Attorney and political commentator David French issued a stark warning Monday that, outside of a major course correction, the United State’s constitutional republic was headed toward collapse under the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration breaks the law, and also ruthlessly exploits all the immunities it’s granted by law,” French said as part of an online conversation with two other opinion columnists, as reported by The New York Times Monday. “The situation is unsustainable for a constitutional republic.”
Critics have long warned of the threat President Donald Trump posed to American democracy, but the recent killings in Minnesota by federal immigration officers, as well as the Trump administration’s efforts to grant said officers full immunity for their actions, might just be the tipping point in finally dismantling America’s constitutional republic.
“We are witnessing the total breakdown of any meaningful system of accountability for federal officials,” French argued.
“The combination of Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons, his ongoing campaign of pardoning friends and allies, his politicized prosecutions and now his administration’s assurances that federal officers have immunity are creating a new legal reality in the United States. The national government is becoming functionally lawless, and the legal system is struggling to contain his corruption.”
The Trump administration has fiercely defended the Border Patrol agents who on Saturday pepper sprayed, beat and fatally shot 37-year-old Minnesota resident and nurse Alex Pretti, an incident that sparked outrage across the nation.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal Sunday that his administration was “reviewing everything” regarding the Border Patrol shooting, and would publish its findings. However, multiple senior White House officials immediately undercut that claim, telling Zeteo Monday that as of Sunday, no investigation had been launched into the shooting.