President Donald Trump’s latest salvo at Congress, threatening to thwart oversight and block testimony from executive branch witnesses, is a serious breach of political norms. With the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, it is clear that Trump thinks no one should be able to hold him accountable — and he’s trying to force adherence to that principle by using aggressive stalling and blocking tacts with the Democratic lawmakers who were elected to stand up to him.
But these tactics from Trump shouldn’t surprise us. His attempt to undermine the Constitution’s checks and balances is part of a long-standing Republican strategy of seizing power through aggressive abuse of legal loopholes — a strategy known as constitutional hardball.
Legal scholars Joseph Fishkin and David E. Pozen outlined the concept in a notable paper on the topic:
View the complete April 29 article by Cody Fenwick on the National Memo website here.