A legal expert was taken aback on Monday by reporting that revealed how Trump administration insiders pushed back on an extreme attempt to suspend habeas corpus.
Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor, argued in a new Substack essay that new reporting from Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times about an administration lawyer named Will Scharf who drafted a confidential memo outlining reasons why suspending habeas corpus would be problematic provides "detailed support for understanding this administration as a threat to democratic ideals."
"What follows is an outrageous attempt, even though it ultimately failed, at least for now, to shatter firmly established constitutional rights and protections," Vance wrote.
On Monday, the NYT published a report about Scharf's memo to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, warning that Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's attempt to suspend habeas corpus to speed up the Trump administration's deportation scheme would raise significant constitutional issues
Vance explained in the essay that habeas corpus "prevents government from locking people up indefinitely without sufficient reason."
"It’s a foundational protection against 'disappearing people.' Habeas is the heart of due process," she wrote.
"And it is the law—something this administration and this president have shown casual disregard for at times, frequently with impunity, so the fact that this instance drew high-level concern signifies how truly shocking the ideas were."