Above the law

In two major interviews, President Donald Trump openly declared that he has the power to bring the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States. And on both occasions, Trump said straight out that he is not doing so because administration lawyers have told him he doesn’t have to—or that he shouldn’t.

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“Bringing him back and retrying him wouldn’t bother me,” Trump told Time magazine, admitting that he has this option. “But I leave that decision to the lawyers. At this moment, they just don’t want to do that.”

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Trump was even more direct in a recent interview with ABC News.Trump shrugged when asked if he could pick up the phone and get Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to release Abrego Garcia [...] .

“If he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” Trump continued. “But he’s not.” Trump added that “we have lawyers that don’t want to do this.”

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Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, says he will now pursue answers to the many questions these admissions raise. This is doable because the federal district judge overseeing this case, Paula Xinis, has initiated discovery designed to reveal what steps, if any, the government has taken to facilitate his return, opening the way for depositions of administration officials.

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Which lawyers have told Trump that he is not required to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return? What exactly transpired in these communications? Which top official—aside from Trump—is internally directing the lawyers to advise Trump this way? Are that official’s initials S and M?

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Admittedly, it will be tough to get such answers. But as David Kurtz and Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo detail, Judge Xinis, who has also ordered Abrego Garcia’s return, has taken a stern line against the administration’s refusal to be forthcoming on what it’s doing toward that end. She seems determined to establish a blow-by-blow account of government malfeasance.

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Miller’s bigger argument is essentially that the president’s powers to remove people should be above challenge and unreviewable by definition. Miller appears to want Trump to have the power to declare undocumented immigrants to be terrorists and gang members by fiat; to have the power to absurdly decree them members of a hostile nation’s invading army, again by fiat; and then to have quasi-unlimited power to remove them, unconstrained by any court.

“The judicial process is for Americans,” Miller has said. “Immediate deportation is for illegal aliens.” He appears to want to dispense with due process for migrants entirely—the Constitution be damned.

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The more transparency we have gained into the rot of corruption and bad faith at the core of this whole saga, the worse it has come to look. Trump himself is exposing it all for what it truly is: the stuff of Mad Kings.

  New Republic

And the Republican Congress is backing him.

Trump surrounds himself with craven toadies and believes the sole function of his advisers and cabinet officials should be to crawl on their bellies before King Trump.

Competent officials need to be willing to tell the president when he’s wrong, but Trump doesn’t want to hear anything other than praise and flattery. That leaves him surrounding himself with fools, grifters, conspiracy theorists, and whatever you call the spineless sack of gelatin that is Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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Past presidents have weathered scandals and improved their administration’s performance by removing problematic appointees and finding better personnel.

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Trump, though, doesn’t really care what his subordinates do as long as they kiss his ass. Bondi understands the brief; Trump thrives on ludicrous, obviously false praise. You can’t go wrong telling him he’s the bestest president ever. You can’t go wrong telling him he should be Pope, even if it pointlessly offends Catholics across the globe. The only way you can go wrong is by standing up to him or failing to lick his cheap shoes as assiduously as your rivals.

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If the incompetence of the minions merely contributed to Trump’s ongoing polling freefall, we could all just step back and cheer it on. Unfortunately, the incompetence of the minions, like the incompetence of the boss, can have real and potentially nightmarish effects.

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Trump has set up his administration as a haven for the biggest liars, frauds, marks, and ghouls on the planet.

  Public Notice