Here are your options as a foreigner, whether you live in the US already or are just seeking a chance to enter the country: support Israel’s actions against Palestine or GTFO.
The Trump Administration continues to pretend supporting Palestine is the same thing as being racist against Israel. And it’s using this false dichotomy to further punish a university it’s already punishing and to allow government staffers performing entrance visa vetting to pretend any opposition to Trump is just as bad as being antisemitic on main.
The executive orders aimed at enforcing only Trump’s approved view on the Israel-Palestine conflict pretend they have something to do with “national security.” The vanishing of migrants and legal residents who are opposed to Israel’s actions is just more of the same thing. And the DHS’s recent targeting of Harvard shows Trump and his enablers will only amp up the bullying if their intended victims refuse to immediately acquiesce.
A cable sent by State Department figurehead Marco Rubio to consulates all over the world instructs them to amp up their vetting process for visa applicants, specifically in order to prevent people with anti-Israel (or anti-MAGA) views from being allowed to enter the country for the purpose of heading to Harvard. The cable only targets applicants heading to Harvard and covers everyone from prospective students to instructors to contractors.
The opening of the cable might lead people to believe this vetting is only targeting a few outliers on the migrate-to-Harvard spectrum:
“Effective immediately, consular officers must refer certain student and exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa applicants to the Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) for a mandatory social media check as described below,” the cable reads. It then references a quote from Rubio on March 16th: “We don’t want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes and undermining our national security or the public safety. It’s that simple. Especially people that are here as guests. That is what a visa is… It is a visitor into our country. And if you violate the terms of your visitation, you are going to leave.”
But it’s actually a lot worse than that. It tells those doing the vetting to instruct applicants to set all social media accounts to Public and assume that anyone utilizing private accounts or refusing to do so when instructed must be hiding something.
As in all instances in which an applicant refuses to provide certain information upon request, consular officers should consider whether the lack of any online presence, or having social media accounts restricted to “private” or with limited visibility, may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant’s credibility.
I know the wording sounds like it’s telling them to use their judgment, but considering this memo specifically targets only applicants seeking to visit Harvard, the most common assumption will be in favor of blocking their application.
And this is just the warning shot. Harvard is the target du jour. There will be more targets in the future and consulate officers should probably just starting vetting every applicant for anti-Israel (or anti-Trump) sentiment.
Implementation of this vetting measure for applicants traveling to Harvard will also serve as a pilot for expanded screening and vetting of visa applicants, and as the Department continues to develop and expand any enhanced vetting requirements to student visas generally, it may announce similar measures for other groups of visa applicants…
Speaking of expanded implementation, here’s the part that goes past the supposed national security concerns of rooting out antisemitic visa applicants:
[I]n another section, it states that a student visa applicant doesn’t necessarily need to express explicit support for “terrorist activity” in order to be denied, but just that they demonstrate “a degree of public approval or public advocacy for terrorist activity or a terrorist organization.”
It goes on to say: “This may be evident in conduct that bears a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture (including government, institutions, or founding principles). Or it may be evident in advocacy or sympathy for foreign terrorist organizations. All of these matters may open lines of inquiry regarding the applicant’s credibility and purpose of travel.”
The Trump Administration is doing everything it can to homogenize the nation with its mass deportation program. This addition to visa vetting procedures makes it clear it’s only willing to extend this privilege to people who appear to like Trump and this administration or, at the very least, have never posted anything remotely controversial ever. And that’s why white South Africans are getting the red carpet rolled out for them while everyone sporting browner shades of skin are getting hustled into planes bound for whatever country has expressed an interest in jailing non-citizens indefinitely.
When NPR sued Donald Trump Tuesday, it had an easy argument to go with. Normally, in First Amendment retaliation cases against the government, you have to pull together a bunch of disparate strands to prove the retaliatory intent of the actions. But as NPR noted in its filing, and as Justice Scalia once wrote about obvious constitutional violations: “this wolf comes as a wolf.” Trump’s executive order cutting public media funding doesn’t even pretend to hide its retaliatory nature — it literally calls NPR and PBS “biased media” in the title.
Republicans have been gunning for public media for decades, but historically, every time Congress tries to cut funding, outcry from their constituents is so overwhelming that nothing ever happens. It turns out tons of people (including Republican voters) actually like NPR and PBS. But Trump skipped Congress entirely and simply declared that public media wouldn’t be receiving any more federal funding — because he thinks their coverage hurts his feelings.
Federal funding for public media is already a bit confusing because very little of it actually goes directly to NPR and PBS. The funding mostly goes to local affiliates, many of which then do use it to purchase syndicated programming from NPR and PBS.
NPR’s complaint is refreshingly straightforward: this is textbook viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment, separation of powers, and due process. As the lawsuit notes, the Supreme Court made clear just last year (in the Moody v. NetChoice case) that “it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression — to ‘un-bias’ what it thinks biased.”
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox” in matters of politics or opinion. West Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). As the Supreme Court reiterated just last year, “it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression— to ‘un-bias’ what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences.” Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. 707, 719 (2024). These fundamental First Amendment principles apply in full force in the context of public media and doom Executive Order 14290, which expressly aims to punish and control Plaintiffs’ news coverage and other speech the Administration deems “biased.” The Order also violates due process, the Separation of Powers and the Spending Clause of the Constitution. See U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 1. It cannot stand.
What makes this case so obvious is that Trump hasn’t even tried to hide the retaliatory motive (because he doesn’t realize it’s unconstitutional and doesn’t much care about that). The executive order and accompanying materials openly attack NPR’s editorial choices:
On May 1, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14290, entitled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” (the Order), 90 Fed. Reg. 19415, which contradicts these statutory precepts and violates the Constitution. Contrary to Congress’s intent to support an independent public radio and television system, and statutory requirements that expressly shield the Corporation and entities like Plaintiffs from governmental interference, the Order directs federal agencies as well as the Corporation to withhold all federal funding from NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The Order further directs the Corporation to “cease indirect funding to NPR and PBS” by mandating that local radio and television stations that receive grants from CPB, like the Local Member Stations, not use those federal funds to acquire NPR or PBS programming, and by revising existing grant agreements to prohibit grantees “from funding NPR or PBS.”…
It is not always obvious when the government has acted with a retaliatory purpose in violation of the First Amendment. “But this wolf comes as a wolf.” Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 699 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting). The Order targets NPR and PBS expressly because, in the President’s view, their news and other content is not “fair, accurate, or unbiased.” Order § 1. And the “Fact Sheet” and press release accompanying the Order, which echo prior statements by President Trump and members of his Administration, only drive home the Order’s overt retaliatory purpose. They deride NPR’s content as “left-wing propaganda,” and underline the President’s antipathy toward NPR’s news coverage and its editorial choices. See “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Ends Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” (May 1, 2025) (asserting that NPR published articles “insist[ing] COVID-19 did not originate in a lab” and “refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story”); 1 Press Release, “President Trump Finally Ends the Madness of NPR, PBS” (May 2, 2025) (asserting that NPR “apologized for calling illegal immigrants ‘illegal’”).
It’s a bit surprising that PBS and NPR aren’t suing together, though the news side of NPR reports that PBS is looking into suing:
PBS is not a party to the lawsuit. The television network issued a statement Tuesday morning saying, “PBS is considering every option, including taking legal action, to allow our organization to continue to provide essential programming and services to member stations and all Americans.”
NPR also notes that the case has been assigned to the same judge, Randolph Moss, who is handling a different, but similar lawsuit, in which the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had sued Trump after he tried to fire a bunch of its board members.
Look, you can argue the federal government shouldn’t fund any media (though that would devastate rural communities that rely on public broadcasting). But even if that’s your position, such decisions belong to Congress, not a president with hurt feelings. And they absolutely cannot be made based on viewpoint discrimination.
Trump managed to violate both principles simultaneously — casually torching separation of powers while engaging in the kind of obvious retaliation against media that would be more fitting in authoritarian countries with dictators Trump admires. NPR’s lawsuit should be a slam dunk, assuming we still have courts willing to enforce the Constitution when it’s inconvenient for presidents.
Elon Musk may claim he’s leaving the government, but regardless of whether he or anyone DOGE leaves the damage has been done, and their potential legal exposure to it remains. And with this decision earlier this week, some of the litigation pursuing it made headway.
As we’ve written before, Judge Chutkan has had Musk and DOGE’s number for months, noting early on in this case, New Mexico v. Musk, one of the first challenges brought directly against them, that it appeared they had been acting without constitutional authority as it vandalized the federal government. Nevertheless, despite these suspicions she declined to enjoin them because it was then not clear that the states could plead adequate irreparable harm. And then her award of expedited discovery was overturned on appeal because the government’s motion to dismiss was still pending. There is now a ruling on that motion, and in a brand new decision she has allowed the case against them to continue.
It is an important ruling in an important case, although at this point maybe not in the way it originally seemed when first filed. It was first filed as a vehicle to get DOGE out of the government altogether, and before they had the chance to do much more damage. Unfortunately the TRO was denied. Nevertheless, the dicta in the decision denying it observed that DOGE was probably acting unlawfully, and that language may have helped judges addressing other, more agency-specific cases challenging Musk and DOGE issue orders constraining what DOGE can do. However, none have managed to remove the DOGE blight completely, which has still been rampaging across the government (and even beyond!) breaking things, which then all require separate lawsuits to address and only after plenty of damage has already been done (and likely unlawfully). And this decision, at such an early stage, will not remove it either, although it does move us all one step closer to its potential eradication (even if Musk or anyone DOGE leaves under their own power, it might not be enough to contain the scourge without a court ensuring that the door is locked behind them adjudicating relief from the mess they’ve already made).
And it is notable in at least two other ways. One relates the issue of “ratification,” which has been confounding courts. It comes up when DOGE has done something destructive within an agency but then the agency personnel legitimately endowed with power make it seem like what DOGE did was actually their doing. Courts are still struggling to figure out what to do with all this wrongfulness, because there may be a slight but important legal difference between DOGE causing damage with absolutely no lawful authority versus agency officials causing damage by misusing the authority they do lawfully have. (This is why it appears that hybrid cases suing both DOGE and the agency officials may be the most successful because they target both actors.)
This case, however, targets only Musk and DOGE (and Trump initially, although this decision did dismiss him). But it is still useful and important. Not only because, if DOGE were squashed, there would then be no DOGE actions for any agency official to ratify. But it may also bear on the ratification issue because courts are starting to realize that if DOGE is acting unlawfully then it would be impossible for any agency official to legitimately ratify what it has done. Unfortunately the DC Circuit has yet to see things that way, but in this decision Judge Chutkan explained how an earlier case where it had accepted ratification as a way of excusing DOGE was inapplicable here. First she explains what happened in that case:
Alternatively, Defendants argue that, even if Musk directed others to take the “complained-of-actions,” States fail to establish that the actions “were not formally approved by a relevant agency actor with proper authority.” MTD at 23. Defendants insist Andrade v. Regnery, 824 F.2d 1253 (D.C. Cir. 1987) thus bars States’ claim. MTD at 24.
In Andrade, the D.C. Circuit held that the termination or demotion of federal employees under a reduction in force (RIF) program did not violate the Appointments Clause because a duly appointed officer with the statutory responsibility for demoting or firing employees ratified all actions taken in connection with the RIF before it went into effect. 824 F.2d at 1255–57. Even though unappointed staff planned and largely executed the RIF, it “did not abridge the requirements of the Appointments Clause” because a duly appointed official had “final authority” on the day it took effect and was “the legal architect” of the RIF. Id. at 1257. The D.C. Circuit explained that “it is an everyday occurrence in the operation of government for staff members to conceive and even carry out policies for which duly appointed or elected officials take official responsibility.”
But even if the government were correct, that ratification should sink this case because it would explain and legitimize all the complained-of harm, it couldn’t be grounds for dismissing the case yet:
The D.C. Circuit made that determination following summary judgment proceedings and with the benefit of a factual record that clearly established a duly appointed official ratified the contested actions. Id. at 1255–56. At this juncture, the court lacks a factual record and must accept States’ allegations as true. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. States allege that Musk and DOGE personnel, not a relevant agency actor with proper authority, took the challenged actions. Compl. ¶¶ 60, 64–225. The court cannot accept Defendants’ contrary claim that agency actors signed off on all decisions.
But then she made a separate and likely more important point about how far ratification could actually go to exonerate DOGE’s offenses:
Moreover, Defendants improperly invert Andrade’s holding. They read Andrade to hold that Musk can lawfully direct actions by agency actors, so long as those actors were duly appointed. MTD at 22–23. But Andrade addressed the “everyday occurrence” of “staff members” carrying out policies adopted by “duly appointed or elected officials.” 824 F.2d at 1257. The apt analogy would be an appointed agency head directing Musk to carry out a policy, not the opposite. States allege that, rather than subordinate himself to duly appointed officials, Musk “reports only to President Trump,” Compl. ¶ 71, removes agency officials that stand in his way, id. ¶¶ 84–85, 137–38, or obtains compliance through threats and intimidation, id. ¶ 95. Andrade did not resolve whether an individual who has not been duly appointed may direct the actions of appointed officials, and extending its holding to encompass that scenario would be particularly inappropriate in the face of allegations that agency actors obeyed Musk’s directions to avoid legal action or termination.
The issue remains unresolved, and this language is also likely dicta, but it makes an important point. Agency officials have a lot of legitimate power but statutes, like the APA and other more agency-specific statutes, constrain that power, so there’s a limit to what they could do on their own volition (like, for instance, not close down their own agency). But the record seems to be showing that they are making these moves not of their own volition but at Musk and DOGE’s direction, and our constitutional order prevents them from legitimizing what Musk and DOGE have done via that path. The agency-specific cases will address that there was no lawful way to impose the harms that have ensued, but this case is about Musk and DOGE having tried to wield unlawful power to cause it. Those efforts are still wrongful even if they are not the only thing wrongful that happened to lead to the harm. And what the court seems to be suggesting here is that because the APA (etc.) forbade these actions, and yet they happened anyway, it helps show that Musk and DOGE were indeed the cause.
Which is another reason why this case is important, because Musk and DOGE ultimately need to be held personally liable for the resulting harm of how they exercised their lawless power. The decision summarizes much of it what they have done to date:
Controlling Expenditures and Disbursements of Public Funds: States allege that DOGE obtained “full access” to payment systems at multiple agencies and used that access to halt payments. Id. ¶¶ 78–79, 85, 127–30. For instance, after the acting-Secretary at U.S. Department of Treasury refused to “halt” payments, DOGE personnel threatened the acting Secretary with “legal risk [] if he did not comply with DOGE.” Id. ¶ 84. Then, on February 2, DOGE obtained “full access” to Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Services payment systems, which disburses funds for social security benefits, veteran’s benefits, childcare tax credits, Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements, federal employee wages, federal tax refunds, and facilitates state recovery of delinquent state income taxes. Id. ¶¶ 78–79, 85. That day, Musk posted on X that “[t]he @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments,” in response to a post by a non-profit organization receiving funds pursuant to government contracts. Id. ¶ 86.
Terminating Federal Contracts and Exercising Control over Federal Property: States allege that Musk and DOGE asserted responsibility for terminating federal contracts across the Executive Branch. Id. ¶ 203–04. DOGE reported the cancellation of “104 contracts related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) at more than a dozen federal agencies” on January 31, id. ¶ 205; of “thirty-six contracts across six agencies” on February 3, id. ¶ 206; of “twelve contracts in the GSA and the Department of Education” on February 4, id. ¶ 207; and “cuts of $250 million through the termination of 199 contracts” on February 7, id. ¶ 208. States also allege that DOGE and Musk exercise control over federal property by demanding access to secure facilities and threatening intervention by U.S. Marshals when agency officials refuse, id. ¶¶ 94–95; by “push[ing]” high-ranking officials out of their offices at agency headquarters, id. ¶¶ 164–66, by terminating leases for federal property, id. ¶ 206, and by announcing plans to “liquidate as much as half of the federal government’s nonmilitary real estate holdings,” id. ¶ 160.
Binding the Government to Future Financial Commitments without Congressional Authorization: States point to the Fork in the Road Email, which offered federal employees pay and benefits through September 2025 if they resigned by February 6, as entering into binding financial commitments. Id. ¶¶ 116–20, 212.
Eliminating Agency Regulations and Entire Agencies and Departments: States allege that DOGE personnel took steps to dismantle USAID and CFPB. On February 3, DOGE personnel allegedly “handed” USAID’s acting leadership “a list of 58 people, almost all senior career officials, to put on administrative leave.” Id. ¶ 102. The next day, USAID placed “nearly its entire workforce on administrative leave.” Id. ¶ 103. When “USAID contract officers emailed agency higher-ups” for authorization to cancel programs, DOGE personnel responded directly. Id. ¶ 101. Musk posted on X “CFBP RIP” on the same day that Musk’s aides “set up shop . . . at CFPB’s headquarters” and CFPB’s website was taken down. Id. ¶¶ 146–47. Three days later, CFPB’s acting Director Russell Vought told all employees to “[s]tand down from performing any work task” and “not come into the office.” Id. ¶ 148.
Directing Action by Agencies: States allege that Musk and DOGE obtain compliance from agency officials and employees by threatening action by U.S. Marshals, legal risks, or termination. Id. ¶ 84 (threatening acting-Treasury Secretary with “legal risk”); id. ¶ 95 (threatening USAID personnel blocking access to facility with action by U.S. Marshals); id. ¶¶ 176–178 (DOL employees told to comply or “face termination”). States claim that if agency officials object or raise concerns, Musk and DOGE ignore or override the agency and place on administrative leave or otherwise remove non-compliant individuals. Id. ¶¶ 84–85 (acting-Treasury Secretary “placed on administrative leave” after refusing to halt payments); id. ¶ 110 (DOGE “gained full and unfettered access to OPM systems over the existing CIO’s objection”); id. ¶¶ 137–38 (DOGE representative was “installed” as the Department of Energy’s (“DOE”) “chief information officer” after DOE’s general counsel’s office and chief information office opposed DOGE’s access to DOE’s IT system); id. ¶ 166 (DOGE personnel “pushed” the “highest-ranking officials” at the Department of Education (“ED”) “out of their own offices”).
Acting as a Principal Officer Unsupervised by Heads of Departments: States allege that Musk acts and directs DOGE’s conduct without supervision by agency heads. For instance, States allege that Musk and his team sent the Fork in the Road Email “via a custom-built email system . . . withot consultation with other advisers to the President or OMB officials,” id. ¶ 120; that DOGE personnel at agencies do not “interact at all with anyone who is not part of their team,” id. ¶ 165; and that Musk “reports only to President Trump,” id. ¶ 71.
Obtaining Unauthorized Access to Secure Databases and Sensitive Information: States allege that Musk and DOGE personnel obtained access to secure databases and systems at Treasury, id. ¶ 85, USAID, id. ¶ 95, OPM, id. ¶ 110, the Department of Health and Human Services, id. ¶ 127, DOE, id. ¶ 137, ED, id. ¶¶ 164, 167, DOL, id. ¶¶ 177–78, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, id. ¶ 190, Federal Emergency Management Agency, id. ¶ 194, and Small Business Association, id. ¶ 198.
While it would have been nice if personal liability could have been pursued earlier, to at least scare the minions away from helping Trump and Musk complete their destructive mission, the litigation that will eventually pursue it may be stronger with a judicial finding that Musk and DOGE’s actions were indeed illegal. And not something that any of them can escape even if they voluntarily stop – while it’s great if Musk or any DOGErs give up their access to government systems and services and stop causing even more harm, they should still be liable for the harm they have already caused.
And this decision in this case gets us one significant step closer to that day where they may have to pay.
Remember “Liberation Day”? The day when Trump launched those apparently freedom-loving taxes on all Americans by declaring war on global commerce so hard that we were even planning on taxing penguins on uninhabited islands? Well, some of you might recall that the Constitution distributes power, and doesn’t give it all to the President. And Trump’s tariffs are supposedly based on “emergency” powers. The president can impose certain regulations on foreign countries during emergencies, Congress said — you know, like if Canada nukes us or something. Trump looked at this law and thought: “Perfect! Americans buying stuff from other countries is clearly an emergency.”
His theory (to the extent it can be called a “theory”) goes something like this: trade deficits are an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to America, so the president can declare a perpetual national emergency about… international commerce existing. Every purchase of a Toyota is basically another Pearl Harbor.
Anyway, two courts looked at this theory this week and had some thoughts.
First up: the US Court of International Trade, which is exactly what it sounds like — the court that deals with trade stuff. They took one look at Trump’s tariffs and said, essentially, “The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose tariffs, not the president. This isn’t complicated.”
Now, Congress did pass a law saying the president can “regulate a variety of economic transactions” during emergencies. But here’s the thing: The court noted that declaring every trading relationship with every country to be an emergency is… not really how emergencies work.
The court’s reasoning was pretty straightforward:
IEEPA does not authorize any of the Worldwide, Retaliatory, or Trafficking Tariff Orders. The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs.The Trafficking Tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.
Translation: You can’t just declare everything an emergency and use emergency powers forever.
But wait! There’s more. Yesterday, a regular federal court in DC also blocked the tariffs. Judge Rudolph Contreras was equally unimpressed with Trump’s legal theory:
This case is not about tariffs qua tariffs. It is about whether IEEPA enables the President to unilaterally impose, revoke, pause, reinstate, and adjust tariffs to reorder the global economy. The Court agrees with Plaintiffs that it does not
The judge made some pretty devastating points about why Trump’s theory falls apart. First, there’s the basic constitutional problem:
The Court agrees with Plaintiffs that the power to regulate is not the power to tax… The Constitution recognizes and perpetuates this distinction. Clause 1 of Article I, Section 8provides Congresswith the “Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” Clause 3 of Article I, Section 8 empowers Congress “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.”
In other words, the Constitution specifically separates the power to tax from the power to regulate trade and gives both to Congress. If Trump could just call tariffs “regulation,” then that whole separation becomes meaningless.
Congress has also been careful when delegating tariff authority to presidents. Every other law giving the president tariff powers comes with “express procedural, substantive, and temporal limits.” But Trump’s reading of the emergency law would “eviscerate” all those careful limits:
Those comprehensive statutory limitations would be eviscerated if the President could invoke a virtually unrestricted tariffing power under IEEPA…. The Court will not assume that, in enacting IEEPA, Congress repealed by implication every extant limitation on the President’s tariffing authority….
Even worse, if the court were willing to accept Trump’s interpretation of the IEEPA, then that would make the IEEPA unconstitutional. Oops!
Defendants’ interpretation could render IEEPA unconstitutional. IEEPA provides that the President may “regulate . . . importation or exportation.” … The Constitution prohibits export taxes. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 5 (“No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.”). If the term “regulate” were construed to encompass the power to impose tariffs, it would necessarily empower the President to tariff exports, too. The Court cannot interpret a statute as unconstitutional when any other reasonable construction is available.
Finally, the court notes that in the fifty years since this emergency law was passed, literally no president has ever used it to impose tariffs. That’s… probably relevant.
And, of course, the markets loved this news. Global stock futures jumped when the courts blocked the tariffs, which tells you everything you need to know about how seriously financial markets take Trump’s trade policies.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, responded by claiming that courts have no authority to review presidential tariffs at all, which is… an interesting constitutional theory. If you squint, it almost sounds like she’s arguing that federal judges have absolutely no role overseeing executive uses of power, which might come as news to the Supreme Court. Or anyone who is familiar with how the three branches of government work.
Leavitt: The courts should have no role here. There is a troubling & dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision making process. America cannot function if President Trump has his sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges.
Leavitt spews this constitutional nonsense with such conviction that you’d almost think she believes it. But despite her protests about “unelected… activist judges” (some of whom were appointed by Trump himself), it remains a simple fact: Donald Trump is no king, and multiple courts keep ruling to that effect.
Meanwhile, late Thursday, Trump himself blew up at the CIT judges and used it to take a surprising swipe at the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo:
If you can’t see that screenshot, here is the jumbo-sized word salad for you:
The U.S. Court of International Trade incredibly ruled against the United States of America on desperately needed Tariffs but, fortunately, the full 11 Judge Panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Court has just stayed the order by the Manhattan-based Court of International Trade. Where do these initial three Judges come from? How is it possible for them to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America? Is it purely a hatred of “TRUMP?” What other reason could it be?
I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real “sleazebag” named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions. He openly brags how he controls Judges, and even Justices of the United States Supreme Court — I hope that is not so, and don’t believe it is! In any event, Leo left The Federalist Society to do his own “thing.” I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations. This is something that cannot be forgotten!
With all of that being said, I am very proud of many of our picks, but very disappointed in others. They always must do what’s right for the Country! In this case, it is only because of my successful use of Tariffs that many Trillions of Dollars have already begun pouring into the U.S.A. from other Countries, money that, without these Tariffs, we would not be able to get. It is the difference between having a rich, prosperous, and successful United States of America, and quite the opposite.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade is so wrong, and so political! Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY. Backroom “hustlers” must not be allowed to destroy our Nation!
The horrific decision stated that I would have to get the approval of Congress for these Tariffs. In other words, hundreds of politicians would sit around D.C. for weeks, and even months, trying to come to a conclusion as to what to charge other Countries that are treating us unfairly. If allowed to stand, this would completely destroy Presidential Power — The Presidency would never be the same!
This decision is being hailed all over the World by every Country, other than the United States of America. Radical Left Judges, together with some very bad people, are destroying America. Under this decision, Trillions of Dollars would be lost by our Country, money that will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. It would be the harshest financial ruling ever leveled on us as a Sovereign Nation. The President of the United States must be allowed to protect America against those that are doing it Economic and Financial harm. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Since I don’t hate you quite as much as Trump does, I broke up his nonsensical spew into paragraphs to make it marginally more readable.
But there are a few notable points in here: first, Trump believes that any judge that rules against him is somehow bad and hates America. And if they were appointed by him, he’ll now blame Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. That’s pretty incredible, since the rise of Trump was very, very much enabled by Leo and the Federalist Society, and their efforts to pack the courts with partisan ideological lackeys who would push Christian nationalism and GOP politics forward.
It’s no surprise but is yet another data point confirming Trump’s view that anyone telling him he broke the law must be anti-American. It’s a dangerous authoritarian stance, but not a new one.
Second, Trump, who positions himself as the world’s greatest dealmaker, effectively admits that he can’t get a Republican Congress to actually approve these tariffs.
Third, Trump is the fucking President. Pretending he’s some poor little victim of the Federalist Society ramming through judges he doesn’t like is so stupid. Trump is basically admitting he was played like a fiddle by Leo, which just demonstrates how weak and unqualified he is as President.
Unfortunately, as Trump noted, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit already put the first ruling on hold while they figure out how to handle it and related cases. But, honestly? The legal reasoning in both rulings is quite solid. Trump’s emergency powers don’t extend to “I don’t like trade deficits” any more than they extend to “I don’t like Mondays.” He may never realize that, but the rest of us must retain that basic reality.
This seems likely to reach the Supreme Court fairly quickly, at which point it’s anyone’s guess how those “unelected activist judges” will rule. But for now, we have two federal courts saying the same thing: the Constitution still applies, even to Trump’s economic theories. It may make Trump sad, but it certainly doesn’t make him right.
Hey, if we have to be fair (and we don’t), we can trace some of this intranational movement to policies that predate the current shitshow we’re somehow expected to believe is the host to the Leader of the Free World.
A patchwork of marijuana legalization laws has led directly to law enforcement camping out on the borders of weed-friendly states, hoping to bust (but hoping even more to steal money from) people entering those states for the sole purpose of enjoying a substance that’s currently illegal in their own state.
After the Supreme Court decided Roev. Wadewas no longer good law, a new form of awfulness began. Law enforcement and local prosecutors starting arresting and bringing criminal charges against people who traveled to states where abortion was legal, rather than subject themselves to local laws outlawing their bodily autonomy.
It keeps getting worse. Florida has enacted new immigration laws that are even more draconian than Trump’s all-out war on anyone who looks less than full-on Caucasian. Those laws may have been blocked by courts, but that’s not stopping Florida from treating migrants entering the state like migrants illegally crossing US borders.
Florida, Texas, Idaho, New Hampshire: these are the main players in a recent article by The Guardian that details the experiences of people who find themselves refugees from their own former US states.
We’ll start with the story of a teacher who abandoned New Hampshire for Vermont because of the state’s efforts to erase critical race theory and other things that might inform students that white doesn’t always mean right.
John Dube, a high school teacher with 35 years of teaching under his belt, went up against local lawmakers’ attempts to ban CRT theory from being discussed in public schools. This put him in the crosshairs of far right activists, who engaged in a campaign of harassment so worrisome federal and local law enforcement stopped by to warn the teacher of what they had observed online..
The backlash was instant. Granite Grok, a local rightwing website, posted the names of all New Hampshire signatories, and within hours of that Dube received a Facebook message that read: “Whats up homo? I heard your teaching Marxist commie CRT in your classrooms. You can fuck right off you garbage human.”
Dube calmly replied that he would not be intimidated.
Within days, police officers turned up at his house, having been dispatched by the FBI. Dube’s name was circulating on obscure chatrooms frequented by violent militia members. He was urged to install security cameras at home, but when he asked why the police didn’t arrest the perpetrators of the threats, he was told that was impossible on free speech grounds.
So much for the “Live Free or Die” state. It’s now just the “Fuck Off and Die” state, heavily populated by people who believe your rights (and possibly, your life) end where their beliefs begin.
Dube has since relocated to Vermont to teach. He’s not the only one fleeing persecution and/or prosecution in his former home state due to legislation passed by Trump sycophant’s or the disturbing actions of those who support Trump and his rampant destruction of constitutional rights.
The Guardian article also tells the story of two women who left Idaho because of its draconian abortion ban. It’s not just women affected by the ban, though. The article points out two-thirds of Idaho’s fetal medicine specialists have left the state because continuing to provide the care they have for years puts them in danger of being prosecuted under the state’s abortion law.
And another person left Texas to protect their trans teen from harassment and prosecution enabled by the state’s many attacks on trans rights and LGBTQ+ speech. And it isn’t just the simple matter of relocating a family. “Sandra” (the pseudonym used by The Guardian to protect this parent from prosecution or harassment) also had to shut their business and somehow hope it can continue to provide income for their family when (or if) they manage to re-open it.
There are more anecdotes in the Guardian article, ranging from people leaving California to escape wild fires President Trump refuses to provide aid to fight or protect against to pulling up stakes to avoid being subjected to censorship efforts that target not only what content students have access to in libraries to what they’re able to learn about while in class.
If you choose to believe this is nothing more than a few people over-reacting to local policies, you are, of course, free to continue entertaining this delusion. But this is something we simply don’t expect to be happening in the United States. Sure, some people may move to find better schools or better jobs, but they rarely pull up stakes because they feel they’re local government poses a tangible, ongoing threat to their beliefs, rights, and ongoing existence.
And don’t even pretend there aren’t a lot of legislators and state leaders secretly wishing they could just throw up Berlin Walls on their borders to prevent people who disagree with their politics from seeking somewhere else to live. This is all about control of everyone, not just those who simply adore the cool touch of a boot heel to their neck. They want the people who reject their impositions to suffer the most.
Florida has already tried to create a virtual border within the United States with its law that creates new criminal charges for any undocumented immigrant entering Florida from another state. Drug warriors have long pretended the US isn’t contiguous when it comes to selective enforcement of drug laws. And as long as cops and prosecutors are trying to hunt down scofflaws who leave the state to partake of legal goods and services offered in other states, there will always be a latent desire to set up “papers, please” checkpoints on state borders. The only difference now is there are people in power who are willing to explore that option.
The critics are out there, saying things like “Techdirt is alarmist!” and “Trump stuff is normal!” and “Tim Cushing’s posts have too many typos!” Well, here’s some news for the haters: everything I said a month ago is actually true, except now it has the weight of the gold standard of identification dragging it down, down, down into the progressively deeper hellhole that is Trump’s second administration.
For years, the federal government has been threatening/warning that American citizens would no longer be free to move about the country unless they got a brand new ID card that carried the US government stamp of approval on it. State ID cards were simply no longer good enough, even though we were still a united set of states despite Texas’s constant promises to leave the rest of us alone.
Things have changed with Trump’s return to office. The long- and multiply-delayed “REAL ID” is now actually for real. And, even though the latest deadline for compliance has been extended yet again, officials are warning you’re not getting on that plane unless you carry the new, federally required piece of plastic.
And sure, pretty much everyone is still putting off the pain of acquiring the federally branded ID until the federal government actually makes it impossible to live life without one. But early adopters aren’t faring any better than those of us choosing the path of least resistance.
Remember what I said about Trump being just as willing to detain, deport, or jail US citizens? I wasn’t kidding. And it’s a conclusion anyone willing to think a half-second about the current mass deportation effort would have arrived at. What makes you a US citizen when you’re confronted by an ICE pack? Well, it’s certainly not the documents you carry. It’s whether or not ICE chooses to recognize those documents as proof of your citizenship.
Here’s how one US citizen was repaid for doing the government a solid by getting in on the REAL ID scam on the ground floor, as reported by Suzanne Gamboa for NBC News:
A U.S.-born citizen who was wrestled into the dirt, handcuffed and detained in a vehicle as part of an immigration raid had a REAL ID on him that was dismissed as fake, the man’s cousin said Friday.
Video of the arrest, aired by Noticias Telemundo, showed authorities grabbing Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, while at a job site in Foley, Alabama, on Wednesday and bending his arms behind him. Someone off-camera can be heard yelling, “He’s a citizen.”
Garcia told Noticias Telemundo that authorities took his ID from his wallet and told him it was fake before handcuffing him.
That’s it. That’s the whole game. Carry all the documents you want, but all it takes is federal agents claiming they don’t believe you to undercut the supposedly inherent power of the identification documents you carry. That’s the massive disconnect — one that also applies to regular law enforcement — between our assumptions of how law and order works, and how law enforcement officers actually work.
The good news is only “good” in comparison to the much worse news Trump’s deportation efforts are generating daily. Garcia was eventually released by immigration officers once he provided them with his Social Security number, but that was after he was assaulted, pinned to the ground, handcuffed, and placed in a law enforcement vehicle.
And, of course, the government is going to get away with this because it almost always has and the nation’s top court has insisted via precedential rulings it almost always will.
She said they have been trying to find a lawyer but local ones have told them that it is nearly impossible to sue a federal agent.
This is true. And while it’s tough to hear, at least these local lawyers didn’t make things worse by offering false hope or offering to take up a case they couldn’t possibly win.
Now that another US citizen has been arrested — however briefly — by federal agents who’ve been instructed to see red when they see brown, the DHS has stepped up to claim (without facts in evidence) that this arrest wasn’t about Garcia looking kinda foreign and everything to do with him reacting to being treated like an illegal immigrant even though he’s a full-blown REAL ID card-carrying US citizen:
“He physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands,” said Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary. “Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”
Pics or it didn’t happen. Just kidding. Federal officers are no longer wearing body cameras thanks to Trump and for damn sure they’re not even wearing agency identification, thanks to their desire to avoid any accountability whatsoever. This is all about race. It has nothing to do with hunting down violent criminals or repeat offenders and just grabbing anyone who doesn’t look white enough to “belong” in a nation run by a bunch of bigots.
As HHS and RFK Jr. continue to bumble their way towards making America less healthy, while saying they’re doing the opposite of course, measles cases are still on the rise. The rate of new cases appears to be slowing somewhat, assuming we think the data coming out of the CDC these days is accurate. Given the staff and budget cuts HHS has implemented, I think that is very much an open question.
In the meantime, Kennedy also committed about a month ago to “knowing the cause of autism” by September of this year. The claim would be absurd coming from anyone, given the research and science indicating that there are a number of factors likely at play rather than a single “cause,” but from noted anti-vaccine advocate Kennedy the claim takes on a more sinister tone. Kennedy has already walked back the ETA for his eureka on autism moment, but it seems overwhelmingly obvious where this is going.
Making matters worse, because the fish rots from the head down, Donald Trump recently remarked that the cause of autism must be from an external source. He, to the shock of exactly nobody, provided zero reasoning or evidence for this claim.
President Trump said Thursday that autism must not occur naturally, citing figures inflating the spike in autism and suggesting the administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission could provide answers.
“When you hear 10,000, it was 1 in 10,000, and now it’s 1 in 31 for autism, I think that’s just a terrible thing. It has to be something on the outside, has to be artificially induced, has to be,” Trump said at a MAHA Commission event. “And we will not allow our public health system to be captured by the very industries it’s supposed to oversee. So we’re demanding the answers, the public is demanding the answers and that’s why we’re here.”
Because this is Donald Trump, even his cited numbers are wrong. Autism spectrum diagnoses 25 years ago were in the 1 in 150 children range. Today they are 1 in 36. That is still a sizable jump and if you can’t be bothered to have a nuanced thought about it, it might freak you out. But medicine on new diseases changes, as does how we classify certain conditions. A ton of awareness and outreach has been done both with doctors and among the public when it comes to autism. With that education comes more diagnosed incidents as doctors and the public begin to recognize the symptoms for what they are.
But most medical professionals seem to agree that genetics and family history play a role in autism prevalence that ranges somewhere between being very important to being the primary cause. That would be directly contradictory to Trump’s claim that the disorder must be externally caused.
The main question now appears to be whether Kennedy is influencing Trump’s views on autism, or the other way around.
Ahead of Kennedy’s confirmation vote in the Senate, Trump also shared figures questioning the autism rate.
“20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!! Thank You! DJT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
This isn’t some conversation happening in a vacuum. Policy decisions will be made based Trump’s and Kennedy’s misguided views on autism spectrum disorder. Neither of these men are doctors. One of them insisted that the American people shouldn’t take medical advice from him, despite his holding the highest office in the land when it comes to American health and healthcare.
The destructive force that is DOGE still somehow manages to exist, despite it not being (depending on which claim is made and when) an official federal agency and/or overseen by anyone specifically identifiable as the head of DOGE.
Until recently, everyone — including Donald Trump — knew (and said as much in public) that DOGE was both a government agency andheaded by Elon Musk. When the lawsuits started flying, the backtracking began by the administration, which apparently thought it could cover its tracks by walking backwards in its golf-cleated clown shows.
Trump’s love for DOGE has managed to undercut the protections DOGE hoped it would be able to avail itself of when the FOIA requests began pouring in and the discovery demands started hitting federal dockets.
The administration is now attempting a Hail Mary play, albeit one that hails Thomas and Alito (and possibly, Roberts), rather than the patron saint it’s named after. Given the makeup of this current court, it probably has a far better chance of success than simply hurling the ball into the air and hoping someone on their own team manages to come down with it. (And, indeed, it has already scored a temporary stay, thanks to an emergency order issued by Chief Justice John Roberts.)
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has been suing DOGE ever since it rejected its FOIA requests for the agency’s operational documents. The Trump Administration is now fighting back, albeit with at least one hand inadvertently tied behind its back, as Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney report for Politico:
The Justice Department filed an emergency appeal Wednesday urging the high court to put a hold on a judge’s orders giving a watchdog group access to documents detailing firings, grant terminations and other actions proposed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which was overseen by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Solicitor General John Sauer is also asking the Supreme Court to block a deposition of the obscure official the Trump administration has identified as the leader of the budget-cutting drive: DOGE administrator Amy Gleason.
The crux of the administration’s opacity argument [PDF] is this: DOGE is nothing more than an advisory entity that lacks the power to make independent decisions. Obviously, everything about DOGE says otherwise, as it has propelled massive staffing and funding cuts across multiple agencies, participated in extremely careless (and possibly illegal) data exfiltration, and done pretty much whatever it wants since it materialized as the barely-sentient wet dream of a guy who insists on wearing a baseball cap to every Oval Office meeting.
But that has been undercut by Trump himself, who has stated the agency definitely can do everything the administration is now claiming in court it can’t do, as well as thrown someone under the DOGE bus to act as the recipient for the negative attention (and FOIA requests, and deposition demands) Trump managed to successfully shield his fascist-saluting man-child from since his return to the Oval Office.
This trouble has been brewing for a few months:
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper found there were strong indications that DOGE was actually directing cuts and layoffs at numerous federal agencies. That substantive operational role suggests DOGE’s activities fall under the Freedom of Information Act, the judge wrote.
Now that a judge is saying stuff we’ve all been able to clearly observe since DOGE’s inception, the administration now wants the Supreme Court to declare that the public (and multiple litigants) shouldn’t be allowed to believe their own eyes.
Making matters worse for the administration’s anti-transparency efforts is the fact that it has finally decided to put someone’s name on the top of the department’s letterhead: DOGE administrator Amy Gleason. (From what’s known about Gleason, it seems clear she’s being used to catch bullets meant for Trump/Musk, rather than actually direct DOGE operations.)
While this will probably keep Musk and his mouth out of court, it does make it clear that DOGE not only acts on its own impulses (rather than just offer mass termination “guidance”) but that someone will ultimately have to answer questions about DOGE’s actions in court, should discovery requests manage to secure some depositions.
Obviously, the normal court processes and determinations in litigation against DOGE cannot be allowed to stand. That’s why the administration wants the judges it bought to give it a free pass on destroying the federal government while simultaneously preventing the public from learning anything more about the salt-the-earth tactics being spearheaded by DOGE. And it really doesn’t matter whose name is currently at the top of the org chart in terms of destruction. But it does matter when it comes to FOIA litigation and the administration’s insistence DOGE is limited to simply suggesting moves the administration might want to make.
There’s no telling how this desperation move will work out. The Supreme Court has played both sides of the encroaching fascism line in recent weeks, giving Trump some free passes while occasionally shutting down the administration’s efforts to vanish constitutional rights into the anti-immigration cornfield.
Let’s hope this will end up being one of the latter. What’s already known about DOGE and its operations is extremely disturbing. Perhaps the exposure of more internal information will help more people realize the government they chose to elect is actively trying to destroy many of the things they still hold dear and propel some opposition from citizens who never thought they’d be #NeverTrump. We can only hope.
Federal judges don’t normally punctuate their rulings with multiple exclamation points while invoking the Founding Fathers. But then again, no president before has issued executive orders targeting law firms for the clients they represent and the cases they take. In the last week, two George W. Bush-appointed conservative judges delivered brutal constitutional smackdowns of Trump’s law firm death warrants — making clear that these aren’t just bad legal tactics, they’re attacks on the core principle of an independent bar willing to challenge government power.
Last week, Judge John Bates, well known as a traditional conservative judge, blasted the Trump admin for its executive order against the law firm Jenner & Block.
In our constitutional order, few stars are as fixed as the principle that no official “can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics.” W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). And in our constitutional order, few actors are as central to fixing that star as lawyers.
This case arises from one of a series of executive orders targeting law firms that, in one way or another, did not bow to the current presidential administration’s political orthodoxy. Like the others in the series, this order—which takes aim at the global law firm Jenner & Block— makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed.Going after law firms in this way is doubly violative of the Constitution. Most obviously, retaliating against firms for the views embodied in their legal work—and thereby seeking to muzzle them going forward—violates the First Amendment’s central command that government may not “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.”Nat’l Rifle Ass’n of Am. v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 188 (2024).More subtle but perhaps more pernicious is the message the order sends to the lawyers whose unalloyed advocacy protects against governmental viewpoint becoming government-imposed orthodoxy.This order, like the others, seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers. It thus violates the Constitution and the Court will enjoin its operation in full.
The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases, however daunting. The Founding Fathers knew this! Accordingly, they took pains to enshrine in the Constitution certain rights that would serve as the foundation for that independence. Little wonder that in the nearly 250 years since the Constitution was adopted no Executive Order has been issued challenging these fundamental rights. Now, however, several Executive Orders have been issued directly challenging these rights and that independence. One of these Orders is the subject of this case. For the reasons set forth below,I have concluded that this Order must be struck down in its entirety as unconstitutional. Indeed, to rule otherwise would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers!
Exclamation points! So many of them!
Either way, between Bates and Leon, MAGA cultists can no longer claim it’s just “radical leftist judges” ruling against them on these law firm executive warrants (not that anyone actually believed that in the first place).
While these judges are forcefully defending constitutional principles, their opinions also call out the thing that many of us find equally disturbing: the firms that chose capitulation over principle have handed Trump exactly what he wanted. Judge Bates pointedly included Trump’s own boasting about these surrenders:
Other firms skipped straight to negotiations. Without ever receiving an executive order, these firms preemptively bargained with the administration and struck deals sparing them. The deals largely mirror Paul Weiss’s, though the price continues to rise: instead of $40 million, these firms have pledged $100 million or more in pro bono legal services the administration has a hand in choosing. And in public statements, the President has floated the prospect of deploying the firms to work on the administration’s own projects, rather than traditional pro bono causes, while acknowledging the firms’ lack of wrongdoing: “I agree, they’ve done nothing wrong,” the President said at a recent event. “[B]ut what the hell, they give me a lot of money considering they’ve done nothing wrong.”
The consequences of this surrender are already playing out. At Paul Weiss — the first major firm to cave to Trump’s demands — some top partners have already jumped ship to start their own firm rather than be associated with the capitulation.
Meanwhile, the law firms that caved (including Paul Weiss) are suddenly finding that MAGA cultists are expecting the hundreds of millions worth of free legal services to start flowing immediately:
One of them is the Oversight Project, a conservative group affiliated with the Heritage Foundation. The group has sent letters to dozens of big law firms, including some that settled with the White House,asking each of them to provide up to $10 million in pro bono legal workto support litigation brought by conservative groups.
In that case, it’s at least a non-profit group. But the article also details a bunch of random MAGA fans who seem to think they should just be able to call up these firms and get free legal support.
Some veterans have viewed the dealsas an open invitation to ask for free legal work. In recent months, several have called Paul Weiss’s pro bono department asking for help on a range of issues, including their rental leases and medical benefits, two people with knowledge of the requests said.
The pattern here should make everyone wonder why any firm caved in the first place. The court rulings make clear the executive orders were unconstitutional garbage from day one. But beyond being legally unnecessary, the capitulation has left these firms drowning in exactly the kind of bad faith exploitation any competent lawyer should have seen coming.
Which brings us to the most damning indictment of all: Law firms that can’t even advocate successfully on their own behalf have no business advocating for anyone else.
The useful lie that alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members are engaging in coordinated violence inside the United States at the direction of the Venezuelan government has been debunked so often it’s hardly worth rehashing. Oddly enough, the debunking has come from the federal government, rather than investigative journalists or transparency groups or any of the usual suspects.
Intelligence assessments performed by intelligence agencies have found no definitive link between TdA gang members and the Venezuelan government. This is bullshit the Trump administration relies on to prop up its Alien Enemies Act declarations, which are being made for the sole purpose of denying due process to migrants the US government is deporting to literally any country that will take them.
This bullshit relies on further bullshit: the so-called “gang assessment” scorecards are being tallied up by people whose ongoing income relies on them declaring as many migrants to be TdA gang members as possible. Ex-cops working for privately-run detention centers, federal officers seeking to meet nearly impossible demands for daily expulsions, and hateful bigots in positions of power who prefer quantity to quality when it comes to ridding the nation of people who might not vote for them in upcoming elections.
With the lie now exposed multiple times, the ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) is seeking to reclaim control of the narrative. That has led to a top advisor to DNI Tulsi Gabbard telling the DNI rank-and-file that facts don’t actually matter here. What matters is how the administration feels about the people it wants to deport.
In the email, according to a person familiar with the matter and confirmed by a second source, Gabbard’s acting chief of staff Joe Kent asked for a “rethink” of an intelligence assessment contradicting the administration’s argument that Venezuela is responsible for the U.S. activities of Tren de Aragua gang members.
“I would like to understand how any IC (intelligence community) element arrived at the conclusion that the Venezuelan government doesn’t support and did not orchestrate TDA operating in the U.S.,” Kent said in the email, referring to Tren de Aragua.
Actually, Kent doesn’t want to “understand” how the IC arrived at the conclusion that TdA is not being directed by the Venezuelan government. What he really wants is for the IC to ignore the facts it has gathered and just work backwards from Trump’s AEA-enabling assumptions.
“When Biden announced that the border was open I think we let a quest for … direct links between the Venezuelan government and TDA obstruct basic common sense,” he wrote, adding that the National Intelligence Council needed to start “looking at getting a new assessment written on TDA and their relationship with the government of Venezuela that reflects basic common sense.”
Common sense would, of course, be what has already happened: a reliance on established facts and inferences drawn from a wide swath of intelligence community reporting. Common sense in Kent’s hands means something else: rewriting reports to align with the administration’s preferred fiction. And, of course, Kent none-too-subtly suggests that those adhering to facts will seem to be aligning themselves with ex-president Biden, which isn’t the sort of thing you want to do if you value your IC job.
There’s more to this than just working backwards from a false assumption to generate semi-plausible “intelligence” that supports the president’s mass ejection desires. Kent also wants to make sure those at the top still have the plausible deniability to avoid being trapped by tough questions like “why are you lying?” or “why does this sound like it was rewritten simply because it didn’t agree with DOJ and DHS allegations and assertions?”
In subsequent emails with ODNI officials, Kent also said that Gabbard needs to be “protected” in the rewriting process, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The New York Times late Tuesday reported that in one email, Kent ordered analysts to “do some rewriting” of the assessment and more analytical work so that “this document is not used against” Gabbard or Trump.
Sure, this form of intelligence isn’t the same sort intelligence that separates the smart people from the stupid. But for intelligence (of this sort) to be useful, it has to be factual, rather than merely reflective of current administration vibes. This is a key member of the ODNI telling everyone to not only be stupider, but to throw themselves under the bus if need be to protect Gabbard and Trump from any blowback.
This is undeniably ugly. Sadly, it’s just more of the same from Trump’s enablers — people who clearly prefer to serve an autocrat rather than the nation they’re selling out to keep themselves in the good graces of a moody, would-be tyrant who’s just going to fire them the moment they cease to be useful and/or when he forgets who they are. I’d call it shameful but that would assume a capacity to feel shame. Even if their consciences are empty husks, that doesn’t mean they can’t be held accountable for their actions. Hopefully, this nation will remain intact long enough to see that happen.
