Amid DOGE’s Failure to Find Fraud Committed by Entities Other than DOGE, DOGE Automates Deportation
/46 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheelThe other day, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons claimed he wanted to get his deportation system working like Amazon Prime does.
The leader of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that his dream for the agency is squads of trucks rounding up immigrants for deportation the same way that Amazon trucks crisscross American cities delivering packages.
“We need to get better at treating this like a business,” Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said, explaining he wants to see a deportation process “like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings.”
At first, I had a hard time even envisioning what he could mean by that. But then NYT described how Trump has starting setting the Social Security records of immigrants to dead as a way to debank them.
The goal is to cut those people off from using crucial financial services like bank accounts and credit cards, along with their access to government benefits.
The effort hinges on a surprising new tactic: repurposing Social Security’s “death master file,” which for years has been used to track dead people who should no longer receive benefits, to include the names of living people who the government believes should be treated as if they are dead. As a result of being added to the death database, they would be blacklisted from a coveted form of identity that allows them to make and more easily spend money.
Earlier this week, the names of more than 6,300 migrants whose legal status had just been revoked were added to the file, according to the documents.
The initial names are limited to people the administration says are convicted criminals and “suspected terrorists,” the documents show. But officials said the effort could broaden to include others in the country without authorization.
Their “financial lives,” Leland Dudek, the Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner, wrote in an email to staff members, would be “terminated.”
[snip]
On Tuesday, Aram Moghaddassi, a software engineer working for DOGE, sent Mr. Dudek the first batch of names to be added: the list of more than 6,300 immigrants homeland security officials had identified as having temporary legal status but who were now either on what he described as “the terrorist watch list,” or had been flagged as having “F.B.I. criminal records,” the documents show. The people’s parole status had been revoked that same day, Mr. Moghaddassi wrote.
The list included a 13-year-old and seven other minors, raising fears inside the agency that it was overly broad, according to one person familiar with the list who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
This will likely work in tandem with DHS’ plan to enforce a registration system, starting today, that serves to turn undocumented presence in the US into a felony (ironically, DHS is formalizing this registration system after Pam Bondi announced she’ll shift away from prosecuting FARA crimes, meaning the foreigners trying to influence US politics get better treatment than the ones picking crops).
Meanwhile, the acting IRS Commissioner, Melanie Krause, has announced her resignation after losing the battle to prevent tax data from being repurposed to feed Trump’s migrant campaign.
Krause’s decision to accept the agency’s deferred resignation offer comes on the heels of the IRS and Department of Homeland Security finalizing an agreement Monday to provide sensitive taxpayer data to federal immigration authorities to help the Trump administration locate and deport undocumented immigrants.
The controversial data sharing agreement between the agencies was one factor that played a role in Krause’s decision to leave, according to one source with knowledge of the situation. The source said that the last draft of the agreement that Krause had been involved with, and had reviewed, was different than the final agreement. Krause learned about the details of the final agreement from the news, the source said.
The Social Security-driven debanking and the IRS data-sharing are both DOGE-led efforts to mine data collected for one purpose and use it for another purpose — to make the deportation system work like a modern supply chain does. You might think this effort has nothing to do with waste fraud and abuse, but as I noted, back on February 19, Trump added streamlining deportation to the mandate of DOGE.
Meanwhile, yesterday Elon Musk confessed DOGE only expects to find $150 billion in saving for FY26 (that is, starting in October), a fraction of a fraction of what he previously claimed.
- Musk said he anticipates the $150 billion savings in the next fiscal year at Trump’s cabinet meeting Thursday.
- Musk repeated his claim that fraud and waste were “very common” in the government, this time giving the example, without evidence, of “people getting unemployment insurance who haven’t been born yet.”
- As recently as last month, Musk told Fox’s Bret Baier he expected DOGE to reach $1 trillion in savings by the time his tenure as a government employee is up in a matter of months.
This means that Elon won’t manage the same level of savings that the Inspectors General that Trump fired were on course to find, all without cutting services like Elon has. We could still have cancer cures and achieve the same level of savings — and all that’s before you consider the $500 billion hole Elon created in revenue projections.
Trump brought in an alleged illegal immigrant in the guise of finding waste fraud and abuse.
And all he achieved was to dramatically cut services that Americans cherish and, in the guise of finding fraud, automate the deportation system.
Trump’s Targeting of Susman Godfrey Targets a Law Firm that Stood with Perkins Coie
/14 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheelYesterday, Donald Trump targeted Susman Godfrey with his latest Executive Order targeting a law firm. That’s significant, because the firm both joined an amicus of 504 law firms and represents Former Senior Government officials with their own amicus (which among other things compares these EOs to McCarthy era blacklists). Trump’s “fact [sic] sheet” justifying the attack on Susman Godfrey is particularly thin, failing to lay out the specific things that have irked Trump, though undoubtedly the debunking of Trump’s false Dominion claims are among the grievances. It says, in part:
- Susman spearheads efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections.
- Susman funds groups that engage in dangerous efforts to undermine the effectiveness of the U.S. military through the injection of political and radical ideology, and it supports efforts to discriminate on the basis of race.
Given Susman Godfrey’s active involvement in attempts to combat the Perkins Coie attack, it’s certainly possible that Trump includes efforts to combat his attack on law firms among what he considers an “efforts to weaponize the American legal system.”
So in the spirit of solidarity, I thought it’d be an appropriate time to extract a list of all the entities — mostly but not exclusively other lawyers or legal organizations — who have come out in support of Perkins Coie. It took a while, and it has yet to include the white shoe firms who are being similarly targeted, but in recent weeks a slew of entities have filed amicus briefs in support of Perkins Coie. (There are more amicus briefs coming in; I’ll update this accordingly.)
I’ve bolded several, often briefs that make apt historical comparisons, that I found most helpful. Note too the amicus briefs that address the toughest issue before Perkins Coie: To explain why Trump abused the President’s expansive authority to decide security clearances.
Susman Godfrey issued the following statement yesterday after Trump targeted the firm:
Anyone who knows Susman Godfrey knows we believe in the rule of law, and we take seriously our duty to uphold it. This principle guides us now. There is no question that we will fight this unconstitutional order.
By targeting a firm that stood up for Perkins Coie, Trump may well have escalated this issue.
Amicus briefs
Former DC Bar Presidents: On import of adversarial proceedings, providing history of lawyers — including Eleanor Holmes Norton — representing clients whose views they oppose.
363 Law Professors: On violations of First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. [A total of 676 signed the amicus filed in the Jenner and WilmerHale dockets.]
ACLU, EFF, CATO, and other legal advocacy groups: On retaliation and separation of powers.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy: Argues usurpation of judicial authority.
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: On import of pro bono bar.
NACDL and NYCDL: On violation of Sixth Amendment, citing John Roberts.
346 Former Judges: Argues order promotes hostility to adjudication and judicial offiers.
504 Law Firms (full list): Includes list of challenges to presidential initiatives, including Military Commissions, Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank
Solo Practitioner Kenneth Pickering: On climate of intimidation against all lawyers.
Litigation Firms: On zealous advocacy.
Former and Current General Counsel: Arguing the EO “hijacks a corporation’s relationship with outside counsel.”
Bar Associations: Describing that, “Undermining the bar’s independence has historically been a key step on the road to
authoritarianism.”
NAACP Legal Defense Fund: Recalling similar efforts under Jim Crow, arguing that Black Americans are particularly vulnerable when government ignores rule of law. Addresses Bill of Attainder.
International Academy of Trial Lawyers: Citing Principle 16 of the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers.
Former Senior Government Officials (full list): EO not authorized by Congress, nor by inherent powers, including justiciability of security clearances. Notes lack of historical precedent. Addresses Bill of Attainder.
Media and Press Freedom Organizations (full list): Argues that Trump will use similar tactics against the press.
Korematsu Center: Warns against deference to government claims of national security (also citing Gitmo). Cites precedent prohibiting government sanction of law firms to prevent challenges.
Legal Ethics Professors: Raises concerns about informed consent for clients and bribery statutes.
Perkins Coie filings
[docket]
March 11: Complaint
March 11: Motion for TRO
March 12: AUSA Douglas Dreier files notice of appearance; AUSA Terry Henry files notice of appearance that includes CoS Chad Mizelle
March 12: Order granting TRO
March 14: DAAG Richard Lawson files notice of appearance
March 14: Status report on compliance
March 18: Douglas Dreier withdraws appearance
March 18: Follow-up status report on compliance (signed exclusively by political appointees)
March 18: Motion to clarify TRO (narcing out DOJ for limiting agencies that comply)
March 20: Status report (filed late)
March 20: Supplemental status report offering thin excuses for not fully complying at first
March 21: Motion to disqualify Beryl Howell
March 26: Order denying motion to disqualify
April 2: Motion for summary judgment
- Statement of facts (including Republicans from firm, range of federal business, description of pro bono work, details on Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann and decade of Trump’s animus, description of lawyers with clearance — including one granted Top Secret clearance under Trump
- David Burman Declaration
- Chris Manning Declaration
- Bruce Green Expert Report (on judicial regulation of lawyers)
- Robert Hirshorn Expert Report (on zealous advocacy)
- Roy Simon Expert Report (on Constitutional problems)
- Bill Leonard Expert Report (on security clearance)
April 2: Motion to dismiss (claiming, among other things, shotgun pleading that doomed Trump’s lawsuit against Perkins Coie in Florida, and including a short substance-free paragraph on the Steele dossier)
April 2: Motion to reconsider scope of injunction (leading other law firms to include each and every agency defendant)
WilmerHale filings
[docket]
March 28: Motion for TRO, Preliminary Injunction
April 8: Motion to dismiss (which seems to include things from Perkins Coie filing inapplicable here)
April 8: Motion for summary judgement
Jenner & Block filings
[docket]
March 28: Motion for Temporary Restraining Order
April 8: Motion for summary judgement
April 8: Motion to dismiss
Trump’s Latest Weaponization Is about Historic Loyalty Oaths as Much as Current Ones
/21 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheelYesterday, Trump issued three more Executive Orders targeting people for their free speech:
- Miles Taylor
- Chris Krebs
- Lawfirm Susman Godfrey
It seems Trump has an unlimited appetite for stripping people of security clearances they don’t hold. Or perhaps Trump’s handlers have figured out these EOs will provide an endless supply of dopamine hits that make the care and feeding of a malignant narcissist easier.
I want to add something to the flood of commentary about this abuse of power.
Miles Taylor, recall, was the author of an anonymous column published in the NYT.
To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.
Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.
In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.
He left the White House in June 2019, over five years ago, and identified himself as Anonymous in October 2020.
Chris Krebs was the eminently competent head of CISA whom Trump fired by Tweet in November 2020, 53 months ago, after Krebs affirmed the integrity of the 2020 election.
The fact [sic] sheet targeting Krebs describes this as an attempt to “end government censorship,” but then describes it as a part of “ensuring loyalty” (to the US; I guess Trump has lost track of where “C’est moi” ends and “l’État” begins).
ENDING GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP: President Trump is committed to ending government censorship of Americans and believes that those who engage in such conduct should not have access to our nation’s secrets.
[snip]
ENSURING LOYALTY AND ACCOUNTABILITY: President Trump has made clear that loyalty to the United States must come before personal or partisan agendas, taking decisive action against those who misuse their undeserved influence to deceive the American public.
The fact [sic] sheet against Taylor fashions itself explicitly as an attempt to root out “betrayal.” and then asserts that one “drains the swamp” by “rooting out … disloyalty.”
ERADICATING GOVERNMENT BETRAYAL: President Trump is committed to ending the weaponization of government and believes that those who engage in such conduct should not have access to our nation’s secrets.
[snip]
DRAINING THE SWAMP: President Trump is delivering on his promise to drain the swamp by rooting out inefficiency, corruption, and disloyalty.
Both of these, then, explicitly make an example of past Trump appointees who “betrayed” Trump. They serve as an object lesson to the people leaking now.
But they are more than that. They also serve to order up an investigation into both men’s networks from their tenure under Trump.
Both EOs direct the Department of Homeland Security (for which both worked) to review their government activities to see whether they violated “suitability standards for Federal employees” or entailed dissemination of classified information; in Krebs’ case, Trump’s order explicitly incorporates Pam Bondi into the investigation as well, whereas the Taylor one only incorporates “any other relevant agency heads.”
Both deviate from earlier EOs in delivering the end report to the White House Counsel rather than Stephen Miller.
Here’s how that looks in the Krebs EO.
I further direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with any other agency head, to take all appropriate action to review Krebs’ activities as a Government employee, including his leadership of CISA. This review should identify any instances where Krebs’ conduct appears to have been contrary to suitability standards for Federal employees, involved the unauthorized dissemination of classified information, or contrary to the purposes and policies identified in Executive Order 14149 of January 20, 2025 (Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship). As part of that review, I direct a comprehensive evaluation of all of CISA’s activities over the last 6 years, focusing specifically on any instances where CISA’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies identified in Executive Order 14149. Upon completing these reviews, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall prepare a joint report to be submitted to the President, through the Counsel to the President, with recommendations for appropriate remedial or preventative actions to be taken to fulfill the purposes and policies of Executive Order 14149. [my emphasis]
But there’s one more item of interest.
The investigative language builds on the EO Trump signed on inauguration day, which is mentioned prominently in the Krebs EO.
(b) The Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of executive departments and agencies, shall investigate the activities of the Federal Government over the last 4 years that are inconsistent with the purposes and policies of this order and prepare a report to be submitted to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken based on the findings of the report.
But it expands the review by two years.
That is, the investigative language in both these EOs authorizes the investigation of actions — and people — from Trump’s first term. In the guise of leak investigations (18 USC 793 has a ten year statute of limitation, otherwise any investigation into the nearly or already expired statutes of limitation would be pointless).
And the investigation within Homeland Security would roll out without court review. (I expect some of these witch hunts will be stymied by judges who recognize the command influence and obvious fraudulent accusations behind them).
This effort doesn’t just target Krebs and Taylor for what Trump claims is “betrayal.” It also provides the excuse to map out their associates within government, including those who may still be around.
Supreme Court Starts Cleaning Up Kristi Noem’s Sloppy Messes
/113 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheelThe Supreme Court intervened in two cases pertaining to Kristi Noem’s March 15 botched deportation effort yesterday.
First, John Roberts paused review of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case. And, shortly thereafter, the entire court ended James Boasberg’s Temporary Restraining Order on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act (captioned as JGG v. Trump), while holding that detainees must have access to habeas review before being deported.
Contrary to what you’re seeing from the Administration (and, frankly, many Trump critics), neither of these rulings settles Trump’s deportation regime, though the JGG opinion extends SCOTUS’ real corruption of rule of law in very ominous fashion (see Steve Vladeck on that, including his observation that just weeks after Trump called to impeach Boasberg, “Roberts has overruled Boasberg, in a move that Trump will view as sweet vindication”).
I’d like to consider them instead as means to help Kristi Noem clean up after her own incompetence. From a legal standpoint, there’s nothing (yet) unusual about the pause in Abrego Garcia’s case. Indeed, the timing of it may undermine the newly confirmed John Sauer’s efforts to win the case, as I’ll lay out below. As such it may interact in interesting way with the JGG opinion.
The JGG opinion intervenes in a TRO (which shouldn’t be reviewable at all) to take the case out of Judge James Boasberg’s hands the day before he was set to hear arguments on a preliminary injunction. That’s what Ketanji Brown Jackson laid out in her dissent: this was a naked intervention to prevent Boasberg from looking more closely.
I write separately to question the majority’s choice to intervene on the eve of the District Court’s preliminary-injunction hearing without scheduling argument or receiving merits briefing. This fly-by-night approach to the work of the Supreme Court is not only misguided. It is also dangerous.
The President of the United States has invoked a centuries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a notoriously brutal, foreign-run prison. For lovers of liberty, this should be quite concerning. Surely, the question whether such Government action is consistent with our Constitution and laws warrants considerable thought and attention from the Judiciary. That was why the District Court issued a temporary restraining order to prevent immediate harm to the targeted individuals while the court considered the lawfulness of the Government’s conduct. But this Court now sees fit to intervene, hastily dashing off a four-paragraph per curiam opinion discarding the District Court’s order based solely on a new legal pronouncement that, one might have thought, would require significant deliberation.
Jackson notes that, as a result, key parts of this legal dispute will not be fully briefed, as Korematsu was.
At least when the Court went off base in the past, it left a record so posterity could see how it went wrong. See, e.g., Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). With more and more of our most significant rulings taking place in the shadows of our emergency docket, today’s Court leaves less and less of a trace. But make no mistake: We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences. It just seems we are now less willing to face it.
The JGG opinion is silent about what happens to Boasberg’s contempt inquiry. While there are people, such as gay hair stylist Andry José Hernández Romero, whose deportation to El Salvador may have violated Judge Boasberg’s TRO and who — since he’s no longer in US custody — may not be stuck challenging their deportation in South Texas, it’s not clear whether any of the men who’ve been deported will be able to sustain the inquiry.
As for everyone else, the per curium opinion rebukes Trump’s original legal stance, which argued that Trump could declare a war and Marco Rubio could declare a bunch of people to be terrorists based on little more than tattoos and via that process deport them to slavery in El Salvador (though you wouldn’t know that from the Xitter posts of virtually everyone involved).
AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.
For all the rhetoric of the dissents, today’s order and per curiam confirm that the detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal. The only question is which court will resolve that challenge. For the reasons set forth, we hold that venue lies in the district of confinement.
So courts, including SCOTUS, might yet find that Trump was totally unjustified in declaring his own little war. Courts, including SCOTUS, might yet rule Trump’s use of the AEA beyond the pale. But the legal review of that decision will take place in the Fifth Circuit, where such an outcome is far less likely than in DC.
Indeed, this decision might will be an effort to outsource the really awful work of sanctioning egregious constitutional violations to the circuit most likely to do so.
This was an entirely tactical decision, in my opinion. A gimmick. An unprecedented intervention in a TRO to prevent Boasberg from issuing a really damaging ruling in DC, yet one that affirmed thin due process along the way.
Meanwhile, consider how Abrego Garcia’s fate might complicate all this. As noted above, Roberts’ intervention, thus far, is not unusual. Indeed, by pausing the decision, Roberts made way for Abrego Garcia to submit a response, which corrected some of the false claims that John Sauer made in his filing, his first after being sworn in as Solicitor General. (Erwin Chemerinsky also submitted an amicus.)
Having held that detainees should have access to habeas before deportation, one would think that would extend to Abrego Garcia, who was not given time to challenge his deportation to El Salvador.
The government’s concession that the AEA detainees should get habeas review provided a place for SCOTUS to backtrack to without directly confronting Trump’s power grab. But consider how AUSA Erez Reuveni’s concessions, his admission that DHS knew there was an order prohibiting Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador, limit SCOTUS’ ability to do the same. That’s one of two key points the Fourth Circuit — a panel of Obama appointee Stephanie Thacker, Clinton appointee Robert King, and Reagan appointee Harvie Wilkinson — made in its opinion, issued at about the same time as Roberts halted the order. Just as the government ultimately conceded that the AEA detainees were entitled to due process, the government conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported to El Salvador.
As the Government readily admits, Abrego Garcia was granted withholding of removal — “It is true that an immigration judge concluded six years ago that Abrego Garcia should not be returned to El Salvador.” Mot. for Stay at 16; see also Cerna Declaration at 53 (“ICE was aware of this grant of withholding of removal at the time [of] AbregoGarcia’s removal from the United States.”).3 And “the Government had available a procedural mechanism under governing regulations to reopen the immigration judge’s prior order, and terminate its withholding protection.” Mot. for Stay at 16–17. But, “the Government did not avail itself of that procedure in this case.” Id.; see Dist. Ct. Op. at 4 (Mr. Reuveni: “There’s no dispute that the order [of removal] could not be used to send Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.” (quoting Hr’g Tr., Apr. 4, 2025, at 25:6–7)); see also Guzman Chavez, 594 U.S. at 531 (explaining that a non-citizen who has been granted withholding of removal may not be removed “to the country designated in the removal order unless the order of withholding is terminated”). Based on those facts, the Government conceded during the district court hearing, “The facts — we concede the facts. This person should — the plaintiff, Abrego Garcia, should not have been removed. That is not in dispute.” S.A. 98 (emphasis supplied).4
3 Consistent with this reality, the Government attorney appearing before the district court at the April 4 hearing candidly admitted that no order of removal is part of the record in this case. Dist. Ct. Op. at 14 (citing Hr’g Tr. Apr. 4, 2025, at 20 (counsel admitting no order of removal is part of the record), and id. at 22 (counsel confirming that “the removal order” from 2019 “cannot be executed” and is not part of the record)).
4 Of note, in response to the candid responses by the Government attorney to the district court’s inquiry, that attorney has been put on administrative leave, ostensibly for lack of “zealous[] advocacy.” Evan Perez, Paula Reid and Katie Bo Lillis, DOJ attorney placed on leave after expressing frustration in court with government over mistakenly deported man, CNN (Apr. 5, 2025, 10:40 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/05/politics/doj-attorney-leave-maryland-father-deportation/index.html; see also Glenn Thrush, Justice Dept. Lawyer Who Criticized Administration in Court Is Put on Leave, New York Times (Apr. 5, 2025, 5:41 PM), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/us/politics/justice-dept-immigration-lawyer-leave.html. But, the duty of zealous representation is tempered by the duty of candor to the court, among other ethical obligations, and the duty to uphold the rule of law, particularly on the part of a Government attorney. United States Department of Justice, Home Page, https://www.justice.gov/ (last visited Apr. 6, 2025) (“Our employees adhere to the highest standards of ethical behavior, mindful that, as public servants, we must work to earn the trust of, and inspire confidence in, the public we serve.”). [links added]
With footnote 4, the Fourth Circuit established that DOJ was attempting to retaliate against Erez Reuveni and his supervisor, August Flentje, because Reuvani told the truth. (See also Reuters, which was the first outlet I saw with the story, and ABC, the first to report that Flentje was placed on leave along with Reuveni.)
I was struck by the retaliation in real time, because in fact Reuveni did what a slew of other attorneys have had to do, confess he didn’t know the answers to obvious questions. But something — perhaps Sauer’s review that earlier fuckups may limit his ability to get relief at SCOTUS — led DOJ to overreact in this case.
That is, by retaliating against Reuveni so egregiously, Pam Bondi’s DOJ (Todd Blanche is reportedly the one who made the order, but it also happened after Sauer may have started reviewing the case), DOJ may have made it more difficult for SCOTUS to engage in similar gimmicks down the road.
The Fourth Circuit also anticipated that DOJ would lie about Abrego Garcia’s request to be returned.
5 To the extent the Government argues that the scope of the district court’s order was improper because Abrego Garcia never asked for an order facilitating his return to the United States, that is incorrect. See S.A. 88 (arguing that the district court has “jurisdiction to order [the Government] to facilitate his return, and what we would like is for the Court to enter that order”); see also S.A. 74–75; 85–87.
Indeed, Sauer did just that.
In opposing a stay of the injunction in the court of appeals, respondents insisted that they did “request[]” the injunction that the district court entered. Resp. C.A. Stay Opp. 9. But contrary to respondents’ characterization, the court did not merely order the United States to “facilitate” Abrego’s return, ibid.; it ordered the United States actually to “effectuate” it, App., infra, 79a. If there were any doubt on that score, the court’s memorandum opinion eliminated it, by reiterating that its injunction “order[s]” that “Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.” Id. at 82a (emphasis added). Again, respondents clearly disclaimed such a request in repeatedly telling the court that it “has no jurisdiction over the Government of El Salvador and cannot force that sovereign nation to release Plaintiff Abrego Garcia from its prison.” Id. at 42a, 44
Ultimately, Sauer may get his proposed solution — that Abrego Garcia gets moved from El Salvador to someplace else. But before that happens, he’ll have to account for the Fourth Circuit ruling that there’s no convincing evidence that Abrego Garcia is the terrorist Kristi Noem claims he is and that DOJ itself laid out cause to return him to the US.
The Supreme Court exhibited a willingness to engage in a gimmick decision to bail Trump out of one fuckup Kristi Noem made the weekend of March 15, to ignore Judge Boasberg’s order and deport a bunch of men with tattoos into slavery. It has not yet bailed Trump out of the other fuckup, including Abrego Garcia on one of those planes. Thus far, Trump has made things worse by retaliating against Reuveni for refusing to lie.
Which just makes SCOTUS’ challenge — to invent a gimmick to bail Trump out — all the more challenging.
Update: Predictably, in his reply, Sauer blames Reuveni for not being told some unspecified sensitive information that might excuse the defiance of a judge’s order.
Respondents (Opp. 10-11) cite statements by the attorney who was formerly representing the government in this case, who told the district court that he “ask[ed] my clients” why they could not return Abrego Garcia and felt that he had not “received * * * an answer that I find satisfactory.” They likewise cite his statements that “the government made a choice here to produce no evidence” and that agencies “understand that the absence of evidence speaks for itself.” Opp. 12 (citing SA120, SA128). Those inappropriate statements did not and do not reflect the position of the United States. Whether a particular line attorney is privy to sensitive information or feels that whoever he spoke with at client agencies gave him sufficient answers to satisfy whatever personal standard he was applying cannot possibly be the yardstick for measuring the propriety of this extraordinary injunction.
Real judges would haul Sauer before them and insist he deliver that sensitive information withheld from the AUSA. Sadly, the Roberts court is well beyond that.
Introduction To Series On Curtis Yarvin
/38 Comments/in emptywheel, Left Theory /by Ed WalkerPosts in this series
The Beginnings Of Curtis Yarvin
Introduction To Yarvin’s Formalism
Trump acts on his stupid ideas, and on the foolish chatter of whatever loon has his ear. He and his courtiers and henchmen recite crackpot theories to justify working for their own ends, with no pretense of oversight by Trump or Republican legislators.
Some of these weirdo theories, like the tariff gibberish and Christian Nationalism, are well-known. They’ve been discussed in progressive circles for some time, and are occasionally acknowledged in the billionaire media. What I did not know, and what was rarely reported in the media I read, was the influence of a group of anti-democracy advocates.
Recently I began to read about Curtis Yarvin. Heather Cox Richardson mentioned him in one of her Letters To An American, and commenter TruthBtold linked to this substack reporting on Yarvin. Here’s an article in Commonweal, Yarvin’s Case Against Democracy.
In 2012 Yarvin gave a speech titled How To Reboot The US Government. He gave more speeches and interviews on the subject and drew the attention of rich techbros and right-wing politicians like J.D. Vance. It looks like Elon Musk used Yarvin’s ideas first to remake Twitter as a hang-out for creeps, and then as a template for destroying our govenrment from the inside.
Yarvin claims that democracy has failed and that the only way forward is to get rid of it and replace it with a dictatorship, or a monarchy. It’s a view shared by a lot of people on the far right, and for different reasons by the same filthy rich thugs who’ve been wrecking our country out of hatred for the New Deal and all things that make life better for working people. I’ll be looking into Yarvin’s writings in my next series.
Background
This stuff is wild. To orient myself, I read a chapter written by Joshua Tait in a book, Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy. The book is supposedly available through your library. Tait focuses on a blog Yarvin wrote under the name Mencius Moldbug, Unqualified Reservations. He gives an introduction to Yarvin’s theory of neoreaction, and his rejection of democracy.
Neoreaction’s basic assumption is that humans desire power. Interpreting democracy through this framework, Moldbug claims that democracy’s appeal is that it disperses power widely, indulging the mass desire for useless fragments of power. Since power-seeking is pervasive, society trends toward greater division of power and a concomitant erosion of order. Democracy is a “dangerous, malignant form of government which tends to degenerate, sometimes slowly and sometimes with shocking, gut-wrenching speed, into tyranny and chaos.”
Trump and his henchmen don’t acknowledge the anti-democratic aspect of Yarvin’s thought, at least not so far, unless you consider Trump’s third-term garbage. They just follow his plan for destroying the institutions that diffuse power; and work at concentrating power into the hands of Musk and Trump. Yarvin’s views can be seen as justifying the unitary executive theory, and for presidential kingship, as contemplated by John Roberts and his anti-democratic colleagues in Trump v. US.
In his blog Yarvin traces out the development of his theories of history, economics and other matters. The blog ran from 2007 to 2014. He has a substack, Gray Mirror, which began in May 2020 (after Tait’s article) where he posted drafts of his book Gray Mirror: Fascicle I: Disturbance, published January 2025. The title is Yarvin trolling: fascicle is close to fascist, but means something else. I’m reluctant to buy the book so I plan to read from the two online sources first. He shows up on other social media sites, but I’m not going there.
I plan to focus on the anti-democracy material and his views of human nature. We’ll see how that holds up.
Defending Democracy
I won’t defend democracy here. I follow Americans like John Dewey and Richard Rorty. See, e.g. Rorty’s Achieving Our Country. My rationale for defending democracy is my understanding of human nature, which I discussed in my series on individuality.
But I also think that we as a nation have for a long time regarded democracy as background for our lives. We see it as a game we watch on TV. We yell at politicians as we would yell at referees. We don’t think of democracy as making any demands on us, much less as something that requires our constant maintenance and improvement.
Caveat
It’s very difficult to write about material with which you fundamentally disagree. There’s a strong tendency to minimize any good points, and to mock rather than try to understand.
I plan to be very careful about separating Yarvin’s words from my thoughts on how to understand what he’s saying, and to try to indicate where I’m having trouble following an argument, so that readers can check my thinking. That should help with the bias problem.
It’s important to note that Yarvin isn’t some Qanon weirdo cranking out conspiracies. I assume that he’s read the material he cites, and that he has tried to be intellectually honest. That distinguishes him from craven ideologues like the SCOTUS right-wingers and from lazy hacks like David Brooks.
Final thought
Yarvin and the filthy rich idiots he influences are dangerously wrong, wrong in a deeply fundamental way. They think they know what’s best. Not what’s best for you and your family and community. They think they know what’s best for the future of the human race.
Seizing Opportunity from Chaos
/67 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheelI have always said — and reiterated, in some form, on Friday — that the most immediate way to reverse the damage Trump is doing is seizing opportunity out of a catastrophe he creates.
The most likely way you will get Republicans to start breaking from Trump, the most likely way you will get Republicans to actually take action against Trump rather than simply mewling weakly, is if a catastrophe threatens the world Republicans — as distinct from average Americans — care about.
The global crisis Trump has created is one such possible moment. But it will require keeping focus and wits in a moment of chaos.
Last week, Democrats had several moments of solidarity, first with the Cory Booker Senate speech, then with Saturday’s protests. Those twin events gave aging white liberals who, before this moment, often complained about fecklessness, a sense of direction.
Then there’s the opportunity created by chaos. Both Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson have warned against Trump’s tariffs. Last week the Senate passed a Tim Kaine bill reversing Trump’s claimed emergency on which he based his Canadian tariffs (with Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul, and Mitch McConnell voting in support). Chuck Grassley’s bill with Maria Cantwell to reclaim Congressional authority over tariffs has seven of the 13 GOP supporters it would need to pass so far (with Grassley, Collins, Murkowski, and McConnell, plus Thom Tillis, Jerry Moran, and Todd Young). Don Bacon is introducing a similar bill in the House (where it would need more supporters to bypass Mike Johnson’s control).
There’s more overt opposition from the banksters who foolishly believed that Trump would help business, with Bill Ackerman undergoing a moment of cognitive dissonance in real time.
Thus far Trump has doubled down in the face of whatever lobbying he’s getting privately.
But Trump is, in my opinion, wildly overestimating his leverage over foreign countries and probably even Wall Street. China immediately responded to Trump’s tariffs with retaliation. I expect China has a belief that it can cut the US out of global trade flows, and eventually undermine the US role as reserve currency — though to be sure, Trump has telegraphed plans to retaliate using using precisely those tools.
Not only have Trump’s attacks on Canada reversed the Liberal Party’s fortunes [corrected] in advance of an election this month. But Mark Carney’s hard line has quieted Trump’s taunts (at least until after the election). And his experience as a central banker of both Canada and England makes him a natural leader of efforts to make sense of this chaos.
The EU has not yet decided on a response, but among the tools under consideration are sanctions against US tech companies.
Which is to say, other countries may soon disabuse Trump’s fantasy that he wields absolute power.
But in the last several weeks, Trump has gotten several court rulings that will help him accelerate his assault on the Federal government. A week ago Friday, a conservative panel on the DC Circuit ruled that Trump has authority to fire commissioners on panels that Congress has mandated to operate independently, effectively overruling Humphrey’s Executor [corrected] in anticipation that SCOTUS may ultimately do so. The plaintiffs are asking for an en banc review, as of yet to no avail. In the wake of this and an earlier DC Circuit ruling, Trump has successfully argued that Trump has broader authority to dismantle agencies than District judges have initially recognized. And this ruling makes it more likely that Trump will go after the Fed. [Update: The full Circuit reversed and unfired the commissioners.]
Then on Friday SCOTUS overruled a Temporary Restraining Order, thereby permitting Trump to cancel grants to teachers involving DEI, suggesting that the court will eventually side with DOJ’s argument that existing grants must be litigated in Court of Federal Claims. This reflects Amy Coney Barrett switching positions from an earlier USAID lawsuit. This will lead District court judges to pause before granting similar TROs on an Administrative Procedures theory.
The courts have slowed Trump down and on some matters the courts will continue to be a brake, but the twin legal theory that Trump can fire anyone and after installing his own leader dismantle what is left will accelerate some kinds of attacks. It may also encourage him to fire Jerome Powell, which will really spook the markets.
The 2008 bank crash created an opportunity that Barack Obama largely squandered in his effort to save the big banks from their own foolishness. Here, the foolishness is all Trump’s, with banks and hedgies on the hook only for their arrogance that they would be better off with a racist nihilist. That presents a kind of opportunity, even if Trump’s personal appeal counsels indirect counterattacks (for example, on Elon rather than Trump) for the moment.
Here, the task remains the same as it was last week, and the week before, and the week before that. Hold DOGE accountable for dismantling the government. Warn about what DOGE (and Congress) are in the process of doing to Social Security and Medicaid. Make government visible, especially with stories of those fired and great government projects killed. Get non-political networks — PTAs and library reading groups and disease communities — involved in the fight. Tell the stories of the human beings stripped of their due process rights.
Do everything you can to peel off right wingers.
Help your neighbors.
To the extent you are able as you try to protect your retirement and pay the bills, though, try not to lose your head over Trump’s economic catrastrophe. Lots of people are losing their head right now and the people around Trump are stuck defending tariffs on penguins, badly (and inconsistently). It is absolutely horrible, and billions of people are being hurt by Trump’s attacks.
The economic calamity is of a piece with the constitutional one. And the economic calamity may present a path out of both that and the constitutional calamity.
“Hands Off” Open Thread
/121 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheelYesterday, hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — of people came out to protest Trump’s assault on democracy, including a live protest in Paris and an all day live and Zoom one in Dublin.
Indivisible says there were over 1,400 events. For those of showed up to a protest — here, at Place de la République in Paris — you may have made new friends or met old friends (very old, Christy Hardin Smith and I kept complaining!!).
There were several stories (most notably in New York City) about police staffing wildly inadequate to the numbers, largely because cops underestimated turnout. But everything was peaceful, with volunteers managing traffic in lieu of cops.
The sheer numbers are important. But especially because of increasingly constrained media (NYT has no coverage of the protest on its front page, but at least the story on seven random people is no longer there), it will be key for this event to lead to further localized organizing.
If you protested, share your story!
MAGAts Confess They Cannot Compete with Penguins on a Level Playing Glacier
/113 Comments/in emptywheel /by emptywheelTrump is well on his way to causing, with his stupid tariffs, the same kind of economic damage as COVID did, but without a global epidemic as catalyst and excuse, just himself and the batshit advisors who refuse to tell him no.
At least some of Trump’s handlers hope this will lead one after another country to supplicate Trump, begging for favors. Depending on who you ask, that may have been one of the poorly considered and often conflicting goals.
But even before price hikes start to affect consumers, there are signs of pushback.
After the Senate passed a (thus far) mostly symbolic law sponsored by Tim Kaine reversing Trump’s emergency declaration for Canada, Chuck Grassley teamed with Maria Cantwell to propose restoring Congressional authority over such taxes. (Grassley did not support Kaine’s bill; Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul, and Mitch McConnell did.) See this Aaron Fritschner thread for an explanation of why this second effort might have more prospect of success: because the House has not yet stopped time with regards to the latest emergency Trump declared to accrue more power.
The pure insanity of Trump’s tariffs is best (ahem) personified by his inclusion of Heard and McDonald Islands, which are inhabited largely by penguins.
Two tiny, remote Antarctic outposts populated by penguins and seals are among the obscure places targeted by the Trump administration’s new tariffs.
Heard and McDonald Islands – a territory which sits 4,000km (2,485 miles) south-west of Australia – are only accessible via a seven-day boat trip from Perth, and haven’t been visited by humans in almost a decade.
[snip]
Like the rest of Australia, the Heard and McDonald Islands, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are now subject to a tariff of 10%. A tariff of 29% was imposed on the Norfolk Island, which is also an Australian territory and has a population of about 2,200 people.
Heard Island, though, is barren, icy and completely uninhabited – home to Australia’s largest and only active volcano, Big Ben, and mostly covered by glaciers.
It is believed the last time people ventured on to Heard Island was in 2016, when a group of amateur radio enthusiasts broadcast from there with permission of the Australian government.
Taken literally, Trump’s inclusion of two islands (over)run by penguins means that he believes American workers cannot compete with penguins without some kind of help — a 10% tariff — to level the playing field. A glacier field.
Right wingers who applaud Trump’s insanity are, effectively, confessing that their own industry and pluck is no match for a colony of penguins.
The penguins are useful for something beyond the MAGAt confessions that they are not as industrious as penguins. They help to identify how the Trump Administration came up with this hocus pocus.
James Surowiecki figured it out — the Administration took the trade deficit (Surowiecki later figured out it’s only the trade deficit in goods, not services) and split it in half.
This was largely confirmed when the Deputy WH Spox attempted to dispute Surowiecki’s description, only to confirm that’s precisely the formula they used (sorry, you need to click through for the pure dumber-than-a-penguin-glory).
So because the penguins have shown up as trading partners in a few different years, they’re included on here.
Russia is not. Russia, Belarus, North Korea. The Administration says that’s because sanctions effectively mean we have no trade with them, but we do — certainly more than we do with the penguins.
I guess Trump is more terrified of the Russians than he is the penguins.
This is a shit show. But it’s the kind of shit show that may disrupt the Republican lockstep in Congress. Whether the penguin tariffs were the cause, John Thune had to pull the first of the budget resolutions that were supposed to give legal sanction for Trump’s agenda (as well as massive tax cuts to the rich) yesterday. And Teddy Cancun Cruz has spoken up against the sanctions, calling them (accurately) taxes.
Even before constituents start to pay through the teeth, Republicans are beginning to accurately describe that these are taxes.
It’s unclear how this will end up, and billions of people will be hurt in the process (though, as with much else that Trump has done out of pique this Administration, China will likely find a way to capitalize on Trump’s idiocy). But this is the kind of disruptive event that presents opportunity to disrupt Trump’s power.