Referring to King George III of Britain, this nation’s Declaration of Independence said: “A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of people.”
President Donald J. Trump has always viewed the American presidency as an inherent, king-like right to rule over the people of the United States, as though it were his personal fiefdom. This attitude led to him being impeached twice during his first term in office, charged with a total of 88 criminal offenses after leaving the White House, convicted of 34 of those offenses, and found civilly liable for 88 million dollars for engaging in forced sex offenses and defamation.
Throughout his run for, and during his actual presidency, Trump has either fomented or gave credence to a laundry list of “Deep State” conspiracy theories popular with what has been dubbed as his “MAGA base”—a political coalition of violent white supremacist groups, White Christian Nationalists, mainstream evangelical Christians, most of the Republican Party, and a measurable number of disenfranchised Democrats. He has consistently appealed to the racial, cultural, and political grievances this coalition has toward the rest of Americans who do not share their personal values, religious beliefs, and social norms to pander his “Deep State” nonsense, like vowing to “totally obliterate” them for being so “un-American.”
For example, during his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump made the phrase “I am your retribution” a central theme of his campaign. He first spoke it at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in early March 2023, telling the group: “In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged or betrayed, I am your retribution.” And, again, at his first official campaign stop in Waco, Texas, on March 25, 2023, Trump told his MAGA base: “I am your retribution.”
He repeated this King’s promise, “I am your retribution,” throughout his campaign, often lacing it with the added violent refrain, “I am your revenge.”
During his first four months in office this year, Trump has fulfilled those promises. He packed his Cabinet, all federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and all federal regulatory agencies with MAGA loyalists who were given specific instructions to investigate, arrest, and prosecute his perceived personal enemies and to target, deport, and financially attack those deemed “enemies” to the MAGA ideology.
But in carrying out his retribution agenda, Trump has encountered one stumbling block: the federal judiciary. Federal judges, including, to a lesser degree, U.S. Supreme Court justices, have, in a steady stream of decisions, blocked, enjoined, or otherwise intervened in Trump’s repeated abuses of the rule of law through his agency minions and his blatantly unlawful executive orders.
Angry and defiant—the reaction of most tyrants when defied—that federal judges were challenging his retribution agenda, Trump declared a “war on the nation’s federal judiciary.”
Writing in an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times in March, former federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, one of the nation’s most distinguished jurists, said this about Trump’s declared “war” on the federal courts:
“President Trump has wasted no time in his second term in declaring war on the nation’s federal judiciary, the country’s legal profession, and the rule of law. He has provoked a constitutional crisis with his stunning frontal assault on the third branch of government and the American system of justice. The casualty could well be the constitutional democracy Americans fought for in the Revolutionary War against the British monarchy 250 years ago … “
Trump’s latest deranged salvo in this war on the judiciary was to order one of the president’s favorite sycophants, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), to insert an amendment into the president’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act“ that would limit the power of the federal judiciary.
This hidden provision would restrict the ability of federal courts to enforce contempt-of-court citations against the executive branch. The restriction would be accomplished by refusing to allow federal courts to use any congressionally appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failing to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order unless a security bond is posted.
In effect, anyone trying to block a federal action, such as a Trump executive order or an ICE deportation action, would have to pay a bond for the judge to enforce the blocking order. This would allow the Trump administration to ignore court orders unless the parties trying to stop an unlawful action can afford the bond.
The core purpose of the amendment is to shift power from the judiciary to the executive branch by allowing the president and his underlings to ignore court orders. Jenny Breen, an associate professor at the Syracuse University College of Law, put it this way for The Christian Science Monitor: “What Congress is trying to do here is ease the way for the administration to ignore court orders. Our system requires each branch to step up and check the other branch, and this bill just broadcast is that interested in doing that for this president.”
The news outlet reported that as of May 27, federal courts have issued 180 rulings pausing unlawful Trump actions—but not without a price.
Between March 1 and April 30, the period during which the president publicly launched his war on the federal courts, federal judges across the country received 277 threats or incidents threatening their personal safety.
This is the sum of President Trump’s retribution agenda—to cast fear and intimidation throughout the federal judiciary landscape, to force attorneys who represent the president’s perceived enemies or who try to block his unlawful executive actions to kneel before the King and kiss the ring; and to cause the people he perceives, whether in the entertainment or political communities, as enemies of the MAGA movement to live in fear of reprisal and retaliation.
That is what King Trump has done to the American presidency: made it a vehicle for terrorizing those who dare defy Trump or his political agenda.
We will not bow to His Majesty or kiss the King’s ring. Instead, we stand with those in our proud legal profession who challenge, resist, and defy the King’s lawlessness, standing to protect the Constitution and the rule of law. It is the legal professionals and judiciary that now have the responsibility to Make America Great Again.
