Trump, Musk, & The Deep State: The Battle Over Transparency Begins
Trump, Musk, & The Deep State: The Battle Over Transparency Begins Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness, Here we go again. At the beginning of his first term as president, Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily banning travel from several countries – Yemen, for example, Sudan, Libya, and four others – that had been identified as major exporters of terrorism. The left went nuts, excoriating Trump for his “racist” “Muslim travel ban.” It wasn’t a “Muslim travel ban,” but try telling that to Seattle District Court judge James Robart. He sniffed the air, sensed the pleasing hysteria and press coverage, and issued a cursory restraining order against Trump’s executive order. The humorous part of Robart’s order came towards the end. As I wrote at the time, Robart insisted that the “declaratory and injunctive relief” outlined in his order be applied immediately and on a “nationwide basis” (my emphasis). Seattle has spoken, Comrades! Judge Robarts finds (where? how?) that his court has jurisdiction over … well, over just about everything: the president and the head of the Department of Homeland Security, for starters, but also “the United States of America (collectively).” So all across the fruited plain, “Federal Defendants and all their respective officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and persons acting in concert or participation with them are hereby ENJOINED and RESTRAINED” from enforcing the President’s executive order. This may be the best place to pause and point out that Donald Trump, acting as the president of the United States, was perfectly within his rights to issue an executive order to suspend travel from particular countries. And so it is now with Trump’s deputies in the Department of Government Efficiency. Tasked with the Herculean labor of unscrambling the byzantine Rube Goldberg device that is the 21st-century administrative state for furthering
