sees

Sometimes it seems as though the only thing that stands between a functioning democracy and a full-on Trump autocracy is a thin, black-robed line.

Although the Supreme Court, in general, and conservative appellate courts, in particular, have bowed and granted President Trump permission to do pretty much anything he wants, they haven’t thoroughly capitulated to his endless grasping for ever more power. (The way invertebrate congressional Republicans have.)

At the lower-court level, judges have repeatedly ruled in ways intended to check Trump, most notably when it comes to violating civil and constitutional rights in pursuit of his indiscriminate immigration dragnet.

The tendency to slow-walk his administration’s response to those rulings — and ignore others that Trump thinks he can safely snub — only contribute to the perception of presidential lawlessness and a sense that our judicial system is being strained to something approaching a breaking point.

Go ahead, if you’d like, and dismiss those concerns as just so much overwrought hand-wringing, or the mindless anti-Trump blathering of your friendly political columnist. A new survey of legal experts — including federal judges, top-tier lawyers and scores of professors from some of the country’s leading law schools — finds widespread concern about the brittle state of our legal system.

And it’s not just the fears of a lot of shaggy-thinking liberals.

“The nation is strong as is its commitment to the rule of law,” said one appellate judge, a Republican appointee. “The current president presents the greatest threat in decades.”

The survey was conducted by Bright Line Watch, a nonpartisan academic group that monitors the health and resilience of American democracy, in conjunction with the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA’s School of Law.

Conducted between mid-February and early March, the poll anonymously surveyed 21 federal judges, 113 lawyers, 193 law professors, 652 political scientists and a nationally representative sample of 2,750 Americans.

What leapt out to UCLA’s Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, was that “across the ideological spectrum and across judges, lawyers and law professors, there was considerable agreement that the rule of law in the U.S. is under tremendous stress.” That consensus, he said, suggests “a real risk to democracy.”

Most legal experts agreed that Trump is using executive power excessively, with a majority doubting the conservative-leaning Supreme Court would handle cases involving the Trump administration impartially. The experts also expressed concern about politicized law enforcement — Trump seeking to persecute his perceived enemies — executive branch overreach, and the failure of Congress or the Supreme Court to do more to rein in the rogue president.

Eight in 10 of those surveyed said federal officials fail to comply with court orders somewhat or very often, and nearly 9 in 10 said political appointees in Trump’s Justice Department mislead federal judges somewhat or very often.

Talk about contempt of court — not to mention our vital system of checks and balances.

There was, unsurprisingly, a split among conservatives and liberals who took part in the survey. (The study defined legal conservatives as those saying the Supreme Court should base rulings on its understanding of what the Constitution meant as originally written. Liberals, who made up most of the respondents, were defined as those saying the court should base its rulings on what the Constitution means in current times.)

Conservatives, for instance, were more likely than liberals to see former President Biden as a greater threat to the rule of law than Trump. Liberals were more likely than conservatives to see evidence of Trump politicizing the Justice Department.

There were also differences between legal experts — those most intimately involved in the judicial system — and the public at large. The experts were more concerned about Trump’s excesses and threats to the rule of law, which, Hasen said, stands to reason.

The legal system is not something most people encounter daily in the same way they do, say, gasoline prices or the cost of groceries. “Yet,” Hasen said, “it’s one of these background things that really matters.”

Why?

Hasen put it this way: “Imagine that a person had a dispute with their neighbor and it ended up in small claims court before a judge and the judge made the decision not based on the merits of the case but based on whether he was friends with one of the parties, or didn’t like people who were similar to one of the parties.”

Now imagine that kind of corrupted, perverted system of justice writ large.

If, for instance, “people know that the government can successfully seek retribution from people who criticize it, people will be less likely to criticize the government,” Hasen said, leaving the country worse off by muzzling those who would hold their elected leaders to account.

Or if, say, rioters overran the U.S. Capitol and tried to steal an election and, instead of being punished, received cash payouts from the federal government, what incentive would there be to follow the law?

Happily — and who couldn’t use a bit of good cheer right about now — all is not lost.

People “can demand that their elected representatives take steps to assure that the rule of law will be followed,” Hasen said, and can insist “that the government [not] play favorites or seek retribution against perceived enemies.”

That’s the power people have, come election time. That’s why voting matters.

There are lots of things riding on the outcome in November, not least the sanctity and integrity of our legal system.

Bear that in mind when you cast your ballot.

WASHINGTON — Bold conservative thinkers with clear public records need not apply.

An increasing number of conservative activists fear that is the message President Bush is sending with his two choices for the Supreme Court.

This week’s nomination of White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, following Bush’s earlier selection of John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice, means that the president has chosen two Supreme Court nominees with limited — or virtually no — public records on the key constitutional controversies dividing the parties. In the process, he’s bypassed a long list of judges with consistent conservative records on state and federal courts.

“I don’t know that there is a deliberate message — I think he is just trying to avoid trouble — but the message comes through: Do not be controversial, do not express strong opinions that arouse opposition,” said Robert H. Bork, the conservative legal scholar and former federal judge. Bork’s extensive writings keyed an explosive confirmation battle that culminated in his rejection by the Senate when President Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1987.

During almost five years of bruising partisan warfare on issues from taxes to Iraq, few people have ever accused Bush of dodging a fight. But that’s exactly the charge he is now facing from disgruntled conservatives.

They contend that Bush has chosen Miers, and even Roberts, largely because he fears Democratic resistance to conservatives with more concrete public records, such as appellate court Judges J. Michael Luttig and Edith H. Jones.

“Is the president sending a message that these distinguished conservatives are too controversial to be nominated for the high court, even with a Senate containing 55 Republicans?” a Wall Street Journal editorial asked Tuesday.

White House officials and some Bush allies on the right deny the charge that he is gun-shy about promoting nominees with extensive public records. They note that the president has consistently appointed known conservatives, such as Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla R. Owen, to the powerful federal appellate courts — even renominating them after they were initially blocked by Democratic filibusters.

“In the president’s mind, it is not disqualifying if you have a public track record of conservatism, and he has proved that through his appellate court appointees,” said White House counselor Dan Bartlett.

Bush, at a Tuesday news conference, sought to assure his supporters that Miers shared his conservative views and would remain steadfast to them.

“I know her well enough to be able to say that she’s not going to change, that 20 years from now she’ll be the same person, with the same philosophy, that she is today,” he said.

But Bush’s critics on the right maintain that his reluctance to nominate a known conservative for the Supreme Court sends a strong signal encouraging caution and consensus among conservative legal thinkers and judges.

“I suppose a lot of people are not going to want to join the Federalist Society,” said Bork, in a reference to a conservative legal group.

Both sides agree that the 1987 defeat of Bork marked a turning point in Supreme Court nominations. Since then, both parties have generally favored nominees without the detailed and controversial record he carried to the witness table.

“It’s almost become a qualification,” said Bork, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank.

But Bush’s conservative critics say he has carried this tendency to a new height through his selection of Roberts, who had served just over two years as a federal judge, and Miers, who has never served on the bench or written publicly on major legal questions.

In contrast, both of President Clinton’s Supreme Court appointees — Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — had served for more than a decade on federal appellate courts. And Ginsburg had written widely as a law professor and general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Bush’s conservative critics acknowledge that Roberts’ limited public record made it more difficult for Democrats to organize against him, an advantage that Miers may also benefit from.

But the president’s critics maintain that Bush is underestimating his ability to win confirmation for a more clearly defined candidate while Republicans hold 55 Senate seats; only twice since 1930 has a president’s Supreme Court nomination been rejected while his party controlled a Senate majority.

“If Bush feels he could have put a Mike Luttig on there without a fight, he would have done it,” said Mark Levin, president of the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation and a former chief of staff to Edwin Meese III, who was attorney general under Reagan. “It’s a political calculation that he’s got enough on his table right now, and why instigate a fight?”

Luttig, of Virginia, is a favorite of conservative activists.

The critics on the right see two principal risks in choosing justices without a long pedigree. One is that without a firm anchor in conservative legal views, they will trend leftward on the court — the way almost all conservatives believe David H. Souter, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, has done. This fear is greater about Miers because Roberts’ advocacy for conservative positions in previous GOP administrations has left the right considerably more, though not completely, confident about him.

The other fear is that the nomination of candidates without lengthy public records will discourage conservatives from advancing controversial positions that challenge legal conventional wisdom — either in their writings or on the courts. The Wall Street Journal said that by appointing Miers, the president “missed a chance to send a message that taking firm sides in our judicial debates is not politically disqualifying.”

Bush advisors and allies say such conclusions misread his logic for the Miers appointment. They say his long personal relationship with Miers gives him more confidence about her judicial philosophy than he could obtain from reading a judge’s opinions or from a short interview.

“Harriet Miers reflects less a reticence to appoint someone with a record and more a commitment to appoint someone he knows shares his judicial philosophy,” said Leonard Leo, a former vice president of the Federalist Society now working with groups supporting the president’s court nominees.

Still, the uneasiness on the right about Bush’s decision-making has reached the point that two prominent legal conservatives this week joked that the best thing that ever happened to Roberts was the refusal by the Senate, then controlled by the Democrats, to confirm him after President George H.W. Bush nominated him to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1992.

If Roberts had been confirmed then, his lengthy legal record might have dissuaded the current President Bush from nominating him to the Supreme Court this summer, said one of the conservatives, who asked not to be identified.

BEIJING — The Trump administration has repeatedly framed the war in Iran as a quick, winnable fight, vowing to defeat the Islamic Republic “totally and decisively” — incomparable to the “dumb” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But from China’s perspective, the parallels are clear.

“You can blow everything up — destroy it all,” one Chinese official told The Times, describing the Americans, “but you don’t have a strategy.”

President Trump arrives in Beijing this week for talks with a Chinese government that is confident as ever in its ascendance on the world stage, taking stock of its leverage and still baffled the U.S. administration chose yet another costly war in the Middle East.

China has watched as the United States, over seven weeks of fighting an outmatched enemy, has depleted nearly half of its stockpiles of high-end munitions — including its THAAD and Patriot batteries — and fired its Army chief of staff, among other Pentagon leaders, who had warned of critical shortages.

Marco Rubio, Trump’s national security advisor and secretary of State, has said the military operation that started the war known as Operation Epic Fury “is over.”

But the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital commercial waterways, remains effectively shuttered. Iranian attacks in the region continue. And talks between Washington and Tehran have failed to reach a diplomatic agreement to bring a definitive end to the conflict.

“The Chinese have high regard for the operational proficiency of U.S. forces, but they recognize that, thus far at least, the Trump administration has not achieved its core objectives in going to war with Iran,” said David Ochmanek, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense now with the Rand Corp.

The war has given Beijing an opportunity, Ochmanek said, “to double down on the claim they have made for the past year and a half that the [People’s Republic of China], not the U.S., is a force for global stability.”

The war has allowed China to demonstrate some diplomatic prowess. An initial ceasefire reached between the United States and Iran last month was only clinched after Beijing pressured Tehran to agree. And China’s advocacy for an open strait — rejecting Iranian attempts to impose a toll system — while opposing the U.S. war itself has allowed Beijing to maintain leverage with both sides.

It has also inflicted costs. Allies of Beijing noticed when the government did not leap to the defense of Tehran at the start of the war. And China has its own vested interest in a free and open waterway, where nearly 50% of the country’s crude oil imports pass through each day.

Building up to the start of the war and throughout its initial weeks, Washington diverted significant military assets from Asia — where Trump’s own national security strategy says they are needed most — to the Middle East.

The USS Abraham Lincoln was redirected from the South China Sea, along with scores of advanced missile interceptors from South Korea and Japan and nearly the entire U.S. inventory of long-range air-to-surface missiles in the Pacific.

Policy experts at the Pentagon were brought in to discuss a potential invasion of Kharg Island, the jewel of Iran’s oil industry, to draw lessons from planning a defense of Taiwan, according to a Defense official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. A Marine expeditionary unit was sent from Okinawa to the region for the potential operation.

Chinese officials and analysts have been candid in their assessments of U.S. hard power, impressed by a military they acknowledge remains the best in the world.

But Beijing sees a persistent flaw in U.S. strategy: the belief that military strength alone can reshape political realities, a view further weakened by the pressures on a democratic government whose public grows impatient with wars that drag on beyond days or weeks.

China’s autocracy is free from accountability to the public — and anyway has confidence that Chinese public opinion would be on its side if it were to launch a major military operation against its main target, Taiwan.

But there are lessons of caution to be learned from the Americans, as well.

Over the last year, the Taiwanese Navy has been practicing the rapid deployment of cheap and domestically produced smart mines for the sea — a potential bulwark against enemy blockades of ports and hostile invasion forces.

It is the type of asymmetric warfare that has so far frustrated the U.S. military in the Strait of Hormuz, protracting a war that Trump vowed would last a month or less.

Taiwan, too, would confront Beijing with political realities that military force cannot erase. Nearly 90% of the Taiwanese people oppose a Chinese takeover, and about 60% say they would resist it at all costs.

“Chinese analysts see two things at once,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They are impressed by U.S. military reach, precision and operational capability, but they also see a familiar pattern of American power struggling to translate battlefield success into a durable political outcome.”

That matters for Taiwan, Singleton said, “because China’s own military modernization has borrowed heavily from the American model, relying heavily on joint operations, high-tech precision strikes, decapitation concepts and information dominance.

“If the world’s most experienced military can still struggle to convert military pressure into political success,” he added, “Beijing has to ask whether the [People’s Liberation Army] could do better in a far more complex Taiwan scenario.”

YEREVAN, Armenia — European leaders on Monday said President Trump’s surprise decision to pull thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany is just the latest signal that Europe must take more responsibility for its security.

The Pentagon announced last week it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but Trump told reporters on Saturday the U.S. plans on “cutting a lot further.”

Trump offered no reason for the move, which blindsided NATO. But his decision came amid an escalating dispute with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the U.S. has been humiliated by Iran in talks to end the war it launched with Israel on Feb. 28. Trump has also expressed anger over European allies’ reluctance to get involved in the conflict.

European leaders meeting at a summit in Yerevan, Armenia, sought to both downplay the impact of 5,000 fewer troops in Germany while acknowledging that it provides a useful nudge for the continent to step up its role within NATO.

“I do not see those figures as dramatic, but I think they should be handled in a harmonious way inside the framework of NATO,” said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “there needs to be a stronger European element in NATO, I have no doubt about that.”

Tensions within NATO have mounted since the second Trump administration came into office last year warning that European allies would have to defend themselves and Ukraine in the future. Talks on ending the war there, now in its fourth year, have bogged down as the U.S. focuses on Iran.

Taken by surprise

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the timing of Trump’s announcement came as a surprise, even though there has been “talk about withdrawal of U.S. troops for a long time from Europe.”

Asked whether she believes Trump is trying to punish Merz, Kallas said: “I don’t see into the head of President Trump, so he has to explain it himself.”

Merz did not attend the European Political Community summit in Yerevan, which included about 30 European leaders, plus Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

At a military exercise in northern Germany, the country’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said Berlin has not yet received “official confirmation of when and how this is supposed to happen, on what scale.” The reduction of U.S. troops “would not put into question NATO’s deterrence capability,” he added.

European countries and Canada have increased defense spending and military recruitment efforts over the last year in response to Trump’s threats.

NATO seeks clarity

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also played down the significance of fewer U.S. troops in Germany, while acknowledging U.S. “disappointment” about the level of European support for the Iran war.

France and the U.K. have given U.S. forces limited use of bases on their territories to attack Iran. Spain has outright denied U.S. forces the use of its airspace and bases.

Rutte, who has championed Trump’s leadership at NATO despite the U.S. president’s criticism of a majority of the allies, said: “I would say the Europeans have heard a message.”

European allies and Canada have known since early last year that Trump would pull some troops out of Europe — and some were pulled out of Romania in October — but U.S. officials had pledged to coordinate any moves with NATO allies to avoid creating a security vacuum.

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said over the weekend that officials at the 32-nation military alliance “are working with the U.S. to understand the details of their decision on force posture in Germany.”

Iran and trade trouble

With the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran looking shakier, Rutte said European nations “have decided to pre-position assets, key assets, close to the theater for the next phase.” He provided no further details.

European leaders have insisted their countries would not help police the Strait of Hormuz, a key energy trade route, until the war is over.

“If the United States is ready to reopen Hormuz, that’s great. That’s what we’ve been asking for since the beginning,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. But he underlined that Europeans are not ready to get involved in any operation “that does not seem clear.”

Carlson and Cook write for the Associated Press. Cook reported from Brussels. AP writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.