Given Republican control of Congress, the confirmation of Trump ultra-loyalist Pamela Bondi as his attorney general and the president’s installation of members of his personal legal team at the top of the Justice Department, the independent court system may be the last bulwark against his instinct to wield expansive power.

Outraged Democrats are testing the limits of their diminished power as they try to stop the stunning power grabs of President Donald Trump and his chief lieutenant, Elon Musk.

A month into Donald Trump’s first term, the president’s then-political sage Steve Bannon coined a doctrine to explain the conservative wrecking ball now demolishing the US government: “the deconstruction of the administrative state.