Yves here. Trump follows his line of action by having enlisted his ally, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, to threaten the very existence of Federal courts:
Speaker Johnson floats the possibility of Congress eliminating federal courts.
This comes as courts have blocked some actions taken by the Trump administration, along with Trump and his allies calling for the impeachment of certain district court judges. https://t.co/chPmITMmBL
— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 27, 2025
Congressional representatives up for re-election have to have noticed that Trump defiance of the law is not politically popular. We posted a chart from a tweet of a CNN clip that summarized this poll; it’s been reported by USA Today, further confirming that the media and political classes have likely gotten the message. From USA Today:
The three-day survey, which closed on Sunday, found that 82% of respondents – including majorities of Democrats and Republicans – agreed with a statement that the “president of the United States should obey federal court rulings even if the president does not want to.”
So while the odds do not favor this getting done (there would be massive court challenges to cutting current appropriations, and the Supreme Court is not about to vote itself out of existence; the R’s thin majority in the House makes it unlikely for the next budget to be whacked this way), the very fact that Johnson as a leading member of Congress is backing Trump threats to the judiciary is profoundly disturbing.
By Richard Murphy, Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School and a director of the Corporate Accountability Network. Originally published at Funding the Future
I have kept saying, since Trump was re-elected, that the likelihood was that the end of the rule of law in the USA was nigh. He is a man who has no desire to be told what to do by a judge, as he has proved time and again with his contempt for the legal system.
Now this seems to have been confirmed. As the Guardian has reported this afternoon:
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson suggested potentially defunding, restructuring or eliminating US federal courts as a means of pushing back against judicial decisions that have challenged Donald Trump’s policies
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Johnson, a former constitutional attorney, raised the prospect of congressional intervention in the court system.
“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court,” Johnson said.
I have already suggested that Trump’s grand plan is to end the US federal government – and so, in effect, the USA. It appears Mike Johnson is now endorsing the plan, and the end of US democracy.