President Donald Trump and his administration are vilifying judges who rule against them and targeting political opponents and law firms for retribution in ways that have no parallel in recent U.S. history.
Federal judges have accused Trump officials of thwarting an order to unfreeze billions in federal spending and stonewalling requests for information on deportation flights. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security searched dorm rooms at Columbia University and are arresting migrants outside church services or during routine immigration check-ins.
These actions and others show a presidency with a strikingly aggressive approach to power, moving swiftly to claim more authority and barrel through norms, according to legal experts and constitutional law scholars. While their antagonistic posture toward court challenges and judicial orders is the most prominent display of resistance, the degree to which Trump and his associates have targeted foes for punishment is also a stark departure from past administrations, these experts say.
Legal scholars say the actions have pushed the country into fraught territory, particularly with the administration’s challenges to the courts, although there is a divide over whether he is breaching constitutional norms.
“What I think we’re seeing is a much more consistent lack of interest by the administration in observing what we would’ve thought were the normal rules of a constitutional government,” said David A. Strauss, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “They seem really uninterested in playing by the rules.”
END TIMES PROPHECY WATCH 
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