A Constitutional Clash In Three Acts
In three closely watched anti-immigration cases, the Trump administration continued its slo-mo constitutional defiance of the judicial branch …
Act I: Non-Responsiveness
Act II: Delay Shenanigans
Act III: Misdirection And Mischaracterization
James Comey claimed he cringed watching president Donald Trump’s FBI director Kash Patel struggle to answer a basic question during a recent Senate hearing.
The former FBI director, who has earned Trump’s enduring ire over the Russia probe during his first presidency, appeared Wednesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” to discuss his successor’s handling of the job as the nation’s top federal investigator, and he was unimpressed by his response to Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) asking about the bureau’s tardy budget request.
“I cringe at that clip,” Comey said. “I actually feel kind of sorry for the guy. It’s like showing up for a final exam with no pencils and no paper and you didn’t even know there’s a final exam.”
Secretary Marco Rubio’s State Department published a reorganization chart Thursday morning showing massive cuts to diplomatic offices and functions, plus a few new additions. Rubio’s department also reportedly sent the plan to Congress concurrently. What hasn’t been previously reported is the extensive 136-page document Congress received that includes the more granular details of what the reimagined department would look like— including an “Office of Remigration,” a far-right, anti-immigrant buzzword made popular in Europe for ridding the country of migrants.
Arguably the most alarming piece of the report comes in the section for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). The report states that PRM will be “substantially reorganized” and that a number of new offices will be created as part of the absorption of USAID. There will be three new offices under the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Migration Matters, “to shift focus towards supporting the Administration’s efforts to return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status.”
One such office will be the Office of Remigration (REM), which will “provide a policy platform for interagency coordination with DHS and other agencies on removals/repatriations, and for intra-agency policy work to advance the President’s immigration agenda.” There will also be offices of International Migration/Repatriation and Refugee Processing.
Coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) surprised one State Department employee I spoke to who said the people they’ve known to work in PRM are “pretty much the opposite” of those who work for DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
While these plans align with Trump’s open objective of expelling as many migrants from the United States as possible, the use of the word “remigration” is particularly striking as it’s widely used by far-right extremists in Europe.
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“All of it is pretty awful with some pieces that definitely violate existing law and treaties,” a person who works closely with the State Department told The Handbasket. “But institutionalizing neo-Nazi theory as an office in the State Department is the most blatantly horrifying.”
https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/state-department-office-of-remigration
Trump Loses Again
In a 52-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates—a 2001 appointee of President George W. Bush—rejected the Justice Department’s effort to defend Trump’s executive order targeting Jenner & Block. Trump’s own words doomed it:
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. (Jenner & Block v. U.S. Department of Justice, et al. Civil Action No. 25-916 (JDB) p. 1)
The court left no doubt that Trump had violated the Constitution:
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.” (Id.; citations omitted.)
Describing how Trump’s actions undermine democracy, Judge Bates previewed the fate awaiting similar orders:
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. (Id.; emphasis supplied.)
The firms that challenged Trump remain undefeated in the courtroom.
Stone Cold Stonewalling
New details about the extent of the Trump administration’s stonewalling in the case of the mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia were revealed in a court filing Thursday. After six weeks of what was originally supposed to be two weeks of expedited discovery, the government has provided virtually no meaningful discovery responses, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers report.
Normal discovery disputes would not usually be newsworthy, but this comes in the context of a contempt of court inquiry. The administration’s defiance on discovery and the associated gamesmanship cut against its already-dubious claims that it has complied with the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return – an order endorsed and echoed by the Supreme Court.
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After the Trump administration late Wednesday asked for an extension of the May 30 deadline by which all discovery is to be completed, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers filed a blistering response demonstrating how little discovery the government has produced so far. It was already clear from public filings that the government had offered witnesses for deposition who had little or no personal knowledge of the facts of the case, in contravention of the judge’s order. The precise details of that defiance are unclear because many filings remain under seal.
The new details show how desultory the government’s document production has been, too. As of two weeks ago, the government had only produced 34 actual documents. In the subsequent two weeks it was given in which to produce rolling discovery, it coughed up a total of one additional partial document, according to Abrego Garcia’s filing.
The Trump administration this week formally agreed to comply with a ruling that ordered it to facilitate the return of a migrant who was unlawfully deported—in what was another loss for the government as it attempts to subvert basic due process rights in immigration proceedings.
The migrant—named in court documents as O.C.G., who has no criminal history—arrived in the U.S. in May 2024 and sought asylum. An officer agreed he had a credible fear of persecution and torture if returned to Guatemala; a judge assented as well and granted him withholding of removal to that country.
During his proceedings, when he asked if he might be sent to Mexico, a judge replied: “We cannot send you back to Mexico, sir, because you’re a native of Guatemala.” Deportations to a nonnative country legally require, at a minimum, additional steps in the process.
That was particularly relevant to O.C.G.’s case, because, as he testified in court, he claims to have been held for ransom and raped while passing through Mexico, securing release only after a family member paid the sum. Yet two days after his withholding of removal was granted, the government unlawfully deported him—without a chance to contest it—to Mexico, after which he returned to Guatemala, where his attorneys say he lives in hiding and in fear of serious harm.
https://reason.com/2025/05/29/banal-horror-asylum-case-deals-trump-yet-another-loss-on-due-process
A leading economist has said the White House is “full of lunatics” as debates over the legality of President Donald Trump‘s sweeping tariff plans have resulted in a federal court showdown.
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit paused a previous ruling from the Court of International Trade (CIT) in Manhattan, which argued that Trump had overstepped his executive authority in imposing the majority of his tariffs.
Commenting on the muted market reaction to these two developments, Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, said investors had already reconciled themselves to the fact that the current administration is “out of control.”
Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb christened White House press secretary Karoline [Bimbo #1] Leavitt “Creepy Karoline” after she launched an attack on the judges who ruled against Trump’s tariff plans.
Cobb, a former prosecutor, jibed that “Creepy [Bimbo #1] Karoline” isn’t being “taken seriously” by Americans during an interview on CNN’s OutFront show Thursday, where host Erin Burnett grilled him on the overturning of Trump’s tariffs in the U.S. courts Wednesday.
…“I don’t think creepy [Bimbo #1] Karoline – when she speaks – I don’t think anybody in America really takes her seriously on a matter of substance. I mean, she’s not learned by any imagination,” he said.
“And I think her comments are clearly so defensive and so ill-informed that people might largely turn her out. She’s wrong.”
President mad again. President big mad again. President big mad on social media platform. President big mad at judges and at guy who recommended them. Very big mad, indeed.
“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!”
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-calls-leonard-leo-sleazebag-judge-picks-tariff-ruling-2078800
The American Revolution was a result of the tyranny experienced by colonists under the British monarchy. Many Americans had fled from Europe where they had been persecuted under the rule of powerful monarchs. The government produced by the revolution was designed to ensure no such tyranny could be reproduced in the newly formed United States.
The framers of the constitution created a checks-and-balances system of government to ensure that no single branch of the federal government (executive, judicial or legislative) could dominate the others. Each branch has powers to curtail or empower the others.
However, some Americans are concerned about a return of absolute rule due to the steps taken by Donald Trump’s second administration. This has sparked around 100 “no kings” protests all over the US, organised to coincide with Trump’s birthday on June 15.
https://www.alternet.org/trump-doesn-t-think-of-himself-as-the-president
