“If the government decides, very quickly, to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty – the people whose ancestors that was the first thing they saw coming to this country, but the government moved too fast – nothing can be done?” asked Judge Patricia Millet of the District of Columbia court of appeals on 5 June to the principal deputy assistant attorney general, Yaakov Roth. “I think that’s right, yes,” he replied.

In the case brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation against Donald Trump’s “sudden, unilateral, and unlawful decision” to demolish the East Wing of the White House and to construct a 90,000 sq ft ballroom, “without seeking approval from Congress; without requesting review and approval from the federal commissions charged with oversight of development in the nation’s capital; without conducting the required environmental studies; and without allowing the public any opportunity for input”, Trump’s Department of Justice has countered that he can simply do whatever he wishes, whenever he wishes, however he wishes.

“When did it become a fait accompli?” Judge Millett asked. “If this were complete lawlessness by the government … it couldn’t be stopped?” “On these theories, I think that’s right,” said Roth.

“If you move fast enough, nobody has standing to challenge it?” asked Millet. “I do think that that is correct,” Roth said. “The injury, it becomes non-redressable.”

The supreme court’s 2024 campaign ruling granting “absolute” presidential immunity for “official acts” is Trump’s Magna Carta for absolute rule. But if the president can do anything, anytime, anywhere, why even bother now with the irrelevance of the judicial system except as a residual bow to empty formal courtesy? Why dress up the “non-redressable”?

At the same time that the justice department insisted that Trump could demolish the Statue of Liberty at will, a monstrous and gaudy 600-tonne, 154ft-tall skeletal structure called “the Claw”, painted red, white and blue, was rising on the South Lawn of the White House, above the building itself and next to the rubble where the ballroom is planned.

Within “the Claw” there will be a cage, where the Ultimate Fighting Championship company will stage martial arts matches, an exhibition called “UFC Freedom 250”, to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday on 14 June.

The gladiatorial grappling has given Trump a chance to extract tribute for his favor, to put the federal government out to the highest bidder

The cage fighter weigh-ins and face-offs will take place at the Lincoln Memorial, where the solemn marble Daniel Chester French statue is flanked by the engraved words of the Gettysburg Address (“a new birth of freedom”) and the Second Inaugural (“malice toward none”).

On the Ellipse, in the shadow of the Washington Monument, jumbotron TV screens........

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