What WSJ Said about Stephen Miller at 9PM on a Friday

WSJ published a curious profile of Stephen Miller at 9PM on Friday night.

Bylined by accomplished Trump-whisperer Josh Dawsey, first, and accomplished journalist Rebecca Balhaus, second, it runs over 1800-words — a considerable journalistic investment.

It tells us a number of things we already know. “Stephen Miller wanted to keep the planes in the air—and that is where they stayed,” the lede implies, but does not confirm, that Miller was the one who ordered DHS to defy Judge Boasberg’s order not to deport migrants to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act, a topic currently being contested in discovery in that lawsuit.

“He has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed,” it notes, without commenting on the typos and fabrications that permeate the orders. He’s the guy — again, we already knew this — who launched jihads against institutions that an extremist like him would view as liberal. “He has been responsible for the administration’s broadsides against universities, law firms and even museums.”

The article doesn’t include Miller’s native California in that particular sentence, though over 30 paragraphs later, it describes him claiming to know what is good for — what WSJ seemingly paraphrases as — California’s own “citizens,” always a loaded word when you’re discussing Stephen Miller.

Miller, who grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., said large swaths of Los Angeles were engaged in a “rebellion,” according to people present.

Los Angeles had become like Cancún, he said—it was fine to visit, but not good for its own citizens. To conclude the event, Leavitt told the crowd that Miller needed to return to his work of deportations.

WSJ’s description of his possibly unlawful role in invading his home state appears just five paragraphs after confirming he was the guy who targeted universities and law firms, linking to the WSJ story that remains the best report on Miller’s demands for more bodies, though neither of the journalists bylined on this story had a byline on the other one.

His orders to increase arrests regardless of migrants’ criminal histories set off days of protests in Los Angeles. Miller coordinated the federal government’s response, giving orders to agencies including the Pentagon, when Trump sent in the Marines and the National Guard, according to officials familiar with the matter.

And that paragraph fingering Miller for the invasion of California immediately follows a paragraph that describes that he “suggested” using the Alien Enemies Act but stops short of confirming that he’s the guy who made the declaration, even though Trump himself disclaimed doing so.

Miller, who isn’t a lawyer, is the official who first suggested using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants, which the Justice Department pursued. He also privately, then publicly, floated suspending habeas corpus, or the right for prisoners to challenge their detention in court, which the administration hasn’t tried. That prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials.

WSJ includes the observation that Miller’s call to suspend habeas corpus “prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials” and that “the administration hasn’t tried” that legal move in a different paragraph than one that claims, “There are some limits to his influence.” The paragraph that purports to describe the limits to his influence includes just one thing he didn’t get (an effort to kill the Meta antitrust case) but also includes one thing he did, at least so far (a reversal of the decision to limit deportations).

There are some limits to his influence. He was supportive of Meta’s push to settle its antitrust case, which fell flat. Trump last week signaled concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive, calling for a pause in some deportations that he has since rolled back. Trump, asked how Miller’s directives on deportations squared with his own, declined to put distance between the two of them. “We have a great understanding,” Trump said.

There are few hints as to how Miller wields power. His office is steps from the Oval Office — again, we knew that — and “some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller, effectively bypassing cabinet secretaries,” that must include Homeland Security, which would be pertinent to mention given that one of the dishiest tidbits in the whole article is that in Trump’s first term, Trump refused to give Miller a leadership role at Homeland Security. “Trump declined, according to a former administration official, telling aides he thought Miller wasn’t leader material.”

The article describes Miller’s success pushing for a travel ban in the first Administration and notes he expanded the list to twelve this time around. But it doesn’t mention that a leaked cable disclosing that Trump is considering expanding that list to 36 countries, including most of Africa, a leak that has been broadly replicated in a way that indicates real pushback.

The article alludes to “Several White House staffers” who observe that Miller always adopts the most extreme legal posture and, in the same sentence, describes that that extreme posture has led even SCOTUS to rebuke the Administration. But the only person described — quoted even! — as drawing the obvious conclusion, that Miller fucked up, is a Trump opponent. “‘I think the administration has miscalculated and overstepped,’ said Skye Perryman, who leads Democracy Forward, an organization that has repeatedly sued Trump.”

That’s one of just a few direct quotes in the 1800-word piece (the others are from Trump, from Karoline Leavitt, and from Miller himself). Indeed, everything about this article couches where it comes from. It chooses not to list how many Republicans contributed to the story. In some cases, passive constructions like, “have been described by administration officials,” obscures whether WSJ learned what it reports directly from those administration officials, or heard them second-hand.

A different article might have noted that if Miller really is issuing some of these orders, such as to deploy Marines to invade Los Angeles, it means entire operations are wildly unconstitutional. He’s not the President. Only the President can invoke the Alien Enemies Act or usurp California’s National Guard, even if Miller typed up the error-riddled Executive Orders that effected the commands. Amid Trump’s squawks about a Joe Biden autopen scandal, even Trump has confessed he doesn’t understand what he has signed.

A different article might have described how Miller used Trump’s vulnerability in the wake of being shot at to make racism the central plank of the campaign and now the Administration (though it does describe how Miller overrode Tony Fabrizio’s advice to do so).

A different article might have called Miller something besides an “immigration hawk.”

This is not that article, however.

This is an article published by a Murdoch rag at 9PM on a Friday night — the sweet spot where you publish news someone wants to bury — recording some uncertain number of Republicans who, in the face of declining poll numbers on immigration (but even in an article that described “concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive,” saying nothing about the damage Miller’s jihad is doing to the economy, much less that entire states are on the verge of losing their harvests) have ever so delicately started to blame Miller: for the court losses, for the backlash, for the unsolicited calls likened to, “a grandmother who wouldn’t stop talking and said his calls were akin to listening to a podcast.”

The first real break in the cowered omertà about Stephen Miller’s role and plans was that Washington Examiner piece fleshing out Axios’ scoop about Miller’s demands for 3,000 bodies a day, which was followed by NBC, then the aforementioned superb WSJ story. Right wingers want to talk about Stephen Miller’s responsibility for the chaos (and economic destruction) in California and elsewhere. And while there have been far more useful profiles explaining how he accrued power and where his pathologies come from, this profile of hushed complaints seems like something else. A test to see whether opposition to Miller can succeed.

It may even be something more. NYT reports that, even as it scored several court victories, Harvard sought a meeting to negotiate detente with the Trump White House, one about which both Linda McMahon and Trump have been more optimistic than Harvard. NYT doesn’t mention that Trump needs a deal with higher ed, in part, because Trump needs a deal with China, and protection for Chinese students would be part of any deal.

Meanwhile, we’re 11 days short of DOJ’s deadline to appeal the first order reversing Miller’s attack on law firms, and there’s no sign yet they will appeal. That effort only succeeded in driving key lawyers away from firms that buckled to Trump.

And yesterday, again, Trump hinted that he’s struggling to find some way out of the damage Miller’s immigration jihad has done.

Miller’s jihads have, increasingly, created problems to solve. Which may explain why wary sources are happy to unpack old stories about how Trump once recognized Miller is not leader material.

I’m not complaining that WSJ dedicated 1800-words to describing the centrality of Stephen Miller to the biggest abuses of the Trump second term (and many of the first). It is of acute import to understand how the man’s pathologies endanger the country and the world.

I’m simply observing that this profile, published at 9PM on a Friday night, says as much in how it is told as in anything that it tells.