U.S. President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order on AI, in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, U.S., January 23, 2025.
February 08, 2025
ALTERNET
President Donald Trump made numerous executive orders after returning to the White House on January 20, some of which are which are being aggressively challenged in court — from firing more than a dozen inspectors general to an order calling for an end to birthright citizenship (which, Trump's critics say, is flat-out illegal because birthright citizenship is protected by the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment).
But Trump and some of his MAGA defenders are pushing a far-right idea known as the "unitary executive theory," which claims that a president has sole authority over the federal government's executive branch.
In an article published by Salon on February 8, three political science scholars — John A. Dearborn of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Desmond King of Oxford University in England, and Stephen Skowronek of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut — lay out some flaws with the "unitary executive theory."
READ MORE: Americans' 'legally protected' info now 'exposed' as Trump budget chief gets new powers: union
Trump, according to the scholars, is determined to "test the boundaries of existing law."
"For example, the Office of Personnel Management sent a 'Fork in the Road' e-mail to federal employees designed to incentivize mass resignations," Dearborn, King and Skowronek explain. "Employees at the Department of Justice who had worked on special counsel Jack Smith's investigations were fired, despite their career status and protections from at-will removal. The president also fired several inspectors general, declining to provide the congressionally mandated 30-day notice and detailed reasons for their dismissal."
The scholars continue, "Such rapid-fire actions are already setting up court cases that will determine how much control the president can exercise over the civil service and whether any kind of restrictions on the president's removal power are constitutional."
Dearborn, King and Skowronek note that the "unitary executive theory" is promoted in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's 922-page blueprint for a second Trump presidency.
"Cultivated by the conservative legal movement and now widely shared within it," the scholars write, "this 'theory of the unitary executive' deploys the 'Vesting Clause' of Article II of the Constitution to declare that 'all of the executive power' belongs to the president alone…. No doubt the conservative legal movement believes that in advancing the unitary executive theory, it is espousing the true meaning of the Constitution. In fact, it boasts that it has rediscovered the original meaning. But we should be under no illusions that adopting such decisions would restore Americans' faith in the Constitution."
Dearborn, King and Skowronek continue, "Instead, judicial approval for the president’s actions would fatally undercut the Constitution's power-sharing design. It would turn the Constitution into a warrant for one group of participants to impose its will unilaterally on the rest."
Read the full Salon article at this link
President Donald Trump made numerous executive orders after returning to the White House on January 20, some of which are which are being aggressively challenged in court — from firing more than a dozen inspectors general to an order calling for an end to birthright citizenship (which, Trump's critics say, is flat-out illegal because birthright citizenship is protected by the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment).
But Trump and some of his MAGA defenders are pushing a far-right idea known as the "unitary executive theory," which claims that a president has sole authority over the federal government's executive branch.
In an article published by Salon on February 8, three political science scholars — John A. Dearborn of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Desmond King of Oxford University in England, and Stephen Skowronek of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut — lay out some flaws with the "unitary executive theory."
READ MORE: Americans' 'legally protected' info now 'exposed' as Trump budget chief gets new powers: union
Trump, according to the scholars, is determined to "test the boundaries of existing law."
"For example, the Office of Personnel Management sent a 'Fork in the Road' e-mail to federal employees designed to incentivize mass resignations," Dearborn, King and Skowronek explain. "Employees at the Department of Justice who had worked on special counsel Jack Smith's investigations were fired, despite their career status and protections from at-will removal. The president also fired several inspectors general, declining to provide the congressionally mandated 30-day notice and detailed reasons for their dismissal."
The scholars continue, "Such rapid-fire actions are already setting up court cases that will determine how much control the president can exercise over the civil service and whether any kind of restrictions on the president's removal power are constitutional."
Dearborn, King and Skowronek note that the "unitary executive theory" is promoted in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's 922-page blueprint for a second Trump presidency.
"Cultivated by the conservative legal movement and now widely shared within it," the scholars write, "this 'theory of the unitary executive' deploys the 'Vesting Clause' of Article II of the Constitution to declare that 'all of the executive power' belongs to the president alone…. No doubt the conservative legal movement believes that in advancing the unitary executive theory, it is espousing the true meaning of the Constitution. In fact, it boasts that it has rediscovered the original meaning. But we should be under no illusions that adopting such decisions would restore Americans' faith in the Constitution."
Dearborn, King and Skowronek continue, "Instead, judicial approval for the president’s actions would fatally undercut the Constitution's power-sharing design. It would turn the Constitution into a warrant for one group of participants to impose its will unilaterally on the rest."
Read the full Salon article at this link
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