The Collapse of Guardrails: America’s Rapid Democratic Erosion

In September, subpoenas, indictments, and Supreme Court rulings converged to shield the presidency and target its critics, revealing a constitutional rupture.

Illustration by Riley Levine

By Brian Daitzman

In September 2025, the constitutional crisis that has been building since Donald Trump’s first run for office in 2015 reached its most dangerous turn. The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision granting sweeping presidential immunity, followed by its 2025 order allowing the executive to withhold billions in congressionally approved foreign aid, converged with high-profile arrests and subpoenas of Trump’s critics. Together, these moves have left a convicted felon president looming above the checks of all three branches of government. The guardrails the framers designed to contain authoritarian impulses are buckling, eroded by a politics of demagoguery and deception — the very danger they warned against in the Federalist Papers.

That crisis sharpened on the night of September 26, with a cascade of developments unprecedented in modern American history. The Justice Department issued a subpoena for travel records tied to Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who once charged Trump. Hours earlier, former FBI director James Comey was indicted by a federal grand jury for alleged false statements and obstruction of Congress. Court filings revealed that federal agents had seized documents marked “classified” from the office of John Bolton, Trump’s onetime national security adviser turned critic. Rarely, if ever, has a sitting president’s circle of opponents faced such simultaneous legal jeopardy. A rupture in the American experiment, unfolding in real time.

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The events of the end of September are extraordinary because they have no true analogy in American history.

The United States has seen bitter partisan conflict, from Jefferson and Adams to McCarthy and Watergate, but never has the machinery of federal justice moved in concert against multiple perceived political opponents of a sitting president at once. That inversion defines September 2025: prosecutors, investigators, and regulators who previously challenged Donald Trump now face subpoenas, indictments, or removal efforts.

This is not coincidence.

It is the outcome of a legal and institutional shift that began with the Supreme Court’s Trump v. United States ruling in 2024, which granted presidents broad immunity for official acts. And it is deepened by the Court’s decision just this Friday to allow the administration to withhold nearly $4 billion in foreign aid despite congressional appropriation, eroding Congress’s oldest power: the power of the purse.

Together these actions mark not just political conflict but democratic decline. What James Madison described as ambition checking ambition is failing. The scaffolding is giving way. America is watching the collapse of its guardrails not in history books, but in the present tense.

The Unprecedented Targeting of a President’s Opponents

The United States has experienced political vendettas before, but never this: the sitting president’s critics and former accusers facing indictments and subpoenas within the same week. Fani Willis is the elected district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, and in 2023 she indicted Donald Trump and 18 allies under the state’s racketeering statute for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. That case collapsed in 2025 after Georgia’s Supreme Court disqualified her for a conflict of interest tied to a relationship with a deputy prosecutor. On September 26, she received a federal subpoena for her travel records. The timing is stark: the prosecutor of a president is now herself the target of federal inquiry.

James Comey’s path is equally emblematic. Appointed FBI director by Barack Obama in 2013 and retained by Trump, he was fired in 2017 after publicly confirming that the Bureau was investigating links between Russia and Trump’s campaign. He later became one of Trump’s most visible critics in print and on television. On September 26, 2025, the Department of Justice indicted him on charges of obstruction and false statement. Supporters of the indictment say it proves no one is above the law. Critics see it as revenge seven years in the making.

Trump’s defenders will say this is accountability, not revenge, and Trump himself will argue he is the victim. The public record cuts the other way. During the Biden administration, the president’s son, Hunter Biden, stood trial and was convicted by a jury on three federal gun charges in June 2024. The special counsel probing President Biden’s handling of documents issued a detailed report and recommended no charges, noting cooperation and interviews under oath.

By contrast, Trump fires officials who resist him, demands prosecutions of named rivals, and now presides over a Justice Department that indicts his former FBI director while federal agents search the office of a former national security adviser turned critic. The pattern is not symmetrical. One administration subjected its own family to a lawful process and accepted an adverse verdict. The other seeks to criminalize its opponents while insulating the presidency itself.

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, resigned in 2019 after disputes over Iran and Afghanistan and went on to publish a memoir, The Room Where It Happened, that accused Trump of misconduct in office. Court filings now link his office to classified documents. George Soros, the Hungarian-born financier who funds voting access, civil society, and progressive causes, has long been a favorite target of Trump’s allies. Reports indicate prosecutors are being pressed to consider charges against him. And Lisa Cook, an economist confirmed to the Federal Reserve Board in 2022, is under DOJ investigation and a White House filing that seeks her removal. She is the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, and her independence has made her a visible counterweight to Trump’s economic agenda.

Each case differs in substance, but together they create a picture without precedent: the machinery of justice trained not on the president but on his political opponents. Hannah Arendt warned that authoritarianism begins when independence is redefined as disloyalty. That redefinition is unfolding now, as the critics of yesterday become the defendants of today.

Takeaway: Never before has an American president’s adversaries faced simultaneous prosecution. The inversion marks a constitutional rupture, visible in the present tense.

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FACT BOX: Trump’s Targets

• Fani Willis — Fulton County DA; charged Trump in 2023; subpoenaed Sept. 26, 2025.

• James Comey — Former FBI director; fired 2017; indicted Sept. 26, 2025.

• John Bolton — Former national security adviser; memoirist; tied in filings to classified docs.

• George Soros — Financier, philanthropist; reportedly under DOJ pressure for charges.

• Lisa Cook — Federal Reserve governor; facing DOJ probe and White House filing for removal.

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The Legal Foundation: Trump v. United States

The prosecutions of Willis, Comey, and others do not appear in a vacuum. They arrive after the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States, which reshaped the legal landscape of presidential power. In a 6–3 decision, the Court held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for “core constitutional acts” — such as signing pardons or vetoing bills — and presumptive immunity for other official acts like directing federal investigations or ordering troop deployments. Only conduct deemed “unofficial,” such as campaign activities, remains clearly prosecutable. For the first time in American history, the Court codified a doctrine that shields much of the presidency from criminal liability.

The majority framed the ruling as protection against partisan lawfare. If every presidential decision could become the basis of indictment, they argued, no president could govern. But the dissent, led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, warned of the opposite danger: that a president “who wields the powers of commander in chief, prosecutor, legislator, and diplomat” could now place himself above the law. Critics called it a constitutional mutation, one that alters not only accountability for past acts but also incentives for future ones.

“Presumptive immunity” shifts the burden to prosecutors to show why an official act should not be protected. In practice, charges against a sitting or former president become vanishingly hard, while cases against the president’s critics remain fully available. That asymmetry is visible today: Trump’s conduct, when routed through official channels, sits beneath the canopy of immunity; Willis and Comey, by contrast, confront the full force of federal inquiry. The shield covers the office. It does not cover those who tried to hold the office to account.

There are American precedents for conflicts over power. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon attempted to impound funds appropriated by Congress, only to be blocked by the Supreme Court in Train v. City of New York (1975). In contrast, today’s Court has moved in the opposite direction, enlarging the sphere of presidential discretion. Abroad, the pattern is sharper still. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán used judicial rulings to neuter checks on executive power. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s critics were prosecuted even as courts legalized his dominance. In each case, shields for the executive became weapons against opponents.

The ruling in Trump v. United States has already redefined accountability. Where the founders imagined ambition counteracting ambition, immunity now protects ambition unchecked. What began as a safeguard against excessive litigation has become, in practice, a license for executive dominance. The interpretation here is unmistakable: the Court has furnished the presidency with legal armor — a shield for the office, and a weapon when turned against its critics.

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FACT BOX: Supreme Court Rulings

• Trump v. United States (July 2024): 6–3 decision granting absolute immunity for core acts, presumptive immunity for official acts.

• Sotomayor dissent: Warned ruling placed the president “above the law.”

• Sept. 26, 2025 stay: Permits Trump administration to withhold ~$4B in foreign aid appropriated by Congress.

• Historical precedent: Contradicts Train v. City of New York (1975), which blocked Nixon’s impoundments.

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The Power of the Purse and the Breaking of Balance

On September 26, 2025, the Supreme Court issued a stay that allowed the Trump administration to withhold nearly four billion dollars in foreign aid already appropriated by Congress. The administration framed the move as a temporary pause, but the constitutional implications are not temporary. For more than two centuries, Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution has vested Congress with the exclusive authority to raise and spend public money. That authority is not symbolic. It is the core mechanism by which the legislature constrains executive ambition.

The Court’s ruling bends that balance. By permitting the White House to hold funds already approved by Congress, even on an interim basis, the judiciary grants the executive practical discretion over whether laws passed by the legislature are carried out. The difference between delay and denial is one of degree, not kind. In practice, aid programs are frozen, humanitarian initiatives stall, and foreign partners lose confidence in American commitments.

Half a century ago, when Richard Nixon tried to impound funds, the Supreme Court stopped him in Train v. City of New York. This week is the inversion. The Court’s emergency stay lets the White House withhold nearly $4 billion already appropriated by Congress at the fiscal year’s edge. Even if styled as temporary, the effect is practical discretion over whether law is carried out. That discretion, paired with legal immunity and targeted prosecutions, concentrates power at the center.

International analogies are instructive. In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tightened control over monetary policy by pressuring central bankers until independence collapsed. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán used fiscal discretion to reward loyalists and punish rivals. The erosion often begins as technical adjustment. It ends as permanent capture.

The practical consequences are immediate. A family in Ohio or Georgia may not follow foreign aid appropriations closely, but they feel the effects of a politicized Federal Reserve: mortgage rates rising, grocery bills climbing, savings diminished by inflation. When the executive can shape both law enforcement and fiscal policy, the safeguards that stabilize a household budget are no longer insulated from political will.

The founders designed checks as levers, not ornaments. Congress was meant to check the purse, the courts to check the executive, the executive to check the courts. The week of September 26, 2025, shows the levers moving in one direction. Checks are not checking. Balances are not balancing.

Takeaway: When Congress loses the purse and the presidency gains immunity, the system no longer resists concentration. It yields to it.

A Republic in the Present Tense

The events of September 26 to 27, 2025, are not ordinary chapters in partisan conflict. They are the moment when subpoenas, indictments, and fiscal rulings align to remake the American system.

Prosecutors who once pursued a president now stand as defendants.

A former FBI director who confirmed an investigation into Trump is under indictment. A national security adviser turned critic is drawn into classified-document litigation. A philanthropist long vilified by the right is reportedly targeted for prosecution.

A Federal Reserve governor who challenged Trump’s trade agenda faces removal.

And at the same time, the Supreme Court has armored the presidency with immunity and allowed the executive to suspend appropriations that Congress has already approved.

Defenders argue this is overdue correction. They say Willis, Comey, and others are public officials who must answer to the same laws as anyone else; that presidential immunity prevents paralyzing cycles of criminalization; and that pausing foreign aid is a legitimate exercise of foreign-affairs discretion. But the record from the prior administration complicates that claim. Hunter Biden was prosecuted and convicted while his father was president. The special counsel scrutinized Biden’s documents handling and, after interviews and cooperation, recommended no charges. That is what minimally independent justice looks like. What we see now is different: a presidency armored by immunity, federal money held at will, and prosecutors and critics pressed under indictment or investigation on the same weekend.

James Madison’s warning in Federalist 51 was that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” Today ambition is not counteracting ambition. It is compounding it. The branches are no longer rivals. They are scaffolds, tilted toward the same center of gravity.

The risk is not distant. It is immediate. A Constitution is not preserved by parchment but by practice.

If that practice is inverted — if independence is recast as disloyalty, if checks become channels — then democracy collapses not in theory, but in the present tense.

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References

• U.S. Supreme Court — Trump v. United States. July 1, 2024. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

• SCOTUSblog — “Supreme Court allows Trump administration to withhold billions in foreign-aid funding.” Sept. 26, 2025. https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-to-withhold-billions-in-foreign-aid-funding/

• Reuters — “U.S. Supreme Court lets Trump withhold $4 billion in foreign aid.” Sept. 26, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-supreme-court-lets-trump-withhold-4-billion-foreign-aid-2025-09-26/

• Reuters — “U.S. DOJ seeks information on Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, NYT reports.” Sept. 27, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-doj-seeks-information-georgia-prosecutor-willis-nyt-reports-2025-09-27/

• Associated Press via NBC New York — “Donald Trump found guilty on all 34 felony counts in hush money trial.” May 30, 2024. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/trump-verdict-stormy-daniels-trial/5448835/

• Reuters — “Guilty on all counts, Donald Trump becomes first U.S. president convicted of a crime.” May 30, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/legal/jurors-begin-second-day-deliberations-trump-hush-money-trial-2024-05-30/

• ABC News — “Hunter Biden convicted of all 3 felony charges in federal gun trial.” June 11, 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/hunter-biden-gun-trial/?id=110723981

• DOJ — “Report from Special Counsel Robert K. Hur on President Biden’s handling of classified documents.” Feb. 2024. https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf

• Daily Caller — “FBI seizes classified docs at John Bolton’s office, court records show.” Sept. 24, 2025. https://dailycaller.com/2025/09/24/fbi-seizes-classified-docs-at-john-boltons-office-court-records-show/

• NY AG — “Donald J. Trump pays court-ordered $2 million for illegally using Trump Foundation funds.” Nov. 2019. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2019/donald-j-trump-pays-court-ordered-2-million-illegally-using-trump-foundation

• FactCheck.org — “Social posts distort facts on Trump charities.” Dec. 2019. https://www.factcheck.org/2019/12/social-posts-distort-facts-on-trump-charities/

• Yahoo News (The Independent) — “At Trump’s behest, DOJ is pushing prosecutors to charge George Soros: report.” Sept. 25, 2025. https://nz.news.yahoo.com/trump-behest-doj-pushing-federal-210801994.html

• AOL/Finance — “Cook warns Supreme Court that siding with Trump on Fed firing risks chaos.” Sept. 26, 2025. https://www.aol.com/finance/cook-warns-supreme-court-siding-205135601.html

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