The arrest of a Wisconsin judge in her chambers on Friday is just the latest and most dramatic effort by the Trump administration to intimidate the judiciary. It follows the playbook of other countries where those seeking authoritarian power have sought to remove judges and lessen their authority.
President Trump and those around him know that at this point the only real check on his actions will come from the courts. Neither Congress nor members of his administration have shown any proclivity for ensuring compliance with the law. Trump posted his disdain on X and his platform Truth Social: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Dozens of federal judges have issued temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions halting unconstitutional and illegal Trump actions since his inauguration on Jan. 20. The president’s response has been to attack judges in as brazen a manner as he’s broken the law. When U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order banning flights taking supposed gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, Trump called him a “radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker and agitator” who should be impeached.
In fact, Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced impeachment resolutions against six federal district court judges who have ruled against Trump policies. The Constitution allows judges to be impeached only for “treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors.” In an extraordinary public statement, Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. declared, “Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
Republicans know, of course, that their attempts will fail. Even if the House passes the impeachment resolutions, there is no way that two-thirds of the Senate would vote to remove the judges from office. But that misses the point of the attacks: They send a message that the Trump administration will go after those on the bench who block his policies and a message to the country that the courts cannot stop him.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has joined in the bullying. Speaking of Congress, he said, “We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things.” No one believes Congress is about to eliminate federal courts, but Johnson wants to intimidate and discredit them.
The FBI’s arrest of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan in her courtroom, for allegedly trying to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he appeared in court, is the most blatant scare tactic yet. The sight of federal officials putting a judge in handcuffs is undeniably chilling.
Historically, immigration officials do not arrest individuals with business at a courthouse. It is important that witnesses and parties to litigation can come forward and participate in the legal system without fear of arrest or deportation. Similarly, until now hospitals, schools and churches have been off limits for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. People should be able to seek medical care, to take their children to school and to worship without fear. But the Trump administration is sending ICE into all these places.
Not surprisingly, this creates a conflict between the federal government and other levels of government, including, allegedly, the Wisconsin judge. The administration could have verbally condemned the judge or had a grand jury indict her, which itself would have been outrageous. Public safety was in no way served by handcuffing Dugan at the courthouse. That was done entirely for the media attention.
The administration’s attack on the judiciary, taken together with its extortionate executive-order demands of law firms, represents a challenge to the rule of law unlike anything before in U.S. history. But what he and his allies are doing is not unfamiliar.
I used to begin my constitutional law classes by having students read the U.S. Constitution and the not-dissimilar Stalin-era Soviet Constitution. They were always surprised by the far more elaborate statement of rights in the Russian document compared with America’s. I also had them read a description of Stalin’s killings and the gulags.
Why, I asked, did one country become a police state when the other did not? The answer, I suggested, was that in the Soviet Union no court could or would invalidate the government’s actions. Words on paper are meaningless if they are not enforceable.
The Trump administration is pushing past the limits of executive power to weaken and discredit the only guardrail left against his authoritarianism — lawyers, judges and courts. Those of all political parties and ideologies must speak up loudly and clearly: These attacks are wrong and must stop. Our constitutional democracy depends on an independent judiciary that enforces the law against all who violate it.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, is an Opinion Voices contributing writer.
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