#eric daugherty

Joyce Vance at Civil Discourse:

When Kilmar Ábrego García was first deported to El Salvador and his lawyers went to court, arguing an immigration judge had previously prohibited it, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, commented, “He’s a citizen of El Salvador. So it’s very arrogant, even for American media, to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens.” But Miller seems to lack the same compunction about letting Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador. tell President Trump, and in fact, our entire country, how we should run our courts. In February of this year, Bukele responded to a tweet from Elon Musk, who posted, “The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges. No one is above the law, including judges,” referencing what Bukele had done in El Salvador. Bukele tweeted, “If you don’t impeach the corrupt judges, you CANNOT fix the country. They will form a cartel (a judicial dictatorship) and block all reforms, protecting the systemic corruption that put them in their seats.” Bukele’s tweet resurfaced earlier this month, when Elon Musk retweeted a right-wing media personality, Eric Daughterty, who suggested, “We need to Bukele our court system.” In 2021, after his party gained control of El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly, Bukele’s allies removed all five Supreme Court judges and the attorney general, replacing them with individuals who were loyal to Bukele within hours. Bukele has called himself the “world’s coolest dictator.”

The Biden Administration was openly critical of some of Bukele’s anti-democratic actions, while Trump had accused Bukele in the past of lowering El Salvador’s crime rate by sending its criminal to the U.S. But the relationship thawed early in Trump’s second term, when he seized on the idea of deporting people who were illegally present in the United States and paying Bukele a reported $6 million to house them in his CECOT terror prison for the first year. But above all the anti-democratic moves Bukele has made, it’s his approach to sweeping the judiciary out of his way if they won’t go along that is most dangerous. And Trump has appeared to be open to the following Bukele’s lead. In March, Trump threatened federal judge Jeb Boasberg with impeachment when he didn’t like his ruling in a deportation case. “Many people have called for his impeachment, the impeachment of this judge. I don’t know who the judge is, but he’s radical left,” Trump said on Fox News. “He was Obama-appointed, and he actually said we shouldn’t be able to take criminals, killers, murderers, horrible, the worst people, gang members, gang leaders, that we shouldn’t be allowed to take them out of our country.” He continued, “Well, that’s a presidential job that’s not for a local judge to be making that determination.” Trump was echoing others in his administration who had encouraged impeachment proceedings against Judge Boasberg. Bukele came to Trump’s aid, tweeting, “The U.S. is facing a judicial coup.” It was enough for Trump to note, during an April White House visit from Bukele, that he was open to sending American citizens to El Salvadoran prisons, which, of course, would be illegal. Trump also “The U.S. is facing a judicial coup.” By May, Stephen Miller was openly saying on Fox News “That’s the whole problem. When you have 700 judges—10, 15, 25 communist judges can try to run the entire country, grind the gears of government to a halt, try to undermine and overthrow previous election result. It’s been rightly called the judicial coup.” Since Trump has returned to office, 139 immigration judges have been fired, taken an early-out offer, or been involuntarily transferred. That’s out of about 600 immigration judges nationwide. They are “Article II” judges, appointed by the president, and not a part of the Article III branch of independent federal judges established by the Constitution. Trump has taken the view he is free to fire them at will. One of the fired judges has said, “I believe the Trump administration can’t stand people who play by the rules.”

[...] The idea that we should follow Bukele’s course in his country with our courts is dangerous nonsense. Politicizing the judiciary, firing and frightening jurists who want to do their jobs, is what every tinpot dictator does as a precursor to seizing control. Firing immigration judges because you don’t like their decisions is a paradigm shifter. Like so much else Trump does, it’s part of shifting the Overton Window and getting Americans used to the unthinkable so that he can do it. What should be a nonstarter for Republicans is now becoming part of Trump’s range of reasonable policies. If you don’t like judges, just fire or impeach them. Why is it important to threaten and intimidate the courts? Because of what is coming. We talk a lot about the audience of one. There’s also an audience of nine, or put more rightly, an audience of six, that must be persuaded to continue to side with the president. As the administration seems to increasingly focus on invoking the Insurrection Act, keeping the Court on its side will be of utmost importance.