Today in America: A Feature, Not a Bug: The Government Claims Command as It Slips Away

In a filing submitted Tuesday, the Justice Department made a claim it usually prefers to avoid. Federal prosecutors wrote: “That the chief executive directs his subordinates in carrying out core executive functions is a feature, not a bug, of our constitutional system.” The idea of a Justice Department independent from the president is incompatible with the separation of powers and, historically speaking, a myth. The administration is thus declaring in court that it has command authority over its own apparatus, in a week when that very apparatus is slipping away from it.

The statement is being defended in the criminal case against James Comey, the former director of the FBI. Comey’s social media post showing seashells arranged to read “86 47” amounted to a threat of violence against the president in 2025, according to the prosecution. At the same time, the Justice Department insists that the prosecution was not retaliatory and that the prosecutor in charge, Ellis Boyle, acted without any pressure from above. No one, it says, suggested that he continue the investigation or seek an indictment. Attorney General Todd Blanche did not speak with him about the case until the day before the trial.

Holding both claims at the same time is difficult. Comey is seeking dismissal of the case and laying out just how deeply the president is involved. Trump, he says, called on former Attorney General Pam Bondi on Truth Social to go after him and demanded that Secret Service agents send him their interview notes for review. His indictment, Comey argues, carries out “a years-long campaign by the President to use the criminal law to punish Mr. Comey for his protected speech and because of the President’s deep-seated hostility toward him.”

The department’s own conduct reinforces exactly the suspicion it denies. Comey remained independent as FBI director instead of swearing unconditional loyalty to the president, and now he is paying for it. An apparatus that tells a court it obeys the will of the president is hardly a convincing witness when it claims that, this time, it did not.

As late summer sets in, people are starting to leave the White House. The same will that wants to direct a prosecutor is now losing its own people. At the Treasury Department, 7 of the 16 Senate-confirmed appointees have left their posts or been fired. 4 of them left after refusing to bend or break tax law. They had reportedly been asked to use IRS tax data for deportations and to establish a $1.776 billion presidential fund aimed at the alleged “weaponization” of government agencies.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already burned through three chiefs of staff in a short period of time. Mark Mazur, a former senior IRS official who served as acting assistant secretary for tax policy under Joe Biden, puts the reason plainly. “They are asking these people to do things that are way outside what is normal, and with some of it, it is not even clear whether it is legal.” Many of them expected to have careers after this administration, too, and losing a law license would be a steep price to pay. The ranks are thinning outside the department as well. Emily Underwood, an aide to Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, is leaving for the venture capital industry and will be replaced by Caleb Orr, an adviser to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is leaving the White House at the end of the month. The Treasury Department has remained silent about all of it.

High turnover has been part of every Trump administration. But the timing should raise eyebrows. His own appointees are leaving in the middle of a stalled and expensive war against Iran and a cost-of-living crisis. They are leaving amid miserable approval ratings and ahead of a series of elections that threaten the Republican majority in Congress. Staying means going along with it, and fewer and fewer people are willing to do that. When a government loses its experts in the middle of a war, it will soon be missing the people it needs to manage that war.

What the administration claims publicly often does not survive contact with reality, and nowhere is that clearer than in the war against Iran. According to one report, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln could not be adequately supplied because the Navy’s most important logistics base in the Gulf region had been destroyed. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly did not disclose the reason publicly. From late February through June, Iran is said to have heavily damaged Naval Support Activity Bahrain with missiles and drones without the Pentagon acknowledging the extent of the damage. The Navy reportedly evacuated most of the personnel and shifted resupply operations to the British base on Diego Garcia, a small island in the Indian Ocean roughly 2,200 miles from the two carrier groups in the Gulf of Oman. The truth about the base would have contradicted the claim of command, so it stayed under wraps.

Trump repeatedly claims that the Strait of Hormuz is open and under U.S. control. As recently as Tuesday, the British United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported an attack on a ship trying to leave the strait, while in the Red Sea, the Iran-backed Houthis struck a vessel near the Bab al-Mandab Strait. The latest reports about conditions aboard ship show a Navy under enormous pressure. Relatives of sailors aboard the Lincoln report food shortages and poor hygiene, and during more than 200 days without a port call, there were reportedly several incidents in which men tried to jump over the rail. The distress apparently is not limited to a single ship. The president’s repeated dismissal of these families’ concerns is being described as a self-inflicted political mistake. He says the strait is being held, while on the ship that is supposed to be holding it, men want to go overboard.

The president is also losing control over his own party. On Tuesday, two of his endorsements went down in Florida alone. Cory Mills lost in the 7th District to former television reporter Ryan Elijah by 13 points, while Catalina Lauf, who previously served in the Commerce Department, also failed to make it through in the 19th District despite receiving Trump’s late backing. In Wyoming, his preferred candidate for governor, Education Secretary Megan Degenfelder, lost by nearly 16 points.

The two Trump posts are strikingly contradictory: At first, Trump celebrates Cory Mills as an “America First Patriot,” a “brave combat veteran,” and a reliable fighter for his political agenda, giving him his “Complete and Total Endorsement” for reelection - along with the promise: “He will never let you down!” Later, however, Trump claims that he personally told Mills to drop out of the race, but Mills would not listen. His “Complete and Total Endorsement” now goes to Mills’ rival, Ryan Elijah. The supposedly indispensable MAGA candidate suddenly becomes someone Trump now claims he never wanted in the race in the first place.

That brings the number of Trump-backed candidates who have lost primaries this cycle to 10. It previously took 2018 and 2020 combined, with 2024 added in, to produce that many losses. His weakest endorsement year so far was 2022, and he is now just one more defeat away from matching that low. The president’s endorsement, once a free pass, is turning into a burden for the person who receives it. Lauf ran in a crowded and expensive field. Alongside former lawmakers Chris Collins and Madison Cawthorn were several candidates who had already lost previous races. There was also a participant in the January 6 attack on the Capitol and numerous people who had recently moved to Florida. In the end, conservative radio host Jim Schwartzel, one of the few candidates actually from the area, made it through and will now run for Byron Donalds’ seat while Donalds campaigns for governor of Florida. In Wyoming, Degenfelder finished more than 20,000 votes behind state Senator Eric Barlow despite running a very conservative campaign. Barlow will likely become governor in November.

Above all of this hangs a new poll putting Trump’s approval at 33 percent, the lowest level of his presidency. Even in deep-red states, his unpopularity is now carrying consequences. Mills, meanwhile, whom Trump had explicitly endorsed as recently as February, was dropped after the loss. “I told Congressman Cory Mills of Florida, a friend of mine, that he should get out of the race, but he didn’t want to listen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He thought he could win, so who can blame him?” His “Complete and Total Endorsement,” Trump said, now goes to the winner, Ryan Elijah, who stands for everything MAGA stands for.

There were reasons for Trump’s silence before that, and he knew them. Mills is under investigation by the Justice Department. He faces allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment, along with violations of campaign finance and disclosure rules. There are also allegations involving the acceptance of improper gifts and other ethics violations, and the House Ethics Committee has been investigating him for months. Just days ago, Mills refused to deny reports that, while serving as a member of Congress, he dated a 19-year-old. Trump had still won Mills’ district by 12 points in 2024. He did not switch sides until the votes had already been cast.

Loyalty in this administration is a currency that flows in only one direction. It is demanded and rarely returned. Comey refused it and is being prosecuted. Mills gave it, became useless, and was dropped. Treasury officials were supposed to prove theirs by bending the law, and instead they walked away while their law licenses were still worth something. Obedience upward protects none of them, yet it is still expected.

On Wednesday morning, the president showed no sign of reconsidering, and before November he is unlikely to change course. In court, he has his administration put in writing that his apparatus obeys him. The apparatus has not read the filing.