A short history of the Imperial Presidency (with examples)
The Sedition Act of 1798 was selectively enforced by the Adams administration against newspaper writers who supported Thomas Jefferson, his challenger in the 1800 election.
The very first landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1803, Marbury v. Madison, established the power of the judiciary by resolving a separation-of-powers dispute between the president and Congress.
President Andrew Jackson openly defied a Supreme Court ruling—the first, last, and only time that any U.S. president has done so—in Worcester v. Georgia in 1832.
President Abraham Lincoln took on unprecedented wartime powers and violated multiple civil liberties on a large scale during the American Civil War, including due process rights for U.S. citizens.
During the first Red Scare following World War I, President Woodrow Wilson suppressed free speech, deported immigrants based on their political beliefs and ordered massive unconstitutional raids. His policies were so draconian that they inspired protesters to form the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order calling for the forced internment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans, as well as forced surveillance, ID cards and occasional relocation for immigrants from other perceived hostile nations.
President Richard Nixon openly used executive branch law enforcement agencies to attack his political opponents and, in the case of Watergate, to actively cover up his supporters' criminal activities.
Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton all actively pursued expanded presidential powers. One particularly stunning example was President Clinton's claim that sitting presidents are immune from lawsuits, a position the Supreme Court rejected in Clinton v. Jones in 1997.
During the military intervention in Libya 2011, Obama justified bombing targets in Libya without Congressional approval stating that limited actions of this kind were not restricted by the War Powers Act. The New York Times called ‘legal acrobatics’,
2020 Trump Administration diverted $3.8 Billion In Pentagon funding to build the border wall
Although the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s signature student loan forgiveness program his administration found ways to cancel more than $48 billion in debt since then. Was this imperial of a clever workaround?
2025 “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” wrote Vice-President JD Vance, on X . US federal courts to halted some of Trump's executive orders. Courts ruled that these orders have ignored existing law or – in the case of an attempt to revoke birthright citizenship – violate the Constitution. Other rulings included an order halting and partially reversing the mass firing of thousands of staff at USAid – the now-shuttered foreign assistance agency – and another reversing the sudden freezing of trillions of dollars of government grants and loans. In so doing Vance is asserting 'unitary executive' theory. Trump's attack on the judiciary
Feb 2025 Trump purges the FBI. The Department of Justice moved to fire several senior FBI executives — including the head of the Washington field office. Additionally, DOJ is demanding a list of FBI personnel who investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The FBI has also been ordered not to continue their investigation into multiple allegations of corruption against the mayor of New York Eric Adams. It appears Trump made a deal to get Adams support for anti-immigration policies
- 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.”
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.