On March 1, the Dartmouth Democrats, Dartmouth Law Journal and the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy hosted former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal ’91 and Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., for the Rockefeller Center’s annual Roger S. Aaron ’64 lecture. Katyal and Welch discussed the legal impact of Trump’s recent executive actions and considered potential checks by the courts and Congress on executive overreach.
The conversation, titled “Congress, the Cabinet and the Courts,” was moderated by U.S. News and World Report editorial director and executive vice president Dafna Linzer. Approximately 100 people attended the event at the Hanover Inn, while an additional 100 livestreamed the talk on YouTube, according to Rockefeller Center assistant director for public programs Dvora Greenberg Koelling.
During the event, Katyal and Welch analyzed the legal implications of the major actions of the Trump administration so far, including its federal funding freeze, mass firings of federal employees and threats by administration members to ignore rulings passed down by the courts.
At the beginning of the event, Linzer asked Katyal and Welch to reflect on the executive actions Trump has taken since assuming office in January. Trump has ordered the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State to identify countries for a potential travel ban, halted research grant reviews from the National Institutes of Health and temporarily stopped the enforcement of a ban on TikTok, among other actions. Welch characterized the first six weeks of Trump’s presidency as a “lawless rampage.”
Welch specifically criticized Trump’s impoundment orders, which briefly froze federal funding appropriated by Congress, including foreign aid and federal grants and loans. Since appropriations of federal funding are a “central function of the legislative branch,” Trump’s executive orders on federal spending are “invading Congressional authority,” Welch said.
“I am in a position of observation here, where I’ve seen nothing ever like this, where you’ve got the president basically running roughshod over Congressional authority — and where you have an acquiescence on the part of many of my [Senate] colleagues that he’s invading the separate and coequal function of Congress,” Welch said.
Katyal, who is a partner at the law firm Milbank, said he and his team are challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to remove the chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board, a bipartisan, three-member commission appointed by Congress that adjudicates “all disputes of federal employees.”
“Trump is arguing, by dint of the Constitution, that he can fire any executive branch official, including Senate-confirmed agency heads,” Katyal said.
Katyal’s argument will use the precedent set in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 Supreme Court decision that found the Federal Trade Commission Act — which established a similarly Congressionally appointed commission — to be constitutional. The decision ruled that the president cannot fire a member of the FTC “without reason” due to the commission’s “for-cause protection,” which prevents the removal of commission members by the president for reasons beyond “corruption or serious malfeasance in office.” According to Katyal, the Merit Systems Protection Board also has a for-cause protection.
Welch — a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which reviews the president’s executive and judicial nominations — said Trump’s Justice Department nominees and Vice President JD Vance have indicated that they believe Trump does not have to comply with a ruling from the Supreme Court. He added that Trump’s Justice Department nominees also side-stepped questions about the results of the 2020 election in their confirmation hearings, which he believes indicated that they “had to take an oath of allegiance to the president” to be nominated.
“That’s a very ominous situation for me because [the Justice Department nominees] are basically not willing to repudiate the ‘Stop the Steal’ narrative,” Welch said. “That narrative, that the president is still persisting on, is his justification for the actions he’s taken, including disregarding congressional law.”
However, Katyal said there is a congressional statute that requires United States Marshals — court officers that protect courtrooms and federal judges — to enforce court orders.
“If the president doesn’t issue [an order to enforce a court decision], maybe the Marshals will take that role on themselves,” Katyal said. “But … it’s a slender reed on which to pin our hopes.”
Welch also criticized the Trump administration’s mass firings of federal employees through the unofficial Department of Governmental Efficiency, headed by billionaire Elon Musk. Several courts have since blocked firings at certain government agencies, with some judges allowing employees at certain agencies to temporarily return to their jobs, according to NPR. Other agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have rescinded some staff firings. While Welch said he supports eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse,” he said the mass firings have “nothing to do with trying to get functional improvement.”
“The cruelty of this is astonishing,” Welch said.
While the courts can block executive actions, their ability to do so is limited, Katyal said. The Founders thought that Congress and the states would serve as the major checking role on the executive rather than the courts, he explained.
Meanwhile, Katyal said there are “all sorts of limits on judicial power” to rule that a president’s actions are unconstitutional. Parties need to present a case about the executive action to the court that has legal standing and factors in relevant “deference to the executive,” such as on matters of national security, Katyal said.
Trump is currently trying to “flood the judicial system” with actions that are being challenged in the courts, Katyal added.
“He’s throwing so much stuff at our minds, at our courts, our judges,” Katyal said. “Not all of it can be stopped, even if the courts are performing the role vigorously, and so that’s why at the end of the day, it’s elections that matter more so than these other checks.”
In an interview after the event, Katyal said he hopes attendees take away the “understanding that … there are opportunities to make a difference” in the American political system.
“For me, it’s really important that every student come here and realize I was just sitting in one of those chairs in the audience a few years ago,” Katyal said. “The power of a law degree is that you can challenge presidential action. You can stand up for what’s right.”
Attendee Holland Bald ’25 said he wanted to hear Katyal’s and Welch’s views on the role of people and the courts as a check on executive power “going forward” into the Trump administration.
“There are fewer checks on the Trump administration than I would like, but I thought it was interesting to hear that both [Katyal and Welch] were optimistic about some of the litigation against the Trump administration,” Bald said.
Attendee Katharine Morley ’28 said she decided to attend the event because she wanted to learn more about the recent news of federal judges blocking or overruling actions from the Trump administration.
“I think I’ve underappreciated the role that courts have played checking back against executive overreach,” Morley said.
Kelsey Wang is a reporter and editor for The Dartmouth from the greater Seattle area, majoring in history and government. Outside of The D, she likes to crochet, do jigsaw puzzles and paint.
