The law says you can’t carry a rifle or a shotgun in Washington, D.C. But the Trump administration generally takes a dim view of gun restrictions, and it said last week that it wouldn’t bother enforcing that provision anymore. (Officials cited a pair of Supreme Court decisions that overturned other gun restrictions, The Washington Post reports.) The administration has made similar announcements about several other laws that don’t align with its agenda.
The Constitution says the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” He has some leeway to decide what that means. President Obama, for instance, chose not to prosecute a raft of marijuana crimes and put off deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.
President Trump has zealously embraced the same discretion this year. In the most extreme example, he ordered the Justice Department not to enforce a bipartisan law banning TikTok that the Supreme Court had unanimously upheld. Some experts say that he does not have the power to nullify laws that way.
But not every case is so clear. In many fuzzier instances, Trump is using his discretion to realize his political goals. Today’s newsletter looks across the government at how he is selectively enforcing the law.
The targets
Executive agencies don’t have unlimited staff or money, so officials get to make choices about what bothers them most. In February, for example, Trump issued an executive order telling agencies to preserve “limited enforcement resources” by “de-prioritizing” enforcement of certain regulations. Here’s what that looks like:
Corruption: Trump ordered the government to stop enforcing a law that makes it illegal for U.S. companies to bribe foreign governments. (He said the law hurts American firms.) The attorney general told the Justice Department not to worry about a law requiring foreign lobbyists to disclose their activities. During Trump’s first term, prosecutors had invoked it to bring charges against several of his allies.
Civil rights: As part of his effort to root out D.E.I., Trump told government offices to stop enforcing many civil rights provisions. A Labor Department office, for instance, will no longer investigate employers who allegedly underpaid women or awarded promotions based on race. The administration has abandoned hundreds of cases under the fair housing law, meaning it won’t prosecute landlords who keep out gay people or owners who refuse to sell to people of a different faith. Trump also instructed the government to nix the “disparate-impact” test, which looked at whether minority groups were affected differently by criminal background checks, credit checks, zoning regulations and more.
Climate: Trump has ordered federal agencies to stop fighting climate change, which means ignoring the statutes that mandate such efforts. Coal plants have skirted pollution limits under the Clean Air Act by asking the E.P.A. nicely over email. In May, Trump told the Energy Department not to enforce what he called “useless” water-conservation rules for things like sinks and showers.
Nobody home
A direct order is not the only way to curb enforcement. Trump has also slashed budgets and head counts, which has a similar effect. Laws bite only if people are there to enforce them.
Taxes: Trump culled a quarter of the I.R.S. work force and wants to reduce its funding by nearly 40 percent next year. Taxes account for almost all of the government’s revenue. But Trump’s cuts could limit enforcement and cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars, according to the nonpartisan Tax Law Center. Tax evaders, who tend to be America’s highest earners, may get off easy.
Crypto: The Trump administration moved staff members responsible for enforcing crypto regulations at the S.E.C. into other roles. It also disbanded the Justice Department office responsible for investigating cryptocurrency crimes. (Trump and his family have invested in crypto ventures that stand to benefit from weaker oversight.)
Vulnerable consumers: Since Trump installed the White House’s budget director as acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency has halted nearly all its enforcement actions and tried to fire 90 percent of its workers. Congress created the bureau in 2010 to watch over predatory businesses and the big banks that brought on the mortgage crisis.
An interpretive dance
Congress makes laws; courts interpret them; and the president enforces them. Yet the president has interpretive power, too. How much interpretation is too much? Consider two examples:
The Supreme Court said in 2020 that laws prohibiting sex discrimination in the workplace also apply to sexual orientation and gender identity, and the Biden administration brought such cases on behalf of trans workers. But Trump told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to stop.
Compared with the Biden administration, which filed 30 cases against polluters in its first six months, the Trump administration has filed 11, according to a Times analysis of federal data.
It’s normal for enforcement to change as administrations come and go. The Supreme Court knows they have different priorities, so its rulings say they can decide on a case-by-case basis not to take action against someone who might have broken the law. But the court has repeatedly barred a more sweeping approach to nonenforcement. The government cannot, the justices say, simply throw out a law.