A Lawless President's Contempt
The crisis facing our democracy is escalating. How long will the courts and the people stand for it?
So 77 million Americans voted for a vengeful convicted felon who’s pursued a life of crime and promised he’d exploit the presidency for retribution. No one should be surprised that this sociopath, provided near-total immunity by the U.S. Supreme Court if elected again, is now acting in an utterly lawless manner.
The crisis to our constitutional democracy and the rule of law is escalating. The evidence is mounting, as the Trump regime defies court orders meant to check its power. Two deportation cases in the last few days underscore their belief that they can flagrantly flout the law. The question is how and if they will be held accountable.
On Friday, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act. This 1798 law, only intended to be used during wartime, was last employed during WWII to justify the mass internment of Japanese-Americans as well as Germans and Italians. Trump ordered the deportation of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang, proclaiming they were “conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions” against the U.S.
Despite U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s ruling to halt the deportation before further argument—indeed, to provide them due process—a reported 238 of the Venezuelans were put on an airplane headed for El Salvador. The judge also ordered that the deportation flights return to America.
But not only was this ignored—a Justice Department official later claiming they were not obliged to return because the planes were “outside of U.S. airspace”—El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, working with the Trump regime, mocked the order. He posted on X, “Oopsie…Too late,” along with a laughing emoji and a video of the deported men in shackles being removed from the planes. Attorney General Pam Bondi—without evidence—was quick to call all the deported men “terrorists.”
Soon they were being taken to a notorious prison where prisoners reportedly sleep without sheets or mattresses and can only eat with their hands. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear that all this is fine with him. “Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele,” he posted on X.
I asked leading pro-democracy lawyer Marc Elias where this case goes now. “The next step is to see if judges start holding the administration officials in contempt,” he told me. Elias succinctly summarized the stakes in his latest article for his newsletter, Democracy Docket:
Our system of government rests on the expectation that those in power will faithfully uphold and execute the law. That is the oath the president takes, and it is a core value underpinning government service. Once that principle is abandoned, democracy and the rule of law are doomed.
So far, no government official has explicitly told a judge they will not comply with an order. No judge has yet taken the extraordinary step of holding a government official or Department of Justice lawyer in contempt.
That might change if Judge Boasberg refuses to tolerate the administration’s defiance of the law. As Elias writes, “With each passing week, the administration grows more disdainful of the courts, and judges are becoming angrier.”
Another deportation case over the weekend confirms this. Far from Trump’s once-upon-a-time, oft-repeated lie that he was only focused on deporting criminals, a Lebanese doctor, kidney transplant specialist and Brown University professor with a legal visa was detained and subsequently deported back to Lebanon.
Despite a federal judge’s order to give the court 48 hours’ notice, Dr. Rasha Alawieh was put on a flight to Paris. She is a medical professional in an area facing a shortage, whose credentials include several American medical fellowships and a residency at Yale. Yesterday, Judge Leo Sorokin filed a second order suggesting U.S. Customs and Border protection had disobeyed his previous order and demanded that the agency respond to his “serious allegations.”
This was inevitable. Let’s return for a moment to the wise and tragically prescient words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissenting opinion after the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority voted to provide the president near-total immunity from prosecution. “The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding, she wrote last July. “This new official-acts immunity now ‘lies about like a loaded weapon’ for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation.”
Donald Trump has now pointed that loaded weapon straight at us. Our democracy is teetering on the edge of survival. As the full damage of the immunity ruling becomes painfully clearer—as does the culpability of Chief Justice John Roberts who penned the decision—it’s worth remembering that Justice Sotomayor and others understood what they had done. Let’s return one more time to Sotomayor’s searing indictment, which offers consolation only insofar as the truth was both knowable and avoidable:
Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President…the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.
But let’s not end here. Let’s take a lesson from a growing number of citizens in Eastern Europe who are refusing to remain silent amid corruption and authoritarian rule.
Over the weekend, more than 100,000 people in a student-led demonstration filled the streets in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, to protest against the corruption and incompetence of Serbia’s pro-Putin, autocratic president, Aleksandar Vučić. Meanwhile, some 50,000 demonstrators took to the streets in Hungary’s capital, Budapest, to protest against the 15-year rule of Hungary’s authoritarian ruler, Viktor Orbán, and support rising opposition figure, Péter Magyar.
Talking about the corruption of Orbán’s government, Magyar said, “They look down on and exploit the Hungarian people, stun and divide them, and turn them against each other. In the meantime, they laugh arrogantly in our faces.”
Sound familiar?
“Those who cheat on their own nation should end up in the dustbin of history,” Magyar told the determined crowd standing in the rain. “Our time has come.”
And what time is it in America? I’m hearing from more and more people who are joining the Tesla protests against Elon Musk and his so-called DOGE cuts around the country. That included more than 80 demonstrations on Saturday at Tesla dealerships around the country, part of a “Tesla Takedown” movement that urges owners and investors to “sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines.” One of my good friends, who used to love his Tesla car, sold it last week because he couldn’t stand being connected in any way to Musk.
The opposition is making a difference: The electric vehicle company’s stock has fallen by half since mid-December and about 30 percent in the last month since the demonstrations began. If the downward spiral continues, Musk may eventually decide he’s had enough of the public’s rejection.
As the hostility of this regime toward the law intensifies, I expect more Americans will be taking to the streets. Ultimately, that may be the difference between the survival of our democracy or the prosperity of an authoritarian, oligarchic regime that treats the American people with nothing but contempt.
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To me it’s clear that this criminal enterprise called the trump administration will ignore court orders when they desire. The question now is, what will the courts do? What enforcement powers are available and will they use them. His DOJ lies, when they actually answer a question. If a judge orders a bench warrant for, say Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security, who arrests her? Court Officers? US Marshals who work for Bondi? Krasnov would just pardon her anyway. I think we are about to find out what the limits of the courts are.
I plan to attend any and every protest in my area that I can. I went to one two weeks ago. There were hundreds there, even in St. Louis, waving signs, ringing cowbells, drumming and chanting to the enthusiastic approval of most who drove by, honking their horns and waving in solidarity. Old and young, rich and poor, we must get off our devices and go out into the streets and, as John Lewis instructed, “make good trouble”. This is our moment. We will never have another chance to make our voices heard if we don’t do it now. Chuck Schumer, whether right or wrong, has now become the face of weakness and capitulation. We need new, fresh, young, and energetic leadership and voices. YES WE CAN.