In his first two months in office, President Donald Trump has started tearing down U.S. systems of government accountability and asserting power outside typical presidential bounds. The Trump administration exhibits this emerging corruption through their quid pro quo with New York City Mayor Eric Adams. With advice from a court-appointed lawyer, a federal judge is expected to dismiss corruption charges against Adams soon — just in time for the mayor to start planning his reelection campaign.
In late September, Adams was charged with bribery and fraud for accepting illegal campaign contributions and gifts from Turkish officials in exchange for lobbying on their behalf in the years preceding his 2021 mayoral campaign. In early February, head prosecutor and former interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon stated that there was “concrete evidence” of Adams committing these crimes.
Two weeks after Sassoon’s statement, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Adams, signed by Emil Bove III, former acting deputy attorney general and a former member of Trump’s legal team. Concerningly, Bove stated that the move to dismiss charges was not based on the case's merits but rather on the concern that the case was distracting Adams from enforcing Trump’s new immigration policies.
In exchange for this legal amnesty, Adams has agreed to comply with Trump’s immigration policies and has already signed an executive order allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to search Rikers Island, a prison facility off the coast of Queens. This compliance represents a significant rightward shift from New York City's historical stance as a sanctuary city, where laws barred city officials from communicating information about undocumented immigrants to federal officials. This change in Adams’ policy and governance does not reflect the values of his constituents, who have consistently elected officials who uphold and expand laws providing leeway for undocumented immigrants. Instead, Adams’ choice to trade favors with Trump comes as a betrayal of Adams’ constituents for his own gain.
With the expected dismissal of Adams’ corruption case, worries surrounding the rule of law in the United States are intensifying. The Trump administration is functioning as a dictatorship, subsuming the authority of individual U.S. attorneys like Sassoon. There is no end in sight for the administration’s authoritarian action, and opposition from the congressional and judicial branches of the government is necessary to stop this backslide. Unfortunately, that opposition does not exist in the actions of Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court.
However, the DOJ’s move to dismiss charges is not the only indication of a corrupt deal between Adams and the Trump administration. Before the DOJ’s motion, the department attempted to task seven other prosecutors with filing the motion. Rather than comply with the order, these prosecutors, including Sassoon, as well as five attorneys in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, opted to resign. In her resignation letter, Sassoon accused the DOJ and Adams of engaging in an illegal “quid pro quo” — the possibility of which is incredibly concerning and undermines the integrity of the U.S. judicial system. If no one prevents government officials from trading favors to avoid criminal charges, the ways in which people can hold the government accountable will continue to wane.
The Trump administration has pushed the bounds of executive power consistently during its tenure. Trump’s executive orders have tested constitutional pliancy by offering federal employees unprecedented buyouts, firing over a dozen inspectors general and ordering the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. According to legal scholars, many of these actions require an act of Congress, raising questions about why the administration believes it has the power to broaden its power so decisively.
One explanation is that the other branches of government are either unable or unwilling to use the system of checks and balances to stop this radical expansion of presidential power. Congress is providing no resistance, acquiescing to these broad actions even though they are not under a president’s typical purview. This is a massive oversight of one of the main duties of separate branches of government: Our Founding Fathers designed the branches to hold each other accountable, not sit idly by as one rapidly attempts to establish more and more power.
Courts can check Trump’s power, but the Trump administration continues to subvert their authority. Most recently, on March 16, the Trump administration deported hundreds of immigrants to a mega-prison in El Salvador against a federal judge's order. These breaches of judicial oversight dangle on the edge of a slippery slope into dictatorship and action is needed now more than ever to stop it. Openly defying court orders would historically be grounds for impeachment, but the problem lies with the Republican-controlled Congress’ unwillingness to impeach Trump.
Disobeying the rule of law has far-reaching effects — including the indiscriminate and unmediated slashing of funding for research institutions like Emory University. Cases headed toward the Supreme Court may not act as an appropriate check on Trump’s power either, seeing as the court is filled with his appointees. During his first term, the justices showed a willingness to erode processes of accountability in Trump's favor. With the inclination of equal branches of power to acquiesce to his actions, Trump believes that he and his administration are above the law. In a bright spot, Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a rebuke of the Trump administration’s action in resisting the norms of rule of law following the El Salvador deportations. Now, we can only hope that this backbone extends to the Supreme Court’s actual decisions.
Exemplifying his bravado and contempt for the law, Trump wrote in a Feb. 15 post on X that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Fears of a constitutional crisis are not conjecture. Trump’s viewpoint in this post and in his sweeping executive actions are not only ridiculous but also exorbitantly dangerous.
As the Trump administration broadens its power and challenges typical presidential limitations, Republican lawmakers must recognize these actions are not simply bad for Democrats — they are bad for our country, destructive to our democracy and are disintegrating our system of checks and balances in front of our eyes. Congress must insist that the president functions within his power, even if it means crossing party lines, to ensure the prosperous, law-abiding future of the United States. This includes Georgia’s five Democratic and nine Republican representatives in Congress, as well as Senators Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who should all publicly work together to denounce this broad overreach of power and counter these new, terrifying breaches of constitutional rights. Emory students must work with and protect each other from sweeping changes threatening our students and cutting funding for our universities.
Contact Caitlin Williams at caitlin.williams@emory.edu
