words he was about to say.
Trump then raised his right hand, and as Roberts said, "I, Donald John Trump," first lady Melania Trump was seen approaching with a stack of Bibles.
Rather than place his left hand on the Bibles, he kept his hand by his side and continued to take the oath of office as his family filed in behind him.
TRUMP TO DEPLOY MILITARY TO BORDER, END BIDEN PAROLE POLICIES IN FLURRY OF DAY ONE EXECUTIVE ORDERS
Melania Trump held two Bibles — one was the Lincoln Bible and the other was her husband's personal Bible that was given to him by his mother when he was a child. Trump did place his hand on both those Bibles when he took the oath of office in 2017.
Trump's team did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on why the president did not place his hand on the Bibles.
Vice President JD Vance did place his hand on the Bible while he was sworn in.
Some people on social media say Roberts rushed the oath, while others appeared to be in disbelief that Trump did not place his hand on the Bibles, which is a tradition dating back to the very first inauguration of President George Washington.
TRUMP TO TAKE MORE THAN 200 EXECUTIVE ACTIONS ON DAY ONE
While it is traditional for the incoming president to place a hand on the Bible while taking the oath of office, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that requires them to do so.
In fact, presidents "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation," according to Article VI of the Constitution. The same article states, "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Article II of the Constitution also says the president must take the oath before entering office, though there is no mention of religion.
DONALD TRUMP SWORN IN AS 47TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
The Constitution lays out the exact language to be used in the 34-word oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Many judges have tacked on four little words, "so help me God." It is not legally or constitutionally required, unlike other federal oaths that invoke the words as standard procedure. Historians have been at odds over whether President Washington established precedent by adding the phrase on his own during his first acceptance, but contemporary accounts mention no such ad-libbing.
Abraham Lincoln was reported to have said it spontaneously in 1861, and other presidents over the years have followed suit. A Bible is traditionally used, with the president placing one hand on it while raising the other during the oath of office.
The Constitution also does not require the president or members of Congress or federal judges to be sworn in by a Supreme Court justice, though they just have for inaugurations, most of the time.
When Washington took the first oath of office in 1789, the Supreme Court had not yet been formed, so New York’s highest-ranking judge did the honors at Federal Hall on Wall Street.
Four years later, Associate Justice William Cushing swore in Washington for a second term, beginning the Supreme Court tradition.
Fox News’ Shannon Bream and Bill Mears contributed to this report.
A New York Times reporter sparked controversy this week after suggesting in an article that President-elect Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Russell T. Vough, helped promote a "unitary executive theory" ahead of Trump’s second term.
It drew sharp criticism on social media and among conservative analysts who argued the description of the theory was fundamentally untrue.
The report in question by Alan Rappeport focused on Vought’s nomination to head up OMB during Trump’s second presidency, a position he also held during Trump’s first term, and the work Vought did after Trump left office.
In the years after Trump's first term, the Times report says, Vought founded a conservative think tank and served as an architect of Project 2025, described in the report as an effort by conservative groups to help advance executive branch power.
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LOOMING TIKTOK BAN
The report says the legal underpinning of Project 2025 is "a maximalist version of the so-called unitary executive theory that rejects the idea that the government is composed of three separate branches" and "argues that presidential power over federal agencies is absolute."
Though the article has since been updated to describe the unitary executive theory as three "separate but equal branches," the article was panned by conservatives and others who disagreed with the Times' characterization of the legal theory.
It was the second part of the statement in particular that sparked backlash from conservative commentators, including National Review editor Charles Cooke, who argued in an op-ed that the Constitution and its wording, in his view, is explicit about how the executive, legislative and judicial branches can exercise power and about the limitations of the executive branch.
"The United States is a democratic republic in which elected officials are held accountable for their decisions," Cooke wrote in an op-ed for the National Review.
TRUMP INAUGURATION GUEST LIST INCLUDES TECH TITANS MARK ZUCKERBERG, JEFF BEZOS, ELON MUSK
"The only elected official who holds power within the executive branch is the president. For anyone else to exercise power without the permission or endorsement of the sole electee would be to create a fourth branch of government, unmoored from oversight, and thereby to undermine the whole apparatus."
Others also took aim at the article on social media, arguing the Times reporter fundamentally misunderstood the unitary executive theory.
"This is bad, even for the New York Times," Iowa law school professor Andy Grewal wrote in a widely-shared post on X.
The New York Times did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for a response.
President Biden doesn’t appear to be resting during his final weekend in the White House. Instead, he’s pushing for a new amendment to the Constitution that would make the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) "the law of the land."
In a statement released by the White House, Biden demanded that the United States "affirm and protect women’s full equality once and for all."
While his point is clear in the statement, a post on his official X account had users mocking the president. The post references the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. However, the US Constitution only has 27 amendments, the last of which was ratified in 1992.
In a post on X calling the ERA the "law of the land," implying that it is already part of the Constitution, which is not the case. Social media users were quick to point this out, with some calling the president a "dictator."
DANA PERINO KNOCKS BIDEN’S CONTROVERSIAL FAREWELL ADDRESS
Others online also brought up Biden’s past rhetoric about Trump being a "threat to democracy," accusing the president of trying to "declare" an amendment into existence.
Citing the American Bar Association in the statement, Biden argued that the ERA has "cleared all necessary hurdles to formally be added to the Constitution." Biden added that he agreed with "the ABA and with leading constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution." However, despite Biden’s argument, the National Archives disagreed.
In its own December statement on the ERA, the National Archives said that "at this time, the Equal Rights Amendment cannot be certified as part of the Constitution due to established legal, judicial, and procedural decisions."
ERA: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT
The ERA, a proposed amendment to the constitution that would guarantee "equal rights under the law" to all Americans regardless of sex. Its latest iteration was a rapid response by New York Democrats to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022.
"It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people. In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex," Biden said in the White House statement.
The assertion triggered a community note, which read, "Readers added context they thought people might want to know. The Archivist of the United States, charged with officially publishing ratified amendments, has confirmed that the ERA was not ratified and based that analysis on binding legal precedent. There is no 28th Amendment."
A spokesperson for the Biden administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Over the last few years, America’s divide over women’s rights has grown larger. Some celebrated the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, while others saw it as a fundamental attack on freedom. Additionally, the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports has turned into a heated debate about fairness and equality.
She had no choice but to leave this fight for another day. This was a fixed trial, a show trial, a lie.On Thursday, the Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump and others for alleged 2020 "election interference." The Court held that Willis suffered from a conflict of interest because she hired her paramour, Nathan Wade, as a special counsel to investigate Trump.
Basic legal ethics and common sense dictate that both Wade, who resigned last March, and Willis had to go. The appellate court did not dismiss the indictment, stating that the record did not support imposing such an "extreme sanction." The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia will now assign the case to a different prosecutor who will decide whether to continue, narrow, or drop the flawed RICO case.
There was never any question that Willis suffered from a conflict of interest; but like the other prosecutors who pursued Trump in the name of democracy, she threw all caution to the wind. For example, in July 2022 Willis attempted to investigate Trump ally State Senator Burt Jones even while headlining a huge fundraiser for Jones’s Democrat opponent. A judge had to bar the prosecution because of the clear conflict of interest.
GEORGIA APPEALS COURT DISQUALIFIES DA FANI WILLIS AND HER TEAM FROM TRUMP ELECTION INTERFERENCE CASE
A government official hiring her paramour is almost always questionable in and of itself. What’s worse is that Willis hired Wade after she already had hired Georgia’s premier RICO expert. She hired Wade even though he openly admitted that he had no prior felony or RICO prosecution experience. Willis paid Wade a higher hourly rate than a regular counsel and did nothing when Wade far exceeded even those amounts.
Some estimates place Wade’s total county income at over $650,000 per year – three to four times the salary of a regular prosecutor. Their many romantic trips and late-night meetings, which the judge examined on national television, exacerbated their conflicts of interest.
The Georgia appeals court inevitably found that the Trump prosecution was "encumbered by [a significant] appearance of impropriety" and carried "an odor of mendacity" such that Willis was "not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences."
Willis and Wade also failed to voluntarily and timely disclose their romantic and financial relationship to the defense, and therefore failed to meet their "specific obligations to see that the defendant is accorded procedural justice" under Georgia law. The rules also state that a prosecutor’s "duty is to seek justice, not merely to convict. This special duty exists because the prosecutor represents the sovereign and should exercise restraint in the discretionary exercise of governmental powers."
Willis exercised no such restraint and Thursday’s decision saves the Georgia courts from having to later preempt her deeply flawed prosecution. Willis’s investigation threatened not just Trump, but also the office of the presidency.
Other prosecutors, such as Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg or U.S. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, lodged narrow, if creative, charges against Trump that they hoped would be easier to prove.
FANI WILLIS WAS 'TERRIFIED' BECAUSE HER CASE AGAINST TRUMP WAS 'WEAK,' ATTORNEY SAYS
Willis, in a striking example of prosecutorial overreach, charged Trump and his associates with running a vast RICO conspiracy that included almost every significant act of his campaign between Election Day 2020 and the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and beyond. She claimed 161 alleged acts, 19 charged defendants, 30 unindicted co-conspirators, and involved 7 states and the District of Columbia. This not only ran afoul of the First Amendment free speech rights of Trump, the co-defendants, and the Republican Party, it also posed a threat to all future presidents, who would have to worry about state legal liabilities when making the most difficult decisions in the nation and engaging in his duties.
For example, Trump’s post-2020 election televised speeches and tweets are protected speech and political activity, regardless of whether his statements turned out to be accurate. Trump’s plan to create alternate slates of electors and the legal advice supporting it, the cornerstones of Willis’s RICO charge, were within the bounds of reasonable legal argument. In the 1876 election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, Tilden won the popular and electoral college votes, but Republicans challenged the election results in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, on the ground that Democrats had engaged in election fraud and intimidated Black voters.
Hayes eventually won with 185 electoral votes, but Democrats had presented alternate slates of electors from multiple states. No one was criminally charged.
In the 1960 presidential election, Democrats challenged Nixon’s initial win in Hawaii, signed alternate electoral vote certificates, and sent them to Capitol Hill. No one was criminally charged.
TRUMP CHEERS DISQUALIFICATION OF 'CORRUPT' FANI WILLIS, SAYS CASE IS 'ENTIRELY DEAD'
After the 2016 election, the Hillary Clinton campaign and allied liberal groups recruited celebrities and others to importune electors to not cast their electoral votes for Trump; again, no one was investigated or charged.
Proposing alternate electors in the event that Congress or a court rejected a state’s vote as fraudulent falls within the free speech rights of a political campaign.
Furthermore, the prosecution failed to meet the standard requirements for a RICO prosecution. Neither Trump nor his co-defendants tried to gain money, property, or control of a business with their post-2020 election activities. Nor did they demonstrate any interest in initiating or joining a criminal enterprise to gain property, money, or businesses. Instead, Trump wanted to win the 2020 election, which is not illegal; fighting to stay in office would have ended one way or the other by inauguration day in 2021.
But the most serious flaw with Willis’s now-disgraced prosecution of Trump was its threat to the office of the presidency. Willis’s prosecution was part of the Democratic Party’s plan to break political and legal norms that had held for the history of the republic – all in the name of defeating Trump.
For the first time in American history, they brought criminal charges against a former president and the major, leading opposition presidential candidate during the actual campaign. If elected leaders, whom our constitutional system vests with the authority over prosecution, must break American political practice going back to 1789, they should do so for a compelling reason and with a case where the prosecution’s facts and law are airtight. Instead, Willis brought charges that were destined to fail in court and were clouded by her own conflicts of interest and potential financial corruption.
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But once Willis brought charges against Trump for his actions while in office, future presidents must factor prosecution into their calculus. And investigators may not even wait until after a president has left office.
State prosecutors could charge presidents while the latter are still in office; nothing in the Constitution requires states to wait.
This may well make presidents risk-averse, especially when partisan, elected prosecutors are the ones launching the investigations. At the very least, defending against one or more state criminal investigations will draw on the time and resources that a president could – and should – instead devote to carry out his constitutional responsibilities and protecting national security.
These concerns led the U.S. Supreme Court to grant former presidents sweeping immunity from federal prosecution for their official acts in Trump v. United States. But the Trump Court’s decision – broad as it was – does not reach (a) investigations by state prosecutors, (b) for alleged violations of state law, (c) by presidents acting in their private capacities. While the Trump Court held that courts should not allow any evidence, even when used to prove state crimes, from official presidential activities, it did not prohibit state prosecutors from proceeding against Trump.
Not only did Willis’s prosecution harm the presidency in the ways that concerned the Trump Court, it also promised to spark a cycle of retaliation that would further destroy important legal and political norms.
Nothing will prevent elected Republican district attorneys from opening investigations into Hunter, James, or even President Joe Biden for corruption, bribery, and money laundering – all they need is some link between the Bidens’ criminal enterprise (to borrow the Georgia description of the Trump campaign), and their jurisdictions. Opening such probes would make for good campaign fodder in deep-red counties; some D.A.s might even pursue charges just to engage in tit-for-tat retaliation for the New York City and Georgia charges.
While Democrats may embrace state prosecutors like Bragg and Willis, they should instead consider the whirlwind that they have now unleashed and choose to do the right thing: drop their legally flawed cases against President Trump.
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