“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t. … Now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”
— President Donald Trump, explaining this week that he could unilaterally end the Constitution’s protection of birthright citizenship
Jan. 1, 2019 (BREITBART) — President Trump, under his newly discovered authority to rewrite the citizenship requirements of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, today issued an order restricting U.S. citizenship to the following individuals and groups:
“My family”
“Kellyanne Conway (but not George!)”
“Sarah Sanders (dad OK, too)”
“Kanye West”
“Russians living at Trump properties”
“Residents of Trump Tower”
“Lou Dobbs”
“Sean Hannity”
“Tucker Carlson”
“Steve Doocy”
“Steve King”
“Stephen Miller”
After signing the order, the president told reporters: “It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment to restrict citizenship to friends and family. Guess what? You don’t. Now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”
Jan. 8, 2019 (BREITBART) — A federal district court judge struck down President Trump’s orders today awarding citizenship only to friends and family, saying, “You can’t run the country like it’s a Manhattan co-op.”
Trump, saying the ruling was invalid because one of the judge’s ancestors came from Mexico, responded by issuing a new executive order eliminating Article III of the Constitution and replacing the federal judiciary with Judge Jeanine Pirro.
“Guess what?” Trump told reporters after the signing. “I can do it just with an executive order.”
Jan. 15, 2019 (BREITBART) — President Trump, using his expanding authority to revise the Constitution by executive action, ordered the summary deportation of all 11 million illegal immigrants by next week — just in time to keep his promise to have them out of the country within two years of taking office.
After the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit to stop without-cause searches of every American home, business and vehicle, Trump issued a second order requiring the imprisonment without charges of all ACLU lawyers, as well as Robert S. Mueller III, Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen, Omarosa Manigault Newman and “NFL players who present a risk of kneeling.”
“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment to do unreasonable searches and seizures and to eliminate due process,” Trump told reporters as he boarded Marine One for a campaign event. “Guess what? You don’t.”
Jan. 22, 2019 (BREITBART) — President Trump issued a new executive memorandum today ordering the Justice Department to immediately end all civil and criminal prosecutions, “particularly any that mention ‘collusion,’ ‘taxes’ and ‘emoluments.’” The order redirects 100 percent of Justice Department resources toward investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Top department officials resigned, saying the order violated the constitutional requirement that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” But acting attorney general Lindsey O. Graham said Trump’s order overrode Article II, Section III of the Constitution.
“Guess what?” Graham said. “He can do it.”
Jan. 29, 2019 (BREITBART) — President Trump, responding to media criticism of his recent executive orders, issued a memorandum revising the First Amendment to abolish all media, allowing only: Fox News, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Alex Jones, Gab and QAnon.
Dean Baquet, executive editor of the Failing New York Times, responded by saying, “[CENSORED].”
Feb. 12, 2019 (BREITBART) — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have not been seen in public since criticizing President Trump’s expanding use of executive orders to revise the Constitution.
The disappearances are possibly related to the president’s latest executive order decreeing that anybody who criticizes his executive orders is no longer covered by the Eighth Amendment’s protections against “cruel and unusual” punishment.
Tom Cotton, who identified himself as “acting defense secretary,” said Mattis and the chiefs were on “an extended visit” to Guantanamo Bay.
Feb. 19, 2019 (BREITBART) — Lady Liberty herself, in a rare Oval Office appearance, made an emotional appeal to President Trump to stop “rewriting the Constitution by fiat.”
Lady Liberty, known widely from French romantic paintings and a statue in New York Harbor, made little progress. Trump, according to two people familiar with the meeting, told her: “It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.”
“Guess what?” Trump told Fox News shortly after a tearful Lady Liberty departed the West Wing. “When you’re a star, they let you do that.”
Dana Milbank is a columnist for The Washington Post whose work appears regularly in the Tribune-Herald. Email him at danamilbank@washpost.com.