Make the most of the ways to strengthen your power that you learned at the end of your term.
Mobilize the military to evict millions of immigrants every year
A large number of public officials will be replaced by loyalists to push for controversial policies.
The New York Times reported on the 15th (local time) that former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election, is expected to pursue even more extreme policies than when he was in office.
Trump said at his first rally for next year’s presidential election, “I will take revenge.” He emphasized that he would go one step further and have the Justice Department prosecute political opponents, including current President Joe Biden and his family.
Behind these open threats lies a plan by Trump and his associates to overturn America’s governance structure, democracy, foreign policy, and rule of law.
Trump’s actions toward the end of his presidency show signs of what he will do after re-election. After realizing how to use his power, Trump fired public officials who opposed his policies and replaced them with loyalists.
After losing the 2020 presidential election and resigning from office, Trump’s advisers and supporters, with the support of wealthy support groups, began to draw up a list of targets for retaliation and devise ways to legally punish them.
Two high-ranking officials from Trump’s campaign camp made vague remarks as if they were distancing themselves from the plans made by Trump’s outlying support groups. They emphasized that recent reports about election campaign personnel and policy intentions are “only estimates and hypothetical.”
The following is written based on what Trump emphasized during the campaign, the election website, and interviews with Trump advisers.
◆They want to mobilize the Justice Department to take revenge on their political opponents.
Trump said that if he is re-elected, he will mobilize the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute his political opponents. He even said in June that he would appoint a “proper special prosecutor” to investigate President Biden and his family. He later declared in an interview with Univision that he would prosecute anyone who challenges him politically.
Trump’s associates have also been developing logic to neutralize the Justice Department’s investigative autonomy established after the Watergate incident.
During the 2016 election campaign, Trump also assured that he would “jail” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. After his election as president, he repeatedly urged his staff to have the Justice Department prosecute political opponents, including FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired. As a result, the Justice Department investigated several cases but did not indict them, which angered Trump and led to a falling out with Attorney General William Barr, whom he had appointed.
◆Extreme immigration blockade policy
Trump plans to block immigration on a scale that has never been seen in American history. The plan is to deport millions of illegal immigrants every year who have settled in the United States for several years or even decades.
We plan to deploy a large number of federal judicial agencies, state police, and National Guard personnel to the Federal Immigration and Customs Service to identify illegal immigrants subject to deportation.
Defense funds will be used to build detention centers to accommodate illegal immigrants. In order to block those wishing to enter the country, public health emergency laws will be invoked and the nationality of people who were born in the United States as children of illegal immigrants and acquired American citizenship will be invalidated.
◆Mobilizing the military to crack down on illegal immigration
During his presidency, Trump considered using the military to attack Mexican drug cartels. The Republican Party is more strongly supporting this plan, which would violate international law without Mexico’s consent. Accordingly, if re-elected, Trump will make this plan more concrete.
The Civil Assistance Act makes it illegal to mobilize federal troops for domestic law enforcement, but exceptions are possible under the Insurrection Act. Trump attempted to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress protests that occurred after the police killing of black man George Floyd in 2020, but withdrew due to opposition from his advisers. Trump’s top advisers are now declaring that they will invoke the Insurrection Act and mobilize the military to arrest and detain illegal immigrants.
◆Expansion of appointment authority for federal civil servants
Trump and his supporters want greater presidential power over federal agencies. The goal is to centralize control over all government agencies in the White House.
By interpreting the so-called unitary executive theory to its maximum extent, it is argued that the president can directly control all federal agencies and that it is unconstitutional for Congress to create an agency with decision-making authority independent of the president.
Trump is also trying to replace tens of thousands of federal public officials with his loyalists by revising the civil servant status guarantee regulations that he promoted during the last days of his presidency.
As Congress is unable to prevent the revision of the status guarantee regulations for public officials, the current government is preparing countermeasures. However, because this is also a presidential order, it can be overturned by the next president.
◆Appointment of lawyers who do not object
During President Trump’s term, there were many instances where White House lawyers became angry because they opposed Trump and his staff’s plans, saying they were legally problematic. Trump loyalists despised these lawyers, calling them Federalist Association lawyers. But they make up the mainstream conservative wing of the Republican Party.
If Trump is re-elected, his aides plan to appoint more aggressive and ideologically armed legal officers to support his push for controversial policies.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.