Supreme Court ready to hand Trump 'astonishing' new powers despite rebuke: legal scholar

Kim Wehle, a former Justice Department attorney and legal scholar, warned Friday that while the Supreme Court may have delivered a stunning rebuke to President Donald Trump last week by ruling against his tariffs, the justices have shown no sign that they intend to curb his ongoing and, in her view, “astonishing” efforts to expand presidential power.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court delivered a fatal blow to many of Trump’s tariffs after deciding in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the president had acted outside his authority in imposing them. Wehle, however, warned of getting “complacent,” citing a mountain of evidence to suggest that the court had no intention of stopping Trump’s efforts to expand his executive authority.

“Let’s not lose our heads. Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump is a check – but not a constitutional reset,” Wehle wrote in an analysis published Friday in Zeteo. “Nothing in the ruling suggests that the Trump-aligned majority has had a sudden conversion to muscular judicial oversight.”

To illustrate her argument, Wehle cited three key points: that the Supreme Court’s decision against Trump’s tariffs was not unanimous, that the decision also happened to be beneficial to “the very rich,” and perhaps most importantly, that the court has yet to meaningfully check Trump’s power.

“The Supreme Court may have stalled Trump’s price increases, but we cannot afford complacency. Nor should we fall for the comforting fiction that this marks a change of heart,” Wehle wrote.

“The rule of law is not secured by a single opinion; it is secured by sustained fidelity to principle. Those who joined this majority will have many more chances to prove whether they are guided by the Constitution over politics. Until that record is clear, they must be held to account – praised when they defend the law, and called out, plainly and persistently, when they betray it.”