As a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, Wall Street’s oldest law firm, Todd Blanche had represented people close to President Trump over the years. But in 2023, when Mr. Trump was facing multiple criminal investigations and Mr. Blanche wanted to represent him, most of the firm’s leadership balked at the idea, according to people…
When it comes to confronting global conflicts, President Trump is a man in a hurry. Even before his inauguration, the president claimed credit for what he called an “EPIC cease-fire” in Gaza. He has raced to get Ukraine and Russia to quickly embrace a pause in fighting. And with Iran, Mr. Trump wants an agreement…
President Trump’s intensifying conflict with the federal courts is unusually aggressive compared with similar disputes in other countries, according to scholars. Unlike leaders who subverted or restructured the courts, Mr. Trump is acting as if judges were already too weak to constrain his power. “Honest to god, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Steven…
The Trump administration moved one large step closer to a constitutional showdown with the judicial branch of government when airplane-loads of Venezuelan detainees deplaned in El Salvador even though a federal judge had ordered that the planes reverse course and return the detainees to the United States. The right-wing president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele,…
When Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, announced that he would vote with Republicans to clear the way for passage of a stopgap spending bill, he argued that a government shutdown would further empower President Trump and Elon Musk to defund government programs and shrink federal agencies. “Under a shutdown,…
The Trump administration told Congress on Thursday that it believed President Trump had the constitutional power to summarily fire administrative law judges at will, despite a statute that protects such officials from being removed without a cause like misconduct. The move was the latest step in the administration’s unfolding assault on the basic structure of…
President Trump on Saturday posted on social media a single sentence that appears to encapsulate his attitude as he tests the nation’s legal and constitutional boundaries in the process of upending the federal government and punishing his perceived enemies. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Mr. Trump wrote, first on his…
Whatever you choose to call it, Elon Musk has captured the inner workings of the U.S. government on President Trump’s behalf. His operatives reportedly infiltrated the General Services Administration, gained access to the nation’s system for issuing payments like tax refunds, locked workers out of computer systems at the Office of Personnel Management and strong-armed…
After nightfall on Jan. 24, President Trump summarily dismissed as many as 17 of the most important guardians of integrity in the federal government — the inspectors general who search for fraud and abuse in each major executive department, who assure taxpayers that their money is being properly spent, and whose rigor reduces the temptation…