Guess Trump Is Arresting Judges Now

This is fine.

"Where law ends tyranny begins" by c_nilsen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

If you took a news break this weekend, lucky you! You missed a new low for this administration: we’ve reached the arresting-judges part of our authoritarian decline.

On Friday, Judge Hannah Dugan of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was arrested by the FBI, charged with two felonies and is facing up to six years in prison for allegedly letting Mexican national Eduardo Flores-Ruiz evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement on April 18 by letting him leave her courtroom by a different door. Not by ushering him to a door that opened to a back alley, or by stuffing him in Mr. Bundles’s laundry basket, or giving him a Groucho nose, but according to the government’s own complaint, directing him to leave by a different door that led to a public hallway on the very same floor, where two agents watched him walk to the elevator, and made no move to arrest him. Then Flores-Ruiz took a public elevator that he shared with another agent. Who also didn’t arrest him, noting “Flores-Ruiz and his attorney spoke to each other in Spanish, a language DEA Agent A did not understand.” And everybody knows you can’t arrest somebody if they’re speaking a language you don’t understand!

And after those three agents let him leave the courthouse right in front of their eyes, all six agents that were there to arrest him chased him down the street like a bunch of Keystone Cops.

Flores-Ruiz was in court for a pre-trial hearing on three counts of domestic battery, and ICE had an administrative warrant, but not a judicial warrant, for him, meaning the judge was in no way legally obligated to help ICE. And, again according to the government’s own complaint, the chief judge was working on a policy that ICE actions should not take place in courtrooms or other private locations within the building. Because it is hard to get witnesses or victims to show up for court if they could be arrested when they show up! So, Judge Dugan’s actions were not inconsistent with any policy, which the chief judge was explaining to deportation officers on the phone at the same time they were arresting Flores-Ruiz on the street.

FBI Director Kash Patel, whose father is an immigrant who got expelled by Idi Amin from Uganda, was really fucking happy about this, and Xitted, then deleted, then Xitted again:

Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction — after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week.

We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest.

Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot and he's been in custody since, but the Judge's obstruction created increased danger to the public.

We will have more to share soon. Excellent work FBIMilwaukee.

Then he posted a picture of her perp walk, which is against department policy, and also a new policy the Trump DOJ just released less than two weeks ago, which notes how social media posts “may cause the attorney to become a necessary witness in a matter,” and says agents should avoid “statements on social media that have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding, or that are likely to heighten condemnation of an accused.” Also, for good measure, “A Department attorney is prohibited from making statements on social media that the attorney knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge.”

But of course getting a conviction here isn’t the point (and consistency is NEVER the point); this is all about making other judges think twice before they do anything that could upset Dear Leader or his minions.

And, Judge Dugan was not the only one. A former New Mexico magistrate judge, Jose Luis “Joel” Cano, and his wife Nancy were arrested and charged with tampering with evidence after Homeland Security got an anonymous tip that the couple was harboring a suspected Tren de Aragua gang member, Cristhian Ortega, in a casita on their Las Cruces property, where he was working as a handyman. According to the Canos and Ortega, Ortega was here legally. But he was “suspected” because of his clothing and tattoos, you see. And the tampering with evidence was that Nancy told Ortega to delete his Facebook account that had pictures of him with firearms, and Jose allegedly smashed Ortega’s phone with a hammer, “because it may have contained photographs showing Ortega-Lopez possessing weapons, some of which allegedly belonged to Cano, his wife and their daughter.” Legal immigrants are allowed to carry and own weapons, but apparently Ortega did not have a license? The underlying crime is not clear.

And there is EVEN MORE. Last Tuesday ICE raided a courthouse in Charlottesville, Virginia, in plainclothes, with no documents or badges, one in “a balaclava masking his face,” and detained two men without explanation. And now ICE wants to prosecute two female bystanders at the courthouse who questioned what they were doing. You would fucking HOPE somebody would question what they were doing, we’re in a bad fucking spot if nobody would! And that’s exactly what this administration is hoping for.

Is this all an effort to intimidate the judiciary or anyone who might stand in ICE’s way? Oh, you betcha, say Pammy Jo Bondi and human tapeworm Stephen Miller.

“What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me [...] they are deranged, some of these judges think they’re above the law and they are not. We are sending a very strong message today, we will come after you and we will prosecute you.”

Fox host John Roberts wondered about those mean critics, who might point out that openly declaring war on judges and the Constitution is some banana republic bullshit.

“But you know what critics will say. They’ll say this is a government that is expanding the powers of Article I of the Constitution, now they’re arresting judges. How do you respond to that?”

“No one is above the law, John. No one is above the law in this country.”

Oh, I can think of at least ONE 34-times felon who is.

And creepo Miller:

This is the choice facing every American. Either we all side and get behind President Trump to remove these terrorists from our communities or we let a rogue radical left judiciary shut down the machinery of our national security apparatus. President Trump will make this nation safer than ever before and do it over the fighting and opposition of the communist left-wing judges.

Of course, the administration has yet to point to one single TERRORIST it has removed. There’s a gay makeup artist, a metalworker father of three, at least two children with cancer, and students, and Bloomberg reports that 90 percent of the people shipped to El Salvador had no criminal record at all. And even if there was a terrorist in that group, they are still entitled to due process. Not only because everyone is entitled to that, because those are our country’s values, but because without due process, how can you know if you’ve arrested the right person? And how could you know that justice would be done, and the country you are deporting them to won’t just turn around and let them go?

What’s really wild, too: on top of all of that, Trump has deported on average fewer people a month than Joe Biden did, 10 percent less. All of that cruelty, brutality violating people’s rights, and they’re still really bad at it.

Oh and PS, a secret memo dispatched by Bondi on March 14 also instructed ICE agents that they do not need a warrant to search residences any more. Which is not the law, and would sure seem to risk the Fourth Amendment meeting up with the Second Amendment at somebody’s house sooner or later.

This administration may be evil, but it’s also really incompetent.

[USA v. Hannah C Dugan / NBC / Daily Progess / USA Today]

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