A short history of the Imperial Presidency (with examples)

  • US deports hundreds of Venezuelans despite court order: More than 200 Venezuelans alleged by the White House to be gang members have been deported from the US to a supermax prison in El Salvador, even as a US judge blocked the removals. 


Trump's second term


This might be the greatest demonstration of power by any president in modern times. It follows a theory advanced by conservative legal scholars who believe the commander-in-chief should be the undisputed master of executive government. Unitary Executive Theory, Donald Moynihan, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “In layman’s terms, this is a legal theory that the constitution imbues previously unrecognised powers not in the executive branch but in the person of the president. A useful shorthand is the idea that the president has king-like powers.” 

Unitary Executive Theory 

The unitary executive theory was central to a landmark Supreme Court ruling, Trump v. United States, agreed by a five-to-four conservative majority, that presidents have absolute immunity for acts committed in office while carrying out their constitutional duties — in effect giving Trump a freedom to act in office not enjoyed by any predecessor.

Supreme Court to rule if Trump can run for president 

The reason Trump is gaining more power is that he has a compliant Congress, which is failing to assert its constitutional rights. The Republican majority in both chambers is compliant, reinforced by Trump’s ability to mobilise Republican grassroots voters against almost any perceived opponent. Trump's power over the republican party has subverted the original design of the Constitution. Parties have not, in the past, 'united that which the constitution divides',  until now.  As Lisa Murkowski, a rare Republican dissident senator from Alaska, observed, referring to Trump’s ability to turn local voters against incumbents: “Everybody is zip-lipped because they’re afraid they’re going to be taken down.”


Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, describes how even within the US constitution, a democratic leader can enlarge their power beyond the expectation of 'limited government'.

Power without Persuasion: Ways around Congress 

Even a legitimately elected leader can undermine democracy by consolidating power and that can happen in a couple of different ways,” Williamson said. “One way is when the executive expands power beyond the checks and balances that are typically provided by the legislature and the judicial system.


“For example, the power to tax and to spend is something that is a clear power invested in our legislative branch, and so things like the executive branch deciding that it can unilaterally stop payments or close agencies that were instituted by law is a massive shift in the power of the presidency.”

The other way that executive aggrandisement takes place, Williamson added, is via “efforts to disable or politicise the civil service”. She said: “One of the things you see in countries experiencing democratic erosion is that traditionally non-partisan independent functions become partisan and avenues by which the party or the person in power exerts authority to their own political advantage.”

Another example of quasi-kingly powers used by Trump came when he invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act “regarding the invasion of the United States by Tren de Aragua”, a transnational criminal gang based in Venezuela.

Trump claimed the gang “operates in conjunction” with the Maduro regime to destabilise the United States by “conducting irregular warfare” and that members “shall be immediately apprehended and detained until removed” from the country.

This takes us back to England in the 17th century,” said Holly Brewer, professor of American history at the University of Maryland. “The question of habeas corpus, even though written into the Magna Carta, was not always honoured. At the beginning of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 in England, there were [people] complaining about people being arrested and sent beyond seas without trials,” she said. Ironically, the destination for many convicts then was the early American colonies.