On Saturday, President Trump shared a brief statement on social media that seems to reflect his perspective as he navigates the nation’s legal and constitutional limits while attempting to reshape the federal government and target those he views as adversaries.
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Mr. Trump stated, initially on his Truth Social platform and shortly after on X.
By the afternoon, he had pinned the quote to his Truth Social profile, indicating it was an important sentiment that he wished to emphasize.
The phrase is reminiscent of a quote often linked to Napoleon Bonaparte, though its true origins remain uncertain.
This notion is one that is not new: through both his statements and actions, Mr. Trump has consistently implied that surviving two attempts on his life signifies that he has divine support to impose his will.
In his second term, he has adopted a notably more assertive approach to wielding presidential power than in his initial term. Returning to office, he found himself with the support of a Supreme Court ruling from the previous year, which stated that he is likely shielded from prosecution for crimes committed while exercising official powers.
During the early days of his presidency, Mr. Trump implemented numerous executive orders that pushed the conventional boundaries of presidential authority, dismissed multiple officials, and disrupted an agency in clear violation of legal restrictions while freezing spending sanctioned by Congress without appropriate justification. Many of his policy initiatives have faced judicial halts.
These actions include attempts to unilaterally redefine birthright citizenship — a right protected by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment — to exclude infants born to undocumented parents, and mass firings of public employees while disregarding civil service protection laws. He has nearly incapacitated the agency responsible for foreign aid, dismissed prosecutors who probed into his conduct, and terminated Senate-confirmed watchdogs without proper notification to Congress or valid reasons.
Mr. Trump’s team has adopted a broad interpretation of the so-called unitary executive theory, a legal perspective claiming that the Constitution forbids Congress from imposing any limits on the president’s authority over the executive branch, including creating independent agencies or restraining the president’s ability to terminate any government official at will.
Initially, the Trump administration did not provide a public legal justification for bypassing statutory protections for officials that Mr. Trump has dismissed without due process, including appointees from independent agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board.
However, last week, the administration offered somewhat of an explanation. Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general at the Justice Department, wrote to Congress indicating that the department would not defend the constitutionality of statutes that restrict the president’s ability to remove members of independent agencies before their terms conclude. These statutes stipulate that the president can only dismiss such officials for specific reasons, such as misconduct.
While she did not specifically mention the term “unitary executive theory,” Ms. Harris’s letter aligned with its ideological premise, asserting that the Constitution does not permit Congress to enact laws “which prevent the president from adequately supervising principal officers in the executive branch who execute the laws on the president’s behalf.” She also noted that the Trump administration intends to challenge a 1935 precedent opposing this view in the Supreme Court.
This presents a legal framework under which some of Mr. Trump’s actions could be deemed lawful: disregarding an unconstitutional statute is not against the law.
However, Mr. Trump’s statement on Saturday implied a much broader interpretation, suggesting that even if his actions unequivocally violate established law, it would be justified if he claims his intentions are to protect the country.
There are few recorded instances where other presidents have asserted the authority to override legal constraints, typically limited to matters of national security.
For instance, during the early days of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus rights, called troops into service, and spent money that Congress had not appropriated while they were not in session.
Upon Congress’s reconvening, Lincoln informed them of his actions in a letter, famously asking, “Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?” He stated that his actions, “whether strictly legal or not,” were necessary, which Congress later retroactively approved.
More than a century later, after President Richard Nixon resigned to evade impeachment over the Watergate scandal, he discussed in an interview actions like wiretapping that might seem illegal but were taken to safeguard against foreign threats. Referencing Lincoln’s precedent, Nixon asserted that presidents possess an inherent power to permit government officials to contravene laws if the president deems such actions to be in the national interest.
“When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal,” Nixon argued.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney undertook measures that contradicted statutory limitations concerning issues like torture and surveillance, invoking an expansive and contentious interpretation of their constitutional powers as commander in chief.
While cases concerning national security are rarely litigated, when they are, the Supreme Court has often expressed skepticism toward broad assertions of presidential power — as evident in their ruling against President Harry S. Truman’s attempted seizure of steel mills during the Korean War.
Currently, Mr. Trump’s actions largely fall outside national security concerns. Instead, he is striving to dismantle the autonomy that Congress established within the executive branch to consolidate power in the White House over areas primarily associated with domestic policy.
Mr. Trump and some of his supporters have advanced the political argument that the nation faces a crisis from what they label as leftist strategies and ideologies, claiming it has entered a downward spiral that necessitates reversal by any means necessary.
Among these voices, Mr. Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, authored an essay in 2022 proclaiming that the United States is already experiencing a “post-Constitutional moment” and that to combat liberalism, it is essential to be “radical in discarding or rethinking the legal paradigms that have confined our ability to restore the original Constitution.”
