Amusingly apt comments from legal scholar Jack Goldsmith (Harvard):
The fractured executive branch is partly a result of terrible executive organization but mainly the product of an incompetent, mendacious president interacting with appointed or inherited executive branch officials who possess integrity. The President says and does things that his senior officials, when asked, cannot abide. And so they tell the truth, often with an awkward wince, or they ignore the President. And in response to this overt disrespect, President Trump does … nothing.
The president seems scary, and he is, but he also has no control over his administration. There is lots of talk about Trump’s threat to the independence of the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence community, and the like. But the truth is that these agencies are operating with an independence to presidential wishes like never before. It’s a very strange state of affairs.
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