President Donald Trump’s ability to bend federal law to build unwanted monuments and constitutionally questionable ballrooms proves a basic myth about his legacy is fundamentally wrong, his biographer argued Saturday.
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This argument appears in a New York Times column from Maureen Dowd in which she discusses Trump’s various legal battles to build ballrooms, bunkers and arches that have spurred concerns even from conservative Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.
“It’s crazy to think about Donald Trump outrunning anything,” wrote Dowd. “But in legal terms, the president is an Olympic-class sprinter. He breaks the law so fast that the law is left in his orange dust.”
Dowd gave Trump back-handed praise for what she described as an ability to zero in on legal loopholes with the dexterity of “voracious scam artists.”
The Times columnist cited as proof the dissent Roberts penned this week regarding the $300 million “ballroom behemoth” Trump was granted permission to complete by the nation’s highest court.
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“That construction is likely unlawful,” Roberts wrote in his dissent. “Today’s decision is no victory for the separation of powers.”
Dowd then turned to Trump biographer Tim O’Brien for an explanation of how and why the president has been able to skirt the law with what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called a “catch me if you can” approach.
O’Brien gave a surprising answer.
“This idea that Trump’s mentor was Roy Cohn was profoundly wrong,” O’Brien said. “Donald Trump’s mentor was Fred from day one. His father showed him how to exploit the government system, the legal system and business. His whole worldview is built around the idea that you exploit systems for personal gain, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that because the world’s populated by sharks and you just have to be the biggest shark.”
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