This is no longer a history lesson. The Trump administration has made serious and repeated efforts to undermine American government that has worked well for 250 years.
It has attacked the courts with all the weapons its enablers in the 2025 project can come up with.
The list is daunting and dangerous.
The Trump administration took a man in this country lawfully and deported him without hearing or trial to an El Salvador prison camp known for its brutality, and it did this without thought of due process or a fair trial, a right every person – not just citizens – have in the U.S.
When a judge tried to put a stop to this egregious overreach, Trump lawyers ignored him and laughed all the way to the prison. When the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, the Trump administration said it could do nothing.
After admitting Abrego Garcia’s deportation was an “administrative error” the administration went ahead with its obfuscation and in an effort to humiliate the entire judicial system, Trump brought El Salvador President Nayib Bukele to the White House for a dog and pony show where everyone laughed that nothing could be done and Trump jokingly asked Bukele to build more prisons so we could send “homegrown” folks to it.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled that anyone deported under the Alien Enemies Act must get a hearing. It ruled early Saturday that other Venezuelans scheduled for deportation must first get a hearing and halted the planes that were ready to again fly to El Salvador. This is another direct attack on the judiciary after the egregious acts already committed.
Judge James Boasberg, whose order to stop the flights was ignored, has said there is probable cause for holding Trump administration officials for “criminal contempt” for ignoring his initial order.
Trump administration appealed that order saying courts were interfering with executive powers on foreign policy.
Another federal judge, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, ordered sworn testimony by Trump officials in the case of rejecting the Supreme Court’s order. Trump officials tried to have that order thrown out but were thwarted by a unanimous and blistering appeals court decision.
In a ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Harvey Wilkinson III said throwing out the requirement to testify continues efforts that will damage courts with “constant intimations of its illegitimacy” while the executive branch “will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness.”
Wilkinson, who was nominated by Republican Ronald Reagan, said he and his two colleagues “cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.”
The court of appeal further criticized the administration’s claims as “shocking.”
“It claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Meanwhile members of ICE continue to detain international students and delete their eligibility records forcing them to either self-deport or get a lawyer. Fortunately, several of them have and judges in Minnesota and elsewhere have stayed the detentions and allowed hearings to begin.
The ACLU filed a class action suit against the administration in the case with more than 100 students as plaintiffs, some of whom were arrested in kidnapping type raids by unidentified ICE agents with masks.
These actions represent steps to fight back against an administration that is pushing a full court press against judicial power and independence. The rule of law is at stake.
Regular Americans are offering a rallying cry with thousands demonstrating on Saturday in Mankato and elsewhere. We believe the words of a man in the crowd of a town hall meeting with Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said it best.
“Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?” the man asked, to applause and calls of “Yeah!” from around the room. When Grassley said no, because that wasn’t a power of Congress, the man replied: “The Supreme Court said to bring him back!” and others chimed in, “They’re defying the Constitution.”
“If I get an order to pay a ticket for $1,200 and I just say no, does that stand up? Because he’s got an order from the Supreme Court, and he just said no! He just said ‘Screw it!’” “It’s wrong.”