President Donald Trump has long sought to flex the power of the presidency.

Now that he is, some scholars say, Trump’s vision of a muscular executive branch has forced the nation into a constitutional crisis — or at least brought it to the brink of one.

Erwin Chemerinsky, a leading constitutional scholar and dean at the University of California at Berkeley Law School, believes we’re past the tipping point.

“We are in a constitutional crisis, but it can get worse,” Chemerinsky told TribLive this week.

Just two months into his second term, Trump has unilaterally cut off federal funds, closed federal agencies, fired thousands of federal workers and sought to end birthright citizenship.

He has stripped certain law firms of their security clearances because they opposed him in the past and fired the heads of federal agencies.

A ban he has sought on transgender people serving in the military is being challenged in court.

And now tensions are rising as the administration appears to be bucking the orders of a federal judge in Washington, D.C. in a legal standoff over the deportations of hundreds of Venezuelans.

“There have been an unprecedented number of clearly unconstitutional and illegal acts by executive order,” Chemerinsky said. “This is coupled with the Trump administration openly threatening to defy court orders and in some instances doing so.”

But Thomas W. King III, general counsel to the Pennsylvania Republican Party and formerly a lawyer for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, said there is no evidence of Trump violating a lawful, final order of the U.S. Supreme Court.

King acknowledged tension between the judiciary and executive branches.

“But I believe President Trump’s executive orders are well-grounded in the law and the Constitution,” he said. “He has a basis for the things he’s doing, and ultimately, the Supreme Court may be called on to decide them.”

Whatever the outcome, King said: “I think the Constitution will hold.”

What is a constitutional crisis?

There is no universal definition of a constitutional crisis, Chemerinsky said.

It does not appear in the U.S. Constitution or in any law, he said.

Witold “Vic” Walczak, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said he’s not sure exactly what a constitutional crisis is.

“But I do know we have a president who is acting as if no laws constrain his power, thereby violating clear constitutional rights consistently and continuously,” Walczak said.

The Trump administration, he continued, has already been sued more than 120 times in its first two months, and some courts have identified what they say are likely constitutional and other legal violations.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., blocked Trump’s ban of transgender people in the military, finding that it is discriminatory and violates the equal protection clause.

“No president has bulldozed the constitution like this in recent memory,” Walczak said.

Robert Cindrich, a former federal judge in Pittsburgh who is now part of Keep Our Republic, a national nonprofit focused on strengthening trust in elections, said he believes a constitutional crisis occurs when the president disregards a court order.

Trump is “not quite” there yet, Cindrich said.

“By and large, if the executive thumbs his nose, there’s no way to force the executive branch to comply. And when they don’t, we have a constitutional crisis.”

Cindrich called the Constitution “a gentleman’s agreement — in that it is enforced by the courts, though they have no army.”

Honoring that implicit power is critical, according to Cindrich.

“I think we need to keep a calm head right now but be prepared to face the eventuality that the executive ignores the courts’ orders,” he said.

Jerry Dickinson, dean of the University of Pittsburgh law school and a constitutional law professor, said the situation involving the Venezuelan deportees has led to “constitutional tension.”

On March 15, a U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C., issued an order intended to stop the deportation of 238 Venezuelan detainees — instructing the government to hold the Venezuelans, even if that meant turning planes around in the air.

But the administration instead sent the immigrants to El Salvador, prompting President Nayib Bukele , a Trump ally, to post on social media, “Oopsie … Too late,” — something later reposted by the White House.

It is not yet clear, Dickinson said, that the government defied the court’s order. The judge has asked the administration to answer a series of questions related to the timing of his order and the flights. On Thursday, he called the government’s response “woefully insufficient.”

Dickinson acknowledged that Trump administration attorneys are employing unusual tactics and unorthodox strategies — he called them “fringe legal theories” — but said they are still following court procedures to make their case.

“The coming days will be telling, however,” Dickinson said.

King, the Pennsylvania Republican Party attorney, believes Trump is within his rights as the chief executive to deport the Venezuelans.

Still, he said, “If I were one of the lawyers, I would never counsel anybody not to comply with a court order or to test the authority of a federal judge.”

If the judge determines the government defied his order, reissues it and the administration then acts with explicit disobedience, Dickinson said, the country might enter what he calls the “twilight zone.”

“I wouldn’t call it a ‘constitutional crisis’ in the sense that the entire American legal system will imminently collapse, but rather entering a ‘twilight zone’ of constitutional tension so severe that the strained dispute, no matter how it is resolved, inflicts severe injury to the system,” Dickinson said. “Whether and how the damage is repaired is unclear.”

Is Congress at fault?

Chemerinsky, the Berkeley law dean, believes that the country has reached this point because Trump believes what he is doing is right.

“He does not feel constrained by the Constitution or the courts,” Chemerinsky said.

But others blame the Republican-controlled Congress and its refusal to assert or defend its constitutional powers as a coequal branch of government, just like the judiciary.

“Congress has been subservient,” the ACLU’s Walczak said.

Bruce Ledewitz, a constitutional law professor at Duquesne University, thinks Congress’ lack of action is the real constitutional crisis at play.

“I blame the Republicans in power for the constitutional crisis — not Trump.”

America’s system of government has been tilting to give the president too much power, Ledewitz said.

Many observers date the shift to the Cold War, Ledewitz said; he believes it was exacerbated under President Barack Obama.

Now, he said, it is Trump taking advantage.

“We elected a king, and it’s a catastrophe,” Ledewitz said. “There’s a reason the framers didn’t want an individual making policy for the United States. Our system is set up for Congress to make policy.”

If the Republicans in Congress like what Trump is doing, Ledewitz said, they should pass legislation.

Everything Trump has done thus far, Ledewitz said, is designed to set up court challenges with the hope of favorable verdicts. But if the court rules against him, he’s stuck, Ledewitz said.

The court, with a 6-3 conservative supermajority, including three justices appointed by Trump during his first term, last year issued a ruling giving the president broad immunity for actions relating to his office.

“There’s not much to indicate he’ll defy his U.S. Supreme Court,” Ledewitz said.

“Nobody’s been in court more than President Trump.”

Have we been here before?

Experts said there are few examples in American history of anything approaching a constitutional crisis.

The Watergate scandal was close, they said. But in the end, President Richard Nixon released tapes of secret recordings he made in conversations with his aides in the Oval Office.

The closest comparison to today’s environment, according to Pitt’s Dickinson, was under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1942.

That year, eight Nazi saboteurs landed in submarines in Florida and New York on June 17, 1942, intent on destroying American defense-related industries.

The FBI arrested them, and on July 2, 1942, Roosevelt issued an executive order requiring a military tribunal for the saboteurs.

“He wanted to quickly bypass the onerous due process and procedures of ordinary judicial review in federal courts to ensure a swift and favorable resolution without the imposition of the courts,” Dickinson said.

Roosevelt even preemptively said the captives had no right to appeal through civilian courts, Dickinson said.

According to a New York Times article, Roosevelt told his attorney general at the time, “‘I won’t hand them over to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus.’”

“In other words, FDR was explicitly stating that, regardless of judicial intervention, he was going to proceed with the executions of the Nazi saboteurs, and if necessary, defy the Supreme Court if it ruled against him.”

The military tribunal found the saboteurs guilty. They challenged the decision in court, and four days later, on July 29, 1942, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the tribunal and Roosevelt’s actions.

Six of the Nazis were sentenced to death while two were eventually granted clemency and sent back to Germany.

The Supreme Court’s decision averted a possible constitutional crisis, according to Dickinson.

“My point is this: We’ve been here before throughout American constitutional history. Is the current situation grave? Absolutely,” Dickinson said. “Was the situation in (the saboteurs case) grave? Absolutely. Did we survive that episode? Yes. Will we survive this one? I think so.”

In the face of a constitutional crisis, Cindrich said, “The remedies are scant.”

While U.S. marshals are tasked with enforcing federal court orders, they answer to the U.S. attorney general — in this case Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and Trump ally.

The attorney general answers to the president.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other potential remedies, Cindrich said.

Those harmed by illegal executive actions can sue in federal court. And administration officials who defy court orders can be held in contempt. That doesn’t mean Trump would be sanctioned, but other high-ranking officials could be.

One snag, though, is a finding of criminal contempt could be pardoned by Trump, Chemerinsky said. And civil contempt is enforced by the marshals.

Merely threatening lawsuits and contempt, however, may be enough for some officials to back down, according to Cindrich.

“Are you going to risk infamy? Are you going to risk financial ruin in the hope you’re going to win?” Cindrich asked. “It would be one tool — holding the violator personally responsible for the consequences.”

On Tuesday, after Trump called for the impeachment of the judge in the deportation case on social media, calling him a “Radical Left Lunatic,” Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts wrote. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Dickinson said that the court system can and will keep up with the flurry of legal challenges. He called the federal courts “an inherent brake on executive actions.”

“The one thing to keep in mind about federal courts is that they are not designed for rapid response, but instead structured to be slow and methodical,” Dickinson said.

“The accumulation of legal defeats against the government — as we are witnessing now — acts like a braking system on a speeding freight train, gradually slowing the federal government’s chaotic momentum before it reaches the edge of a cliff.”

The courts, serving as a countervailing force to the executive branch, Dickinson said, allow time for institutions, politicians and the public to “regroup, assess the situation and ultimately push the train in reverse.”

That’s why, Cindrich said, it’s important to talk publicly about the rule of law — the notion that disputes can be resolved in a peaceful manner.

“People forget that’s the only thing between us and tyranny,” he said.

Dickinson believes in what he calls “resilient constitutionalism,” — that the American system has endured and survived significant stress and strain in the past.

“But it also emphasizes that the Constitution’s endurance is not automatic — it depends on the actions of institutions, leaders and the public.,” Dickinson said.

Walczak thinks once enough citizens are affected by Trump’s decisions, there could be change.

“Submissive congressional leaders will need to push back after they hear that their constituents’ plights are worsening, through inflation, broken government failing to deliver Social Security and other checks on time, people being arrested not for committing a crime but opposing the powers that be and other hallmarks of authoritarianism,” Walczak said. “And the Supreme Court will need to say no to at least some of what Trump is doing.”

Chemerinsky said that if the president can violate the Constitution and ignore court orders, he becomes a dictator.

“But my hope is that the president will comply with court orders, as has every other president in history,” Chemerinsky said. “American democracy has proven resilient. I hope it will withstand this as well. But if there is a path to authoritarianism, this is it.”

Dickinson said that the American system of governance, though imperfect, is designed to confront challenges like these.

”The Constitution stretches and constricts, but it hasn’t withered away,” he said. “It often meets the moment.”

That doesn’t mean it won’t be painful for the country or that there isn’t already significant damage, according to Dickinson.

“I’m confident that even if we stumble into the ‘twilight zone,’ we’ll claw our way out of that void,” Dickinson said. “It’s who we are, it’s the story of our country.”