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"We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now," said one legal expert. "We never have seen anything like this."
The Trump administration's defiance of court orders that threaten to hamper the president and unelected billionaire Elon Musk's assault on federal agencies and basic rights has legal experts and other observers warning of a perilous new phase in the United States' rolling constitutional crisis.
On Monday, the Revolving Door Project (RDP) launched an effort to track the Trump administration's refusal to comply with orders from the federal judiciary and detail the impact that obstinance is having across the country.
The watchdog group pointed to several specific examples, including the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to "disperse already-awarded grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, in apparent defiance of" federal judges' orders against the Trump administration's sweeping funding freeze.
"NOTHING is more important than civil society pressuring judges to have a spine in the face of Musk and Trump's intransigence," Jeff Hauser, RDP's executive director, wrote on social media late Monday. "Judicial orders must be enforced!"
Journalists Judd Legum and Noel Sims highlighted another example on Tuesday, noting that the administration is "prohibiting National Institutes of Health (NIH) staff from issuing virtually all grant funding" despite two federal court injunctions against the freeze.
David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told Legum and Sims that the Trump administration is "in contempt of court," calling the continued freeze on NIH grants "completely unlawful."
"The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore. These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent."
Super is among a growing number of legal experts sounding the alarm about the nation's descent into a full-blown constitutional emergency.
"We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now," Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert and dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, toldThe New York Times late last week. "There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this."
"Systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis," Chemerinsky added.
Both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have levied criticism at the federal judiciary in recent days as it has put up roadblocks that have hindered the new administration's ability to lawlessly impose its will.
"Certain activists and highly political judges want us to slow down, or stop," Trump wrote in a social media post early Tuesday, just days after Musk floated allowing "elected bodies" to terminate "the worst 1% of appointed judges."
Federal courts have proven a significant obstacle to the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), whose efforts to take over critical systems and seize highly sensitive data have sparked high-stakes legal battles.
In a statement on Monday, American Bar Association (ABA) president William Bay noted that "in the last 21 days, more than a dozen lawsuits have been filed alleging that the administration's actions violate the rule of law and are contrary to the Constitution or laws of the United States."
"The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore," said Bay. "These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent. We must stand up for the values we hold dear. The ABA will do its part and act to protect the rule of law."
"We urge every attorney to join us and insist that our government, a government of the people, follow the law," he added. "It is part of the oath we took when we became lawyers. Whatever your political party or your views, change must be made in the right way. Americans expect no less."
"It is difficult to overstate what a catastrophe this will be for the U.S. research and education systems, particular in biomedical fields," said one biology professor.
As a result of what one Democratic leader said was the Trump administration's latest "direct violation of the law," institutions that receive grants from the National Institutes of Health have been ordered, starting Monday, to limit indirect costs for research grants—a move that the White House suggested was aimed at reducing unnecessary spending, but which experts said would quickly force scientists across the country to halt potentially lifesaving research.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, warned that limiting NIH grants will cause "irreparable damage to ongoing research to develop cures and treatments for cancer, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, ALS, diabetes, mental health disorders, opioid abuse, genetic diseases, rare diseases, and other diseases and conditions affecting American families."
The NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) wrote in a memo last Friday that of $35 billion spent on research grants in 2023, $9 billion was spent on indirect costs such as equipment, operations, maintenance, accounting, and personnel.
Universities and other organizations that receive research grants allocate an average of 27-28% of their grant funding to indirect costs, said OPERA, which suggested that such spending impedes the United States' ability to "have the best medical research in the world."
"It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead," said OPERA.
But researchers warned that instead of ensuring "the best medical research," the loss of the funding will likely lead to layoffs of essential organizational staff, halted studies, cut-backs on lab space and equipment, and, potentially, the eventual "collapse of biomedical discovery in the United States," as STAT News reported.
"If this goes into action on Monday, it actually, literally has the ability of stopping and grinding research to a halt—soon," Robert Winn, director of the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center at Virginia Commonwealth University, told STAT News. "How does an institution now climb out of a multimillion-dollar hole?"
Universities and medical research centers could lose $100 million per year or more under the new grant limits, the outlet reported.
DeLauro noted that in addition to endangering people who rely on medical research, the NIH's order violates a provision that has been included in appropriations bills every year since 2018, explicitly prohibiting any administration from imposing limits on "facilities and administration" costs at research institutions.
The provision was enacted after President Donald Trump's first attempt to cut NIH research funding by nearly 20% in 2017 was met by opposition from Republicans as well as Democrats.
"The Trump administration is attempting to steal critical funds promised to scientific research institutions funded by the NIH, despite an explicit legal prohibition against this action," said DeLauro. "Based on this legal statute, which is clear and unequivocal, [Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon] Musk and the Trump administration are prohibited from implementing its new policy to cut funding for biomedical research that was approved by Congress."
As STAT News reported, the indirect costs impacted by the NIH policy change include the general upkeep of running research organizations, rent, janitorial services, and other administrative costs.
Those costs, said Carl Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington, "are essential" to fund crucial scientific research.
6. The policy does not just affect funding going forward. All existing NIH grants will have their indirect rates cut to 15% as of today, the date of issuance. For a large university, this creates a sudden and catastrophic shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars against already budgeted funds.
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— Carl T. Bergstrom (@carlbergstrom.com) February 7, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Bergstrom noted in a post on the social media app Bluesky that the policy change "did not come out of nowhere," but was a "core component" of a chapter by Heritage Foundation fellow Lindsey Burke on education in the right-wing policy agenda Project 2025.
"It is difficult to overstate what a catastrophe this will be for the U.S. research and education systems, particular in biomedical fields," said Bergstrom. "It is deliberate and wanton devastation entirely out of scale with any concern about [diversity, equity, and inclusion] activities on campuses. The goal is destroy U.S. universities."
DeLauro said she expects a federal judge to ultimately block the NIH order, as several judges have granted injunctions and restraining orders to stop the administration from taking control of a U.S. Treasury Department payment system, halting federal grants and loans, and suspending birthright citizenship.
"President Trump is taking an axe to our efforts to find cures to diseases and disorders that are tearing apart families across the country. President Trump and Elon Musk's proposal to cut billions of dollars for research institutions will cost lives and put the United States on a path to decline," said DeLauro. "They must immediately reverse this unlawful policy."
"Officials in sane and scientific states must band together to report data on their own," said one journalist.
"The censorship begins," said one public health expert as the Trump administration directed federal health agencies to suspend all external communications, like those that have updated people across the U.S. in recent weeks amid outbreaks of Covid-19, influenza, and norovirus.
The Washington Postreported Tuesday evening that administration officials delivered the directive to staff members at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The agencies operate under the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), which President Donald Trump has nominated vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead. Kennedy has signaled that if confirmed he would purge the ranks of the FDA and change federal vaccine guidelines, including potentially limiting or eliminating the CDC's program that provides free immunizations to uninsured and underinsured children.
The pause on external communications will be in place for an indeterminate amount of time, according to the Post, and applies to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) compiled by the CDC. The epidemiological record includes "timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations" for healthcare professionals and the public.
During the last year of Trump's first term, as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the country, HHS officials denounced the MMWR as "hit pieces on the administration" and pushed to delay and prevent the CDC from releasing new information about the pandemic that didn't align with the White House's views.
While changes to the operations and communications of federal health agencies after a new administration enters the White House are "not unprecedented," said epidemiologist Ali Khan, the MMWR "should never go dark."
The health agencies were instructed to halt communications about public health as the news media reported on a so-called "quad-demic" of four viruses that have been circulating for several weeks across the country.
CDC data shows that the spread of influenza A, Covid-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is "high" or "very high," and norovirus cases have been rising in recent weeks.
The country is also facing an "ongoing multi-state outbreak" of the H5N1 avian flu among dairy cattle, with 67 total human cases also reported during the current outbreak.
The CDC had been scheduled to publish three MMWR updates this week on H5N1 when the new directive was announced.
The Post reported that it was unclear whether the ban on external communications would apply to reports of new avian flu cases or foodborne illness outbreaks.
Journalist Jeff Jarvis said Trump's new policy will give way to "forced ignorance on health data" and called on officials "in sane and scientific states" to continue reporting public health information on their own.
The suspension of external communications will apply to website updates and social media posts, advisories that the CDC sends to clinicians about public health incidents, and data releases from the National Center for Health Statistics, according to the Post.
"Asking health agencies to pause all external communications is NOT typical protocol for administration changes," said Lucky Tran, director of science communication at Columbia University. "Generally website updates, disease case counts, and other typical day-to-day work continues."
Tran noted that during his first term, Trump officials halted external communications for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department.
"In their second term," he said, "they appear to be targeting health agencies too."