For some on the far left, “The Rachel Maddow Show” is a godsend. Otherwise, you would have to go to the subway to compete against others raving about microchips and oligarchies. Just take Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who went on the show on Friday to explain that Trump officials can now be arrested for “interfering with a legal proceeding” or “kidnapping.” It now stands as second only to Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe’s claim on MSNBC that President Donald Trump could be charged (“without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt”) with the attempted murder of former Vice President Michael Pence.
(For the record, I have maintained since the start of this controversy that Garcia should have been returned to the United States and should still be brought back to what I believe would be an inevitable deportation).
Raskin prefaced his legal analysis with a heavy dose of hyperbole, warning viewers that “they’re arresting judges” and portraying Judge Hannah Dugan in Wisconsin as an innocent victim of a law-hating, authoritarian regime. It is a claim that was echoed by other leading Democrats before any of the underlying facts have been established.
He then explained his case for a mass arrest of Trump officials:
“all of the people in the Trump Administration who participated in defying that order by Judge Boasberg themselves could be arrested for interfering with a legal proceeding and perhaps other criminal charges like kidnapping.”
It was another fevered Democratic dream, imagining lines of Trump officials being frog-marched to the federal penitentiary as kidnappers.
This is not the first time that the left has claimed that officials have kidnapped undocumented persons. After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent undocumented immigrants to California (after Gov. Gavin Newsom invited them to come to the state), Newsom and Attorney General Ron Bonta claimed that the trip constituted “State-sanctioned kidnapping.”
Other Democratic leaders and legal experts repeated the earlier claim. As is often the case, sites from MSNBC to NPR then gave fawning attention to the claims despite knowing that they are legally absurd. The breaking news angle is then forgotten for the next media jump scare.
The same is true for the widespread claims of experts that Trump could be charged with incitement due to his speech on Jan. 6th. Despite some of us noting that the speech was clearly protected under the First Amendment, the press portrayed such a charge as credible and heaped coverage on District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine who announced that he was considering arresting Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and charging them with incitement. So what happened to that prosecution?
Racine’s failure to charge Trump was not due to any affection or loyalty to the former president. It was due to the utter lack of legal and factual foundation.
Under 18 U.S.C. 1201,
“whoever unlawfully seizes, confines, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward any person, or when the person is willfully transported in interstate or foreign commerce across a state boundary is guilty of kidnapping and shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years or life and, if the death results, by death or life imprisonment.”
In this case, federal employees were acting under a claim of executive authority and a little-used federal statute. It is true that there was an order during the flight to return to the United States. However, the Administration has made a series of arguments as to why the Boasberg order was not carried out. Notably, other deportations were halted after additional court orders. There is no evidence of the specific intent to kidnap in this case.
Moreover, as to the alleged failure to “facilitate” his return, the decision of the Supreme Court is hopelessly vague and unclear on what that term means. Since most of us do not know what the term means, it would hardly be a credible basis for a criminal, let alone a kidnapping, charge.
There is also an interesting wrinkle under 18 USC 1201, which contains a 24-hour rule:
“With respect to subsection (a)(1), above, the failure to release the victim within twenty-four hours after he shall have been unlawfully seized, confined, inveigled, decoyed, kidnapped, abducted, or carried away shall create a rebuttable presumption that such person has been transported in interstate or foreign commerce. “
This would not be dispositive but shows the relatively short period of time for the order and flight. Within 24 hours of the court order, Garcia and others were released into the custody of the El Salvadorian government.
In Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court recently held:
“we conclude that the separation of powers principles explicated in our precedent necessitate at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility. Such an immunity is required to safeguard the independence and effective functioning of the Executive Branch, and to enable the President to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution. Indeed, if presumptive protection for the President is necessary to enable the ‘effective discharge’ of his powers when a prosecutor merely seeks evidence of his official papers and communications, id., at 711, it is certainly necessary when the prosecutor seeks to charge, try, and imprison the President himself for his official actions. At a minimum, the President must therefore be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.'”
As for other federal officials, they have clear immunity for carrying out discretionary duties. Of course, a violation of a court order is not within that discretion. However, they were carrying out this order under the advice of the Justice Department under highly novel circumstances. This was a plane in international airspace and the Justice Department did not believe that it required the aircraft’s return. I disagree with that view, though we have not seen the entire record of what occurred. However, it would not constitute kidnapping even if the legal opinion of the Justice Department were rejected by the courts.
Notably, these individuals were arguably subject to being detained and held. It was the continued deportation after the issuance of the court order that was the primary conflict. The Administration still argues that it has this authority under federal laws and Article II of the Constitution. They can be wrong without converting that error into a federal crime.
Even civil actions alleging kidnapping have done poorly in the courts, as in El Masri v. Tenet. Khalid El Masri was kidnapped by the CIA and renditioned to a foreign prison where he was tortured. It was a horrific case that many of us condemned. Yet, the district court dismissed the lawsuit after the administration invoked the state secrets privilege. The United States Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Most courts would not seriously consider such a charge. Presumably, anyone assisting in these flights would be participants in the alleged mass kidnapping.
Taken to its full possible application, Raskin’s argument could produce an outcome where hundreds of alleged gang members and terrorists (according to the earlier presidential finding) would be freed from the El Salvadorian jail and brought back to the country while dozens of federal law enforcement officials could be sent to prison.
Raskin’s insistence that officials could be criminally charged with kidnapping is also curious given his silence on President Barack Obama actually killing an American citizen without a criminal charge, let alone a trial.
Of course, Judge Boasberg is considering the possible criminal contempt of officials for violating his orders. However, even that lesser offense seems doubtful. He would likely have to appoint a private lawyer to prosecute such a case, raising serious constitutional questions in the usurping of Article II authority.
“I HAVE, HOWEVER, BEEN PREPARED TO MEET THIS USURPATION OF FEDERAL POWER WITH THE MOST PROMPT AND DETERMINED RESISTANCE.”
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“On November 6, Lumpkin delivered his annual message to the Georgia state legislature, announcing he would continue to resist the Supreme Court’s decision:
‘The Supreme Court of the United States . . . have, by their decision, attempted to overthrow the essential jurisdiction of the State, in criminal cases . . . I have, however, been prepared to meet this usurpation of Federal power with the most prompt and determined resistance.'”[21][18]
– Governor Wilson Lumpkin, 1832
“Executive Enforcement of Judicial Orders”
“The mayor of Little Rock sent a telegram to the White House asking for assistance. Eisenhower was reluctant to intervene, believing that education was a state and local matter, and that enforcing desegregation by force might only lead to more violence against civil rights advocates. Nevertheless, the president realized that if he did not act, the mandate of the Supreme Court’s Brown decision and the Arkansas federal court’s desegregation order would be of no effect in Little Rock, threatening the supremacy of federal law. At the urging of Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Eisenhower issued a statement proclaiming, ‘The Federal law and orders of a United States District Court implementing that law cannot be flouted with impunity by an individual or any mob of extremists,” and promising to use ‘whatever force may be necessary’ to enforce the law.
“The president then ordered the 101st Airborne Division, made famous by their heroic exploits in World War II, to Little Rock. Eisenhower did so under the authority of two federal statutes. One, which had existed in various forms since 1795, allowed the domestic use of military force when, in the president’s judgment, defiance of federal authority made it “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” The other, stemming from the Civil Rights Act of 1871—an anti-Ku Klux Klan measure—applied when resistance to the law deprived a class of people of constitutional rights which the state was unwilling or unable to protect. Acting at Eisenhower’s behest, the troops held back the crowd and escorted the Little Rock Nine into the school, ending the standoff.”
– Federal Judicial Center
Eisenhower used the military to deport illegal Mexicans in “Operation Wetback,” 1954.
Eisenhower used the military to force “integration” in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957.
The idiot Democrats argue from the same weak and wrong basis as the court. Otherwise they’d need to have overturned laws allowing horrors such as Japanese detention camps, prison slavery, and the dastardly Patriot Act with its unconstitutionally increased presidential powers. But no, they are so fearful of torches and pitchforks, not to mention guillotines, that they are comforted by the obliteration of civil rights that date back 800 years to the Magna Carta, the foundation of our own constitution, that thankfully I learned about in grammar school.
Watching ignorant morons cheering on the stripping away of due process is a nightmare, but not entirely unpredictable. An angry, demoralized and disempowered society will happily bend over and kiss the ring of a Strong Man all the way to their firing squad.
John Roberts and the Supreme Court can’t even grasp the definitions of the phrases, “…Congress shall have Power To…collect Taxes…[for]…Debts…Defence and general Welfare,” “shall not be infringed” and “private property.”
John Roberts and the Supreme Court believe they have the power not merely to ensure that actions comport with law but to amend the Constitution at every whim and turn.
John Roberts and the Supreme Court arbitrarily and illicitly perpetrate an unconstitutional and egregious de defacto Juristocracy.
The federal judiciary is forcing national suicide by adhering to the Obama Doctrine, which states
1. I am entitled to ignore any law with which I disagree. and
2. Pen and Phone. I have the right to invent any law I choose.
The Obama Doctrine has never been challenged in federal court because by doing so you will be found in contempt.
If one concurs with the only formal definition of “natural born citizen” in the Treatise of Vattel, The Law of Nations, 1758, Obama was not eligible for the office of President of the United States.
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“I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly, that copy which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the college of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed, has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author.”
– Ben Franklin Letter to Charles Dumas, December 9, 1775, Continental Congress
Raskin is an irredeemable neo Marxist American hating progressive. Just like his father, a stooge for the Soviet Union. I wish Trump could deport him to Gaza. Better yet let him follow his son’s footsteps and self eliminate his carbon footprint
Turley says The MS-13 terrorist shoiud be returned ” To what I believe would be an inevitable deportation”.
Wrong. A federal judge already ordered his deportation, but Bolshevik federal judges will not allow any deportations. The judiciary is forcing national suicide.
Well, yes, there wasn’t much to work with. Get some firewood and plant a garden if you can. Look at all the homeless in tents. Live next to a river with a bunch of mosquito repellant and quinine for malaria.
Have a bunch of kids…
I put Raskin’s statement in the same category as “Their gonna take yawls Social Security” and “They’re gonna to put yawl back in chains.” Pappy Raskin gonna make sure the don’t touch your draw yawl. Raskin knows that the left always goes for it hook line and sinker like a bunch of hungry catfish. Pappy Raskin ain’t no fool. He always sticks to the tried and true that always brings the no book learnin voter to the pooling place cause them there Republicans gonna take away grandma’s favorite pudin, poor thing. Politicianin at its very best.
Did you put blackface on to write this, TIT?
White Democrats in the south talked just like my depiction. They weren’t wearing black face when they did it. Let me sight Robert Bird and George Wallace to name a few. Another dumb comment to add to the many.
I don’t really care about happened before the major party switch in allegiance in the early sixties when pointing out your racism in the present moment.
Did the communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) put on whiteface when they created the racist, pro-Black, anti-white/anti-American, “free stuff,” “free status,” financial public assistance, affirmative action, forced busing, and redistributionist welfare state 65 years ago?
You can’t give it to illegal aliens if you don’t first take it from Americans.
Surrender all your belongings to the nearest tribe your ancestors stole it from then.
Anonymous, it was Joe Biden who said “They’re gonna put yawl back in chains.” He wasn’t wearing black face when he said it.
“John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it”
– President Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
“Jamie Raskin has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”
– President Donald J. Trump
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IFIFY
This is the worst post Turley has ever written. Things are getting bad fast. We have already seen US citizens deportees. They are coming after judges. It won’t be long before everyday citizens are at risk.
Official immunity for criminal acts is not a concept in our codified legal system.
Trump has zero power over state laws and how they are prosecuted. If federal officials are violating state criminal law, the states needs the ability to protect their own citizens. It is the last legal method left.
Taking away all legal methods to protect citizens will lead to an even worse situation, for everyone.
Just like Franke to defend a guy who beat his wife twice. The word beat is too benign a word. A better phrase would be he punched her in the face with a five inch set of bloody knuckles on more than one occasion. Somehow Franke thinks that such a man should be left at large to continue to do his deeds against those who are unable to defend themselves. Nice move Franke. We hear you loud and clear. Amorality fervently argued. Thanks for your post.
What you claim I wrote, and what I wrote are two completely different things.
Franke, you are specifically calling for the transportation of a man who has been convicted of beating punching his wife in the face back to The United States after the court ordered his deportation. Try as you might you can’t dance around it. You said what you said. Disavowing it now just ain’t gonna cut it.
Where did I write that? That is not even part of this overall post.
Next, these leftist are going to try and convince us that these millions of illegal aliens were partof the underground railroad. Independent Bob.
No citizen has been deported. Judges are being arrested for breaking the law. No one has ever claimed there is immunity for criminal acts.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Three strikes you are out.
What citizen?
Are you drunk?
You know federal law takes precedence over state laws.
Not an issue in this case because there are no federal laws that conflict with state laws. An ICE agent kidnapping someone in violation of federal law and state law can be charged under state law.
No. Federal immigration law takes precedence over state laws. He was in the Country illegally. In fact, he had been deported and returned. ICE had an administrative warrant to arrest him for deportation. ICE didn’t kidnap him, that’s a lie. Why would you post such an obvious lie?
Since you’re so knowledgeable, I’m sure you know that ICE doesn’t need a judicial warrant to arrest illegal aliens in public. They weren’t in the courtroom they were waiting in the hall, as they are allowed to do.
My point is not specific to now. It is about the future, when ICE or other government thugs kidnaps US citizens without a warrant, or other crimes.
Next time, try to make your ridiculous points about future acts that won’t happen more clear.
We are already seeing these criminal acts on a small scale. Let’s also remember the criminal acts that I am worried about are strongly supported by the MAGA fascists.
Post these criminal acts. You still haven’t replied to my question about what citizen was deported.
Either you don’t know what fascism means or you live in an alternate reality.
You like to use big words, but you don’t know what the word fascism means. Every post of yours demonstrates severe ignorance. My youngest grandchild would never make your type of mistakes. She is nine years old. Did you graduate from elementary school? You might sound many points higher on the IQ scale if never opened your mouth.
Go read “On Tyranny” and come back to us.
Franke, you’ve built your entire argument on appeals to authority. It’s the same habit you likely had as a child, running to your mother for help in the sandbox, and one you’ve simply upgraded by deferring to anyone with a degree. Appealing to authority is acceptable, if you can actually discuss and defend the ideas yourself. Based on your posts across these blogs, it’s clear you can’t. Forget about discussion. You belong back in the sandbox.
Did you fail to learn that once a kidnapping crosses state lines it is a federal case?
Franke, you have several straw men hanging around your house. Name the “US citizen deportees”
Who is “coming after judges?” How? You mean judges who harbor illegal alien predators?
“federal officials are violating state criminal law” How so? Specifics, please
If you want to criticize me for a logical fallacy, at least use the correct on. What I am saying is much closer to “slippery slope” than “straw man”. But I am still right.
You have never been right about anything.
We know one thing for sure. Lakin Riley was kidnapped and tortured to death. Raskin voted against the Laken Riley Act that codified the punishment for crimes committed by ILLEGAL Aliens. Hey Raskin, say her name.
There is a general rule that any law named after a victim is a badly law. They tend to be reactionary and repetitive.
Laken Riley Act It mandates the detention of certain undocumented immigrants who are arrested or charged with specific crimes, including theft-related offenses, assaulting a law enforcement officer, or crimes resulting in death or serious bodily injury.
It bothers you that a death lead to a law meant to prevent further deaths. How does one develop such ignorance? Post after post demonstrates a dumb and lazy person.
S. Meyer,
Franke is a a prime example of non-thinking, parroting what MSM tells him what to think. As we have seen when posed with the question of what US citizen was deported, he cannot and will not answer. When pointing out a judge assisted an illegal who was wanted by the federal authorities and that judge broke the law, he just pretends it is fascists action by the government.
Right you are, Upstate. Polly parrots everything he has been fed: predigested and handpicked.
That is the dumbest thing you have ever commented on. But I have no doubt you will make even dumber comments.
These purveyors of the Deep State that are claiming the charges of kidnapping are the ones whom should be standing trial.
For the kidnapping of the American Minds into a Militarilian Sect of Authoritarian Rules (Brainwashing the Republic).
They are the front of the Coup that is stealing away the original intent of our Constitution.
PLEASE DO NOT GIVE THIS MAN ANY WEAPONS…………….he is totally impaired…………..
When I hear language like Raskin’s, I’m more and more convinced that all future Presidents should pardon themselves, and probably, their entire Cabinet, if only for contingency. For one thing, the Democrats have developed a taste for lawfare, i.e. they like it. Republicans may catch on soon.
We have entered a “Jurassic period” in politics, where hate rules the earth.
Apparently Judge Boasberg needs some CLE reminding him that he is only a District Judge. If this isn’t the tail wagging the dog, I don’t know what is. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article. Please keep them coming. Greg
IIRC Raskin is a lawyer.
He should be disbarred as well as censure over his comments.
I want to arrest the Judges who did NOTHING TO STOP the Invasion, along with all the Democrats who helped to do the INVASION!
and I am not kidding!
The invasion began on January 1, 1863, when an indignant and inimical 4-million-man standing army was illicitly and unconstitutionally installed on U.S. soil.
At that time, constitutional immigration law admitted only “…any Alien being a free white person…” to become citizens, which required deportation and compassionate repatriation, that law being the Naturalization Act of 1802, which was in full force and effect.
Lincoln was a criminal from start to finish.
What you speak of was and is a concerted effort qualifying as RICO. It’s actual treason. There’s just not anyone who can wrap it up with a bow on top. The legal eagles have been disappeared (sic).
So it is.
Personal note, I always look at it through God’s eyes. Store your treasures in the heavens.
Raskin has either totally lost his mind or he’s so thick in the middle of all these wrongdoings and trying to cover his tracks that he just spits out anything he can to make the Republicans look like the bed culprits in everything. Unfortunately he accuses everyone else of doing the Dirty Deeds that he does along with his party. So either he’s lost his mind or he’s really covering up some bad things
He had brain brain cancer…he gets a pass. One expects malfunction.
In the Boasberg case, Trump makes four principal arguments:
1. The oral statement in court was not an enforceable order because it was not in writing;
2. The enforceable written order made no reference to returning flights already out of US territory, prohibiting only removal;
3. There is at least ambiguity as to whether “removal” means removal from US territory or US custody, so there is an insufficient basis for finding contempt; and
4. Appointment of a private attorney to conduct a contempt investigation into the executive branch violates the separation of powers.
In the Garcia case, Trump argues that “facilitate” as used in the Supreme Court order is a term of art requiring only the removal of US barriers to entry when an alien presents himself. Moreover, it argues that it would be an encroachment on his Article II powers for a court to order him to engage in any particular diplomatic conduct, and the Supreme Court’s order required deference to this.
Another product of Harvard. This is another reason for complete defunding. My tax dollars should not be going to an institution bent on destroying America
The democrats put the blacks right back on the plantation carrying water for them. How very nice.
>Sigh< How about we send these Democratic mentally impaired Congressman to El Salvador so they can be with these poor "kidnapped" souls…?