Column: Is it a coup if it’s legal? When you make the rules, it’s hard to break them
This combination of photos shows former President Donald Trump during rally in Minden, Nev., Oct. 8, 2022, left, and Elon Musk in Wilmington, Del., July 12, 2021. In July, Musk ally and now-Vice President JD Vance said on a conservative podcast that if he could give Trump one piece of advice, it would be to “seize the administrative state” for his own purposes. That’s a word that’s become as common as popcorn in a movie theater the last few days, but here’s a hard truth from Jonathan Adler, an administrative law expert at Case Western Reserve University School of Law: “A lot of it really depends on the details.” There are actions that certainly seem like they should be illegal, including Musk taking personal data from thousands of federal employees and even maybe rewriting parts of government payment codes for reasons that are unknown to the public. “Many people are asking me if Elon Musk is stealing tax-payer money or using our private information to enrich himself?” wrote Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost on formerly-Twitter. Vance quoted President Andrew Jackson, who once infamously showed his contempt for the courts when after a decision he didn’t like, proclaimed that the chief justice had made his ruling, “now let him try to enforce it.” It’s one thing for Trump and Musk to push the boundaries of the law.
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