The worst thing Trump has done (on a long list of things)

A right-leaning friend asked me over lunch the other day what is the worst thing Trump has done since he took office. There is much competition for the prize.

Is it the rampant corruption in Washington, using the criminal justice system for revenge on personal and political enemies ? Is it pressuring law firms , universities and media companies to achieve political ends? Barring press from the White House because he doesn’t like what they report? Weakening our alliances ? Warring with science and the arts ? The fiasco in Iran and the global exposure of our military’s weaknesses?

Then there’s the self-valorizing East Wing ballroom or the Arc de Trump . Is it a pass to the dangers of AI , the outrageous lies or his repeated savaging of the three Supreme Court justices he appointed because he doesn’t like their decisions?

No wonder the Democrats are predicted to sweep the midterms . But don’t be so sure. At the recent Republican convention, Trump told his flock to “cheat like hell.” The vote may be suppressed. There could be i nterference with state certifications . FBI Director Kash Patel suggested to Congress he might send federal agents to the polls. Their presence may intimidate eligible voters.

Then, there is the coup d’état. Former Judge J. Michael Luttig painted a nightmare scenario : What if Trump and the Republicans lose the House but refuse to concede? Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — Mike Pence, he is not — could orchestrate such a steal. Garrett Epps notes that the country faced something like this twice, in 1863 and 1865. Both times, the ship of state almost capsized. Epps describes the attempted coup of 1863, engineered by the House clerk, Democrat Emerson Etheridge, a leader of the pro-slavery forces.

When the chamber was called to order, he would skip a few names — just enough to produce a “membership” with a Democratic majority. The Republicans, although duly elected, would be removed from power. Etheridge called his roll, omitting 16 Republicans who he claimed had not presented valid credentials.

Republican Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (R-Pa.) immediately moved that the omitted names be called. The House narrowly voted to seat the sidelined members, and the crisis ended.

In 1865, with Lincoln gone, the coup idea resurfaced. House Clerk Edward McPherson, a former apprentice of Stevens, ignored the Southern Democrats on technical grounds. The plot to re-Southernize Congress collapsed.

How loyal to the Constitution is Speaker Johnson? For 36 days, he delayed seating Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), an elected Democrat prepared to vote for disclosure of the Epstein files. That should speak volumes.

Corruption may well be the Democrat horse to ride back into town if Speaker Johnson lets them get out of the stable. It is with good reason that a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found 63 percent of U.S. adults believe has inappropriately profited” in his second term.

There is the gift of a jet plane from Qatar , the shady crypto billions Trump has made trading on his presidency, Donald Trump, Jr.’s lavish wedding on two private islands funded by a Putin allied oligarch . Last year, was a financial bonanza for Trump, bringing in over $2 billion , more than half of which came from crypto, even as his administration gutted the primary regulator of the industry.

And then there is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had been involved in negotiations with Iran while his private investment firm was seeking to raise funds from Arab countries in the Middle East. Kushner later said he would not seek additional money while volunteering for the government.

For me, the coup de grâce is Trump’s repeated undermining of judicial independence, trashing the three justices he himself appointed, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Trump sees our government as one of venal people, not robust institutions.

When Trump lost the tariff case in the Supreme Court, he called Justices Gorsuch and Barrett’s votes an “ embarrassment to their families,” labeled majority conservatives voting with the liberal minority “disloyal, unpatriotic” and ”fools and lapdogs,” alleged without proof that the court was “swayed by foreign interests,” and said he was “ashamed” of the justices he appointed lacking the courage to do right.

His assault smacked of his mentor Roy Cohn’s playbook. In Cohn’s Bronx back room “ favor bank ” ethos, if a politician was responsible for appointing a judge, that judge owed allegiance not to the law, but to the corrupt political system that gave him the gavel.

And when he lost the mail ballot case, Trump repeated his rubbishing of the justices: “These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” he wrote in a social media post.

Trump’s actions are those of a sore loser and a bully, and many Americans are prepared to live with that. Bullies thrive on weakness, and Alexander Hamilton thought the judiciary to be the weakest branch of government , having no sword and no purse.

But I am a lawyer, and I find his vicious attacks on an independent judiciary to be intolerable — the worst thing he has done since returning to office.

James D. Zirin is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and a published legal analyst.