On May 5, 2026, Thomas B. Edsall of The New York Times published an opinion-section investigation laying out the legal architecture experts say has been assembled to allow the Trump administration to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections. The piece is sourced through interviews with Joel McCleary (founder of Keep Our Republic), Elizabeth Goitein (senior director, Brennan Center liberty and national security program), Jonathan Winer (former U.S. special envoy for Libya, deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement under Clinton), Shalev Gad Roisman (University of Arizona law professor), and Kenneth Mayer (UW-Madison political scientist). Edsall draws on McCleary's April 23 report 'Continuity of Government, Presidential Emergency Action Documents and the Evolution of Executive Emergency Powers' and Winer's April 29 Washington Spectator essay 'Emergency Planning: The President Is Preparing to Challenge 2026 Midterms.'
The architecture has three tiers, each layer normalizing the next:
**Tier 1: NSPM-7.** National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, signed September 25, 2025. The memorandum directs the DOJ, Treasury, IRS, and other agencies to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt 'entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.' It authorizes the designation of left-wing groups as domestic terrorist organizations and orders DOJ prosecution 'to the maximum extent permissible by law.' The memorandum's stated 'common threads' of the conduct it targets: 'anti-Americanism, anticapitalism and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States government; extremism on migration, race and gender; and hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion and morality.' It does not mention right-wing extremist violence. McCleary: NSPM-7 'cites no statute and no constitutional provision. It simply directs the attorney general and other federal officials to do things — compile a secret list, investigate organizations, designate domestic terrorist groups — under the president's claimed authority to direct the executive branch. There is no statutory category of “domestic terrorist organization” in federal law. Congress didn't create this designation power; the president simply asserted it.'
**Tier 2: National emergency declarations.** A presidential declaration of national emergency unlocks statutory authorities contained in 137 different provisions of law. Goitein: the primary constraint is a congressional resolution to terminate the declaration — 'a very weak constraint, as Congress would have to muster a veto-proof supermajority.'
**Tier 3: PEADs.** Presidential Emergency Action Documents are draft executive orders, directives, or communications prepared in anticipation of a particular type of emergency. McCleary: PEADs 'codified in classified presidential emergency action documents' allow 'a single individual to suspend fundamental constitutional rights, detain civilians, seize property, impose martial law and censor communications. They require only a presidential signature. No prior congressional approval is needed. No court reviews them before activation. No statutory mechanism exists for Congress to restrict or terminate these powers once invoked.' First created during the Eisenhower era for nuclear-war scenarios. McCleary notes there is 'no statutory, constitutional or procedural limit on the number of PEADs a president may create, the subjects they may address or the scope of authority they may claim.'
Winer's April 29 Washington Spectator scenario describes a hypothetical sequence: Trump declares the 2026 results rigged → federal authorities require investigation before results are finalized → Trump calls on House and Senate leadership to organize as if Republican majorities won, ignoring jurisdictions still under federal review → AG treats coordinated demonstrations as organized political violence → FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force identify organizers, map funding, examine alleged foreign connections → federal agents arrest individuals at protests regardless of whether violence occurred → mass arrests use DHS/ICE detention infrastructure (the largest existing federal detention network) → Trump simultaneously takes over communication systems (ISPs, social media, comms infrastructure), seizes property, and freezes bank accounts. Winer: 'These actions could be taken broadly at the outset, before courts rule on their legality, preceding any form of judicial review.'
McCleary notes the FY2025 budget appropriated $45 billion for immigration enforcement, including $38.3 billion for ICE facility construction — a 265% increase over the prior fiscal year. McCleary: this scale 'far exceeds the needs of the department,' raising the question of whether 'the administration plans extrajudicial removal without hearings…or the infrastructure is being built for a purpose or scale beyond what immigration enforcement alone would justify.'
McCleary: 'We do not allege secret coordination. We observe public convergence. Each instrument was enacted openly. Their combined effect — mass detention capacity plus terrorism designation of political opposition plus criminal prosecution of association — has no precedent in American law outside wartime.'
The judicial check Edsall examines through Roisman's April 2025 paper: the Supreme Court has 'embraced an extremely broad view of the president's exclusive powers that cannot be regulated by Congress' under the unitary executive theory. Roisman: 'I do not think the Roberts court ever planned, or even considered, taking its own separation of powers doctrine quite this far. But, while the regime of full executive control that the Trump administration is striving to create might be beyond what the court foresaw, it is not necessarily beyond what it said.' Mayer (UW-Madison): Trump 'has obliterated the boundaries and guardrails that we had long thought would serve as meaningful constraints on presidential extremism. He is acting as if his will is law, the government and everything in it belongs to him, and everyone owes their allegiance to him, not to the Constitution, the law or the public good.' Mayer: what is happening 'is not normal, is utterly corrosive to principles of constitutional and democratic governance and is extremely dangerous.'
The public record of Trump's intent that Edsall cites: Reuters interview, beginning of 2026 — 'It's some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms… when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.' February 3, 2026 White House bill signing — 'Look at the facts that are coming out. Rigged, crooked elections. Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Pennsylvania. Take a look at Philadelphia. You go take a look at Atlanta… the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved.' Trump on the states: 'agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can't count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.' January 2026 NYT interview, asked what could stop him from doing what he wanted on the world stage: 'My own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me, and that's very good.' August 2025: 'I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States of America.'