This is the second in a series of articles, “Try, Try Again?,” drawn from my new book—Great and Dangerous Offences: The Case For (and Against) Impeaching Trump a Third Time—due out in early 2027.

The Constitution created a federal republic consisting of states with equal legal status. Under the 10th Amendment, Congress and the executive branch have only limited authority to intrude on the sovereign prerogatives of the states. Individual residents of those states are guaranteed equal protection of the laws. These are pillars of the American constitutional order. To subvert any of them is to subvert the Constitution itself, a subversion that, as the Framers insisted, is impeachable.

If a president engages in a pattern of conduct that subordinates the rights and interests of individual states to his personal or partisan political interests, that would be impeachable. Likewise, if a president engages in a pattern of conduct that denies equal protection of the laws of the United States to the citizens of individual states in order to promote his personal or partisan political interests, that, too, would be impeachable. In his second term as president, Donald Trump has continuously done both.

To understand how Trump has abused his power against the states, it’s important to understand the power the federal government—and the president, specifically—does have.

For example, the widely varying geographic, demographic, social, and economic circumstances of the states has meant that they need different things from the central government. Thus, the unruly interaction of democratic politics with national government accepts a good deal of horse trading over which states will get various types of federal largesse and regulation, along with a degree of more or less constant disagreement between state and federal authorities over policy and resource allocation.

In extreme cases, the federal government may employ coercion against states that are sufficiently out of harmony with national law and policy. If a state government openly violates federal law despite clear orders from the federal judiciary—as was the case of some Southern states during the civil rights conflicts of the 20th century—the national government may use appropriate measures, including force, to compel compliance with the law. This is not the current circumstance.

Critically, the federal government has to enforce such measures itself rather than commandeering the states to do so. Congress lacks “the power to issue orders directly to the States.” It cannot compel states to issue regulations. It cannot command state officers to participate in or enforce federal laws under what is known as the anti-commandeering doctrine.

While Congress can condition a state’s receipt of federal funds on compliance with specified conditions, there are limitations to this power. Congress’ conditions to states must be clear and unambiguous and must have some relationship to the purposes of the federal grants in question. The conditions cannot be imposed without a state’s knowing and voluntary consent. This means that Congress may not set conditions on dispersal of federal funds that effectively offer the state no realistic choice except compliance.

While Congress has some authority to induce states to participate in federal initiatives, the president acting on his own authority has no such power. To be sure, the president and the executive branch are charged with lawfully implementing congressional directives about the dispersal of appropriated funds. But the president cannot discriminate between states in dispersing federal funds by imposing his own rules, policy stipulations, or personal preferences, particularly if they contradict or are unrelated to congressional funding directives. Moreover, the post–Civil War 14th Amendment made explicit that the individual........

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