Raw Story

The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board laid into the Trump administration again Monday night as it actively fights against efforts to return a wrongfully deported man from a notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison to the United States.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland was mistakenly sent to a mega-prison last month, and the Trump administration acknowledged his deportation was due to an "administrative error."

Garcia was deported on March 15, even though an immigration judge in 2019 barred his removal due to risks of persecution and torture by gangs. But the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1789 to mass deport alleged gang members, including Garcia, even though no evidence has emerged tying him to criminal activities.

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The administration has said Garcia is no longer under the United States' jurisdiction since he is detained by Salvadoran authorities.

And the Journal editors weren't having it, writing that the Trump Administration is fighting to "keep a man falsely expelled in a Salvadoran hellhole."

"The Trump Administration’s never-back-down style is becoming a governance problem with overtones of cruelty," the editorial said.

The administration said in its filing that the Constitution "charges the President, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the Nation against foreign terrorists." Solicitor General John Sauer, meanwhile, said the judge's ruling dictated to the U.S. “that it must not only negotiate with a foreign country to return an enemy alien on foreign soil, but also succeed by 11:59 p.m. tonight." That could, said Sauer, set a terrible precedent of “district court diplomacy.”

"Not quite," the Journal retorted, pointing to another judge's rationale for denying the Trump administration's demand for a pause, which noted the facts of the case "present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely that the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done.”

That, the judge said, is a path to “perfect lawlessness.”

"The Trump Administration hates to admit an error, but its obstinance here serves no purpose. Mistakes happen. Why not ask the Salvadoran government to send Mr. Abrego Garcia back to unite with his family?" the Journal concluded.

If President Donald Trump truly wants U.S. District Judge James Boasberg off the bench, he risks upsetting a pillar of the judicial establishment — particularly the conservative one.

The New York Times reported Monday on the extensive ties between Judge Boasberg and Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was Trump's second appointment to the nation's highest court during his first term. Both men are graduates of Yale University's law school, and both are deeply respected by longtime conservative voices in the legal world. 17 of Boasberg's former clerks have gone on to work for the Supreme Court, and five of those clerks worked for Republican-appointed justices. Boasberg and Kavanaugh were also roommates at 61 Lake Place in New Haven, Connecticut.

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Trump has called for Boasberg's ouster after he ruled against him regarding the deportation of a Maryland resident to El Salvador, and Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) has already authored articles of impeachment against the judge first appointed to the Washington D.C. Superior Court by George W. Bush and elevated by Barack Obama. That man — Kilmar Abrego Garcia — had a court order in his favor specifically prohibiting him from being deported to El Salvador due to likely persecution from the current regime.

Tim Fitton, who is president of the conservative Judicial Watch organization, told the Times that Boasberg is a "personable" jurist who is "excellent on the bench."

"Some may view his opinions as conservative, and others may view them as liberal, but they’re all faithful applications of the law to the case before him," said former judge David Tatel, who was appointed to the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by former President Bill Clinton.

Even stalwart Trump ally Mike Davis of the conservative Article III Project admitted that Boasberg — who he derisively referred to as a "political actor," has well-connected "buddies" in high places. Davis told the Times that he was "way out over his skis" in ruling against Trump, and that it was an open question about whether his friends would "protect him."

In addition to the deportation case, Boasberg is also presiding over another Trump-related case later this month. The veteran judge will be overseeing the case brought against several top national security officials within the Trump administration regarding their use of the Signal messaging app to discuss highly sensitive attack plans in Yemen last month.

Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).

As President Donald Trump moves ahead with his plan to impose sweeping tariffs on imported goods from the rest of the world, one typically vocal pro-Trump figure has remained largely absent from the cheerleading — tech billionaire Elon Musk, who, according to The Washington Post, has fruitlessly tried to lobby Trump against his scheme.

Musk, the de facto leader of the Department of Government Efficiency task force, has enthusiastically moved to lay off huge swathes of the civil service and suspend government agencies and programs across the board — but he and his businesses stand to lose billions from a shutdown of world trade.

"The attempted intervention, confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks, has not brought success so far; Trump threatened Monday to add new 50 percent tariffs on imports from China to go along with the 34 percent taxes he announced last week," reported Elizabeth Dwoskin, Faiz Siddiqui, Pranshu Verma, and Trisha Thadani. And insofar as Musk has spoken publicly about this matter at all, noted the report, he "posted a video to X in which the late conservative economist Milton Friedman touted the benefits of international trade cooperation — 'the impersonal operation of prices,' as he put it — breaking down the sources of the materials that go into a simple wooden pencil."

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"Musk’s break with Trump over a signature administration priority marks the most high-profile disagreement between the president and one of his key advisers, who poured nearly $290 million into backing him and other Republicans in last year’s elections and has been leading the U.S. DOGE Service’s cost-cutting efforts since January," noted the report. "Musk has also disagreed with other members of Trump’s coalition on issues such as H1-B visas for skilled immigrants and on DOGE’s approach to government spending," which led to a brief revolt against Musk by some longtime MAGA activists.

Trump's tariff plan imposes 10 to 49 percent import duties on goods from around the globe, including on uninhabited Antarctic islands that were singled out despite not having any trade or even people. The move has sent stocks into freefall and has economists concerned that America could slip into a recession within the year.

Meanwhile, Musk is more publicly taking aim at White House officials who are bolstering Trump's trade policies, said the report.

"Musk took aim at the administration official who has been key to developing the tariff plans, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, lighting into his credentials. 'A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,' Musk wrote."

If Putin wanted to kill America, how would he best do it? Exactly like this:

— Install a puppet or ally inside the government; as Lincoln foresaw, a tyrant doesn’t need to invade. He just needs to rise from within. Trump has repeatedly echoed Kremlin talking points, undermined NATO, attacked Ukraine, praised autocrats, and created chaos at home. If Putin picked a candidate, it would be Trump — and the intelligence community has confirmed Russian efforts to help him win in both 2016 and 2020.

— Dismantle American institutions from the inside; Putin’s best move would be to encourage the erosion of U.S. government capacity: devalue science, underfund law enforcement, defund agencies, destroy trust in elections, and sabotage public health. All are happening as you read these words.

— Stoke internal division; a divided America is a weak America. Putin’s cyber and propaganda ops have long stoked racial hatred, anti-government sentiment, anti-vax ideology, and far-right extremism. Trump accelerates all of it. Musk’s X (Twitter) has become a vector for disinformation, propaganda, and fascist apologia.

— Weaken U.S. alliances around the world; Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull out of NATO, praised Putin’s invasions, and undermined Western alliances. Now he is threatening our allies with the possibility of invasion. This is textbook Kremlin strategy — divide the West, and conquer its influence.

Whether Trump and Musk are taking direct instructions from Putin or simply operating in ideological lockstep is a question of degree, not direction. The destruction they are today inflicting on America is strategic, not accidental; coordinated, not chaotic; and oligarchic, not populist.

And whether Trump and Musk are doing it on Putin’s instructions, acting out the Dark Enlightenment vision of a CEO America, or simply trying to wipe out any institutions that might challenge their exercise of raw power, that’s exactly what’s happening right now. The outcome is the same: the deliberate disempowerment of the American people and the dismantling of a liberal democratic order that has stood for 240 years.

These two men and their enablers in the Trump regime are quite literally taking apart our American government while, at the same time, doing away with our protections against wealthy predators and destroying our international alliances.

The Founders had this noble idea that, as I detail in The Hidden History of American Democracy, they’d largely borrowed from the Iroquois Confederacy and other northeastern tribes: people can govern themselves when power-hungry psychopaths are kept in check.

It animated George Washington when he wrote:

“As mankind become more liberal, they will be more apt to allow, that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community, are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality.”

And Abraham Lincoln, who rescued our nation from the fascist Confederate oligarchs who’d taken over the South and then dared try to bring down our democracy through warfare:

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”

And here we are. So far, Trump and Musk have or are in the process of:

— Gutting the IRS so badly that the country will lose an estimated $500 billion to morbidly rich tax cheats
— Killing off the EPA, so polluters can run free and profit from giving us cancer
— Disbanded the Public Integrity Section that once prosecuted corrupt politicians
— Shut down the DOJ unit that was prosecuting violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
— Moved the ATF under Kash Patel’s overview with the goal of neutering it
— Crippling the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) that stops big banks and insurance companies from ripping off average people
— Taking a hatchet to NASA, presumably to hand more power and money to SpaceX
— Dismantling the Department of Education to create more demand for private for-profit schools
— Paralyzing the Department of Health and Human Services that protects us from disease and pandemics
— Mutilating the National Labor Relations Board that protects workers’ rights
— Proclaiming their intention to end FEMA, so Americans are on their own when climate-change-driven disasters strike
— Tearing apart the Social Security Administration so seniors will have to rely on big banks for retirement options
— Demolishing the National Institutes of Health that develops new drugs and cures for disease
— Seizing control of the FCC so they can end net neutrality and dictate content of radio and TV programming
— Stripping NOAA of its workers so we’ll have to rely on for-profit companies for our weather reports and storm warnings
— Kneecapping the Department of Transportation to block new public transportation projects and deregulate big trucking companies and self-driving cars
— Ripping up the Department of Energy so it can’t fund any more “green” energy projects
— Wiping out the Department of Housing and Urban Development to prevent any new low-income housing projects
— Attacking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to leave Americans defenseless
— Largely ending the ability of the Office of Civil Rights within the DOE to enforce anti-discrimination laws in education
— Defunded the National Institute of Justice that works against terrorism and far-right extremism
— Eviscerating the Department of Veterans Affairs and other programs that help our veterans (including shutting down the suicide prevention hotlines)
— Defunding the Department of Agriculture to gut food stamps/SNAP, school lunch programs, and supports for small family farms
— Paralyzing the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) that oversees the executive branch to make sure anti-terrorism efforts don’t violate civil rights
— Weakening the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) so it can’t do its job of protecting minority or disabled workers and job applicants
— Firing scientists at the FDA, gutting oversight of drug manufacturers.

And that’s just a partial “so far” list.

Meanwhile, Trump is snatching students off the streets and transporting them to a brutal private for-profit prison in Louisiana with no due process whatsoever in clear defiance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; proposing changes to voting laws that will prevent tens of millions of married women from casting a ballot; and threatening to seize foreign, sovereign lands by force.

There are several factions at work here.

— First, there’s Trump himself, who’s so filled with hate against the government that once threatened to imprison him for his crimes that he’s more than happy to hand a meataxe to anybody who’ll make government workers squeal in pain.

— Next come Musk and the so-called PayPal Mafia of German, South African and homegrown billionaires who think women should not be allowed to vote, capitalism and democracy are incompatible with each other, and appear to have fantasies of ruling over a whites-only ethnonationalist state run like a corporation.

— And finally, there are the old fashioned rightwing billionaires who simply don’t want to pay their fair share in taxes or have their companies regulated; these are the guys who, for over 50 years, have been following the Powell Memo to build the infrastructure — media, legal, lobbying, think tanks, etc. — that has made all this possible today.

Americans are starting to wake up to the damage these men (the ones driving the process are all white men) are doing and this weekend millions of protestors will show up in the streets of every city in America to make their discomfort and anger known.

It’s a beginning. If public opinion becomes too strong to ignore, it’s possible some Republicans will decide that protecting our republic is more important than fearing a primary challenge funded by the richest man in the world; that could stop much of what Trump’s doing dead in its tracks.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that such demonstrations could provoke Trump to fulfill his previous threats to follow the examples of Putin, Lukashenko, and Erdoğan and declare a state of insurrection, mobilizing the military against the citizens of America.

At that point, all bets are off and the window to save American democracy will have shrunk to a matter of weeks or months.

Whether Putin is running this show — as those who point to his reportedly regular phone conversations with Trump and Musk argue — or it’s a homegrown effort to cripple our nation is almost irrelevant; the reality is that they’re well down the road in a way that may be irreparable, at least within a generation or more.

As my old friend Rob Kall points out over at OpEdNews.com, institutional knowledge is a critical resource for both companies and governments, and these mass firings are ripping it out of our nation’s systems of governance leaving a hole that will take decades to re-fill.

Thus, with Congress neutered and the courts half-paralyzed and moving slowly, it falls to us to stop this anti-American destruction spree. And that will require massive public expressions of outrage, demands for action, and relentless pressure on our politicians.

The key to mobilizing public pressure is to make clear to Americans exactly what Trump and Musk are really up to. To help people understand that this regime’s real agenda — which they are ruthlessly executing right in front of us — is to destroy the United States of America as it was and turn our country into something much more like Hungary or Russia.

And, to the extent that our corporate media is too timid or too bought-off to raise the alarm, that work falls to us, to me and you.

Tag, we’re it. Pass it along.

NOW READ: Enough with the gaslighting

Democrats are investigating if Elon Musk' SpaceX is benefiting from his position at DOGE.

Axios exclusively reported Monday that Reps Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA) wrote to NASA's Chief Legal Officer, Iris Lan, about how NASA is ensuring Musk isn't exploiting the agency to enrich himself.

The letter comes after the Washington Post reported last month that Musk and his companies received $38 Billion in government contracts, loans and subsidies, with $15 billion being paid to SpaceX by NASA.

SpaceX declined to comment to the Washington Post and Axios.

The Congress members are asking NASA to outline steps being taken to prevent Musk from accessing crucial information which could give the billionaire an advantage.

Since President Trump took office SpaceX is slated to receive $525 Million in funding — despite numerous safety violations from the Federal Aviation Authority.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration made an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to strike down a lower court’s order that immigration officials return a Maryland man erroneously deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that, despite an error in deporting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, the lower court does not have the jurisdiction to order the Trump administration to return someone who the administration argues is no longer in U.S. custody.

The appeal to the high court came within minutes of an appeals court panel unanimously upholding the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who set a deadline of midnight Monday for the administration to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

Despite being granted legal protection from deportation by a judge in 2019, immigration officials detained Abrego Garcia and sent him on a March 15 deportation flight to El Salvador, where he was incarcerated at the notorious prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

‘The government screwed up’

A panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was a major misstep.

“The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process,” two judges on the panel, Robert B. King and Stephanie D. Thacker, wrote.

King was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and Thacker was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

“The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable,” they wrote.

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his option that “[t]here is no question that the government screwed up here.”

He noted that President Donald Trump’s administration has not made an effort to rectify its mistake.

“The facts of this case thus present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely that the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done. It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone,” Wilkinson said.

Order to return

On Friday, Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia.

The Department of Justice quickly appealed the decision and Xinis issued a scathing 22-page order Sunday that cited records and official statements from Trump officials saying the administration has the power to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

“Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT,” she wrote. “That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador—let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”

Abrego Garcia was on one of three deportation flights to CECOT on March 15. Two flights contained 238 Venezuelans who were deported under a wartime law that is currently being challenged in another court case.

Xinis slammed the Trump administration for arguing that she had no jurisdiction to order Abrego Garcia’s return.

“For the following reasons, their jurisdictional arguments fail as a matter of law,” she said. “Further, to avoid clear irreparable harm, and because equity and justice compels it, the Court grants the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.”

She noted that the two countries have an agreement to house more than 250 deported men at CECOT.

The U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men at the prison. Trump is scheduled to meet with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14.

In response to the district court’s order to return Abrego Garcia, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted a GIF of a confused cartoon bunny on social media.

Attorney placed on leave

The Department of Justice attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, was placed on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a Fox News interview Sunday that Reuveni was placed on leave because he did not “vigorously” defend the administration.

Reuveni, a veteran government attorney, has argued for the DOJ over the course of four administrations.

During Friday’s hearing he was candid that the Trump administration had provided him little information on why Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the U.S. and that “the government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”