evidence: The modest accomplishments of Trump’s sabotage strategy could, however, be transformed into a resounding success through a sixth initiative: persuading the Supreme Court to destroy the ACA. In recent decades, the decision on whether to have the Justice Department defend a law’s constitutionality has become a prominent tool of the administrative presidency. So it is with the most recent legal challenge to the ACA that the Supreme Court will hear just after the election. The case arose from a suit filed by 18 Republican state attorneys general, two Republican governors, and two Texas residents in a federal district court. The suit reasoned that, since Congress in 2017 had eliminated the financial penalty for failure to obtain health insurance, the mandate to purchase coverage that remained in the law was unconstitutional and invalidated the entire ACA. Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, concurred with this view. O’Connor’s decision was an epiphany for the White House. The Justice Department had originally argued that the remaining, toothless mandate invalidated only a portion of the ACA, primarily protections for those with preexisting conditions. Now, and against the advice of his attorney general, the president embraced overturning all of the ACA’s core provisions.