Judge, Jury, Executioner

When one man is all three, democracy is on the brink

Credit: Getty Images

The United States has long strived to be a nation of laws, a nation committed to the ideal of justice that respects human rights and due process. But quickly, very quickly, we are sinking into an authoritarian state whose leader answers to no one. Donald Trump rules by whim. He rules by acting as the trial judge, the jury, and, as we saw earlier this week, the executioner. And no one in the Republican Party is saying a thing.

With the exception of federal judges, few Americans are able to push back on presidential actions that are at best questionable, most likely illegal, and unethical if not outright immoral.

Let’s begin in Texas, where, in the middle of the night on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend — the timing was not accidental — ICE agents snatched hundreds of Guatemalan children from their foster care beds and attempted to put them on planes bound for Guatemala.

No parents, no guardians, just children, many of whom came to this country alone, many with pending immigration hearings. No matter: The 600 children would soon be removed to Guatemala, unless immediate court action intervened.

“I have the government attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising, but here we are,” said U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who oversaw the emergency hearing in the middle of the night.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), typically takes custody of children awaiting immigration decisions. By law they must be housed in a safe environment as their proceedings make their way through the system.

At 10:45 p.m. on Saturday, foster care facilities housing the children received an email from HHS demanding that the children be “travel ready” in two to four hours. The email claimed that there were “children in your program that have been identified for reunification with their parents.”

But according to Lauren Flores of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, none of the children’s parents had requested their return. That assertion is supported by an internal report from the Guatemala attorney general’s office, which contradicts the U.S. government’s claim that the children’s parents wanted them returned, according to Reuters.

Those running the foster care facilities said the email caused utter panic. Children were crying, screaming, even becoming physically ill. Many said it wasn’t safe for them to go back to Guatemala. Nonetheless, ICE apprehended some of the children and put them on planes in Harlingen and El Paso.

Legal action was taken immediately. In a matter of hours, for what usually takes days or weeks, Judge Sooknanan issued a temporary restraining order and held a hearing, barring the children’s removal. She also got written and verbal confirmation from the Department of Justice that every child was in the care of HHS. Recent DOJ actions related to immigrant deportation prompted the judge to confirm her orders were heeded.

The children were taken off the planes and returned to foster care.

But trying to deport unaccompanied children in the dead of night was only the start of Trump’s authoritarian actions this week.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States had executed a “precision strike” on a boat in international waters off the coast of Venezuela. Rubio claimed the boat was being used for trafficking drugs, though no evidence was provided. Eleven people on board were killed, according to the government — but again, no independent confirmation.

Rubio said that U.S. forces could have intercepted the boat, as is usually the case, but “instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up. And it’ll happen again,” Rubio told reporters.

“The president has a right to eliminate immediate threats to the United States,” Rubio claimed. And that Trump did it to “send a message.”

To be clear, one small boat with 11 people and no apparent weapons on board, located more than 2000 miles from the United States, was considered a threat by the president — a threat so imminent he chose to use immediate lethal force. And that lethal force has obliterated any and all evidence.

Trump was so pleased with the mission he posted on social media a video of the boat being hit by a U.S. strike.

Questions about the legality of the action have come quickly. “I worked at DoD. I literally cannot imagine lawyers coming up with a legal basis for a lethal strike of suspected Venezuelan drug boat. Hard to see how this would not be ‘murder’ or war crime under international law that DoD considers applicable,” legal analyst and NYU professor Ryan Goodman wrote on social media.

Trump’s argument is that drug cartels are terrorist organizations and that Congress authorized the use of military force against terrorists after the 9/11 attacks. Lawmakers, including then-Senator JD Vance, have tried and failed to repeal the measure.

This attack follows a huge escalation of U.S. military presence in the region. Four warships and more than 6500 sailors and Marines have been sent to the waters off Venezuela as part of an accelerated campaign against that country’s drug cartels.

But here is a problem: Both U.S. and United Nations reports on the international drug trade say that almost all cocaine, the highest-value commodity in the world, originates in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. Venezuela is not usually part of the equation. Once the drug is produced, the most common pathway for U.S.-bound cocaine is via the Pacific Ocean and then Central America and Mexico. Venezuela is not on the Pacific Ocean.

So what’s really going on? Well, Trump is no fan of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He has accused Maduro of working directly with the drug cartels and claims that the Tren de Aragua gang is a front for Maduro’s government. This runs counter to what Trump’s own intelligence agencies have found.

Trump has turned that old quip “It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission” on its head, since forgiveness is not something he has ever sought. The new Trump version could be “It is easier to lie about it than to ask permission.”

Some might call these allegedly illegal acts a distraction — a distraction from the Epstein scandal that is now back on the front burner. House Speaker Mike Johnson can’t keep forcing 435 representatives back to their home districts to avoid dealing with the release of the files. A distraction from worsening poll numbers, vaccine chaos, a massively unpopular spending bill, or a weakening economy.

But while Trump may want to displace these stories from the front page, classifying kidnapping and killing as a “distraction” diminishes his actions. Trump didn’t do this to distract; he did it to show the world that he is a strong man (or more likely a strongman) and that rules don’t apply to him. He will admonish and belittle anyone who defies him or tries to stop him or even so much as questions him.

What’s most concerning about Trump is what we don’t know. We learned about these particular examples because legal action was taken in one case and the president trumpeted his “success” in the other. But it is reasonable to believe that there are many more.

Independent journalists will keep digging and reporting. And you, the Steady community, joined with many many Americans, will keep reading and telling others what is going on. We know that the courts of law and public opinion now are the only way to slow, if not stop, what is happening.

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Stay Steady,
Dan