'Detached from Constitutional limits': Pro-Trump lawyers now turning on him over key issue

Several attorneys who helped President Donald Trump navigate his personal legal battles last year are now publicly working against him.

That's according to a Friday article in NOTUS, which reported that a group of legal mavens are now asking a federal judge to undo the Trump administration's "sweeping tariff regime that touches nearly every imported good sold in the United States." Both Steven Calabresi, who is the co-chair of the conservative Federalist Society (widely regarded as the chief incubator of right-wing federal judges for Republican presidents) and former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III (who served in former President Ronald Reagan's administration) signed onto an effort by more than a dozen college professors and former government officials challenging Trump's authority to unilaterally impose broad tariffs.

"Congress, not the president, has the power to impose tariffs,” the group wrote in an amicus brief. “This dispute is not about the wisdom of tariffs or the politics of trade. It is about who holds the power to tax the American people.”

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Calabresi and Meese joining the amicus brief is particularly noteworthy in that they both successfully helped delay former Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith's two criminal prosecutions against Trump until after his election to a second term. They both argued to the Supreme Court that Smith lacked the Constitutional authority to prosecute Trump as part of the case that ultimately resulted in Trump being granted broad criminal immunity for all official acts as president.

The amicus brief argued to U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras (who was appointed to the District of Columbia by former President Barack Obama) that Trump overstepped the bounds of his authority by invoking the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose the tariffs — which is also the same argument being made in separate litigation bankrolled by far-right billionaire Charles Koch.

"The laws cited permit limited and targeted actions under narrow conditions," the brief read. "They do not authorize sweeping economic realignment. They do not permit unilateral taxation of vast sectors of the U.S. economy. These duties came not from Congress, but from a claim of executive power detached from constitutional limits."

"The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the central statute invoked, cannot bear this weight. Enacted in 1977 to rein in presidential overreach, IEEPA allows the president to impose sanctions in response to genuine emergencies — not to reorder the economy in response to long-term trends," the brief continued.

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Click here to read NOTUS' full article.