But as the Trump administration has repeatedly misstated facts to courts and resisted compliance with their orders, defying and deceiving courts along the way, the presumption of regularity has come under unprecedented strain.

But these conditions are not only a bad idea–they are unlawful and, indeed, likely to be challenged in court. As I explain below, they suffer from three principal defects: the Trump administration lacks authority to impose them; they conflict with the Constitution’s

In May, a federal court dispensed the administration a dose of reality. The case, American Council of Learned Societies v. National Endowment for the Humanities, concerned an initiative closely related to DOGE’s deregulatory push: its mass cancellation of NEH grants in

So how might those committed to democratic principles begin to punish, deter, or at the very least expose corrupt dealings in the federal government? Part of the answer lies in so-far underutilized state laws related to unfair competition and additional

The Trump administration has settled on a strategy: frame efforts to withhold congressionally appropriated funds as fraud prevention, and hope that hard questions about evidence, process, and legal authority disappear.

When it comes to federal administrative capacity, the Trump administration is working at cross-purposes with itself.