In the past five months, Vermont has been a party to nearly two dozen multi-state lawsuits challenging executive orders issued by President Donald Trump.
Vermont Public’s Bob Kinzel sat down with Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark earlier this week to discuss those suits.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Bob Kinzel: Your office has been very busy in the last few months filing lawsuits, challenging executive orders taken by the Trump administration. I think there are at least 20 of them. They include the withholding of federal funds, the elimination of some federal departments, new voting requirements, a ban on transgender people serving in the military, birthright citizenship.
As you look at all these different lawsuits, do you see there's a common legal thread that runs through them?
I think some of what is motivating President Trump is a desire to define the limits of his power. And the federal courts are doing that.Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark
Charity Clark: Yes. I mean, I think, and I've said this before, there is definitely a thread of an attempt to consolidate power within the presidency. And I think some of what is motivating President Trump is a desire to define the limits of his power. And the federal courts are doing that. They're telling him, "You can't do this" or, "You can do that." And I think that that is absolutely a motivating point for him.
Bob Kinzel: It seems like a lot of the plaintiffs are democratic attorneys general, and there are going to be some folks who see these lawsuits as being a partisan attack on the Trump administration. And I'm wondering how you would respond to that.
Charity Clark: There's literally a partisan aspect in that, so far, it is only Democratic attorneys general who have stood up and said, "That is unconstitutional," and asked the court to intervene, which the court has overwhelmingly done.
I do think there is gonna come a time when even Republican attorneys general are going to have to start suing, because, as the Supreme Court ruled last week, there is a limit to national injunctions, and you have to be a plaintiff in the lawsuit going forward, for the most part, to achieve the benefit of the injunction.
So these states that have benefited from the work of the Democratic attorneys general who are filing lawsuits are no longer going to be able to get that benefit unless they themselves sue.
Bob Kinzel: It's likely that many of these lawsuits will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Do you have confidence that the court will rule that the president's actions in most of these cases are unconstitutional?
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Charity Clark: Well, I would say that the United States Supreme Court justices have already spoken up about this, which provides me comfort. But in general, judges are for the rule of law. Judges don't like when people violate the law, but especially these fundamental rights that we have, violations of the system we have.
We have a constitutional democracy. We have separation of powers. We have sovereign states. All of those are parts of our structure as a country, and I don't think judges like it when the Trump administration is trying to violate that structure. And in fact, the chief justice has said more than once that he does not take kindly to the president violating court orders. He has, in his annual report in December, he noted that the judges aren't going to take kindly to this kind of disobedience and rejection of court orders.
So I do fundamentally believe that Supreme Court justices are for the rule of law, and I think we have a lot of settled law on these questions — for example, birthright citizenship. And the plain text of the Constitution, in some cases, is very much on our side. And in the end, I believe that our system, our federalist constitutional democracy, will prevail.
