All posts tagged "constitution"

This Trump offensive threatens the Constitution itself

By Yohuru Williams, Professor of History, University of St. Thomas and Michael J. Lansing, Professor of History, Augsburg University.

Forcibly entering homes without a judicial warrant. Arresting journalists who reported on protests. Defying dozens of federal orders. Killing U.S. citizens for noncompliance. Asking constitutionally protected observers this chilling question: “Have you not learned?”

This is daily life in Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge, ostensibly an immigration enforcement initiative, has become something more consequential: a constitutional stress test. Can constitutional protections withstand the actions of a federal government seemingly intent on aggressively violating the rule of law?

In Minneapolis, a city still reckoning with its own grim history of policing, the federal operation raises fundamental questions about law enforcement and the limits of executive power.

Legal scholars and civil rights advocates are especially worried about ongoing violations of the First, Second, Fourth and 10th amendments, as are other observers, including historians like us.

Catalog of violations

First Amendment concerns stem from reports that agents from ICE — described by some scholars as a paramilitary force — and the Border Patrol have deployed excessive force as well as advanced surveillance methods on suspects, observers and journalists. When enforcement activity impedes the rights to assemble, document and criticize government action, that chills those rights, and the consequences extend beyond any single demonstration. These rights are not peripheral to democracy. They are central to it.

Second Amendment issues erupted following the fatal shooting of a legally armed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Highly placed administration officials claimed Americans could not bring firearms to protests, despite a long-standing interpretation that in most states, including Minnesota, a person who was legally permitted to carry a firearm could bring it to such events. The assertion was in fact contrary to the Trump administration’s support for gun rights.

Thanks to the videos flooding social media, Fourth Amendment concerns are the most familiar. Allegations include entering homes without warrants, stopping, intimidating and seizing legal observers, and detaining suspects by virtue of their appearance or accent. Those are clear violations of the Fourth Amendment’s safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures, which were adopted to prevent the exercise of arbitrary government power.

Finally, the 10th Amendment lies at the heart of Minnesota’s legal cases against the federal government.

One lawsuit contests the federal government’s refusal to allow the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Another challenges efforts to pressure local governments into assisting federal immigration enforcement. These disputes implicate federalism itself — the constitutional division of authority between states and the federal government that is the foundation of the American system.

The massive and rapid accumulation of these alleged constitutional violations – now working their way through the courts – in a single geographic locale is striking. So are the mass resignations from the state’s U.S. attorney’s office, which is responsible for representing the federal government in these cases.

And so is the deeper historical context.

A retreat from federal constitutional oversight

Starting in 1994, federal intervention became a powerful corrective whenever local police violated constitutional rights.

From Newark to New Orleans, federal oversight was not always welcomed, but it was frequently necessary to enforce equal protection and due process.

Federal oversight has been essential in enforcing civil rights when municipalities would not. Active monitoring of policing in those cities kept officers and administrators accountable and encouraged officers to follow constitutional standards. At its core, what experts call “constitutional policing” requires that government’s use of authority to ensure order be justified, limited and subject to oversight.

In that vein, after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman, the 2023 U.S. Department of Justice report on policing in Minneapolis identified questionable patterns and practices. Those problems included the “unreasonable” use of deadly force, racial profiling and retaliation against journalists. The Department of Justice’s proposed consent decree – grounded in constitutional policing – offered a way forward.

But in May 2025, the Department of Justice, under the leadership of President Donald Trump’s appointee Pam Bondi, withdrew the recommended agreement.

Seven months later, Operation Metro Surge deployed thousands of federal agents to Minnesota with a markedly different enforcement philosophy.

Indeed, the recent expansion of federal enforcement authority in Minnesota followed a retreat from federal constitutional oversight.

Taking the handcuffs off

A presidential executive order, signed by Trump in late April 2025 and titled “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens,” pledged to remove what were described as “handcuffs” on police.

Soon thereafter, the administration deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles amid immigration protests.

Though a federal judge later rejected the legal rationale for that deployment, in August 2025, the president sent National Guard forces to Washington, D.C., purportedly to reduce crime. In September 2025, Trump described American cities as potential “training grounds” for the military to confront what he called the “enemy from within.”

Each episode reflects an increasingly expansive view of executive branch authority.

Whether Operation Metro Surge ultimately withstands judicial scrutiny remains to be seen. Numerous lawsuits continue to wind their way through the courts.

But the broader question is already clear: When, in the name of security, the executive branch directly challenges so many Bill of Rights protections at once, how much strain can the American legal system absorb? Will basic constitutional rights survive this moment?

What is unfolding in Minnesota is not simply a local enforcement story. It is a test of whether the Constitution as we know it will survive.

Dems must demand this key condition before funding Trump's terror troops

What should Democrats be demanding as a condition of releasing permanent funds for the Department of Homeland Security?

Over the last few weeks I’ve discussed several important conditions:

agents must not undertake warrantless searches
use racial profiling
pick up suspected undocumented people from schools, hospitals, courts, or places of worship
or carry lethal weapons.

Today I want to add an increasingly important condition:

Failure to obey any court order will immediately terminate all funding for ICE or the Border Patrol.

Who can be against this? It turns out, many Republicans in Congress.

Apparently Republicans don’t want to tie ICE or Border Patrol’s hands with the pesky responsibility of following court orders.

Last week, Judge Patrick J. Schiltz — a Reagan appointee and top federal judge in Minnesota — accused ICE of violating nearly a hundred court orders in January alone.

He wrote: “ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this Court, but, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated,” adding that “ICE is not a law unto itself.”

Judge Schiltz issued an order on Jan. 14 that the government must give an immigrant a bond hearing or release him within seven days. Seven days passed without a hearing or release.

Judge Schiltz then took what he called the “extraordinary step” of ordering Todd Lyons, the acting head of ICE, to appear at a hearing on Jan. 23 to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt for violating the Jan. 14 order.

“The Court acknowledges that ordering the head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step, but the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed.”

Judge Schiltz said he would cancel the Friday hearing if the government released the man by then. The government released him. Schiltz canceled the hearing.

But threatening the acting head of ICE with contempt of court is a cumbersome way to get ICE to follow court orders. A threatened loss of funding for ICE and Border Patrol is necessary.

Meanwhile, during an immigration hearing on Tuesday, a Department of Homeland Security attorney said it was like “pulling teeth” to get the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the Justice Department to follow court orders.

“The system sucks. This job sucks. I wish you could hold me in contempt so that I could get 24 hours of sleep,” she said.

Democrats should inform congressional Republicans who are objecting to conditioning continued funding on obeying court orders that it’s part of the job (and constitutional responsibility) of every public official — whether an agent of ICE or Border Patrol, or a member of Congress.

While they’re at it, Democrats (and the rest of us) should make sure the public knows the extent to which ICE and Border Patrol agents have been violating court orders —and are still utterly lawless.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

This law is a death sentence for ICE agents — and Republicans love it

The Fourth Amendment protects you from tyranny. It protects you from government agents busting down your door without probable cause. It says you are secure in your home “against unreasonable searches and seizures,” which means no warrants shall issue without “probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation.”

The Fourth Amendment didn’t materialize in a vacuum, but was the pained outcome of a despotic King’s overreach that brutalized early American colonists. It sprang from British officials using “general warrants,” or “Writs of Assistance” they ginned up themselves to search and seize colonists and their property whenever they got the urge.

Such “writs” gave officials unfettered power to violate anyone in their crosshairs. Like Trump’s immigration enforcement raids, “Writs of Assistance” were ostensibly aimed at enforcing the law — today it’s immigration, then it was smuggling — but quickly morphed into government brutality.

Colonists grew enraged as they watched British officials ransack the homes and businesses of their neighbors searching for “smuggled goods without specific evidence.” Community outrage spread across state lines and eventually became the Bill of Rights. Over 250 years later, the Fourth Amendment requirement of a judge’s signed warrant of probable cause remains the lynchpin of our criminal justice system.

ICE thinks it can issue its own warrants

That 250-year-old requirement is apparently news to ICE. Last week, a whistleblower disclosed an internal Department of Homeland Security memo advising federal ICE agents that they have unlimited power to enter people’s homes — by force — without a judge’s signed warrant.

On Jan. 21, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent an internal ICE memo and whistleblower complaint to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. The memo authorizes ICE agents to rely only on administrative warrants, rather than judges’ warrants, to bust into peoples’ homes.

The whistleblower complaint does more than allege — it attaches a written memo dated May 12, 2025, signed by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, authorizing ICE agents to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant, consent, or an emergency. In Exhibit 1 attached to the complaint, Lyons directs ICE agents to use Form I-205, Warrants for Removal, in order to enter places of residence.

Form I-205 warrants are administrative warrants signed only by ICE officials, not judges.

The complaint also details the steps ICE has taken to hide the directive. Because it is blatantly illegal, DHS allows the memo to be read only in person; it was disseminated to select DHS officials who were directed to read it and return it to their supervisors. Newly hired ICE agents are also instructed to “disregard any written training material” that contradicts instructors’ verbal directives.

Surely White House Deputy Chief of Staff and anti-immigration zealot Stephen Miller knows his warrantless directives could trigger more violence under Stand your Ground laws.

Breaking down doors

The Framers liked to say “a man’s house is his castle.” A phrase that’s been around since the 17th century, the “castle doctrine” is a foundational pillar of both the Fourth Amendment and Stand Your Ground laws now in effect in over 31 states.

Such legislation varies by state, but overall, in cases of self-defense, such laws remove the legal duty to retreat before using force, including deadly force. In the 1980s, states enacted similar "Make My Day" laws to provide immunity from prosecution for individuals who use deadly force against someone who unlawfully enters their residence.

It comes as no surprise that Republicans in general, and the National Rifle Association in specific, were aggressive proponents of such laws. As long as the person invoking the defense is in a place they have a legal right to be, if someone busts into their home illegally and they reasonably feel their life is in danger, they may be able to shoot first and ask questions later.

Making ICE agents sitting ducks

How those laws will play out between ICE agents and immigrants with valid visas, green cards, or specific legal statuses — in other words, people who have the legal right to be in their homes, is not yet known. But just as it was only a matter of time before ill-trained ICE agents shot innocent people on the streets, it’s only a matter of time before frightened victims shoot first when masked agents with flash bangs bust into their homes.

At least one state attorney general has come under fire for suggesting that Stand Your Ground laws could apply in these situations. But now that the whole world has watched ICE murder people, and everyone knows that people in ICE custody are dying in record numbers, even Trump must understand that people will reasonably fear for their lives when masked agents bust down their door.

It’s clear Trump and Miller are setting us up for accelerating violence. Pitting warrantless ICE home entries against Stand Your Ground laws presents another unwanted question of law that will only be settled after someone else needlessly dies.

DHS is putting ICE agents squarely at risk by ordering them into homes without legal warrants. They surely know that people in Stand Your Ground homes will be triggered, and that, sooner or later, victims will start shooting. No one, except an authoritarian who thinks more violence will lead to more power, wants to see that.

DHS needs to rescind the memo immediately and revert to legally issued warrants to save its own officers’ lives.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Trump is trampling civil rights law but this movement is building to stop him

One of my most inspiring professors at Yale Law School when I went there in the early 1970s was Burke Marshall.

Before joining the faculty, Marshall had served as the Justice Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (the real Robert F. Kennedy). Marshall made the Civil Rights Division the crown jewel of the Justice Department, staffed with some of the most talented and dedicated lawyers in America.

At Yale, Marshall taught a class on civil rights. (Also in that class were Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham, who’d become Hillary Clinton, and Clarence Thomas, who’d become Clarence Thomas.)

I recall Marshall telling us how he had persuaded Kennedy and his brother, President John F. Kennedy, to enforce a federal court order requiring the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, the first Black student at Ole Miss.

When Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett blocked Meredith’s enrollment, Marshall urged the Kennedy brothers to dispatch a fleet of U.S. marshals, Border Patrol agents, and federalized National Guard troops, to Oxford, Mississippi, under the authority of the Insurrection Act of 1807. Violent riots erupted, resulting in two deaths and injuries to over 100 marshals, but on Oct. 1, 1962, Meredith was successfully enrolled.

Marshall thought the best way to protect the civil rights of Americans was not through the 14th Amendment, which would give states too many legal options to avoid extending civil rights to Black people. He urged instead that civil rights be premised on the federal government’s constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. This became the basis for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination in public facilities, government, housing, and employment.

II

About the same time Burke Marshall was teaching Bill, Hillary, Clarence, and me about civil rights, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the Trump Management company, its 27-year-old president, Donald, and its chairman, Donald’s father, Fred.

The department alleged that Trump Management quoted different rental terms and conditions to prospective tenants based on their race and made false “no vacancy” statements to Black people who were seeking to rent. According to documents filed in federal court, Trump employees had secretly marked the applications of Black people with codes, such as “C” for “colored.” They then directed Black people away from buildings with mostly white tenants and steered them toward properties with many Black tenants.

Representing the Trumps was Roy Cohn — a New York attorney known for ruthless bullying, profane braggadocio, opportunistic bigotry, and outright lies (remind you of anyone?). Cohn filed a countersuit against the government for $100 million, asserting that the Justice Department’s charges were “irresponsible and baseless.”

In 1975, Trump settled the charges out of court, asserting he was satisfied that the agreement did not “compel the Trump organization to accept persons on welfare as tenants unless as qualified as any other tenant.” Three years later, when the Trump Organization was in court for violating terms of the settlement, Cohn called the charges “nothing more than a rehash of complaints by a couple of planted malcontents.” Donald Trump denied the charges.

III

Today, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is headed by Harmeet Dhillon. Dhillon’s most noted effort to date has been accusing American universities of discriminating against white applicants and of abetting antisemitism by allowing their students to protest Israel’s rampage in Gaza.

But Dhillon’s Civil Rights Division has been conspicuously silent about the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, notwithstanding videos taken by bystanders showing both killings to be cold-blooded murders. It used to be that police killings routinely triggered some sort of federal investigation. No longer.

Dhillon hasn’t ignored the ICE protests entirely, however. She has pursued charges against journalist Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, for covering an ICE protest that moved into a church in St. Paul. Dhillon accuses Lemon of violating a federal law that prohibits the use of force or intimidation to prevent access to places of worship or reproductive health services.

In a post on social media, Dhillon told Lemon that he was “on notice” and that the First Amendment doesn’t protect his “pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service.” In a podcast interview with conservative influencer Benny Johnson, Dhillon elaborated:

“Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility. He went into the facility, and then he began — quote, unquote — ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy. It isn’t.”

The federal courts aren’t having any of this crap. A federal magistrate judge refused Dhillon’s request to issue charges against Lemon, the Justice Department appealed, and on Jan. 23 a federal appellate court declined to order the judge to sign arrest warrants for Lemon and his producer.

When Dhillon asked an appeals court to force Judge Patrick Schiltz, chief judge of the Minnesota federal district court (a Reagan appointee), to issue arrest warrants for Lemon and others who participated in the protest, Schiltz condemned the Justice Department for overheating the situation, calling its demands “frivolous.” He added that he had consulted with all his colleagues and chief judges in other states in the same circuit and that none could recall anything like the Department’s approach.

On Thursday night in Los Angeles, however, Lemon was arrested. He was due in court on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Department is obstructing any state or local investigation into the killings of Good and Pretti.

Let me be clear about what’s going on here. Instead of defending the civil rights of Americans, the Justice Department is covering up the murders of Americans by agents of the federal government — Americans who were exercising their constitutional rights.

In another perversion of the nation’s civil rights laws, Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi has asked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for access to the state’s voter rolls “to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law as authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Fulfilling this common sense request will better guarantee free and fair elections and boost confidence in the rule of law.”

Rubbish. Bondi’s move is part of the Trump regime’s attempt to get their hands on voter rolls across the country, to interfere with midterm voting.

Last month, a group of more than 200 former employees of the Justice Department signed an open letter decrying the “destruction” of the Civil Rights Division under Trump. The letter states that Trump has turned the division’s primary mission of defending civil rights “upside down,” and goes on to say:

“Every election brought changes, but the fundamental mission of our work remained the same. That’s why most of us planned to stay at the Division following the 2024 election. But after witnessing this Administration destroy much of our work, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave — along with hundreds of colleagues, including about 75 percent of attorneys. Now, we must sound the alarm about the near destruction of DOJ’s once-revered crown jewel.”

Trump, Dhillon, and Bondi do not believe in civil rights. They’ve treated efforts to address racial inequalities as forms of discrimination against white people.

Now, with the murders of Good and Pretti, they’ve gone a step further — treating the protests of Americans against the federal government’s attacks on civil rights, and even journalistic accounts of such protests, as dangerous forms of insurrection.

IV

What can be done? Some Democratic governors and state and local officials are trying to hold the federal government’s murderers accountable.

On Thursday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, speaking to the United States Conference of Mayors, urged his counterparts to take a firm stand against Trump’s immigration enforcement, warning that “if we do not speak up, if we do not step up, it will be your city that is next.” His comments were received with raucous applause.

It’s not unheard of for state prosecutors to go after federal officials. Research by Alicia Bannon of State Court Report and the Brennan Center cites a 2001 ruling by the Ninth Circuit that allowed an Idaho prosecutor to indict an FBI agent who’d shot an unarmed woman during the Ruby Ridge raid.

In 1906, the Supreme Court allowed Pennsylvania to prosecute two soldiers for killing a civilian accused of stealing from a federal arsenal. The court reasoned that if witness’s testimony that the civilian had already been captured when soldiers opened fire were true, “it could not reasonably be claimed that the fatal shot was fired in the performance of a duty imposed by the federal law.”

Meanwhile, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed into law a bill that enables state residents to sue murderous ICE agents. A similar bill has just been passed by the California State Senate and sent to the Assembly.

Even some local prosecutors, distrustful of the Justice Department, are stepping up. On Thursday, Mary Moriarty, attorney for Hennepin County (where the Twin Cities are located), charged Anthony J. Kazmierczak with making threats of violence and fifth-degree assault in connection with an attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) at an event on Tuesday.

Although Kazmierczak is also facing a federal criminal case in that incident, Moriarty pointedly noted that a conviction in state court was “not subject to presidential pardon, now or in the future,” and that although her office had historically worked with federal officials, “that partnership has been damaged by political decisions coming from this administration.”

V

Under the Trump regime, America has diverged sharply from the days when Burke Marshall persuaded Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to use federal troops to force Mississippi to admit a Black student.

Rather than the federal government forcing state and local governments to recognize the civil rights of Black Americans, today it’s up to state and local governments to force the federal government to recognize the constitutional rights of all Americans.

It is the solemn duty of us all to restore and protect those rights from a federal government that is trampling on them.

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

This glorious freedom is poisoning Trump

Following the murder of Renee Nicole Good, Donald Trump doubled down and sent more ill-trained, masked, and lethally armed occupying forces into Minneapolis. It’s a safe bet that his efforts to ratchet up community outrage and violence will succeed sooner or later, if not in Minneapolis then somewhere else controlled by Democrats.

While it’s clear that Trump is doing everything he can to bolster and hasten his invocation of the Insurrection Act, for online gamblers betting on predictable and stupid Trump moves, it’s just a question of when it will happen.

Astute betters might predict that Trump’s declaration under the Insurrection Act is still five or six months away, closer to November, the better to cancel the midterms. But Jeffrey Epstein could return to dominate headlines any day, and Trump will indulge his compulsion to out-noise him. Also, judging from his non-stop blunders in other areas (looking at you Greenland, tariffs, and the flop in Davos), Trump will likely stumble into another strategic error by invoking the act early, while there’s still time for SCOTUS to smack it down on First Amendment grounds.

In the meantime, Trump officials are sharpening attacks against peaceful protesters, treating the First Amendment like inconvenient fiction.

Targeting Don Lemon, hiding federal policy

When former CNN news anchor Don Lemon filmed a marathon seven-hour protest at a Minneapolis church last week, Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s Assistant Attorney General, publicly threatened him: “You (Lemon) are on notice! A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service.”

Never mind that Lemon did not select the location, organize, or even participate in the protest — it’s apparently now illegal for journalists to breathe the same air as the protesters.

On cue, other Trump officials piled on, declaring the protest an “act of hatred against Christians.” Karoline Leavitt, her signature cross blazing, announced, “President Trump will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship. The Department of Justice has just launched a full investigation into the despicable (Don Lemon) incident that took place earlier today at a church in Minnesota.”

Leavitt’s cross must be burning a charred replica on her throat. She forgot to mention that Trump reversed the policy that prohibited ICE from attacking people at places of worship in January 2025, after that policy had been in effect for 13 years.

Since then, Trump’s green shirts have arrested, brutalized, and tackled people in churches all across America. Although most ICE attacks go unnoticed by the media, ICE attacks on or near church grounds to date include a raid on Iglesia Fuente de Vida church in the Atlanta suburbs; a raid on United Methodist church property in Charlotte; raids at Our Lady of Lourdes in San Bernadino; throughout Puerto Rico during Sunday services; on numerous church grounds throughout California (Inland Empire, Downey Memorial Christian Church, Montclair, Highland and St. Adelaide); and in Washington, D.C., where the Evangelical Lutheran Church joined the Quakers in a suit to block ICE raids in places of worship.

On a better day, the hypocrisy would be laughable. Not only is ICE attacking people in their “sacred place of worship” under Trump’s own official policy, but the location isn’t what makes it un-Christian. Dragging people out of their beds with flash-bang grenades, tackling senior citizens to the pavement, and pulling handicapped people out of their cars are only Christian acts in Lucifer’s bible.

Full out assault against the First Amendment

The DOJ’s response to Don Lemon was a warning shot to all journalists: Reporting ICE brutality will cost you.

Dhillon said: “Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long, long time.”

Perhaps Dhillon skipped Constitutional Law, or doesn’t understand the difference between interrupting church services, which may not be protected by the First Amendment, and protesting outside a church, which is. Ratified and in effect since 1791, the First Amendment is older and wiser than MAGA (low bar), and will still be standing long after Trump is horizontal and feeding worms. Putting protestors and journalists “away for a long, long time,” is straight out of Putin’s playbook, and is not going to happen here without the Civil War Trump so desperately craves.

Multiple cases pitting freedom of speech against Trump’s “executive authority” ICE brutality are pending in the lower courts, and ICE is going to lose bigly. A recent smackdown from a Reagan-appointed judge is instructive while we wait.

'Failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution'

Last week, during a hearing over student speech on college campuses, US district judge William Young called Trump an “authoritarian,” and accused the administration of “an unconstitutional conspiracy” against the First Amendment. On Jan. 22, he issued a ruling that Trump officials had, under the law, “objectively chilled protected speech.”

Young found that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.”

“The big problem in this case is that the Cabinet secretaries, and ostensibly, the president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment,” Young said.

Describing the case as one of “the most important” of his career, Young asked: “How did this happen? How could our own government, the highest officials in our government, seek to so infringe on the rights of people lawfully here in the United States? It’s fairly clear that this president believes, as an authoritarian, that when he speaks, everyone, everyone in Article II is going to toe the line absolutely.”

Here’s to American judges never toeing the line for a fascist, to journalists never pulling their punches, and to the glorious and everlasting freedom to call Trump what he is: an idiot.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Trump's shameless enabler just signaled he may be having second thoughts

I was struck by the inspirational tone of the year-end report issued by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts went back to basics with his review of the fundamentals spelled out by Thomas Paine in his Common Sense pamphlet and the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence. Although the Declaration of Independence is not part of U.S. law, Roberts viewed the founding document as having “played a signal role in the nation’s constitutional, statutory, and common law.”

Roberts then highlighted points in U.S. history when the nation made progress in vindicating the promise of the Declaration. He pointed to the abolition of slavery in the 13th Amendment, the recognition of women’s right to vote in the 19th Amendment, the recognition of equal rights in Brown v. Board of Education, and the adoption of the landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Roberts saw these events as part of the “never ending quest to fulfill the Constitution’s promise of a ‘more perfect union’.”

Roberts wrote: “These national accomplishments illustrate that the responsibilities for livings up to the promises of the Declaration rest on all three branches of government as well as well as on each successive generation of Americans.” Roberts placed particular emphasis on the critical role of federal judges in this process. Roberts wrote that the judges “must continue to decide the cases before us according to our oath, doing equal right to the poor and to the rich, and performing all our duties faithfully and impartially under the Constituion and laws of the United States.”

I consider the stirring words of this report to be truly inspirational. But what was the Chief Justice actually signaling to the nation with his words? Roberts devoted much of his leadership role as Chief Justice to undermining the “national accomplishments” he now celebrates. And in ruling on shadow docket cases, Roberts has repeatedly sided with the majority in undermining the role of lower federal court judges as bastions against abuses of executive authority.

Roberts wrote the majority opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023). Roberts in SFFA overruled decades of affirmative acton cases going back to the Bakke decision in the 1970s. The majority adopted what Roberts viewed as a “colorblind” approach to equal protection. Roberts rejected the theory that the Reconstruction era amendments, like the Thirteenth Amendment, allowed the government to give any affirmative relief to AfricanAmericans who had been subjected to the horrors of slavery. At the same time, Roberts ignored the key role Brown played in providing affirmative relief to African Americans by ordering the integration of public schools.
Roberts took an indirect swipe atBrown when he wrote a plurality opinion in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007). In a split decision, the Court found it unconstitutional for a school district to use race as a factor in assigning students to schools to achieve racial diversity, unless the district was remedying a prior history of de jure Roberts wrote bluntly in his plurality opinion: “The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Roberts wrote the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013). Roberts in Shelby County struck down the formula used for the preclearance requirement under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Under this formula in Section 4(b), those states with a long history of racial discrimination had to obtain preclearance from the Justice Department to make changes that might undermine the voting rights of African Americans. Roberts considered the formula in this landmark civil rights legislation to be outdated and no longer necessary.
In this term, the Roberts Court now has before it a case where the Court could strike down a more fundamental part of the Voting Rights Act – the Section 2 provision prohibiting racial discrimination in voting rights. See, Louisiana v. Callais, No. 24-109. The specific question presented in Louisiana is whether the Voting Rights Act still allows voters of color to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps in court.
On many questions associated with separation of powers, Roberts has consistently sided with the majority in using the Court’s emergency docket to give the Trump administration sweeping powers under its unitary executive theory. And in so doing, Roberts rejected the power of lower court judges to issue temporary injunctions to rein in abuses of executive authority.

So now, what are we to make of the Chief Justice’s inspirational year-end report? Is Roberts having second thoughts about his prior actions because of the imminent threat to democracy posed by Trump? The recent Trump invasion of Venezuala may feed that theory. If that is Roberts’ thinking, he could be signaling a change in course on how he approaches critical questions like tariffs, birthright citizenship, racial discrimination, or separation of powers.

The other possibility is that Roberts is presenting his inspirational theme just to placate an increasing angry public. Polling suggests the public no longer holds the Supreme Court in particularly high esteem. Roberts cannot reverse this trend with empty platitudes.

We should have some idea by the end of this term if the year-end report has any lasting significance.

Daniel R. Schramm is a retired lawyer on inactive status with the Missouri Bar who practiced law for a total of 45 years. When he was engaged in the practice of law, Schramm concentrated in appellate advocacy, estate planning and business transactions. Since his retirement, he has continued to write articles on legal topics in Substack and other publications.

These four men could drive Trump out of office — and their silence is deafening

The staggering cowardliness by four ex-presidents vis-à-vis Tyrant Trump’s wrecking of America cannot escape history’s verdict. However, there is still an opportunity for vigorous redemption by George W. Bush — whose life-saving AIDS Medicine Program in Africa was shut down by President Donald Trump — Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, if they have any self-respect for their patriotic duty.

As of now, these former presidents are living lives of luxury and personal pursuits. They are at the apex of the “contented classes” who have chosen to be bystanders to Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, and the doling out of Trump’s corporatist welfare giveaways.

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if these four wealthy politicians, who still have most of their voters liking them, decided to band together and take on Trump full throttle. Privately, they believe and want Trump to be impeached (for the third time in the House) and convicted in the Senate (after two acquittals). This time, on many impeachable actions that Trump himself boasts about, claiming, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as President.”

Right off, they can upend the public discourse that Trump dominates daily with phony personal accusations, stunningly un-rebutted by the feeble Democratic Party leaders. This counterattack with vivid, accurate words will further increase the majority of people who want Trump “fired.” Just from their own observations of Trump’s vicious, cruel destruction of large parts of our government and civil service, which benefits and protects the populace, should jolt the former presidents into action.

Next, the bipartisan Band of Four can raise tens of millions of dollars instantly to form “Save Our Republic” advocacy groups in every congressional district. The heat on both parties in Congress would immediately rise to make them start the Impeachment Drive. Congressional Republicans’ fear of losing big in the 2026 elections, as their polls are plummeting, will motivate some to support impeachment. Congressional Republicans abandoned President Richard Nixon in 1974, forcing his resignation with Impeachment on his political horizon.

Events can move very fast. First, Trump is the most powerful contributor to his own Impeachment. Day after day, this illegal closer of long-established social safety nets and services is alienating tens of millions of frightened and angry Americans.

Daily, Trump is breaking his many campaign promises. His exaggerated predictions are wrong. Remember his frequent promise to stop “these endless wars;” his assurance that he would not impair government health insurance programs (tell that to the millions soon to lose, due to Trump, their Medicaid coverage); his promise of lifting people into prosperity — he opposes any increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and he has signed GOP legislation to strip tens of millions of Americans from the SNAP food support and take away the Obama subsidies for Obamacare.

Many Trump voters are among the vast number of people experiencing his treachery, where they live and raise their families, will lose out here. The catalytic opportunities of these four ex-presidents and their skilled operating teams are endless.

Further, this Band of Presidents, discovering their patriotic duty, will recharge the Democratic Party leaders or lead to the immediate replacement of those who simply do not want or know how to throw back the English language against this Bully-in-Chief, this abuser of women, this stunning racist, this chronic liar about serious matters, this inciter of violence including violence against members of Congress, this invader of cities with increasingly violent, law breaking storm-troopers turning a former Border Patrol force into a vast recruitment program for police state operators.

Trump uses the word “impeachment” frequently against judges who rule against him, and even mentions it in relation to it being applied to him. Tragically, Democratic Party leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have made talk of Impeachment a taboo, arguing the time is not yet ripe. How many more abuses of power do they need to galvanize the Democrats in the House and Senate against the most blatantly impeachable president by far in American history? He keeps adding to his list — recently, he has become a pirate and killer on the high seas, an unconstitutional war maker on Iran and Venezuela, openly threatening to illegally seize the Panama Canal, Greenland, and overthrow the Cuban government.

Constitutional scholar Obama can ask dozens of constitutional law professors the question: “Would any of the 56 delegates who signed our US Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the 39 drafters who signed our US Constitution in 1787, being told about Monarch King Donald Trump, oppose his immediate impeachment and removal — the only tool left he doesn’t control?”

Not one, would be their studied response.

Trump, a serial draft dodger, pushes through another $150 billion to the Pentagon above what the generals requested while starving well-being programs of nutrition for our children and elderly, and cutting services, by staff reductions, for American veterans, and strip-mining our preparedness for climate violence and likely pandemics.

He promised law and order during the election and then betrayed it right after his inauguration, pardoning 1,500 convicted, imprisoned criminals, 600 of them violent, emptying their prison cells and calling them “patriots” for what they did to Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

MR. EX-PRESIDENTS, JUST WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? WHAT ARE YOUR ESCAPIST EXCUSES?

Call your friends who are ranking members of the GOP-controlled Committees of Congress and tell them to hold prompt SHADOW HEARINGS to educate the public through witnesses about the TRUMP DUMP, impeachable, illegal, and unconstitutional government. The media would welcome the opportunity to cover such hearings. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) thought this was “a good idea” before being admonished by his frightened Democratic leaders to bide his time and remain silent.

As more of Trump’s iron boots drop on people’s livelihoods, their freedoms, their worry for their children and grandchildren, their antipathy to more aggressive wars against non-threatening countries, and their demands at town meetings and mass marches for action against Trump’s self-enriching despotism, the disgraceful, craven cowardliness of our former presidential leaders will intensify. Unless they wake up to the challenge. With the mainstream media attacked regularly and being sued by Trump’s coercive, illegal extortion, the action by the Band of Four will bolster press freedom, press coverage, and their own redemption.

Send these four politicians, who are friendly with one another, petitions, letters, emails, satiric cartoons, or whatever communications that might redeem them from the further condemnation of history.

Rest assured, with Trump in the disgraced White House, THINGS ARE ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, MUCH WORSE! For that is the predictable behavior from the past year and from his dangerously unstable, arrogant, vengeful, and egomaniacal personality.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of "The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future" (2012). His latest book is, "Wrecking America: How Trump's Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All" (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).

This chilling Trump confession means he must be impeached

Democrats should be loudly calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump now, run on it in November, and then, when they take the House, actually do it.

Because what he’s is doing right now is not “norm-breaking,” or “provocative rhetoric,” or even the oft-quoted “Trump being Trump.” It’s an open assertion of unchecked power, limited — in his own words — only by his own “personal morality.”

His shocking interview in the New York Times was decisive. That isn’t how a president speaks in a constitutional republic. Instead, it’s a classic example of how a strongman, a wannabe Mussolini or Putin, speaks as he tries to reinvent the nation so the law becomes optional when it comes to him, his flunkies, and his billionaire buddies.

When asked if there were any limits on his power, he told the Times’ reporters, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” He added, “I don’t need international law.”

And he’s acting it out in real time, creating his own private, unaccountable, masked army (or death squad) that’s actively terrorizing American citizens and being used to punish the cities and states of any politicians who dare stand up to him or call him out.

Not to mention his petty revenges: last week, he cut off billions in childcare and other low-income funding to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York in direct violation of the law and the Constitution because those states’ leaders had the temerity to defy him.

The Founders saw this coming. They obsessed over it, and relentlessly warned us future generations about it. And they built a solution for it into the Constitution they drafted in the summer and fall of 1787: impeachment.

James Madison, in Federalist 47, cautioned that the greatest danger to liberty wouldn’t come from a foreign invasion, but, instead, from a president who turned the powers of government into instruments of personal will:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Alexander Hamilton, no radical by any stretch, wrote that impeachable offenses are those which “proceed from the misconduct of public men” and injure society itself. He hoped, in Federalist 68, that no man with “[t]alents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” would ever reach the White House, but that’s exactly what we’re now watching in real time.

And, no, impeachment is not some “unprecedented Democratic overreach.” Republicans have demanded impeachment of Democratic presidents for nearly a century, and tried multiple times, most recently just two years ago.

Republican legislators screamed about impeaching Franklin D. Roosevelt over his threat to pack the Supreme Court if they didn’t stop knocking down his New Deal programs.
They floated impeachment of Harry Truman for going into Korea without a formal declaration of war.
They threatened both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson with impeachment over the Bay of Pigs in Cuba and the War in Vietnam.
They introduced impeachment resolutions against Jimmy Carter over the Panama Canal treaty.
They campaigned openly to impeach Barack Obama over his “dictatorial” executive orders and the “communist” Affordable Care Act.

The idea that impeachment is too “divisive” to even discuss now is a naked lie, and a very convenient one for authoritarian Republicans. What’s different today isn’t the tool of impeachment; it’s the target.

Trump has now made explicit what Richard Nixon tried to pull off but failed: that his presidency exists above the law and he can freely ignore both domestic and international law. Nixon at least had the decency to mutter it privately, once even telling David Frost that, “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Trump has put it into public policy.

When a president claims the law doesn’t restrain him, as Trump has done — when he treats Congress’ approval as if it were optional, federal judges as if they were political enemies, treaties as inconveniences that can be gotten around or even ignored, and war powers as personal prerogatives — impeachment stops being political theater and becomes a constitutional necessity.

While I vehemently disagree with Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires, gutting USAID and other agencies, and inflammatory rhetoric (among dozens of other things), this is not about policy disagreements.

It’s explicitly about his unilaterally making war without congressional authorization, weaponizing the Justice Department against his political enemies, dangling pardons and financial opportunities for his allies but the law as vengeance for his critics, and the obscenity of his mass pardons for the criminals who attacked our Capitol on January 6th.

It’s about, in other words, a president who’s told us all, bluntly, that legality and government power — including the power to execute a woman who was just driving home after dropping off her child at school — flows from his own definition of “morality,” his “own mind,” and no other source, the American Constitution be damned.

He’s asserting the “morality” of a man convicted of fraud, adjudicated a rapist, repeatedly accused of sexual assault, who gleefully takes bribes of gold, Trump hotels, and jet planes and rewards the bribers with tariff reductions, American weapons, and other benefits.

This is how Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán transformed Russia and Hungary from democracies into strongman single-party autocracies, and Trump is eagerly following their examples (and apparently taking their regular advice).

Here’s an example of what articles of impeachment could read like, a version that could be read into the Congressional Record tomorrow:

Articles of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump, President of the United States

Article I — Abuse of Power and Usurpation of Congressional War Authority

In his conduct as President of the United States, Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of his office by initiating and directing acts of war without authorization from Congress, in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

President Trump ordered and executed military actions against the sovereign nation of Venezuela, including strikes within its capital and the seizure of its head of state, without a declaration of war or statutory authorization from Congress. In doing so, he substituted his personal judgment and the desires of his donors in the fossil fuel industry for the constitutional role of the legislative branch, nullifying Congress’s exclusive authority to decide when the nation enters hostilities.

Such conduct is not a policy disagreement but a direct assault on the separation of powers. The Framers vested the war-making power in Congress precisely to prevent unilateral, impulsive, or self-interested uses of military force by a single individual.

Wherefore, President Trump has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-government and has committed an abuse of power warranting impeachment and removal from office.

Article II — Contempt for the Rule of Law and Constitutional Limits on Executive Power

Donald J. Trump has asserted that his authority as President is constrained only by his “own morality,” explicitly rejecting the binding force of domestic law, treaty obligations, and international legal norms ratified by the United States.

By publicly declaring that neither Congress, the courts, nor the law meaningfully constrain his actions, President Trump has advanced a theory of executive power fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution. Treaties ratified by the Senate are, under Article VI, the supreme Law of the Land.

A President who claims legality flows from personal judgment rather than law announces an intent to govern as a sovereign, not as a constitutional officer.

This conduct constitutes a profound breach of the President’s oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

Article III — Corrupt Use of the Justice System for Political Retaliation

Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the presidency by directing or encouraging the use of federal law enforcement and prosecutorial authority to target political opponents for retaliation and intimidation.

The President has publicly demanded investigations and prosecutions of political adversaries while signaling protection for allies. Such conduct weaponizes the justice system and undermines equal justice under law.

This pattern of conduct constitutes an abuse of power and a violation of the public trust.

Article IV — Subversion of Democratic Institutions and Checks and Balances

Donald J. Trump has engaged in a sustained campaign to undermine the independence of the judiciary, the authority of Congress, and the legitimacy of constitutional constraints on executive power.

By encouraging attacks on judges, disregarding statutory limits imposed by Congress, and treating oversight as illegitimate, the President has sought to weaken the institutions designed to restrain executive excess.

Such conduct represents a betrayal of constitutional responsibility.

Article V — Abuse of the Pardon Power to Undermine Accountability for an Attack on the Constitution

Donald J. Trump has abused the pardon power by issuing broad clemency to individuals who participated in or supported the January 6, 2001 attack on the United States Capitol.

While the pardon power is substantial, it was never intended to erase accountability for a violent assault on Congress itself. This use of the pardon power undermines deterrence, encourages future political violence, and weakens constitutional governance.

Conclusion

In all of this, Donald J. Trump has demonstrated that he will place personal authority above constitutional duty, power above law, and loyalty to himself above loyalty to the Republic.

Wherefore, Donald J. Trump warrants impeachment, trial, removal from office, and disqualification from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Then comes the part Democrats keep flinching from: begin a loud and public campaign for impeachment. After all, just this week he told Republicans that his biggest fear if the GOP loses control of the House is that he’ll be impeached for a third time.

On Thursday afternoon, I got one of Trump’s daily fundraising emails. This one didn’t ask if I’d yet made a donation to get my name on the list for my “tariff rebate check” like others this week and last but, instead, said (and the bold type is also bold in his email):

“Dems plan for 2026 is simple but disturbing to EVERY MAGA Republican:
1. Flip the House
2. Flip the Senate
3. IMPEACH PRESIDENT TRUMP
4. Kill the MAGA agenda permanently”

He’s not just talking about impeachment; he’s fundraising on it! Democrats, frankly, should do the same.

I realize that a conviction will never pass the current Senate (although we may be surprised if he keeps doing and saying truly crazy and offensive things), but it’s important to get this into the public dialogue and prepare the ground for next year.

That’s why Democrats must tell voters now exactly what they intend to do with power if they win it this coming November (or before, if the GOP loses any more House members).

And they need to stop pretending that through some weird magic our democracy can be preserved by silence, caution, or simply hoping that this convicted felon will suddenly discover restraint or cave to a judge’s demand.

There is a real possibility, by the way, that today a handful of Republicans in the House could decide that preserving Congress’ war powers, the power and independence of the judiciary, and the rule of law matters more than protecting one aging politician. After all, yesterday five Republicans in the Senate voted against Trump on his Venezuela oil-stealing campaign and nine in the House voted against him on healthcare. It happened with Nixon, and it can happen again.

But it won’t happen if Democrats continue to treat impeachment like a dirty word instead of a constitutional obligation.

Yes, it’ll piss off Trump’s base and rightwing media will go nuts. But his base is already filled with rage and rightwing media will do what they do no matter what, impeachment or not. Democrats need to stop cowering.

So let’s say what needs to be said without euphemism or apology:

Democrats should introduce articles of impeachment now, run on them this November, and then actually do it.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

Republicans in Congress betray their sacred oath every day. It's up to us to make them pay

There are many good reasons our government is based on three “separate but equal branches.” The men who wrote our Constitution 250 years ago had just fought a bloody war against an incredibly powerful monarch whose empire was based on extracting wealth in all its forms from merciless colonial exploitation of weaker nations.

Few expected the victory of those brave men and women that gave birth to a new nation. A nation of people free from the dictates of a monarch — and designed to preserve that freedom through carefully crafted “checks and balances” that would assure no one branch of government could trample the people or their Constitution underfoot.

Yet now those checks and balances have been abandoned in favor of so-called “loyalty” to one political party over the long-standing mandate to ensure the branches of government remain separate and diligent in their primary function to serve the people and govern true to the Constitution.

The excesses of one-party rule have long been known from the actual history of what has happened here in Montana — and now in the nation — when one party dominates all three branches of government. In short, the checks and balances on which this nation was founded disappear into the sordid hole of party politics.

When a president decides to become a Mad Emperor, it is the legislative branch — Congress — which is charged with countering actions that abuse and ignore the rule of domestic and international laws and make a mockery of Constitutional governance.

But when Congress is cowed into submission, that fealty to the Constitution, which all members swear to uphold in their Oath of Office, is sacrificed — not for the benefit the populace, but for the benefit of a political party and its brutal leader.

Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff, plainly laid out his vision for how the world, and our nation, should work. Namely, by what he called the “iron law of power, control, and dominance.”

Of course you won’t find that “law” anywhere but in Miller’s fevered mind. And it’s a long ways from participatory democracy and the duty of Congress to check the extremes of the executive branch.

Unfortunately, Congress, and Montana’s entire congressional delegation, are complicit in that dereliction of duty and violation of their Oath of Office.

Given that three of Montana’s four members of Congress are veterans, it seems they have confused being in the military — where the “Commander in Chief” gives the orders and they obey — and being in Congress, which is specifically charged with serving the people, not whomever sits in the Oval Office.

That distinction is critical to the functioning of the nation which, by most measures, isn’t doing all that well right now as citizens struggle to feed, clothe and shelter themselves and our families.

Add to that the wide international condemnation being directed to the actions of an out-of-control president whose avarice now extends to openly confiscating the resources of sovereign nations, deposing their leaders through military force, and threatening traditional allies with similar actions in violation of international law.

There’s still time to bring honor to the positions Montana’s congressional delegation holds. But that requires acknowledging that Miller’s “iron law” doesn’t exist in law or the Constitution and has no place among the community of nations in the 21st Century.

Your sworn duty is not to the president and his toadies, it’s to “We the People” — and that call to duty could not be more pressing as our democracy now hangs by the thinnest of threads.

George Ochenski is Montana's longest-running columnist and a longtime environmental activist, concerned with keeping Montana's natural beauty clean and safe. He writes from Helena and appears in the Daily Montanan weekly.

Why Trump's assault on blue states is blatantly illegal

What does Donald Trump have against Minnesota? Not only is ICE causing mayhem in Minneapolis, but Trump is halting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for social services programs there, according to a Tuesday announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s not just Minnesota. Trump is also stopping billions in funding for social services in Colorado, Illinois, New York, and California.

Why? Could it be because all of them are led by Democrats and inhabited by voters who overwhelmingly rejected Trump in 2024?

It’s not the first time Trump has openly penalized “blue” states. What’s new is how blatant his vindictiveness toward blue states has become.

Angry at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and at its refusal to free Tina Peters — the former clerk of Mesa County, who was convicted in 2024 of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed plot to prove they had been used to rig the 2020 election against Trump — Trump has cut off transportation money to Colorado, relocated the military’s Space Command, vowed to dismantle a major climate and weather research center located there, and rejected disaster relief for rural counties hammered by floods and wildfires.

Two weeks ago Trump used the first veto of his second term to kill a pipeline project that had achieved bipartisan congressional support, to provide clean drinking water to Colorado’s parched eastern plains. (Trump’s action enraged Republican congresswoman and formerly dedicated Trumper Lauren Boebert, who stated: “Nothing says America First like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in southeast Colorado, many of whom voted for him in all three elections.”)

If there were any doubts about Trump’s sentiments toward Colorado, he posted a New Year’s Eve message telling Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, and Daniel P. Rubinstein, the Republican district attorney in Mesa County who prosecuted Ms. Peters, to “rot in Hell,” adding “I wish them only the worst.”

Is it even legal for Trump to reward red states and penalize blue ones? In a word: No.

In early December, Justice Department lawyers openly admitted that Trump withheld Department of Energy grants to Minnesota and other states according to “whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect and/or has recently elected Democratic candidates in state and national elections.”

It’s the first time the Trump regime clearly acknowledged in court that which states get what depends on whether most people in a state voted for or against him.

What’s the legal argument? Trump’s Justice Department lawyers claim that such overt political vindictiveness “is constitutionally permissible, including because it can serve as a proxy for legitimate policy considerations.”

This, my friends, is utter rubbish.

Punishing states based on whom their residents voted for directly violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires that the government treat citizens equally under the law: No “State [shall] deprive … to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Penalizing a state for how its citizens vote also violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Voting is one of the most basic forms of speech in a democracy; it cannot be abridged or punished depending on for whom one votes.

And it violates a president’s duty under the Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” At the least, this requires that a president apply the law in a nonpartisan way. Congress may award grants or benefits to certain states and not others, but this power is reserved for Congress, not the president.

The issue will almost certainly end up in the Supreme Court. Although my expectations for our highest court could not be much lower, I’d be surprised if the justices sided with Trump here.

Any other result would effectively allow Trump to pit red states against blue and wreak havoc on the very idea of a national government.

Trump has made it clear he regards himself as president only of the people who voted for him. But that’s not how the Constitution works. Nor is it how American democracy works.

Robert Reich is a emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org