Donald Trump has made it quite clear that he would like to do things like rig the midterms or go after his perceived enemies. However, the past few days have shown that the incompetence of the people with whom he has surrounded himself, paired with their zeal for doing the president’s bidding, poses a real obstacle in the pursuit of these (and other) goals.

In other words, everybody in his administration is so eager to carry out Trump’s (often irrational, nonsensical, or downright unconstitutional) wishes that the execution of the president’s demands often lacks the sophistication needed to get a legally questionable action to pass judicial review.

This was never more apparent than on Monday, when a federal judge derailed Trump’s bid to exact revenge on two people he believes wronged him: former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

In order to indict Comey before the statute of limitations expired, and because the previous interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia apparently refused to do so based on the flimsy evidence the Department of Justice had compiled, Attorney General Pam Bondi installed one of Trump’s personal attorneys, Lindsey Halligan, as the new interim US attorney.

Within days, Halligan, who lacked any prosecutorial experience, complied with the president’s stated goal of indicting Comey (and James a few days later).

However, US District Court Judge Cameron Currie ruled that, because she was the second consecutive interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Halligan was illegally serving in her role, which voids all of her actions.

And, since the statute of limitations has now expired, it seems unlikely that DOJ will be able to indict Comey again (although it seems as though the Trump administration will appeal this ruling and certainly try to go after the former FBI director once more). As for James, we expect that she will be charged with something again in the future.

For Halligan, this embarrassment may be a blessing in disguise because, in addition to serving in her role unlawfully, she also appears to have committed a series of missteps that probably would have also led to the Comey case being dismissed on other procedural grounds.

More than anything, this shows just another half-baked effort spurred by one of Trump’s social media posts.

After the previous US attorney for the district had left his position (he says he resigned; the president claims he was fired), Trump directed Bondi on his Truth Social website to appoint Halligan and left no doubt that he wanted Comey, James, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), whom he called “guilty as hell,” to be charged with something.

And that is precisely what happened… but in a way that was so unlawful, rushed, and inept that Comey’s case has now been dismissed.

While it is a particularly good one, this is by no means the only example of Trump asking his underlings to do something that has failed to pass judicial muster.

Earlier this year, the president demanded that Texas redraw its congressional districts mid-decade to allow Republicans to gain five House seats.

To provide the state’s Republican governor and attorney general with cover to take this highly unusual and legally questionable step, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, sent them a letter in July in which she claimed that four of Texas’s congressional districts were “unconstitutional” and threatened to sue the state if it did not take action.

That was all Gov. Greg Abbott needed to add a redistricting effort to the agenda of a special session of the state legislature.

However, because he cited the DOJ letter when he did so, and Dhillon made this about race, a federal court struck down that map on the grounds that it wasn’t a permissible political gerrymander but rather an illegal racial gerrymander.

Both of them could have just stayed quiet, and their map likely would have prevailed.

Now, however, there is a chance that Trump’s plan to gerrymander districts in red states will backfire colossally because Texas messed things up while California, which responded with a new map of its own, left no doubt that its redistricting effort was purely political.

Of course, the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority might bail out Trump once again. It has already stayed the decision of the lower court.

Still, this is another example of the administration (and Republicans trying to do the president’s bidding) making a big mess of things.

And that might be the country’s best hope when it comes to curbing Trump’s authoritarian ambitions.

Yes, there are plenty of individuals in the administration who seem intent on destroying the government from within and turning the country into a far-right utopia. And these people lack a moral compass and scruples.

However, because they are so eager to achieve Trump’s goals (as well as their own), they are acting in a way that is so clumsy that judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents have almost no choice but to rule against the administration.