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Raw Story: Trump asserting powers 'even the most tyrannical monarchs' didn't have: analysis
Raw Story - Trump asserting powers 'even the most tyrannical monarchs' didn't have: analysis
Brad Reed
April 10, 2025 10:02AM ET
A trio of legal experts is warning that the Trump Department of Justice is asserting that the president has unprecedented powers that were not even possessed by English monarchs.
Writing at Just Security, Yale Law School professors Harold Hongju Koh and Fred Halbhuber, along with Yale Law J.D. candidate Inbar Pe'er, point to recent assertions made by Trump DOJ lawyers in court that the United States Constitution does not prohibit President Donald Trump from issuing bills of attainder, which are orders that impose "a punishment on a specific person or group of people without first going through a trial."
During a recent hearing on Trump's executive orders targeting law firms that have in the past represented his political enemies, Judge Beryl Howell asked the Trump DOJ if such orders could be considered bills of attainder, which the United States Constitution explicitly prohibits.
Rather than merely denying that the orders were bills of attainder, the government replied that "as a pure constitutional matter... the bill of attainder restriction is only on Article I and not on Article II [of the Constitution], and so it doesn’t apply to the president."
The three Yale Law experts then break down just how unprecedented this assertion of powers is, not just in American history but in the history of British monarchies.
/snip
Brad Reed
April 10, 2025 10:02AM ET
A trio of legal experts is warning that the Trump Department of Justice is asserting that the president has unprecedented powers that were not even possessed by English monarchs.
Writing at Just Security, Yale Law School professors Harold Hongju Koh and Fred Halbhuber, along with Yale Law J.D. candidate Inbar Pe'er, point to recent assertions made by Trump DOJ lawyers in court that the United States Constitution does not prohibit President Donald Trump from issuing bills of attainder, which are orders that impose "a punishment on a specific person or group of people without first going through a trial."
During a recent hearing on Trump's executive orders targeting law firms that have in the past represented his political enemies, Judge Beryl Howell asked the Trump DOJ if such orders could be considered bills of attainder, which the United States Constitution explicitly prohibits.
Rather than merely denying that the orders were bills of attainder, the government replied that "as a pure constitutional matter... the bill of attainder restriction is only on Article I and not on Article II [of the Constitution], and so it doesn’t apply to the president."
The three Yale Law experts then break down just how unprecedented this assertion of powers is, not just in American history but in the history of British monarchies.
/snip
2 replies
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