Co-Chief Justice Trump?

How about Co-Chief Justice Trump? We ask because the President is launching a constitutional counteroffensive on three cases in which the high court rebukes the President, all written by Chief Justice Roberts. On tariffs, Mr. Trump is levying a new wave of unilateral duties on imports. On Birthright Citizenship, Mr. Trump is again seeking to tighten the rules for children born here to alien parents. Plus, he’s still pushing to fire a Fed governor, Lisa Cook.It’s tiring work, but someone has to do it. Already, as we’ve noted, Mr. Trump, whose sister was a United States Circuit judge, has made out pretty well in respect of the Supreme Court. Meaning, he’s won quite a few of the cases he’s already taken to the highest bench. Often this has occasioned the president making monkeys out of some of the most august law professors, some of whom actually tried to, say, knock Mr. Trump off the blasted ballot.What brings all this to mind at the moment is Mr. Trump’s triad of policy moves, seemingly to parry the high court’s rulings against him. On tariffs, Mr. Trump has identified new statutory authority to set duties on imports. In February, the high court held that Mr. Trump lacked power under a 1977 law to set tariffs. The levies are part of a broader strategy aiming to revive domestic manufacturing, while also serving as a negotiating tactic with foreign nations. Mr. Trump appears to have justification to set tariffs based on the Smoot-Hawley law of 1930, these columns noted, despite claims from, say, Paul Krugman that the move is “almost surely illegal.” Yet the Cato Institute finds a later round of tariffs, based on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, has a flimsier basis. Cato doubts the United States Trade Representative’s claim that the levies are justified by foreign nations making goods with forced labor.Would the Supreme Court back Mr. Trump if these new tariffs return to the high bench? In February, the majority’s decision was based on the wording of the 1977 law Mr. Trump cited to defend the duties. There was no majority to support the view that Congress had wrongly delegated to the president its constitutional authority to set tariffs. Were the president to find new tariff authority under the law, mightn’t the high court change its mind? That could require the high court’s three liberal members to revise their rationale against the Trump tariffs. The Chief Justice, plus Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett had found that Mr. Trump’s tariffs breached the so-called major questions doctrine. That’s shorthand for presidents acting, or regulating, beyond the authority assigned to them by Congress. The liberal justices have tended not to endorse that doctrine, and voted based on the law. On citizenship, Mr. Trump’s new order is looking to bar the grant of American nationality to children born here when, say, “either parent of that person is an alien enemy.” One can imagine this setting up new legal debates over how to define an alien enemy, a question that has recently roiled federal courts. The American Civil Liberties Union is already raising questions about the new order, suggesting the question could again reach the high court. As for Mr. Trump’s efforts to fire Governor Cook, if the president can fire policy-making officials at all other executive agencies, why would members of the Federal Reserve Board be exempt? Mr. Trump’s offering Ms. Cook due process as part of his termination effort could yet force the Nine to confront its own logical discrepancy on this head, which came to light in the prior term. All in a day’s work for our constitutionalist president, Co-Chief Justice Trump.

Co-Chief Justice Trump?

Co-Chief Justice Trump?

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