Trump: If it saves the country, it’s not illegal

WASHINGTON - Echoing France’s Napoleon Bonaparte, US President Donald Trump on Feb 15 took to social media to signal continued resistance to limits on his executive authority in the face of multiple legal challenges.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Mr Trump, a Republican, proclaimed on his Truth Social network. The White House did not respond to a request for more details.

The phrase, attributed to the French military leader who created the Napoleonic Code of civil law in 1804 before declaring himself emperor, drew immediate criticism from Democrats.

“Spoken like a true dictator,” Senator Adam Schiff of California, a longtime adversary of Mr Trump, wrote on X.

Mr Trump, who took office on Jan 20, has made broad assertions of executive power that appear headed toward US Supreme Court showdowns. Some lawsuits accuse him of usurping the authority of Congress as set out in the US Constitution.

While Mr Trump said he abides by court rulings, his advisers have attacked judges on social media and called for their impeachment. Vice-President JD Vance wrote on X this week that judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”.

Washington lawyer Norm Eisen, who like Mr Schiff worked on the first of Mr Trump’s two impeachment trials, said Mr Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly tried to argue that if the President does it, it is not illegal.

Napoleon’s saying, he said, excuses illegal acts.

“This is a trial balloon and a provocation,” he Eisen said of Mr Trump’s message.

Mr Trump, whose longtime slogan is “Make America Great Again,” attributed his survival of

an assassination attempt in July

to God’s will.

“Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason, and that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness,” he said after his election victory. REUTERS