“They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I’m just standing in the way.” President Trump, while varying the formulation, regularly jibes that sentiment when speaking to Americans. Mr. Trump, moreover, has never been more correct in his assessment than now.

The “they,” however, is no longer Democrats, the Deep State, or even the Fake News. Today, the Courts are the “They.” The flurry of litigation that followed the Trump administration’s sprint to implement his America First agenda saw federal courts handing out temporary restraining orders like candy hearts on Valentine’s Day. 

Court rules and precedent limit the use of TROs to only the most extraordinary of circumstances, and yet the Trump Administration currently finds itself subject to some dozen orders that prohibit the administration from everything from firing executive branch employees, to cutting funding pursuant to the terms of federal grants, to providing access to individuals charged with assisting the various federal agencies in rooting out fraud, abuse, and waste.

While these court orders all infringe on the executive branch’s authority, when a federal district judge, Amy Berman Jackson, ordered the Trump Administration to reinstate as Special Counsel   Hampton Dellinger a little over a week ago, the judicial branch crossed a constitutional red line.

The Trump Administration detailed the seriousness of the breach in an emergency application it filed before the Supreme Court.

“This case involves an unprecedented assault on the separation of powers that warrants immediate relief,” the Acting Solicitor General wrote. Then, quoting the Supreme Court from just last term, the Trump Administration stressed, “Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions on subjects within his ‘conclusive and preclusive’ constitutional authority”—including “the President’s ‘unrestricted power of removal’ with respect to ‘executive officers of the United States whom [the President] has appointed.’ ”  

Yet, Judge Jackson overruled Mr. Trump’s February 7, 2025, decision to remove Mr. Dellinger as the head of the Office of Special Counsel. The federal judge then ordered that Mr. Dellinger not merely be reinstated, but also that the administration be barred from any efforts to impede his “access to the resources or materials of that office.”

Over a strong dissent from Judge Gregory Katsas, the District of Columbia Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals refused to stay Judge Jackson’s order reinstating Judge Dellinger, holding the lower court’s TRO could not be appealed. 

Not so, Judge Katsas wrote:  “Where a lower court allegedly impinges on the President’s core Article II powers, immediate appellate review should be generally available.”

And infringe on Mr. Trump’s core Article II powers the TRO did. As the government stressed in its application to the Supreme Court, the district court “seize[ed] control of an executive agency from the President and insist[ed] that an agency head whom the President has fired must keep exercising Article II powers.”

In commandeering the executive branch, Judge Jackson did much more than intrude on President Trump’s prerogatives, however: The federal judge struck a blow against democracy.

“Our Constitution was adopted to enable the people to govern themselves, through their elected leaders.” The Founders thus vested “the” executive power in the only member of the executive branch elected “by the entire Nation”—the President of the United States. 

Of course, the president cannot alone manage the executive branch and so he “select[s] those who [are] to act for him under his direction in the execution of the laws.” Such unelected officials, however, hold “legitimacy and accountability” only “through ‘a clear and effective chain of command’ down from the President, on whom all the people vote.”

So the president must maintain authority to remove those officers “who wield executive power in his stead.” Any other conclusion wrests executive authority from the unitary executive, giving it instead “to a person who answers to no one and for whom no one voted.”

The president, by advancing his right to remove Mr. Dellinger from office, fights not merely to defend the power of the executive but the rights of the electorate who voted for Mr. Trump.

Late Friday, the Supreme Court held in abeyance a decision on Mr. Trump’s application to overrule the TRO, pending a further decision by the lower court on Wednesday when the order is set to expire. 

The high court’s refusal to immediately halt the lower court’s assault on executive authority is disappointing, but by holding the application in abeyance — as opposed to denying it — Judge Jackson will have to recognize the Supreme Court remains poised to intervene should she enter a further injunction barring Mr. Dellinger’s firing.

What Americans need to realize, though, is much more important: The district court’s decision did not merely abridge Mr. Trump’s executive authority — it disregarded the majority’s choice for the man to lead the country for the next four years.