“We’re careening, literally, toward a constitutional crisis,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said on CNN Thursday morning. The Connecticut Democrat made the comment after President Trump attacked him on Twitter for his, Blumenthal’s, characterization of comments made by Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch in a conversation in Blumenthal’s Senate office.
Thursday wasn’t the first time Blumenthal has seen a constitutional crisis on the way in the new Trump administration.
“We are careening toward a constitutional crisis,” he said on Jan. 31.
“We are careening toward a constitutional crisis,” he said on Feb. 1.
“Our nation is careening toward a constitutional crisis,” he said on Feb. 8.
And now, “We’re careening, literally, toward a constitutional crisis.”
At various times, Blumenthal has been upset by Trump’s national security executive order, his firing of Obama holdover Justice Department official Sally Yates, and now, his comments about Blumenthal himself.
The senator is entitled to define “constitutional crisis” as he wishes, but consider one thing. So far, the Trump has been ordered to do something by a federal judge exactly once. And the administration did what the judge told it to do.
And it wasn’t just a little bitty order. A federal district court judge in Washington State, very arguably overstepping his own constitutional authority in a case the Trump administration has an excellent chance of winning, and concerning one of the president’s highest-profile and most-repeated campaign promises — the judge ordered Trump’s just-enacted national security executive order shut down. And what did the administration do? It did what the judge said. Now, the case is working its way through the court system.
That’s not exactly the stuff of constitutional crises.
Perhaps there will be an actual constitutional crisis in the future; it doesn’t seem likely, but no one knows what will happen. Right now, though, Sen. Blumenthal might be seeing threats that aren’t there.
