'Trumpian' tactics already being used by Biden to sidestep law: columnist

To hear it from conservative columnist George Will in The Washington Post, there's already an authoritarian in the White House.

Will argued President Joe Biden is already using tactics many fear Trump will bring with him if he wins the presidential election. He lists actions he said were unconstitutional — student loan forgiveness and the vaccine mandate among them.

But he took particular aim at a Biden appointment that he said turned the Vacancies Act upside down.

The trouble began when the president "nominated Ann Carlson last March to be administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration," wrote Will, a Republican who is frequently critical of his own party.

The nomination was pulled two months later as Biden didn't have the votes in the Senate to get her confirmed.

"But less than five weeks after that, he named Carlson acting administrator ... the Supreme Court has held that the act prohibits 'any person who has been nominated to fill any vacant office from performing that office’s duties in an acting capacity.'"

This move, said Will, is "Trumpian" in its "indifference" to the law as it doesn't make sense that someone would be disqualified from serving in an acting role when they are nominated for a position, but could do so when they have been withdrawn.

He went on, "Joe Biden is, like Trump, an authoritarian recidivist mostly stymied by courts."

ALSO READ: Judgment year has arrived: Will America pass her greatest test yet or will she fail?

Indeed, Will argued, Biden is arguably more effective than Trump at circumventing Congress to get his way, since when Trump tried to flout Congressional approval to build his border wall, he barely managed to accomplish anything.

Ultimately, Carlson had to step down in December when the 210-day limit of the Vacancies Act appointment ran out, said Will — but "contentment about this small victory for constitutional propriety should, however, be tempered by chagrin that such propriety, and legality ... have become contested concepts."