Originally published at: Judge Boasberg Lays Out How He Thinks Trump Admin Tried To Thwart Him - TPM – Talking Points Memo
A D.C. federal judge blocked a bid by the Trump administration to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act in a thundering Monday order. Chief D.C. judge James Boasberg denied a request from the administration to overturn an earlier freeze he put in place on removals of Venezuelans under the proclamation. It comes after the…
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First they came for “the Venezuelans”…
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Unfortunately, that sounds about right:
Leaving aside issues of “cruel and inhumane” punishment and just who’s determining what constitutes a ‘violent’ criminal.
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Boasberg is good at being Big Mad, but he’s coming up way short here by not just declaring the order to be invalid and illegal.
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It’s far from clear how far courts can go in examining the President’s decision-making around when to declare an invasion, even if one is plainly not happening, Boasberg wrote.
If the administration can declare a fake invasion, it can declare a real martial law.
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Stop whining and hold the criminals accountable, that is your one and only job. JHFC do something.
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Thank God for the judges that stand up for the ACTUAL rule of law and not the made up ones that Trump, Musk and Bondi are making up.
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Will, not can.
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“The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” – George Orwell, 1984
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It comes after the Trump administration pulled off a stunning, authoritarian maneuver two weekends ago: it moved more than one hundred Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador that is notorious for torture and other human rights abuses, and did so without giving the detainees any form of due process.
Why should we even accept, at this point, that they are all Venezuelans?
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I find myself wondering how many times this judge, or any judge for that matter, is required to demand explanations for disregarding an order before finding the Regime in contempt. It would seem there is a danger of entering an infinite do loop of recursive demands for why the previous demand for explanation was not forthcoming. All of this judicial caution is all well and good until you don’t have a democracy or rule of law anymore.
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Since when is a “tippy-top secret invasion!” with zero evidence grounds for invoking warpowers to suspend habaes corpus? Seems like this is a prime facie example of a gross abuse of power and the Constitution by the Trumpists.
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My layman understanding of judicial review is that it exists to ensure that applicable laws and procedures are being adhered to by the government, and to hear and settle disputes about the proper application of these laws and procedures when they arise. The government’s lawyers and spokespeople, not to mention the current president himself, are deceptively equating judicial review with a judge dictating foreign and domestic policy to the government, betting that the average person doesn’t care to know the difference.
Democracy dies in the demogoguery that exploits the arcane nature of the application and vindication of our laws.
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My disappointment in this judge is profound. He talked a good game and then this? Afraid to rule is a nasty problem. Perhaps the lawyers/judges at the Hague should get involved.
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He’s afraid. Many people are. I was surprised to see the elite DC law firms grovel and agree to some humiliating restraints on their core business activities.
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Boasberg is not afraid of trump. He’s overcautious about reaching the ultimate validity questions because Due Process is much less tricky than mucking about in the president’s constitutional and statutory prerogatives.
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He may well ultimately decide to throw out the proclamation. But his whole goal at this point is to avoid giving the appellate courts any hook to reverse him.
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This bears repeating. Due process is what separates “deportation” from straight-up human trafficking.
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Which is usually accomplished by overdetermining a ruling, not underdetermining it. Judge Boasberg is deliberately staying away from the uncharted waters, which exposes the due process ruling to more risk on appeal.
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I’m curious how many of you might think that thus whole episode was not sloppy attempt to circumvent the courts, but was a planned attack on the court, using the least sympathetic victims imaginable?
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