For those of us who believe the Constitution is the sole determinant of how Government should operate, the Donald Trump presidency was a dark, dark time. As much as I have enjoyed seeing attempts to circumnavigate our founding document during the Obama and Biden administrations get struck down, it was the 45th President that created some of the worst Constitutional crises this nation has endured since the days before the Civil War. And last night’s January 6th Committee hearing revealed, yet again, how those under Trump had to take unconstitutional measures to protect the operation of Government from someone hell-bent on destroying it for his own gain.
One thing that was established last night is that Vice President Mike Pence, under tenuous protection by the Secret Service inside an office at the Capitol, was the one that ordered the activation of a National Guard unit in Washington, DC that ultimately helped quell the riot at the Capitol on January 6th. While this certainly makes Pence look like an actor for good in those circumstances, if the evidence presented last night was accurate, Pence had no legal authority to do what he did.
Had the Cabinet invoked the 25th Amendment on January 6th–officially stripping Trump of his powers–Pence would have had every right to act as the Commander in Chief. No one in the Department of Justice ordered the arrest of the President that day. And yet those that ultimately sent in the troops that restored order in Washington that day took orders from a man not authorized to do so.
And that seemed to follow a pattern of such actions that developed within the Trump term. Those who served under that President have since admitted–albeit it in books and in paid public appearances–that they directly disobeyed orders from Trump, or directed their subordinates to not follow the wishes of the President, and instead act only on those other officials’ orders.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is probably the most well-known of those–stating that he told his staff at the Pentagon to ignore all orders from Trump unless cleared by him. Mattis has hinted that would have included all military action orders and use of the nuclear codes. And while that may have allowed a lot of people to sleep more soundly during that time, there is no provision in the Constitution for the Defense Secretary to over-rule orders from the President, no matter how outrageous they may be.
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and just about all of his successors also ignored or directly disobeyed directives from Trump–although in many cases that was justified under US Federal Codes, just not under Constitutional authority. As did other Cabinet and countless non-Cabinet members of the administration–all under the justification of doing what was best for the country, and not what was best only for their boss.
Now in the aftermath of the Trump presidency, those who disobeyed, disregarded, or acted on their own look like real American heroes. The good guys that protected the rest of us from the bad guy. But what happens when it’s a good guy trying to give the orders, and it’s the bad guys blocking them? The same unconstitutional acts that protected a nation from a raving lunatic could be used by future raving lunatics to hold a President hostage in his position.
Once we are done with the fascination with newly-released video, cellphone records, and the timing of tweets, let’s take a very serious look at the way the Executive Branch of the federal government works–and make sure the “precedents” set from 2017 to 2021 don’t become the norm.
