Donald Trump Already Setting Up A Potential Constitutional Crisis Over His Appointments

LOADING ERROR LOADING WASHINGTON ― Four years after sending a violent mob to the U.S. Capitol to coerce Congress into giving him a second term despite his election loss, Donald Trump is again trying to bully lawmakers, this time by demanding they adjourn and let him bypass their constitutional role if they will not quickly confirm his choices for his administration. “Both the Gaetz appointment and the RFK appointment are sort of as a ‘fuck you’ to America,” said Ty Cobb, a lawyer in Trump’s White House during his first term who, like many others who had worked for Trump, now see him as a threat to democracy. It’s actually more to see what impediments he has to supremacy.” Trump said this week that if senators won’t confirm his nominees, then the Senate should get out of his way so he can make “recess appointments” ― effectively telling senators to abdicate one of their core responsibilities under the Constitution. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, said he suspects Trump doesn’t actually want a constitutional crisis ― but also doesn’t care if he triggers one if that’s what it takes to get a loyalist like Gaetz running the Department of Justice. “But you know, he has happened upon, really, one of the Senate’s core functions.” Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, left, and Boris Epshteyn, an adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, arrive for a House Republican conference meeting Wednesday in Washington.