Donald Trump breaks the law so fast that the law is left in his orange dust

Donald Trump moves so quickly through legal loopholes that the law is left behind in what the article calls his “orange dust.” The writer portrays the president as an outlaw operating inside a system built on trust, restraint and the assumption that leaders would not exploit every gap for personal gain.

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The Constitution was built on this idea that the president would have enough decency and morality that they just wouldn’t run around exploiting the gaps.

Trump biographer Tim O’Brien says the Constitution depended on a president having enough decency and morality not to abuse those gaps. “And for Trump, it’s like red meat,” O’Brien said. He described Trump’s father, Fred, rather than Roy Cohn, as the lasting influence who taught him to exploit government, law and business systems. Trump’s worldview, O’Brien said, rests on the idea that the world is full of sharks and the biggest shark wins.

The article’s immediate target is Trump’s ballroom project at the White House. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented from a ruling by the court’s other Republican-appointed justices that allowed the project to move toward completion, with taxpayers responsible for more than $300 million. “That construction is likely unlawful,” Roberts wrote, adding that the president was likely infringing on Congress. “Today’s decision is no victory for the separation of powers.”

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And for Trump, it’s like red meat.

The writer argues that the White House belongs to the people and that presidents are temporary occupants. Roberts cited Theodore Roosevelt’s description of its “stately simplicity” as a link with the past, as well as Winston Churchill’s warning: “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”

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That construction is likely unlawful.

Trump’s record as a builder, the article says, has instead turned buildings into extensions of his ego. It points to the removal of Art Deco friezes at Trump Tower, despite a promise to give them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and to the destruction of the White House’s East Wing and Jackie Kennedy’s two gardens before Congress or preservationists could intervene. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson calls this a “catch me if you can” approach. The article concludes that the Supreme Court is protecting Trump through procedural arguments about whether the architectural historian who brought the case had standing, while preservationists have little time left to challenge what the writer calls his desecrations.

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Today’s decision is no victory for the separation of powers.