Opinion | John Roberts Is on a Collision Course With Trump

Alexander Hamilton saw it coming.In the Federalist Papers, he described the judiciary as a feeble branch of government, easily “overpowered, awed or influenced” by Congress and the president.

Lacking the means to enforce their rulings, judges, he wrote, would need an “uncommon portion of fortitude.”If any judge feels that necessity now, it is Chief Justice John Roberts.The legal challenges to President Trump’s constitutional crime spree are multiplying.

One case, concerning the president’s purge of government watchdogs, has already reached the Supreme Court.The justices could soon take up another, weighing whether the president can end birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants.

As Chief Justice Roberts no doubt knows, these battles pose one of the most profound tests his institution has ever faced — a test of its authority and the idea of equal justice under the law.The chief will have to find his fortitude.For now, he appears to be steeling himself.

His most recent report on the federal judiciary — issued a few weeks before Mr.Trump’s inauguration — opens with a parable about King George III, who tried to bring colonial judges to heel, and brims with concern about “violence, intimidation and defiance directed at judges.” This has been interpreted, in part, as a swipe at Vice President JD Vance, who has been peddling the idea that judges have no business telling a president how to “control his own government.”If the chief justice intended a shot across the bow, Mr.

Vance remains undeterred.He and other Republicans — egged on by Elon Musk and right-wing legal theorists — continue to talk, gleefully, about defying the court.

This includes the president.“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Mr.

Trump recently posted on social media, a nod to Napoleon, if not other dictators.A day later, he reposted the quote, proudly attaching it to a headline stating that his administration was refusing to obey a d...