The Vermont Attorney General’s office has filed Its sixth lawsuit against the Trump Administration. The office has also been involved in a number of amicus briefs in other litigation challenging federal actions since January 20th. State Attorney General Charity Clark, a Democrat, tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley that it’s important for Vermont to coordinate with other states that are challenging some of President Donald Trump’s actions.
Unfortunately, the common theme is that the Trump Administration has violated federal statute and the Constitution and that is the thread that ties all of these lawsuits together, the amicus briefs that we've filed. And it's disappointing because there are real problems that we're facing up here in Vermont and in Northern New York and those aren't really being focused on right now. It's other issues and some of those issues were created by the Trump administration themselves. So it is really disappointing. My job as the Attorney General of Vermont is to make sure that any time the United States Constitution is violated or federal law is violated, we bring Vermont to court to sue and make sure that the rule of law is upheld and protected.
You mentioned that there's things that you would like to be focusing on in Vermont rather than being in some ways forced to file litigation against the federal government. What are those things in Vermont that you would like to have the time to focus on?
Well, the Attorney General, of course, is famously in Vermont a two-year term, so I'm always campaigning. And what I recently found when I was reelected last year in my travels around Vermont is common themes about issues that people were concerned about and that were important to them. And they were issues like housing or affordability or the ongoing opioid crisis. I have been disappointed in particular that affordability and housing haven't been addressed by the current administration in the White House because everywhere I went, I heard those things. So that was unquestionably the most common concern that Vermonters had that I heard about were those issues. I also heard, frankly, a lot about social media and addiction to apps on phones. That was a common theme. People were really responding to the lawsuits that I brought last year against Meta and TikTok. And that really hasn't come up from the Trump administration and it's disappointing because I'm thinking, did he go to a different place when he was you know, did he not hear the same constituents I heard because they were not complaining or worried about the types of things that he's focusing on. I would really like him to focus on the issues that are facing Americans right now. And I really do think it's affordability. It's housing. It's access to adequate medical care. All of these things and that's just not the focus of the past month plus of his administration.
Attorney General Charity Clark, some judges have ruled either in favor of the lawsuits that you've been involved with or issued temporary restraining orders regarding the Trump Administration. How much optimism does that give you that all of these lawsuits are moving in the right direction and that eventually you can focus on the affordability issue that Vermonters and others are concerned about?
Well, I'm very hopeful in part because we brought these lawsuits many of them thinking this is extremely unconstitutional. And in fact, one federal judge who was appointed by a Republican president said it was the most unconstitutional thing he ever seen. So I'm feeling confident with many of these that at the end of the day we will prevail. However, significantly, we have already prevailed in blocking implementation of most of these harmful practices and executive orders that we sued on. So, for example, we have already been effective at ensuring that tens of millions of dollars are coming to Vermont that were earmarked for Vermont and which the Trump Administration had unlawfully withheld.
In mid-February, you filed a lawsuit with 13 other state attorneys general challenging the unlawful delegation of executive power to Elon Musk. His role has been very controversial. What's the status of that lawsuit?
Um, I am conflating a couple of the lawsuits.
It says the lawsuit argues that President Trump has violated the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution by creating a new federal department without congressional approval and by granting Musk sweeping powers over the entire federal government without seeking the advice and consent of the Senate.
We sued the Treasury Department and we sued Elon Musk specifically in a separate case and these kind of overlap. The one where we sued Elon Musk that is in New Mexico right now. The status of the case in New Mexico against Elon Musk is that we are in the discovery portion. So we will be gaining information that paints a clearer picture of what's going on here. How Elon Musk is, where he is, what are his duties, etc. All of the information that we're gathering will help us decide whether or not it's appropriate to file for a preliminary injunction in this case as we have in other cases. So right now, we're in the discovery portion where we're collecting information about that case.
I think a lot of people don't realize it takes so much time to get all of these things together and into the court process.
Yeah, it's true. It does take time. I mean, we initiated these lawsuits and have been largely very successful at getting the executive orders blocked. But the truth is, the case itself will probably go on for years. And that's what we saw during the first Trump administration that many of the cases we brought took years of time before they were finally resolved.
Charity Clark, the Trump White House has said that it can and will ignore rulings against them from the courts. So what good is filing all of these lawsuits?
Well, they are incorrect. They of course have to follow the rule of law. And when the judicial branch says you have to do something, you have to do it We have a system of government that has three branches and the executive branch, which contains the president, is just one of those branches. The courts have the last word. And while he may be saying those things, in practice that's not what they're doing. They are obeying the court's orders. And if they weren't, we would go back to the court and move the court to enforce their orders. We did have to file a motion to enforce in Rhode Island in our case involving the illegal funding freeze, which was the OMB memo case, and eventually the court didn't have to take any more actions because the Trump administration was complying with that order. I will say if individuals listening to this feel that there has been an ongoing violation of a court order, for example if they are supposed to be receiving a federal grant and they haven't received that federal grant, they should contact my office because that would be a violation of the order if the funding freeze were continuing. So we're always open to hearing from constituents about problems they may be having with some of these actions the Trump administration is taking.
Part of it too is, you know, a lot of people are saying, well, what if he doesn't follow through? You may file more lawsuits, but like you said, a lot of them can take years. Is it kind of a moot point if he just doesn't do what he's supposed to do?
We haven't gotten there yet. He keeps doing what he's supposed to be doing. And he has a very, you know, frankly, bombastic style, so sometimes he says a lot of words but in practice that's actually not what's happening. Frankly, we saw that with the executive orders. A lot of these executive orders are a lot of words that don't do anything. So they may sound scary or they're offensive but they actually don't have any meat to them. So that's something to keep in mind. Sometimes Donald Trump is wanting to scare you or he's wanting to reflect back to a worldview that he thinks you share with him. That doesn't necessarily mean that those actions are taking place. That being said, if he violated court orders repeatedly, if he defied the judiciary, that would be a constitutional crisis. Our Constitution envisions these three branches of government. We have a wonderful Federalist system with these three branches of government and it's very important that we honor that. In honoring our three branches of government, we're honoring America and our democracy that has survived these years and is the greatest country on Earth. And it is imperative that we all respect and honor the courts and I would certainly hope that the President of the United States would agree with me.
On Friday, Attorney General Charity Clark announced the state had joined a coalition of 20 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against numerous federal agencies for conducting illegal mass layoffs of federal probationary employees. The lawsuit claims the administration failed to follow federal laws and regulations regarding large-scale federal reductions in force. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island are among the other states filing the lawsuit.
