Stephen Miller expected to push hard-line Trump agenda. Will courts stand in the way?

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Set us as preferred Stephen Miller was already one of the most powerful people in Washington when he stepped in to replace Susie Wiles as President Trump’s chief of staff on Monday, a position that expands his extraordinary influence over the hard-charging executive.But whether the bellicose former Santa Monica High School Viking can make good on his muscular threats as Trump’s new right-hand man remains an open question — one the courts have begun to answer, even as pundits disagree.

“The single biggest takeaway of this whole announcement is what it symbolizes and the message it sends to Democrats,” said Josh Hammer, senior counsel for the Article III Project, a conservative advocacy organization that promises to “bring brass knuckles to fight leftist lawfare.” California In the long shadow of his policies, renewed attention is being paid to Miller’s upbringing in the famously liberal enclave once dubbed “the People’s Republic of Santa Monica.”Miller has long sought to jail journalists, undermine the authority of judges, surge armed soldiers into American streets and suspend the writ of habeas corpus, a legal process that allows immigrants to challenge their detention.But despite his “Darth Vader Sith lord persona,” Hammer said, the new White House chief of staff may find himself hemmed in by the role of a bureaucrat.“I can’t imagine anything like that is remotely under consideration,” Hammer said.“He’d be the first to admit that he’s essentially there as an operative.” Many critics echoed that assessment, with caveats.

“Stephen Miller has been calling a lot of the shots already,” said Bruce D.Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“The combination of his elevation and the shake-up in the national security division at the Justice Department sugge...