Donald Trump's Attacks On The Rule of Law

Recently, I watched PBS Frontline's documentary, "Trump's Power and the Rule of Law" that chronicles President Trump's attempts to extend executive power and the legal pushback by both liberal and conservative judges.

During the Richard Nixon administration in the 1970s, Nixon tried to concentrate more power into the executive branch that came to a head during the Watergate hearings. Nixon asserted that the President had executive privilege to withhold sensitive information from other government branches in order to maintain confidential communications within the executive branch and to secure the national interest. The Supreme Court ruled in the case United States v. Nixon against Nixon.

After the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, President George W. Bush tried to concentrate more power into the executive branch.

Legal scholar John Yoo developed the "unitary executive theory" which argued that all of the executive power of the federal government is concentrated in the president alone. Under this theory, the President has the power to fire anyone within the executive branch, including independent agencies established by Congress but is under the executive branch.

Using this theory as pretext, Trump has fired all those the Department of Justice, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and other agencies who either deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump, who try to act as a check on Trump's power or who participated in the investigations of Trump after he incited a mob to attack Congress on January 6, 2021.

Many worry that Trump is creating a political atmosphere where loyalty to Trump is more important than fidelity to the Constitution.

Here is a youtube video on how I created this cartoon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo9QGTu9r7k

REFERENCES
"Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law" a documentary by Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser for PBS Frontline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28sQyweAPRs

"'Unitary executive theory' argues to restore the president's authority" by Steve Inskeep for NPR
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/31/nx-s1-5478640/unitary-executive-theory-a…

"What Is Unitary Executive Theory? How is Trump Using It to Push His Agenda?" by Jacob Knutson for Democracy Docket
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/what-is-unitary-executive-theo…

"The Extreme Legal Theory Behind Trump’s First Month in Office. The unitary executive theory upends our understanding of the Constitution." by Paul Waldman for The Brennan Center for Justice
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/extreme-legal-t…

"The Rule of Law Is Dead in the US. The rule of law presupposes that there are rules that provide a consistent, repeatable, and knowable set of outcomes. That’s no longer the case." by Elie Mystal for The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/the-rule-of-law-is-dead-in-t…