We Are Veering Closer to the Constitutional Edge
The Trump Justice Department shows no sign of obeying court orders.
Immediately after the Supreme Court's ruling at the beginning of July last year, this page said,
"But now, this Court has bestowed immunity on the one potential president most likely to commit illegal acts."
Sure enough, Donald Trump has gone on to break so many laws it has become difficult to count. That this citizen, no law degree, writing the above from way west in North Carolina, foresaw what would obviously happen and the chief justice did not, makes him a fool. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion and engineered the 6-3 decision and now will reap what he has sown when Trump commits the ultimate crime of refusing to abide by a Court decision. The Court has tied its own hands by giving Trump the immunity to do so.
And Trump is grateful. After the joint session of Congress last month, he stepped off the stage to shake Roberts's hand saying, "Thank you , thank you, I won't forget it." (He later claimed that he was thanking Roberts for swearing him in on Inauguration Day. Sure. We're that dimwitted, he thinks).
It may be that it is dawning on the justices, who surely follow the lawless conduct of the new administration, that "they're not any safer from the chainsaw than the rest of us", as Heather Digby Parton writes at Salon.
CHALLENGING THE COURT
D.C. District Court James Boasberg's requirement that the plane carrying members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and of MS-13 be returned to the U.S. and the Justice Department's refusal to cooperate is like to be the first case for the Supreme Court to deal with. The desirability of expelling immigrant gang members is undisputed, but our country prefers constitutional due process that at least determines that they are actual members of those gangs and not just people plucked off the street, identified only by tattoos. Donald Trump, who habitually creates a reality that suits his preconceptions, doesn't require proof. They are "criminals, killers, murderers, horrible, the worst people gang members, gang leaders", he concluded with no evidence apparent in an interview by Fox News's Laura Ingraham. "These were bad people That was a bad group of, as I say, hombres" he said aboard Air Force One, exhibiting his fluent command of Spanish.
Trump avers that the deportations are justified under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 that allows the president to detain and deport citizens of "an enemy nation" without a hearing of any sort in wartime. But we are not at war. The Act was last used in 1942 when Japanese residents in the United States were herded into internment camps in the belief that some could be spies. History records that as a disgraceful action, but Trump is content to repeat it.
But then we were actually at war. The law requires war to be formally declared by Congress – think of Franklin Roosevelt going before Congress to make that request after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. "That's an invasion, they invaded our country", Trump said to Ingraham. "In that sense, this is war". A new definition of war to suit his actions.
Judge Boasberg had questions. Trump administration lawyers refused to answer them. That's new. Lawyers know to go before federal judges well prepared to answer likely questions else earn their disfavor, but Trump lawyers are showing a propensity to disregard any court interference. Our new attorney general, Pam Bondi, has novel interpretations of the law. She issued a statement saying, "The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate". On Fox News she said,… Continue reading
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