Updates on Previous Posts and New Developments

Today I am going to provide updates on a number of the topics about which I've previously written. To be frank, compiling these updates has been a depressing endeavor as, if anything, they show that things in the U.S. are getting significantly worse. While there are a few glimmers of hope, they are generally outweighed by negative developments. We may feel an urge to look away in order to avoid the bad news, but it is important to keep our eyes open and aware of what is happening. It is in the interest of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump that we simply give up and ignore what he is doing to our country. However, the easiest form of resistance is to simply pay attention.

Trump's Attacks on Law Firms

Last month I wrote about executive orders that Trump signed targeting law firms that had fallen into disfavor with him. Since then, Trump has similarly gone after several additional law firms. While one of the first firms that Trump targeted, Perkins Coie, has challenged Trump in court and met with success, others, such as Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, quickly capitulated and made considerable concessions to Trump. Far from being discouraged by the legal pushback, Trump instead seized on what was essentially tribute paid by the firms that surrendered. Trump has bragged about what he has been able to wring out of the firms and been encouraged to attack more of them. Some firms have even preemptively approached Trump to offer their surrender. It has been extremely disappointing to see firms comprised of what are supposed to be hard-nosed litigators fold like wet paper bags. I am, of course, just a simple website owner and not a graduate of an Ivy League law school or a partner in a prestigious law firm, but I cannot begin to understand the calculus of the firms that immediately give in. Who would want to hire a law firm that won't even stand up for itself? Who would want to pay them to immediately grovel at the slightest threat? How could these firms be trusted in any case that might upset Trump? To their credit, a number of employees have chosen to leave the firms that gave into Trump, putting their honor above their immediate interests. But far too many top lawyers appear to be more interested in being able to make payments on a house in the Hamptons than standing up for their own constitutional rights.

Trump has also gone beyond large law firms and attacked the entire profession. In a presidential memorandum titled, "Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court", Trump directed the Attorney General and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize punishing attorneys who engage in a host of completely legal activities in the course of representing their clients. The memorandum suggests that any attorney engaged in litigation against the U.S. government might be subject to having security clearances revoked and the termination of any federal contracts. Trump also ordered that sanctions be considered for any lawyer or law firm who had engaged in litigation against the government within the past eight years. This is a clear attack on the rule of law aimed at undermining the legal right to bring legal action against the government.

Targeting Individuals

In addition to lawyers, Trump has also started targeting specific individuals with whom he is angry. In a presidential memorandum titled, "Addressing Risks from Chris Krebs and Government Censorship", Trump stripped Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), of his security clearance and ordered an investigation of his activities as a government employee. Krebs was famously fired by Trump after Krebs denied that the 2020 election had been stolen. Trump also stripped security clearances from everyone employed by Krebs's company, SentinelOne. It is particularly damaging to cybersecurity professionals to lose security clearances.

In a similar presidential memorandum titled, "Addressing Risks Associated with an Egregious Leaker and Disseminator of Falsehoods", Trump stripped Miles Taylor, a former staffer in the Department of Homeland Security, of his security clearance. Trump further removed security clearances from "individuals at entities associated with Taylor, including the University of Pennsylvania". While serving in the Trump administration, Taylor authored under the pen name "Anonymous," a New York Times op-ed titled, "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration". Taylor later wrote a book using the same pen name. Trump also ordered an investigation into Taylor's activities while a government employee.

The legality and ethics of these memoranda aside, there is irony in Trump, who has complained about the weaponization of government for years, clearly weaponizing the government against his enemies. In addition to punishing Krebs and Taylor, Trump is sending a clear message to those who might challenge him: "Do so at your own personal risk."

Cryptocurrency

Also last month I wrote about plans by the Trump administration to create a cryptocurrency reserve. There has not been much advancement along those lines, but that does not mean that the administration has been inactive where cryptocurrency is concerned. To the contrary, a number of steps have been taken to reduce, if not outright eliminate, enforcement involving the cryptocurrency industry. As reported by Molly White in her "[citation needed]" newsletter, "Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, citing Trump’s crypto executive orders, has dismantled the Department of Justice’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) and directed the agency's Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit to ‘cease cryptocurrency enforcement’." Blanche also created significant hurdles for the prosecution of crypto cases. Trump and his family, of course, have significant interests in the crypto market from which they personally profit. In another case of dropping crypto enforcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped an investigation into Crypto.com. This is notable because it occurred three days after Trump Media had selected Crypto.com as a partner in crypto initiatives. As White notes in the title of her newsletter, crypto crime is basically legal now. With that in mind, I think it is a particularly bad idea to invest in cryptocurrencies at this time.

Student Visas

In another post last month, I wrote about how the Trump administration was deploying masked agents to detain foreign students and attempt to deport them solely because those students had exercised speech that was unpopular with the Trump administration. Never mind that in his presidential memorandum about Chris Krebs, Trump had criticized governmental officials who he claimed "unlawfully censored speech and weaponized their undeserved influence to silence perceived political opponents and advance their preferred, and often erroneous, narrative about significant matters of public debate." When it comes to Israel, Trump is completely supportive of using his influence to silence opponents and advance his own erroneous narrative. In addition to those students who have been detained, the Trump administration has quietly cancelled the student visas of more than 300 additional students. Typical of the Trump administration, this has been done in the most pernicious way imaginable. The students are not notified that their visas have been cancelled. As a result, they are exposed to being seized by Trump's masked men. Universities have resorted to preemptively checking their students' visa statuses in order to see if any have been rescinded. Hundreds of students are expected to drop everything and immediately leave the country in the middle of a semester. None of these have been accused of law breaking and the reason for their visa cancellation is normally not revealed.

Lest there be any doubt that these students are being targeted solely due to their speech and not for illegal activity, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was clear about this during litigation concerning his attempt to deport former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil. When an immigration judge in Louisiana ordered the federal government to provide any information to justify its attempt to deport Khalil, Rubio responded with a memo that contained no evidence of illegality and explicitly said that despite Khalil's "past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful", Rubio was able to "personally determine" that Khalil should be removed from the country. The idea that a single individual can decide that a legal permanent resident can be deported simply for criticizing Israel is decidedly un-American. U.S. universities are rapidly becoming bastions of censorship rather than free speech. The administration's attacks on free speech are having an impact, with foreign students being advised to keep quiet in order to avoid being targeted and even U.S. citizens afraid to speak up for fear of the consequences.

Migrants

Earlier this week I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision regarding the Trump administration's attempt to deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). The court ruled that those subject to deportation had the right to be informed of their status and the right to file a habeas petition to contest their deportation. While this avenue for relief contains many hurdles and most of those facing deportation may not be able to take advantage of it, two U.S. District Court judges did issue temporary restraining orders preventing the deportation of those detained within their districts.

In the case of Kilmar Abrego García, the Salvadoran migrant whom the government admits was deported to El Salvador in error, the Supreme Court ruled that the government must "facilitate" his return. An earlier court had ruled that the government must "effectuate" Abrego García's return, but the Supreme Court weakened that somewhat. The Trump administration has given no indication that it plans to cooperate with the court ruling, and this, in fact, could become an important test of Trump's willingness to defy the Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had set a deadline for this morning for the government to lay out steps for Abrego García's return. The government missed that deadline, and Xinis set another deadline for 2 hours later. I will update this once I hear what happened with regard to that deadline.

In another development, the government has moved to effectively cancel Social Security numbers some migrants have lawfully obtained. The administration is doing this by placing the names of the targeted individuals on a "death master file," which is used to track dead people. Once a Social Security number is placed in that file, it is blacklisted and can no longer be used. This will prevent the individuals from using credit cards, bank accounts, and a host of other services. The chances for error on the government's behalf are extremely high, and U.S. citizens being wrongly declared dead is completely predictable. Never mind the dystopian idea of declaring live people to be dead.

Trump the Dictator

One of the most pernicious actions by the President occurred in the course of one of his most stupid efforts. On April 9, Trump signed an executive order titled, "Maintaining Acceptable Water Pressure In Showerheads" that is aimed at removing regulations governing water delivery in showers. Trump has long had an obsession with toilets and showers. Tucked inside this EO was a sentence saying, "Notice and comment is unnecessary because I am ordering the repeal." What is extraordinary about this is that the Administrative Procedure Act requires federal agencies to give the public time to comment on new rules, and then the agencies must consider all relevant and timely comments before enacting the rule. Trump is attempting to circumvent this requirement in contravention of the law. The result is that there will most certainly be legal challenges to any rules that are published without public input. This is simply another case that Trump believes that he can ignore the entire U.S. political and legal systems and simply rule by executive order. Trump truly believes that he is a King ruling through the use of a Sharpie.

Update: I promised above to update the section about Kilmar Abrego García after the 11:00 a.m. deadline. As it turned out, the government missed that deadline as well. Instead, the government submitted a document saying that there was no information that could be provided and asking for a delay until Tuesday. Then there was a hearing in which a very exasperated Judge Xinis tried to find out if anything at all had been done to facilitate the return of Abrego García. The government lawyers simply could not answer. When the lawyers said that the government was actively considering what they could do, Xinis responded by saying, "And while you do that, the irreparable harm continues. Is anyone moving with any speed on your end? SCOTUS has spoken -- quite clearly." The judge then ordered daily updates which will probably spoil the lawyers' weekend. Too bad, Abrego García's is much more spoiled.

Reading between the lines, it appears that the Abrego García's fate is in the hands of very high-level officials, possibly Trump himself. Whoever is responsible is either telling the lawyers things that they refuse to say to the judge or is not responding at all. Therefore, this is not an issue between the U.S. and El Salvador as the administration would have it, but rather a conflict between two branches of government. In that case, the critical factor is how much either branch wants to escalate things.

Update 2: An immigration judge in Louisiana has ruled that Mahmoud Khalil can be deported. There are a number of caveats to this decision. First of all, this ruling was by an immigration judge who is not a member of the judiciary, but rather an executive branch employee. Ruling otherwise in this case probably would have resulted in the judge being fired by Trump. Khalil can appeal this decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Khalil also has an existing habeas case before a federal court in New Jersey. His chances in those courts are much better.