Mostly Monday Reads: We have a Constitutional Crisis

” Today, I memorialize Elmo and his new toy.” John Buss, @repeat1988,
@johnbuss.bsky.social

It’s a Grim Day, Sky Dancers!

Last night, after my usual teaching gig, after a few silly games, I decided to doom scroll.  I was already following one story and hoping I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. But, you do have to believe your eyes in this dark age. We no longer have to speculate about Trump defying a Federal Judge’s order. That happened this weekend, and the Secretary of State agreed to it.  “Exclusive: How the White House ignored a judge’s order to turn back deportation flights.”  This is from Axios. The reporting is from Marc Caputo. I know this is a large quote, but it’s succinct and something we all need to know.  There is actually more at the link.  You should read it all.

Why it matters: The administration’s decision to defy a federal judge’s order is exceedingly rare and highly controversial.

• “Court order defied. First of many as I’ve been warning and start of true constitutional crisis,” national security attorney Mark S. Zaid, a Trump critic, wrote on X, adding that Trump could ultimately get impeached.
• The White House welcomes that fight. “This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we’re going to win,” a senior White House official told Axios.
• A second administration official said Trump was not defying the judge whose ruling came too late for the planes to change course: “Very important that people understand we are not actively defying court orders.”

State of play: Trump’s advisers contend U.S. District Judge James Boasberg overstepped his authority by issuing an order that blocked the president from deporting about 250 alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789.

• The war-time law gives the executive extreme immense power to deport noncitizens without a judicial hearing. But it has been little-used, particularly in peacetime.
• “It’s the showdown that was always going to happen between the two branches of government,” a senior White House official said. “And it seemed that this was pretty clean. You have Venezuelan gang members … These are bad guys, as the president would say.”

How it happened: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller “orchestrated” the process in the West Wing in tandem with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem. Few outside their teams knew what was happening.

• They didn’t actually set out to defy a court order. “We wanted them on the ground first, before a judge could get the case, but this is how it worked out,” said the official.

The timeline: The president signed the executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act on Friday night, but intentionally did not advertise it. On Saturday morning, word of the order leaked, officials said, prompting a mad scramble to get planes in the air.

• At 2:31 p.m. Saturday, an immigration activist who tracks deportation flights, posted on X that “TWO HIGHLY UNUSUAL ICE flights” were departing from Texas to El Salvador, which had agreed to accept Venezuelan gang members deported from the U.S.
• Hours later, during a court hearing filed by the ACLU., Boasberg ordered a halt to the deportations and said any flights should be turned around mid-air.
• “This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” he told the Justice Department, according to the Washington Post.
• At that point, about 6:51 p.m., both flights were off the Yucatan Peninsula, according to flight paths posted on X.

Inside the White House, officials discussed whether to order the planes to turn around. On advice from a team of administration lawyers, the administration pressed ahead.

• “There was a discussion about how far the judge’s ruling can go under the circumstances and over international waters and, on advice of counsel, we proceeded with deporting these thugs,” the senior official said.
• “They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable,” a second senior administration official told Axios.

Yes, but: The Trump administration was already spoiling for a fight over the Alien Enemies Act — one of several fronts on which they believe legal challenges to the president’s authority will only end up strengthening it when the Supreme Court rules in his favor.

Between the lines: Officially, the Trump White House is not denying it ignored the judge’s order, and instead wants to shift the argument to whether it was right to expel alleged members of Tren de Aragua.

• “If the Democrats want to argue in favor of turning a plane full of rapists, murderers, and gangsters back to the United States, that’s a fight we are more than happy to take,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios when asked about the case.
• It’s unclear how many of the roughly 250 Venezuelans were deported under the Alien Enemies Act and how many were kicked out of the U.S. due to other immigration laws.

• It’s also not clear whether all of them were actually gang members.

What they are saying: On Sunday morning, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a video on X hailing the arrival of the Venezuelans in his country. Bukele also mockingly featured an image of a New York Post story about the judge’s order halting the flights.

• “Oopsie … too late,” Bukele wrote on X with a crying-laughing emoji
• U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweeted the post.

Joyce Vance was on top of the story yesterday morning in her Substack Civil Discourse.  This brief begins with the background of the lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Democracy Forward.

The ACLU and Democracy Forward sued the government over its efforts to deport people alleged to be Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members using the Alien Enemies Act. It asked the Judge to enjoin the deportations. The Alien Enemies Act that the government claimed it was operating under is the same law used to put people of Japanese ancestry in camps during World War II. The law, passed in 1798, gives a president, once he issues a public proclamation, wartime authority to arrest and deport citizens of a country engaged in a “declared war” or “invasion or predatory incursion” against the United States.

Federal Judge James Boasberg in the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order to stop deportations under the law while he considered the issues. He ordered planes that were up in the air at the time of his decision to return to the United States. There is some suggestion the government didn’t do that, but there are some technical issues involving what happened and when, like the location and timing of flights, some differences between the Judge’s oral directions in court and the minute order he entered in the record, and when the order became effective. The legal position the government is in isn’t entirely clear yet. It’s *possible* that they didn’t technically violate an order that was in effect.

But, whatever the outcome of the legal argument, the government skipped over the spirit of the ruling and, as lawyers know (see above), you don’t slice that close to violating a court order. You comply with it and then you appeal if you disagree with it. If there’s any doubt, you err on the side of caution.

The government didn’t do that and according to reporting in Axios, there is some indication that they are spoiling for a fight on this issue. Axios also reports, “White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ‘orchestrated’ the process in the West Wing in tandem with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem. Few outside their teams knew what was happening.” After the plaintiffs learned Saturday afternoon that two ICE flights were flying from Texas to El Salvador, they went to court to ask the Judge for the emergency order. El Salvador, which had agreed to accept Venezuelan gang members deported from the U.S in a for-pay prison situation, is not exactly known as a bastion of human rights. There are good reasons to doubt the legality of the scheme.

This is clearly an impeachable defense. More cases are dealing with illegal deportation and the accompanying violation of rights headed to court, as reported in Politico by Jack Blanchard. Trump believes he’s above the law, and now we’ll see what the US Legal System says about that.  That would be everyone but Alito and Thomas, who are clearly on the side of overthrowing the country. “Playbook: The ‘law and order’ presidency.”  This is a follow-up on the First Amendment issue of political speech by holders of Green Cards by BB on Saturday.

SEE YOU IN COURT: Donald Trump’s White House is gearing up for the most significant legal showdowns of his second term thus far after dramatically escalating the deportation of foreign nationals this past weekend. In a Massachusetts courtroom this morning, Judge Leo Sorokin will demand answers after Customs and Border officials deported Rasha Alawieh, a 34-year-old Rhode Island-based doctor and reportedly a valid U.S. visa holder, back to Lebanon despite a court order blocking them from doing so. In D.C., an even bigger showdown is brewing after the White House chose to ignore a federal judge’s order that two planeloads of Venezuelan migrants being deported to a brutal El Salvador prison be turned around and flown back to the U.S. The Trump administration vehemently insists it’s not defying the courts — but all that chatter about a “constitutional crisis” is now reaching fever pitch.

First, to Boston … where at a 10 a.m. hearing this morning, Judge Sorokin will quiz government lawyers on the deportation last Friday of Alawieh, a kidney specialist with Brown Medicine. Alawieh flew into Logan Airport on Thursday after visiting family in her native Lebanon. She was detained despite holding a valid H1-B visa, her lawyers say, and on Friday, Judge Sorokin issued a temporary order demanding the courts be given 48 hours’ notice of any deportation attempt. But instead, that night, she was sent back to Lebanon via Paris. The Providence Journal has all the details.

Not happy: Judge Sorokin has ordered the government to explain itself in writing ahead of this morning’s hearing, where he will seek to ascertain both the grounds for Alawieh’s deportation and the reason why his order was not followed. Alawieh’s lawyers say the CBP “willfully” disobeyed the court order and have provided “a detailed and specific timeline in an under-oath affidavit” to support the accusation, Sorokin said, describing these as “serious allegations.”

Right of reply: The CBP issued a statement last night which failed to comment on the specifics of the case, but noted that “arriving aliens bear the burden of establishing admissibility to the United States” and insisted CBP officers “adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats.” We should learn a lot more in the next few hours.

Donald Trump just loves to jam up the courts with his law-breaking activities.  Tom Mooney reports on the Rhode Island Doctor’s story at the Providence Journal. “Documents shed light on why RI doctor was detained, deported. What we know.”   This is this is the second case where Trump’s DOJ willfully ignored a court order.

A federal judge has postponed a hearing to allow U.S. Customs and Border officials to respond to allegations they “willfully” disobeyed his order not to deport a Rhode Island doctor until he could review her case.

Documents filed in federal court ahead of the hearing allege that it was the contents of Dr. Rasha Alawieh’s cellphone that led to her detention, and ultimate deportation, from Logan Airport in Boston.

Federal authorities say in court documents filed in the deportation case of Alawieh, 34, that custom and border officials found “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah leaders on her cell phone.

They also found “various other Hezbollah militants” in the deleted photo folder of her cell phone.

“With the discovery of these photographs and videos CHP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” the documents allege.

“As such CBP canceled her visa and deemed Dr. Alawieh inadmissible to the United States.”

On Friday U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin, in Massachusetts, issued an order that Alawieh not be deported without giving the court 48 hours notice. That hearing was continued until March 25.

Despite his order, the Brown Medicine kidney doctor and Lebanese citizen departed for Paris Friday evening. Alawieh arrived back in Lebanon Sunday morning, said a friend and colleague

You may read about the story more in-depth at The Guardian. “Brown University professor deported despite judge’s order, defying US court. Rasha Alawieh’s case highlights Donald Trump’s escalating immigration policies and tensions with universities.”

Nonetheless, in clear defiance of Sorokin’s order from Friday, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) put Alawieh on a flight to Paris that presumably was a layover back to Lebanon.

On Sunday, Sorokin said in court documents that CBP had received notice of the court order but “nonetheless thereafter willfully disobeyed the order by sending [Alawieh] out of the United States”. Sorokin ordered the government to respond to the “serious allegations with a legal and factual response” and a description of their version of events by Monday morning, ahead of a scheduled court hearing.

CBP did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. In a comment to Reuters, a CBP spokesperson said that officers “adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats” and the burden is on migrants to establish admissibility into the US.

In a statement, a Brown spokesperson said that the university was “seeking to learn more about what has happened, but we need to be careful about sharing information publicly about any individual’s personal circumstances”.

Brown noted that Alawieh had a clinical appointment with the university but was an employee of Brown Medicine, a non-profit that is affiliated with the medical school but is not operated by the university.

On Sunday, after Alawieh’s deportation, Brown sent an email advising international students and faculty members to avoid international travel due to “potential changes in travel restrictions and travel bans”.

Dr George Bayliss, a Brown medical professor who works with Alawieh at the university’s division of kidney disease and hypertension, told the New York Times that the staff “are all outraged”.

“None of us know why this happened,” he said.

Noticing a pattern?  I was just on the verge of finishing my Truly Wild Berry and going to sleep when someone sent this FARTUS tweet on Blue Sky.  I knew we were no longer in Kansas with this one.  The Daily Beast has coverage this morning.  “Trump Declares Biden’s J6 Pardons ‘Void’ in Late-Night Truth Social Meltdown. The president claimed that his predecessor’s pardons were void and threatened to investigate lawmakers who blamed him for the deadly Capitol riot.”  Janna Branncolini has the lede. I can’t imagine having to read FARTUS TSPs for a living.

President Donald Trump capped off a weekend of golf with a late-night social media rant claiming former President Joe Biden’s pardons for the members of Congress who investigated Trump’s role in the Capitol riot were “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER EFFECT.”

“Those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two-year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level,” he wrote in a Truth Social post.

In one of Biden’s final acts as president, he preemptively pardoned people whom Trump had identified during the campaign as his “enemies from within,” including members of the House committee that investigated Trump’s role in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building.

During a weekend trip to his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida—which cost taxpayers about $3 million—Trump apparently became fixated on the idea that the pardons might have been signed by an autopen and therefore were not “real.”

Since Harry Truman’s time in office, presidents (including Trump) have used autopens—a machine that replicates the president’s signature—to sign documents, according to Smithsonian magazine. But earlier on Sunday, Trump pinned a meme to his Truth Social account implying the autopen had been the real president during Biden’s term.

“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign [the pardons] but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime,” Trump wrote, without providing any evidence to back up the claim.

In fact, top White House officials debated the pardons for months, both because their scope was unprecedented and because pardons typically carry a tacit admission of guilt or wrongdoing, the AP reported at the time.

“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said in a Jan. 20 statement announcing the pardons. “Even when individuals have done nothing wrong—and in fact have done the right thing—and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.”

At the time, House committee leaders Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and then-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said they were grateful for the pardons, and that they were being pardoned “not for breaking the law but for upholding it,” according to the AP.

With the release of the J6 adjudicated Felons, who knows what these brain farts might lead to?

So here’s more of today’s Constitutional Shit Storm news. This is from The Atlantic. “Trump’s Attempts to Muzzle the Press Look Familiar. Much of what the U.S. president has done to curb independent media echoes the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán’s playbook.”  The author is András Pethő.

When Viktor Orbán gave a speech in 2022 at a Conservative Political Action Conference gathering in Budapest, he shared his secret to amassing power with Donald Trump’s fan base. “We must have our own media,” he told his audience.

As a Hungarian investigative journalist, I have had a firsthand view of how Orbán has built his own media universe while simultaneously placing a stranglehold on the independent press. As I watch from afar what’s happening to the free press in the United States during the first weeks of Trump’s second presidency—the verbal bullying, the legal harassment, the buckling by media owners in the face of threats—it all looks very familiar. The MAGA authorities have learned Orbán’s lessons well.

I saw the roots of Orbán’s media strategy when I first met him for an interview, in 2006. He was in the opposition then but had served as prime minister before and was fighting hard to get back in power. When we met in his office in a hulking century-old building that overlooked the Danube River in Budapest, he was very friendly, even charming. Like Trump, he is the kind of politician who knows how to connect with people when he thinks he has something to gain.

During the interview, his demeanor shifted. I still remember how his face went dark when I pushed on questions that he obviously did not want to answer. It was a tense exchange, but he reverted to his cordial mode when we finished the interview, and I turned off the recorder.

What happened afterwards was less friendly. In Hungary, journalists are expected to send edited interview transcripts to their interviewees. The idea is that if the interviewees think you took something they said out of context, they can ask for changes before publication. But in this case, Orbán’s press team sent back the text with some of his answers entirely deleted and rewritten. When my editors and I told them we wouldn’t accept this, they said they wouldn’t allow the interview to be published.

In the end, we published it without their edits. That was the last time I interviewed Viktor Orbán. And when he returned to power in 2010 after a landslide election victory, he made sure that he would never have to answer uncomfortable questions again.

What follows is a list of laws and actions Orbán took to control the press.  It’s long and very interesting.  One of the Organizations that FARTUS is after is ProPublica.  Here’s their latest on how he’s trying to expand the Constitution to suit himself. “How a Push to Amend the Constitution Could Help Trump Expand Presidential Power.” The analysis is by Pheobe Patrivic from the Wisconsin Watch.  Notice how independent journalists are shaking the trees?

A behind-the-scenes legal effort to force Congress to call a convention to amend the Constitution could end up helping President Donald Trump in his push to expand presidential power.

While the convention effort is focused on the national debt, legal experts say it could open the door to other changes, such as limiting who can be a U.S. citizen, allowing the president to overrule Congress’ spending decisions or even making it legal for Trump to run for a third term.

Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica have obtained a draft version of a proposed lawsuit being floated to attorneys general in several states, revealing new details about who’s involved and their efforts to advance legal arguments that liberal and conservative legal scholars alike have criticized, calling them “wild,” “completely illegitimate” and “deeply flawed.”

The endeavor predates Trump’s second term but carries new weight as several members of Trump’s inner circle and House Speaker Mike Johnson have previously expressed support for a convention to limit federal government spending and power.

Article V of the Constitution requires Congress to call a convention to propose and pass amendments if two-thirds of states, or 34, request one. This type of convention has never happened in U.S. history, and a decadeslong effort to advance a so-called balanced budget amendment, which would prohibit the government from running a deficit, has stalled at 28.

Despite that, the lawsuit being circulated claims that Congress must hold a convention now because the states reached the two-thirds threshold in 1979. To get there, these activists count various calls for a convention dating back to the late 1700s. Wisconsin’s petition, for example, was written in 1929 and was an effort to repeal Prohibition. The oldest petition they cite, from New York, predates the Bill of Rights. Some others came on the eve of the Civil War.

“It is absurd, on the face of it, that they could count something that had to do with Prohibition as a call for a constitutional convention in 2025,” said Russ Feingold, a former Democratic senator from Wisconsin who co-wrote a book critical of convention efforts like this one. “They’re just playing games to try to pretend that the founders of this country wanted you to be able to mix and match resolutions from all different times in American history.”

To avoid the threat of a convention, the legislatures in some states like Colorado and Illinois have passed resolutions withdrawing their petitions. The draft lawsuit says those actions don’t count because “once the Article V bell has been rung, it cannot be unrung.” Nearly half the states the draft counts have rescinded their petitions.

The draft lawsuit is the work of the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, a low-profile nonprofit that has drawn support from balanced budget advocates and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council. The group’s chair, David M. Walker, oversaw government accountability as U.S. comptroller general during both the Clinton and Bush administrations. The draft lawsuit is signed by Charles “Chuck” Cooper, a high-powered conservative lawyer in Washington, D.C., who represented Trump’s previous attorney general during the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

All roads eventually lead back to Russia Russia Russia!  And, of course, the Propaganda of Fox News.  Just to let you know, they’re already doing their thing; here’s the headline and the link. They’re full of nonsense, as usual. “Liberal claim Trump’s causing a constitutional crisis ignores a key reality, Trump opponents who claim this is a constitutional crisis were fine when Biden forgave $400 billion in student loans.”  Because violating and ignoring people’s Constitutional rights equals giving fooks a financial break on a Federal Loan program.  Right?

Since I’m exhausted today and this will go over 4000 words, I’ll end with this.  Judd Legume, an Independent Journalist, writes this at his site Popular Information.  I’ve been worried sick about Musk and the Douch boys upending our Social Security Checks, and this one isn’t helping. “EXCLUSIVE: Memo details Trump plan to sabotage the Social Security Administration.”  They had already declared one poor man in Seattle dead, and it took him a lot of effort to convince them he wasn’t.

An internal Social Security Administration (SSA) memo, sent on March 13 and obtained by Popular Information, details proposed changes to the claims process that would debilitate the agency, cause significant processing delays, and prevent many Americans from applying for or receiving benefits.

The memo, authored by Acting Deputy SSA Commissioner Doris Diaz, purports to be motivated by a desire to mitigate “fraud risks.”

Elon Musk has pushed several false claims about the nature and scope of Social Security fraud. In a recent interview on Fox Business, Musk suggested that 10% of federal expenditures were related to Social Security fraud. This is false. Social Security fraud does exist, but “improper” Social Security payments amounts to about $9 billion annually — less than 1% of total Social Security benefits paid and 0.1% of the federal budget. Most improper payments are not criminal fraud but the result of beneficiaries or the SSA failing to update records.

The biggest change contemplated by Diaz’s memo is to require “internet identity proofing” for “benefit claims… made over the phone.” When an SSA customer is “unable to utilize the internet ID proofing, customers will be required to visit a field office to provide in-person identity documentation.”

Currently customers can make claims and verify their identity without using the internet or visiting a SSA office. Fraud is extremely rare because there are many safeguards in place. After initiating a call, customers must provide their social security number, date of birth, parents’ names, mother’s maiden name, and date of birth. After the initial teleapplication is completed, the information provided is checked against tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, and medical information, depending on the nature of the claim. If there are any discrepancies, a customer may need to mail a copy of their birth certificate to the SSA. About 40% of all claims are currently processed over the phone.

Because the SSA serves a large population that is either older or physically disabled, many cannot access the internet. Under the new system, this would force these populations to visit an office to have their claim processed. The Diaz memo estimates it would require 75,000 to 85,000 in-person visitors per week to SSA’s offices to implement the policy.

SSA offices do not currently have the resources to handle an influx of in-person appointments of this size. In 2023, the most recent data available, there were about 119,128 daily visits, on average, to SSA offices. Eight-five thousand more week visits would be a 14% increase. SSA offices no longer accept walk-ins and the wait time for an appointment, even before these changes, averaged over a month.

You may see the Memo along with this analysis at the site.

So, that’s it for me.  I don’t celebrate Columbus Day or St Patrick’s Day because they’re both about colonizing and enslaving people. I seriously hope I don’t have to write any more crap about FARTUS wanting us to colonize Panama, Canada, or Greenland.  We should dump some of these celebrations for good!  Again, I wish the Ides of March would’ve happened when Julius Caesar was in the cradle so we might never have gone down the path to useless empires. These worthless bits of hangover propaganda need to be put to rest.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?