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rule of law
Saving the Republic: Enough Insight Already, It’s Time for Action
Rather than relying solely on one form of political power, one that is often fragile and slow-moving, we suggest a more practiced and time-tested approach: Nonviolent Direct Action.
Sep 05, 2026
Daniel Snyder, advocate of strategic nonviolence and author of Praying in the Dark: Spirituality, Non-Violence, and the Emerging World collaborated on this commentary.
Countless commentaries have shed light on the current administration’s aggressive, demonic, and systematic campaign to undercut commitments that have held us together for 250 years.
The assault we are experiencing threatens our health and well-being, bashes hopes we have for our children and grandchildren, and detracts from essential responsibilities that go along with being a good citizen. Adherence to the rule of law, assuring protections afforded in the Bill of Rights, and maintaining equitable and humane treatment of all persons are three of the nation’s most critical commitments.
An assumption throughout has been that millions of people in this country treasure these commitments and want to see them reaffirmed. If you are reading this, you are likely a person who shares these feelings. The telling question then is: What to do? What actions would be most effective in fulfilling our common aims? It would not be an understatement to say that this single question has dogged many of us since this administration came to power.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to move the center of gravity of public opinion toward the 3.5% participation that researchers have identified as the “tipping point” of social movements.
Yet the question often leaves resistors uncertain and overwhelmed. We tend to rush to action without fully understanding political dynamics and appreciating the value of strategic thinking. A critical first step is study, not only of the issues, but of approaches that have proven to work.
Desperate for brighter prospects, we are counting heavily on the upcoming midterm elections to turn the political tide in favor of preserving our treasured commitments. Perhaps we are also hoping that the judiciary will step up as a forceful counterweight to the ceaseless assaults. Yet, important as they are, Congress and the courts are "top-down" forms of political power. "Bottom-up" power is an essential complement, keeping "top-down" forms accountable to the people they were created to serve.
Rather than relying solely on one form of political power, one that is often fragile and slow-moving, we suggest a more practiced and time-tested approach: Nonviolent Direct Action.
What it is: Nonviolent direct action seeks to move the center of gravity of public opinion toward the 3.5% participation that researchers have identified as the “tipping point” of social movements. Such a groundswell of public opinion requires a careful assessment of proposed actions’ tendency to expand the “bottom-up” power base. Strategy-based action is a kind of “street theater” designed to create a broad base of people power, and a collective sense that “we” are in this together.
No Kings Protests had some of the earmarks of nonviolent direct action, but they lacked a constructive purpose. Most important, they lacked a strategy for attaining and sustaining that critical 3.5% threshold.
How it works: Imagine an inverted pyramid balanced on its point—extremely unstable, right? It will topple with the slightest breath. To maintain stability, undemocratic regimes must be propped up with "pillars of support." What are those pillars for the Trump administration? This is the essential strategic question for anyone planning an action. Weakening or removing even one pillar creates a crisis for the regime. Demonstratively successful nonviolent actions work on this principle. Economic boycotts, central to the civil rights movement, forced business owners to integrate lunch counters. Divestment actions pressured South Africa to dismantle apartheid.
What is essential for it to work well: Study the literature, especially the writings of Gene Sharp. Sign up for online training or subscribe to one or more of the online news services that report on current nonviolent actions and offer informative articles on strategy.
Within every action group there must be at least one or two people dedicated to doing the research and training necessary to offer wise and informed strategic counsel.
Build coalitions with others. No need to reinvent the wheel or act alone. Find out who else is already taking action on behalf of the commitments listed above and collaborate in learning and coordinating action.
Big picture, we need to improve our game, be more effective than activist groups, which tend to be issue-focused and action-oriented, but weak on strategy. News outlets like Waging Nonviolence and Nonviolence News provide plentiful stories of current actions. These are good places to start for us who are anxious to do something that will definitively turn the tide toward democratic governance.
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Stephen Miller Embodies the Dark Fascist Heart of Trump's White House
A video of a speech he gave on July 16 is an unintentionally revealing survey of the Trump team's violation of basic legal principles, endangering the rule of law, and its consistent record of falsehoods, endangering public trust in the national leadership.
Aug 28, 2026
The video is not long, just 16 minutes and 25 seconds. But in that short time it provides a remarkable capsule of the Trump administration's ongoing crusade against its critics. In one chilling moment after another, it captures the mentality of that campaign; its content, tone, and style; and its complete disregard for factual accuracy.
The video, taped on July 16, records the words of Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy and Homeland Security adviser, addressing a multinational audience assembled at the State Department for the opening session of meeting convened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio under the title "Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism." In his welcoming address, Rubio defined the meeting's focus: "far-left political terrorism" that he declared has been a "blind spot" in US counterterrorism doctrine, but would now be directly in the government's sights.
Following Rubio to the podium, Miller delivered various—and sometimes unsettling—amplifications on that theme. After an opening passage declaring that under President Trump's leadership, "We have taken the necessary and essential action of formally recognizing left-wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and the survival of our republican form of government," Miller went on to proclaim that "for the first time in American history," all US law enforcement and intelligence agencies are working together "to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest, and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country." Then, in one of many questionable passages, he went on with an implied suggestion that the authorities should reject suspected terrorists' claims of their legal rights. Miller put it this way:
One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pretextual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence. This is the tactic that the left always uses to try to protect itself from facing criminal punishment. It is essential that we are wise enough and strong enough to understand that these appeals must fall on deaf ears. When the leftist, who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordered notion of justice, protests that we are violating his rights, understand that he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has been perpetrated against him.
That doesn't quite say explicitly that a person accused of left-wing terror does not have the same rights that other criminal defendants have in US courts—but it is hard to read Miller's words in any other way. (The following speaker, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, sounded a very different tone, declaring that "in the fight against domestic terrorism, we must respect the constitutional rights, freedom of speech, association, and assembly of all Americans... the Treasury will act based on suspected unlawful conduct by these terror organizations, not because of their beliefs or ideologies." I have no way to know whether those words were in Bessent's prepared text or if he was directly responding to Miller's statement, but in either case they may have brought some relief to listeners who value the rule of law.)
At another point in his speech, Miller falsely told his listeners that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have experienced an "8,000% increase in violent assaults," adding that "these are not one-off episodes. This is repeat, systemic, organized, funded insurrection, an armed resistance against the federal government." Miller's figure is contradicted by the Homeland Security department's own public statements. In January, the department reported that threats to ICE personnel, not actual assaults, had risen by 8,000% in the previous year, while violent attacks had gone up by "more than 1,300%"—less than one-sixth of Miller's alleged increase. That lower figure may have been overstated too, as indicated by a Los Angeles Times investigation of court records in LA and four other cities (San Diego; Portland, Oregon; Chicago; and Washington, DC). More than a third of the cases they reviewed ended in dismissals or acquittals, the Times reporters found, and a majority of the alleged assaults had not caused any injury to the federal agents involved.
A few minutes later, Miller raised a quite different and somewhat peculiar issue: "When you look at these violent antifa demonstrations and you see any photograph of those who were assembled—to be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They’re all deformed in some way—in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism... If you look at two photographs and you see a normal American in the street and you see an Antifa protest, why do the people that are violently demonstrating—why is there not one normal-looking person among them?" Miller did not explain exactly what he finds odd in the protesters' appearance—and unlike most of his talking points, that one seems to be uniquely his, not one commonly heard from others in the Trump orbit.
In another questionable passage, Miller claimed that the phenomenon of "jury nullification" has regularly enabled leftist terrorists to escape conviction for their crimes. He explained the term this way: "This is when a person is obviously guilty of a crime but the juror, because they’re ideologically sympathetic to the perpetrator, will not sentence them to the crime which was obviously committed," adding, "We’ve seen in the United States, again and again, individuals who are part of left-wing organizations who’ve committed assaults against ICE officers or federal law enforcement, who’ve been brought to court, where clear evidence has been presented against them, that the jury has refused to convict for purely political reasons."
Miller gave no examples and cited no facts to support the implication that persuading jurors to acquit guilty defendants has been a deliberate tactic employed by leftist organizations. In past statements, he has explicitly cited at least one specific case: the acquittal last December of a Los Angeles tow-truck driver who was arrested after moving an ICE vehicle while the officers were arresting a suspected illegal immigrant. The defendant, Bobby Nunez, was charged with stealing federal government property, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison. At his trial, his lawyers argued that the ICE agents' SUV was blocking a driveway, that Nunez towed it only one block away, and that it was out of the agents' possession for just 13 minutes.
Without having heard their deliberations, we have no way to know how the jurors reasoned in reaching their not-guilty verdict, if that decision stemmed principally from opposition to ICE operations and Trump's immigration policies, or if they based their conclusion on other grounds, perhaps that the charged offense was disproportionately severe and the possible penalty unfairly harsh. Stephen Miller wasn't in the jury room either, but he showed no visible uncertainty when he denounced the verdict as "another example of blatant jury nullification in a blue city." From there he went off in another direction: "The justice system depends on a jury of peers with a shared system of interests and values. Mass migration tribalizes the entire legal system"—a comment that it's hard to see as anything but an argument that people with the wrong ethnic identity are not legitimate participants in America's justice system.
Incidentally, nothing in any of the news stories I read about that trial gave any indication that Nunez was connected with any "left-wing organization." Nor did photographs of him show anything obviously "not normal" or "deformed" in his appearance (unless those words apply to anyone who doesn't look like a non-Hispanic white man).
Miller said nothing in his State Department speech about a different issue that has undermined far more cases than any real or imagined political bias in juries—findings by numerous judges that law enforcement agents and government lawyers prosecuting supposed antifa activists and other protesters have crossed legal or ethical boundaries, misrepresenting facts and exaggerating or completely fabricating criminal charges.
That pattern is documented in a recent report by the investigative journalism organization ProPublica. Their reporters reviewed hundreds of case records and found numerous comments from federal judges criticizing "unlawful," "unethical," and "unseemly" government actions. Specific abuses cited by judges included findings that "the government filed statements generated by artificial intelligence that referenced nonexistent case law, wrote briefs that ignored facts, and filed declarations with inaccurate dates."
(One striking example is from a judge's decision granting a petition from a man seeking release from ICE detention. In her opinion memorandum, the judge noted that ICE and Homeland Security department officials had submitted a document "purporting to show" that the man had a record of "minor convictions for marijuana possession in 2009." The judge went on: "The Petitioner was four years old in 2009, and the Respondent indicated that the document was supplied by ICE and likely presumed to relate to the Petitioner because the individual in those records had the same name, despite the differences in birthdate, birthplace, parents’ names, and immigration status. This sloppiness further validates the Court’s concerns about the procedures utilized by the Respondents depriving people present in the United States of their liberty.")
It was no surprise that Miller did not mention prosecutors' failings in his speech, since that would have been inconsistent with the message he was delivering. Theoretically, it's not categorically impossible that he has been more candid in private conversations with Trump—after all, presidential advisers, particularly on national security issues, are expected to provide unwelcome truths and not just say things their boss wants to hear. If we don't know what was said or not said in meetings that were not disclosed to the public, we can't judge with absolute certainty how straightforwardly Miller might have spoken in those discussions. But numerous reports of his public statements over the years reveal a consistent pattern of misrepresented facts and policy ideas even more virulent than Trump's, making it virtually impossible to believe that his advice in private has been significantly more balanced or rational than what he has said in public over the years.
The "Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism" did not get much media attention, perhaps because it did not produce very much new information substantiating the premise that "left-wing terrorists" are linked in a far-reaching multinational conspiracy that is now the most urgent danger facing the United States and the international community. Stephen Miller's 16-minute speech did not present any facts or ideas that have not been heard many times before, so it didn't make many headlines either. But it is newsworthy for a different reason—an unintentionally revealing survey of the Trump team's violation of basic legal principles, endangering the rule of law, and its consistent record of falsehoods, endangering public trust in the national leadership. Those two trends represent a clear and present threat to human rights and democratic government in this country, and should be spotlighted at every opportunity while we can still report and resist them.
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Trump’s Newest Unconstitutional, Dangerous Birthright Ban Must Be Stopped
People’s constitutional rights are once again being threatened by a xenophobic administration with no regard for the Constitution or the rule of law.
Aug 11, 2026
On August 6, five weeks after the Supreme Court rejected his first birthright ban, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders aimed at restricting birthright citizenship and ending “birth tourism.”
Birthright Ban 2.0
The first denies automatic citizenship to babies born in the US to two noncitizen parents if at least one of them is: an “alien enemy,” a member of a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO), a government employee, or has “engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship.” While the scope of this is technically narrower than his first birthright ban, it is ultimately vague enough that the Trump administration could effectively weaponize it against anyone.
Consider this: On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order designating Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) as FTOs. In March, Trump issued a proclamation declaring that all Venezuelan noncitizens 14 years or older who are members of TdA “are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.” The very same day, the administration announced the deportation of nearly 300 Venezuelan nationals it accused of being members of TdA.
Among these deportees were those whose only crime was having a tattoo that immigration officials had designated as a sign of gang affiliation. Such tattoos included: “stars on shoulder,” “crowns,” “firearms and grenades,” “trains and dice,” “roses and predatory felines,” gas masks, clocks, and even the iconic silhouette of Michael Jordan dunking—the Jumpman. Notably, unlike other gangs, TdA does not require its members to obtain any tattoos. The Trump administration simply used this as a pretext to deport innocent people to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
No child is responsible for the circumstances of their birth—even if their parents are guilty of a crime, they are innocent.
Under this latest executive order, the US-born children of those accused of being a member of a FTO—no matter how baseless the allegation—would have their citizenship status jeopardized and more than likely denied. In doing so, it would pave the way for more family deportations. Notably, the Trump administration has already deported several US-born children along with their parents.
Moreover, while TdA and MS-13 are real organizations, the Trump administration has already designated at least one fictional group as a FTO: the Cartel de los Soles. In 2025, the State Department alleged that this organization was “headed by [Venezuelan President] Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime.” This was a strategic lie. Like antifa, Cartel de los Soles is not a formal organization with a clearly defined leadership structure. Rather, experts describe it as a loose network of individuals broadly involved in the drug trade.
Nevertheless, that designation gave the Trump administration the pretext to invade Venezuela, kidnap Maduro, and put him on trial for his alleged narco-crimes. After his capture, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revised its indictment of Maduro and abandoned its claim that Cartel de los Soles is an actual organization. Whereas the old indictment made 32 mentions of the fictional cartel, the new one refers to it twice. It claims that Maduro, like former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, participated in, perpetuated, and protected this “patronage system.”
While the DOJ altered its indictment of Maduro, Cartel de los Soles is still formally classified as a FTO by the State Department.
Herein lies the real danger: The Trump administration lies and lies often. For an administration this corrupt and xenophobic, this new birthright ban offers it the ability to accuse any noncitizen, under whatever false pretenses, of being a member of a real or fictional organization to target their children. And, make no mistake, if the Supreme Court allows them, the Trump administration certainly will.
Ending Birth Tourism
The other executive order aims at ending birth tourism, or the practice of traveling to another country to give birth, thereby allowing the child to automatically acquire citizenship. While Trump insists that there are “hundreds of thousands” of such births each year, the Migration Policy Institute notes that the most expansive estimate puts the figure at 22,000 to 26,000 babies born annually in the US due to birth tourism—or less than 1% of all births in the country.
That number, however, is disputed. In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 9,576 babies were born in the US to mothers who list their official address as outside the US. A 2026 study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that birth tourism accounted for less than 0.3% of all US births in any given year between 2014 and 2024.
This executive order authorizes the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security “to issue or adopt rules, policies, operational guidance, or other guidance” designed to stop foreign nationals from entering the country via a temporary visa if they have the goal of giving birth on American soil.
Notably, while the executive order decries the purported dangers of birth tourism, it is vague with respect to how the State Department or DHS would actually go about identifying these people.
Since the first executive order explicitly targets the children of noncitizens who “engage in a commercial transaction to ensure that the person’s mother is present in the United States, or a territory of the United States, to give birth,” these departments would be empowered to deport law-abiding visa holders and deny their children citizenship based solely on their own discretion—no matter how disingenuous.
In short, together, these two executive orders would allow the Trump administration to further accelerate its mass deportation agenda while denying citizenship to whoever they want.
Protect Birthright Citizenship
Given the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Barbara, these orders should be ruled unconstitutional. Regardless of whether the parents engaged in fraud or were members of a real (or fictional) terrorist organization, their US-born child would still be a citizen under the 14th Amendment. No child is responsible for the circumstances of their birth—even if their parents are guilty of a crime, they are innocent.
So, what then is the point? Perhaps the Trump administration believes that by framing their birthright ban in terms of terrorism and fraud that the Supreme Court might see things differently.
Perhaps it believes that returning to the birthright issue will help Republicans in the midterms. While Trump is broadly unpopular, 8 in 10 Republicans continue to support his immigration policies. An April 2026 poll by Reuters found that 62% of Republicans support ending birthright citizenship.
Once again, we are put in a position where we must trust the Supreme Court to do the right thing. And once again we are forced to reckon with the fact that we cannot take for granted that it will.
Perhaps the point is to stoke more fear within immigrant communities in hopes that more people will self-deport.
Perhaps the cruelty is the point.
Whatever the reason, the reality is that birthright citizenship is once again under fire. People’s constitutional rights are once again being threatened by a xenophobic administration with no regard for the Constitution or the rule of law. Once again, we are put in a position where we must trust the Supreme Court to do the right thing. And once again we are forced to reckon with the fact that we cannot take for granted that it will.
For the sake of ourselves, future generations, and the country, we cannot allow this to become the new normal. We must continue to protest the Trump administration’s abuses, support the journalists documenting its atrocities, and demand that Congress take actions to rein in its corruption.
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Capitulation to Trump Is a Losing Strategy, Again
Nine Big Law firms that paid a large sum of money and met demands for supposed peace with the Trump administration now find themselves the subject of DOJ subpoenas.
Jul 25, 2026
In an early victory for President Donald Trump’s protection racket, the leaders of nine prestigious Big Law firms collectively paid almost $1 billion and sacrificed their professional integrity to secure peace with his administration—or so they thought.
They were wrong.
The ABA Defends the Profession
In June 2025, the American Bar Association (ABA) sued the Trump administration for targeting those firms and five others. The ABA claims that Trump has sought to intimidate attorneys from representing clients and causes that he didn’t like.
After a federal judge denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the ABA’s complaint in April, the ABA subpoenaed the files of Trump adviser Boris Ephsteyn, a key liaison in negotiating settlements between the nine capitulating firms and the White House. The Department of Justice (DOJ) moved to quash the subpoena, arguing that the confidentiality of presidential communications is a constitutional safeguard.
Among the problems with the government’s position are that:
- Ephsteyn is a personal senior counsel to Trump;
- He has no official position in the White House or the administration; and
- Trump has not asserted executive privilege.
The dispute may well land in the US Supreme Court, which has become Trump’s preferred forum.
The Justice Department Opens a New Front in Trump’s Continuing War
On July 2, the DOJ took a step that seemed odd: It served subpoenas on the nine capitulating firms, as well as four firms that fought Trump’s executive order and won. (It also subpoenaed a firm that took no public action.) Those subpoenas sought some of the same information that the ABA wanted from Ephsteyn:
All communications on or after January 20, 2025 that [each firm] sent to Boris Epshteyn, received from Boris Epshteyn, or participated in with Boris Epshteyn.
They also sought all communications relating to the negotiations, implementation, enforcement, and monitoring of the agreements.
Presumably the Justice Department already has access to the law firms’ communications with Ephsteyn. If so, why did it subpoena the firms for some of the same material, including documents that it didn’t want the White House to provide in response to the ABA’s subpoena?
Possible answers:
- The DOJ wants the 14 subpoenaed firms to pressure the ABA into withdrawing its subpoena seeking Ephsteyn’s files. If so, it has misread the room badly. In April, the ABA filed an amicus brief with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of its 400,000 members supporting the four law firms that successfully challenged the constitutionality of Trump’s executive orders. The ABA isn’t going to save the capitulating Big Law firms from themselves.
- The department doesn’t trust Ephsteyn or the White House to provide it with all relevant materials that Ephsteyn has.
- The subpoenas were a predicate for the DOJ’s next move: trying to disqualify the ABA’s outside counsel—Susman Godfrey, one of the four big firms that won court challenges to Trump’s executive orders.
The Justice Department Tries to Avoid the Plain Language of the Applicable Rule
On July 17, the DOJ moved to disqualify Susman Godfrey from representing the ABA. It relies on the governing District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct, specifically, Rule 3.7, which states: “A lawyer shall not act as advocate at a trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness….” [Emphasis supplied]
The Justice Department argues that the rule “contains a bright line rule prohibiting a lawyer from serving as both advocate and fact witness in the same matter….”
Not quite.
First, Rule 3.7 does not apply to all “fact witnesses.” It applies only to necessary witnesses. Susman Godfrey lawyers have become potential witnesses only because the DOJ subpoenaed documents from the firm as a whole.
Second, the rule applies only to individual lawyers within a law firm and, except in special circumstances inapplicable to the ABA case, not to all members of an entire firm. The DOJ has sought to depose as potential witnesses only the chairpersons of the 14 firms.
Third, the rule focuses on the interests of the client (here, the ABA), not its opponent (the White House). As the official commentary to Rule 3.7 explains: “If the only reason for not permitting a lawyer to combine the roles of advocate and witness is possible prejudice to the opposing party [the White House], there is no reason to disqualify other lawyers in the testifying lawyer’s firm from acting as advocates in that trial.”
Finally, the rule bars only an advocate who is likely to be a necessary witness at trial. The case may never reach the trial stage, and Susman Godfrey is free to represent the ABA until it does. Since 1992, DC Bar Ethics Opinion 228 has made that clear.
Meanwhile, the nine capitulating firms now face a quandary: What does Trump want from them? If they comply with the DOJ’s subpoenas, they will disclose some of the very information that the Justice Department is trying block by objecting to the ABA’s subpoena.
Regardless of the DOJ’s motivations, federal judges do not take kindly to an advocate’s misreading of the governing law or ignoring precedent that cuts against its position.
Here’s the real kicker: The subpoenas to Susman Godfrey and its fellow resisting law firms have already backfired. They are more evidence supporting the ABA’s claims of presidential intimidation and harassment.
As for the nine firms that settled—and the many other institutions that have that capitulated to Trump—the entire episode demonstrates that appeasing a bully will never produce finality.
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ICE Kills, DHS Lies: The New Normal of Trump’s America
Federal agents flood our neighborhoods; a poorly trained, gun-happy immigration agent kills someone; the administration alleges, without evidence, that the victim was responsible; no proper investigation is conducted; no one is held accountable. Rinse and repeat.
Jul 09, 2026
On July 7, an Immigration Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national. According to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Araujo “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense.” As of the time of this writing, the agency has yet to provide any evidence.
This shooting comes days after a massive surge in ICE arrests. Between June 26 and June 30, 10,000 people were reportedly detained by immigration agents.
This is a tragic story—one that we have seen many times before.
Silverio Villegas González: On September 12, Villegas González, a Mexican national, was shot and killed by an ICE agent. This occurred during the agency’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in the Chicago area.
Araujo was not the first of ICE’s victims. So long as the agency exists, he will not be the last.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleged that the ICE agent “was hit by the car and dragged a significant distance. Fearing for his own life, the officer fired his weapon.” DHS further claimed that the agent “sustained multiple injuries.”
These were lies. Bodycam footage collected by Franklin Park police officers show the ICE agent saying he “got dragged a little bit” and describing his own injuries as “nothing major.” Surveillance video shows that Villegas González did not drive toward or hit either agent. Several eyewitnesses further refute DHS’ narrative.
Marimar Martinez: On October 4, Martinez, a US citizen, was shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum. In a statement, DHS described this as “defensive fire.” They alleged, without evidence, that Martinez and her fellow “domestic terrorists” “ambushed” and “rammed federal agents with their vehicles.” On social media, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a video—from an unrelated incident—of a black SUV aggressively ramming an agent’s truck as "proof" of Martinez’s crime.
These, too, were lies. Bodycam footage shows the agents already had their weapons drawn as one of them turned the steering wheel toward Martinez’s car. One agent can be heard saying, “It’s time to get aggressive.”
Text messages reveal the “big time” support Exum received from then-Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks, and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in the aftermath of this incident. Hours after the shooting, Bovino even offered to extend Exum’s retirement with CBP “in light of [his] excellent service in Chicago.” He added, “you have much yet left to do!”
In a group chat, Exum bragged about how he “fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes.”
Renee Nicole Good: On January 7, Noem alleged that Good, a US citizen, “weaponize[d] her vehicle” and “attempted to run” over ICE agent Jonathan Ross. This act of so-called “domestic terrorism” justified Ross’s lethal action.
Once again, more lies. Footage captured on that day definitively showed—from multiple camera angles—that Good was turning away from Ross as he opened fire. He was never in danger.
Six months later, her murder has yet to be properly investigated. This was always the government’s plan. The day after her death, Vice President JD Vance insisted that the officer had “absolute immunity.” A few weeks afterwards, six federal prosecutors resigned over the Justice Department’s reluctance to investigate Ross. An FBI agent who had opened a civil rights investigation into Good’s death also resigned after she was ordered to reclassify it as an investigation into an assault on the ICE agent.
To these names, there are many we can add: Ruben Ray Martinez (shot and killed), Alex Pretti (shot and killed), Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis (shot), Jesus Javier Gomez Islas (shot, left permanently blind in his right eye), Keith Porter Jr. (shot and killed), Carlitos Ricardo Parias (shot).
Trump’s bigotry, Congress’ cowardice, and the Supreme Court’s blind obedience; a government devoid of checks and balances at war with its own people—this is America after 250 years.
This is the new normal of Donald Trump’s America—federal agents flood our neighborhoods. A poorly trained, gun-happy immigration agent kills someone. The administration alleges, without evidence, that the victim was responsible. No proper investigation is conducted. No one is held accountable. A family is torn apart. A community traumatized. Rinse and repeat.
We do not yet know all the details surrounding Araujo’s death. Perhaps we will never.
For now, there are two things we can take as certainties: First, any official narrative put forth by ICE, DHS, or the Trump administration cannot be trusted. They have repeatedly lied to the public, defended their killers, and blamed the victims. In their view, if you are killed by ICE, protest ICE, criticize ICE on social media, or even write a strongly worded email to ICE, then you are the criminal. You are the “domestic terrorist.”
Second, Araujo was not the first of ICE’s victims. So long as the agency exists, he will not be the last. The next victim could be anyone. Regardless of race or legal status, we are all vulnerable to Trump’s taxpayer-funded secret police.
This is the reality that we all find ourselves in—one that is nurtured and sustained by every aspect of the federal government: the Trump administration’s militarized immigration enforcement and crackdown on political dissent; a Congress that continues, despite the deaths, to provide billions to ICE and DHS; and a Supreme Court that gives ICE agents legal immunity to racially profile minorities and that paves the way for DHS to strip noncitizens of their protection status.
Trump’s bigotry, Congress’ cowardice, and the Supreme Court’s blind obedience; a government devoid of checks and balances at war with its own people—this is America after 250 years.
On Facebook, Araujo’s son, Ronaldo Salgado, wrote: “My father has been in this country for nearly 35 years, working in construction to provide for myself, my two brothers, and my mother. He was in the process of obtaining his work permit through the legal process. He was on his way to work, picking up his workers. My father did not deserve this.”
None of ICE’s victims deserved this.
We cannot allow ICE to continue tearing families apart. We cannot continue to suffer politicians and institutions that prioritize war and violence over helping the people they are meant to serve.
Despite the dangers, we must continue to protest ICE. We must advocate for progressive candidates and policies. The situation is bleak, but things will only get worse if we do nothing. The White House will not save us. The Supreme Court will not save us. Congress, as it stands, will not save us. We must save ourselves.
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Why Would President Trump Want to Celebrate the Declaration of Independence?
President Trump has long seemed fascinated by notions of “central casting.” Well, Donald Trump seems a more natural fit for the role of King George III than that of a framer of the Declaration of Independence.
Jul 04, 2026
For months President Donald Trump has been funneling money and interest toward the semi-private Freedom 250, and away from America 250, the congressionally created nonpartisan commission that has spent years preparing for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026. As a result, staggering sums of money have been contributed to Freedom 250, much of it by private companies that do business with the government or are in heavily regulated industries. It’s unsurprising that large corporations might want to seek favor from the Trump administration by opening their checkbooks, and it’s unsurprising that President Trump would welcome these checks with minimal transparency.
What is surprising is that President Trump would be keen to celebrate the Declaration of Independence at all. This document expresses the people’s desire to be free from the rule of a king, a hunger for the rule of law, and respect for an independent judiciary. Nothing could be less Trumpy.
While the Declaration announces liberation from the tyranny of monarchy, Trump seems fairly obsessed with framing himself as a king. Examples abound. In lauding his own efforts to kill a congestion pricing plan in Manhattan, Trump ended his social media post with the self-congratulatory, “LONG LIVE THE KING.” In response to historic nationwide peaceful protests, Trump posted an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown and dumping excrement upon American demonstrators. During a recent official British state visit, the White House posted a picture of King Charles with President Trump, captioned “TWO KINGS.” And Trump’s fondness for monarchical trappings is no secret globally. For instance, while wearing a gold tie that reflected “President Trump’s taste for gold,” South Korean President Lee Jae Myung presented Trump with a golden crown that was a replica of an ancient artifact, and Trump responded by saying, “I’d like to wear it right now.”
Notably, the Declaration’s first grievance against King George III of Great Britain was his refusal to “Assent to Laws,” conveying the belief that no one—not even a nation’s highest leader—is above the law. Yet President Trump seems offended by such a notion, and he contests it regularly. Trump implies that the law does not apply to him when he posts messages like “[h]e who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” a quote often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the general who declared himself emperor of France in the 1800s. And Trump has proclaimed that Article II of the Constitution grants him “the right to do whatever I want as president,” a statement that not only misreads Article II, but ignores the way presidential power operates with, and is checked by, Article I congressional power and Article III judicial power.
Thankfully, we need not look to President Trump for inspiration on how to mark the Declaration’s 250th anniversary.
Numerous high-ranking Trump administration officials, including Solicitor General John Sauer, have declined to commit to obeying court orders and the administration’s track record reflects this defiance: In just the first six months of the administration, courts in more than 12 cases determined that the administration violated court orders. More recently, a study cited hundreds of instances of administration non-compliance with court orders. The situation has become so dire that many judges have lost confidence in this administration’s representations and are reducing the deference customarily given to federal government lawyers.
Finally, further down in the Declaration’s list of grievances against King George III is that “[h]e has made Judges dependent on his Will alone.” Today, this could describe Trump’s aspirations. He has railed against judges—even those whom he appointed in his first presidential term—when they dare to rule against his administration’s policies. Trump is infuriated when judges honor their oaths of office and follow the facts and the law regardless of where this leads them. After immigration-related rulings halted Trump administration policies, US District Judge James Boasberg found himself the target of President Trump’s call for Congress to remove him from the bench. Trump railed about Boasberg on social media, calling the judge a “troublemaker and agitator,” and suggested that many other judges should be impeached as well.
Trump’s harsh rhetoric even prompted a rare statement from Chief Justice John Roberts, who explained that “[f]or more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” And it’s not just lower court judges who find themselves targeted by Trump’s invective. After the Supreme Court struck down his administration’s tariff scheme by a 6-3 margin, Trump criticized the court and justices in strikingly personal terms, saying, “I’m ashamed of certain members of the court,” and in reference to Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, you wanna know the truth, the two of them.”
President Trump has long seemed fascinated by notions of “central casting.” Well, Donald Trump seems a more natural fit for the role of King George III than that of a framer of the Declaration of Independence.
Thankfully, we need not look to President Trump for inspiration on how to mark the Declaration’s 250th anniversary. Inspiration can be found in the broad array of Americans who gathered nationwide to protest autocracy in peaceful No Kings demonstrations; the March 28, 2026 No Kings mobilizations drew an estimated 8 million participants in over 3,000 sites, arguably the largest single-day of protests in United States history.
We can be inspired by the bravery of Minnesotans killed while protesting the mistreatment of immigrant community members, and Minnesotan community-based efforts to help neighbors too frightened to leave their homes in the face of brutal abuses by immigration enforcement officers, ones that call to mind the Declaration’s complaint that King George had “sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” And who isn’t inspired by countless Americans who joined interfaith vigils to protest the inhumane and lawless detention of people at facilities like Florida’s infamous “Alligator Alcatraz”?
These members of the American family, true patriots, honor a Declaration that ends with the promise to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” They understand that embedded within our Declaration of Independence lies a Declaration of Interdependence. Now that’s something to celebrate.
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Trump: Grifter in Chief
The administration has endeavored to negotiate every peace deal, trade agreement, investment arrangement, and mineral pact in such a way as to deliver Trump, his family, and their circle of close supporters a good chunk of change.
Jul 02, 2026
The Trump administration concluded a recent mineral deal with Kazakhstan that, not surprisingly, enriches not only President Donald Trump’s own family but that of his secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick. Trump’s two eldest sons, part owners of Dominari Securities, are set to profit from the Kazakh tungsten deal. So is Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment firm run by Lutnick’s two sons.
As The New York Times pointed out in its investigation of the scheme, “Their sons were soon doing business with partners in a deal that their fathers were negotiating, continuing a pattern of self-enrichment in the second Trump administration that has few precedents in American history.”
The phrases “self-enrichment” and “few precedents” are interesting ways of characterizing this latest instance of the administration’s corruption. Isn’t self-enrichment a good thing, in the sense of profiting from your own hard work? By contrast, the article doesn’t mention the word “corruption” at all. Perhaps the Times is worried about getting hit by yet another Trump legal challenge (in October last year, Trump refiled a $15 billion defamation suit against the paper for its coverage of his 2024 presidential campaign).
There are indeed several precedents in American history for what Trump is doing. These previous corruption scandals—Credit Mobilier, Whiskey Ring, Teapot Dome—wrecked the reputations of presidents and cast long shadows over American politics. They also helped to produce the kind of safeguards that Trump is now destroying.
Foreign policy is a tool by which the administration levies a toll on any entity that has the temerity to be a country other than the United States.
As with much of Trump’s disrespect for norms, his corruption has been massive and largely in full view. The two outstanding questions are: Will Trump and company ever be held accountable for their graft and will this corruption have an enduring impact on political institutions in the United States?
Tracking the Damage
If scandalous behavior unfolds in full view of everyone, is it still a scandal? “Scandal” suggests something hidden, something whispered about, something revealed. Trump’s actions are full frontal. They are both brazen and matter-of-fact.
According to the Trump administration and its extended family, the money skimmed off the top of economic transactions is just smart politics. The administration has endeavored to negotiate every peace deal, trade agreement, investment arrangement, and mineral pact in such a way as to deliver Trump, his family, and their circle of close supporters a good chunk of change.
This is Trump’s interpretation of the American dream: Folks would be downright foolish not to profit from their position. All the great tycoons made their money, from railroads to AI, by being in the right place at the right time with the right amount of ruthlessness. In Trump’s case, however, he is using taxpayer money to cover the risk. And most the time, given the terms of the arrangement, there is hardly any risk because Trump is using his presidential power to game the system. That’s what he really means by the “art of the deal.” Trump only deals from a marked deck of cards.
The Center for American Progress runs Trump’s Take, which estimates that the president has received a little over $2.6 billion in cash and gifts since he took office in January 2025.
The graft is not secret, though sometimes the actual amounts involved are obscured by layers of complex finance. Trump’s recent mandatory financial disclosure offers some details. But thanks to a number of websites, it’s become quite easy to track in real time the growing amount of Trump’s slice of the pie.
The Center for American Progress runs Trump’s Take, which estimates that the president has received a little over $2.6 billion in cash and gifts since he took office in January 2025. Much of this money has come from various crypto schemes, including the Trump meme coin, but also such dubious ventures as the documentary about Melania Trump and a number of legal settlements (more colloquially known as shakedowns). Corruption Counter puts the value at $2.2 billion and includes such recent items as the $100 million savings for Trump from the recent effort to bar the Internal Revenue Service from auditing the president. (Courts blocked the overall $1.8 billion “settlement fund,” but the Justice Department is upholding the IRS amnesty.)
If you want to keep track just of the crypto deals, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee maintain the Trump Family Digital Grift Wealth Tracker. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) keeps his own list, which highlights the insider trading around the Iran War and a defense contract with Dell after the president invested in the company. David Kirkpatrick, at The New Yorker, has been keeping a running total of Trump’s ballooning assets. In January, he updated his total to $4 billion, which details, among other things, the Gulf money flowing into Trump pockets. Meanwhile, at RepresentUS, you can find a timeline of shady deals, from the no-bid contract to a presidential supporter for the Reflecting Pool “upgrade” to an Air Force contract for drones awarded to a company backed by Trump’s eldest sons.
In May, Campaign Legal Center published a rundown of influence peddling—what Trump supporters get in return for their contributions—that includes Elon Musk’s DOGE appointment, Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts for the Trump-supporting GEO Group, and the cessation of various lawsuits for Trump-friendly entities (Gemini, Robinhood, Coinbase). Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has its own tracker that keeps up with the number of major events held at Trump’s properties and the number of Trump-branded foreign projects developed during his second term (with a new Trump Tower planned for Tbilisi, Georgia, it’s now up to 25).
Sometimes it seems as though Trump administration policy is just a front for making money, much as a shell company provides a legitimate façade for organized crime.
Getting His Percentage
One of the sticking points in the current war with Iran is the latter’s attempt to control shipping in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran wants to charge a toll on ships passing through the Strait. Given that the strait is an international waterway—and not a canal—Iran’s bid violates international law.
Trump has opposed Iran’s gambit not so much because it violates the Law of the Seas but because Iran has borrowed a page from the Trump playbook. How dare they try to trump Trump! Indeed, the president has threatened a toll of his own if the ceasefire doesn’t hold: a take of 20% of regional revenues if the United States becomes “the guardian of the Middle East” by using military force to protect shipping in the region.
Foreign policy is a tool by which the administration levies a toll on any entity that has the temerity to be a country other than the United States. The Kazakh deal on tungsten is but one of several ways that the administration has cashed in on critical minerals. The Trump sons have a financial interest in 14 companies working with the US government on mineral deals that involve nearly $9 billion in federal funding. This includes $620 million Pentagon loan, fast-tracked by the White House, to a North Carolina rare-earth magnet company in which Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm has invested. Several Trump associates stand to gain from any future deal involving Greenland minerals.
Trump has used tariffs to extract various concessions. In some cases, countries have responded by appealing to Trump’s self-interest. Vietnam, for instance, approved a Trump golf course and received a tariff reduction. Switzerland also enjoyed such treatment when it gifted Trump “a special Rolex desktop clock, a 1-kilogram personalized gold bar, and loads of flattery.” The message is clear: US trade policy is for sale.
Even peace agreements are not immune from the Trump treatment. The Gaza peace deal offers potentially lucrative opportunities for outside businesses to profit from the reconstruction of the rubble-strewn area. “Everybody and their brother is trying to get a piece of this,” one long-time contractor told The Guardian. “People are treating this like another Iraq or Afghanistan. And they’re trying to get, you know, rich off of it.” The executive board of Trump’s Board of Peace is dominated by titans of industry—Marc Rowan, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner—all salivating at the prospect of using their insider position to profit (though, with progress stalled on the ground, the Board of Peace may end up doing corruption the old-fashioned way by just siphoning off the money up front and granting itself legal immunity to escape the consequences).
The deal that created a “Trump corridor” between Armenia and Azerbaijan was similarly projected to provide commercial opportunities to Trump cronies. But it has yet to get off the ground, another victim of Trump’s propensity to make a big splash with his agreements and neglect to secure the follow-through. Trump’s peace deal with Russia, negotiated on the backs of the Ukrainians, would have also meant a huge windfall for Trump cronies—in opportunities for reconstruction contracts in Ukraine and even larger profits for the commercial reengagement with Russia.
In The Atlantic, several months after Trump took office, David Frum summed up the corrupt activities of the administration this way:
Nothing like this has been attempted or even imagined in the history of the American presidency. Throw away the history books; discard feeble comparisons to scandals of the past. There is no analogy with any previous action by any past president. The brazenness of the self-enrichment resembles nothing seen in any earlier White House. This is American corruption on the scale of a post-Soviet republic or a postcolonial African dictatorship.
Frum served in the George W. Bush White House. A NeverTrumper, he nevertheless knows a little something about corrupt conservatives. Upwards of $20 billion of post-war reconstruction aid for Iraq disappeared into the ether of corruption (and the pockets of US firms, including Halliburton). Trump stands on the shoulders of giants.
Immunity and Impact
Donald Trump knows that he is a living, breathing violation of the law. That’s why he has gone to such lengths to ensure immunity—the Supreme Court decision providing presidents with immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts, the attempt to secure exemption from IRS audits. Trump has also promised to pardon preemptively “everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval Office.”
Let’s tackle Trump first. His immunity is not absolute. First, it does not cover “unofficial acts.” Depending on how courts define this category, Trump (and certainly his family) could be prosecuted for corrupt business dealings that are deemed “private.” Second, immunity doesn’t apply if it can be demonstrated that criminal prosecution poses no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” That’s another tough one to parse, and it will probably fall to future courts to define. But if something is demonstrably corrupt, then it should by definition fall outside the legitimate authority and functions of the Executive Branch.
Trump has already used his broad powers to pardon the January 6 rioters and other malefactors, including 22 corrupt politicians. Trump cronies must look at this record and feel pretty safe from future prosecution.
Donald Trump knows that he is a living, breathing violation of the law.
But presidential pardons also have their limits. Such pardons can’t violate the Constitution or criminal law—though Trump has challenged these strictures—and they don’t cover future crimes. More to the point, Trump’s pardons only apply to federal prosecution. Individuals can still be tried in various states (and overseas if their misconduct took place in other countries).
The impact of Trump’s misconduct is directly related to this question of immunity. If the president and his coterie “get away with it,” then the corruption they initiated will be much harder to root out of political institutions. Unprosecuted acts can harden into precedents. Throwing Trump and company into prison would be satisfying. Ditto clawing back their ill-gotten gains. From the point of view of democracy, however, even a plea bargain in which the malefactors stay out of jail and pay a nominal penalty in exchange for pleading guilty would be a victory.
It’s best to think of Trump as an aberration, however much his behavior can be traced to past scandals, the authoritarian tendencies of previous presidents, and the oft-corrupt workings of American capitalism. Democracy, like any fiction, requires the willing suspension of disbelief. Trump’s truly an unbelievable character. Once he’s gone, it will be time to pretend that the monster has been vanquished and the rule of law restored. Only in this way will America escape its semiquincentennial with its clothing muddied but its presumably good intentions intact.
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JD Vance's Drunk History
On June 25, Vice President JD Vance told his audience at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum that Nixon got a bum rap. The uncontested historical record proves otherwise.
Jun 30, 2026
The Watergate scandal revealed President Richard Nixon’s contempt for the Constitution and his systematic abuse of power. At the time, it was one of the darkest chapters in US history, resulting in the first-ever resignation of an American president.
But on June 25, Vice President JD Vance told his audience at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum that Nixon got a bum rap. The uncontested historical record proves otherwise. Vance’s contrary view demonstrates the depths to which he and President Donald Trump have taken the country.
“Facts Are Stubborn Things”
- In May 1972, a group of men connected with the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) burglarized and wiretapped the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex. One of the wiretaps didn’t work, so on June 17, 1972, they broke in again with a new microphone. A security guard saw door locks that had been taped open and called the DC police, which caught them red-handed. Among the burglars’ possessions was a White House phone number.
- After declaring falsely that no one on the White House staff was involved in the crime, Nixon acquiesced as his aides provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in “hush money” to the burglars. Then Nixon and his top advisers developed a plan to get the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the matter.
- As Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein pursued the story, a DC grand jury summoned witnesses who cracked. Nixon aides—including White House counsel John Dean—testified in nationally televised hearings where Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) asked, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” The answer was “a lot.”
- With the revelation that Nixon had taped his conversations about the cover-up in the Oval Office, the president sought valiantly to block their production.
- When special prosecutor Archibald Cox sued to obtain the tapes, Nixon instructed Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. In what became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then told Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox, but he resigned too. Finally, Nixon turned to the third highest official in the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, who carried out the order.
- Firing Cox was the futile act of a desperate man. Bork appointed Leon Jaworski as Cox’s successor, and Jaworski continued to press his case to the US Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the court ordered Nixon to release the tapes, and the public could hear Nixon’s own voice incriminate him.
- On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommended articles of impeachment. On August 7, Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), Sen. Hugh Scott (R-Pa.), and Rep. John Rhodes (R-Ariz.) visited the White House to give Nixon the bad news: The full House was going to impeach him, and the Senate would convict him. The next day, Nixon resigned.
Vance’s “Deep State” Fantasies
Vance claimed that Nixon was the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy.
“If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon,” Vance continued, “it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions, tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”
But the supposed “deep state” actors to which Vance referred consisted of Nixon’s top advisers who turned on him, the most conservative Republicans in Congress, a unanimous US Supreme Court, and two intrepid reporters at The Washington Post.
Timothy Naftali, a historian at Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs and the former director of the Nixon library, told The New York Times: “We have more than enough information from the Nixon era to know that there was no intelligence conspiracy against Richard Nixon. He brought his house of cards down upon himself.”
“You can hear him suborn perjury on the tapes,” Naftali told The Washington Post. “He’s telling an intermediary, what to tell someone who’s about to be interviewed by the FBI, what to say and what not to say. You can hear Nixon being told that money had been found to hire teamsters to go and break the bones of demonstrators. That’s all illegal.”
Lies Reveal Character
Prof. Naftali observed that, curiously, Vance had likened Trump to a president who had directed the CIA to subvert the Constitution.
“It’s not as if [Watergate] is a matter of partisan interpretation,” Naftali said. “The evidence is overwhelming. If [Vance] does know all of this, he’s telegraphing the kind of president he hopes to be.”
Vance also claimed that Watergate would have been a 12-hour news story today. He may be correct, but that does not diminish the seriousness of Nixon’s crimes.
As prof. Naftali observed, “It’s not that Nixon looks better in retrospect, it’s that we look worse.”
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Why Won't the Cowardly, Corrupt Democratic Leadership Act to Impeach Trump?
Small wonder that the huge number of Americans who despise Trump also do not trust the Democratic Party, which the media describes month-after-month as being in disarray.
Jun 13, 2026
In my past two columns, I made the case for the Democratic Party to take the lead in pushing for President Donald Trump’s Impeachment. The majority of people favor firing Trump, and the massive number of blatant, impeachable acts by the lawless, corrupt, violent, unstable, dangerous Tyrant Trump increases by the day. If it helps the passive Democratic Party leadership, constitutional law specialists agree that were the Founding Fathers (who signed the Declaration of Independence and crafted the Constitution against would-be monarchs) here today, not one would oppose Impeachment.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the party’s leaders in the House and Senate respectively, know all the ways Trump is wrecking America. They know that the Democrats in the House and Senate overwhelmingly want to impeach Trump. So, what’s the problem with these two men, and their weak Democratic National Committee?
Why do they constantly whine, “Now is not the Time,” “We don’t have the votes,” “Wait until after the midterm elections,” which they know Trump has his Trumpsters working overtime to disrupt? These are not the real reasons; they are pretexts. Trump, the burgeoning arsonist of our Republic and the Constitution for which it stands, should not be given one day more without being confronted by a fast-rising national impeachment movement. Along with a growing majority of Americans, the powerful New York City Bar Task Force declared in a March 9, 2026 report that Trump should be immediately impeached. (See report: “The Crisis Deepens: Congress Must Act Now to Address Escalating Abuses of Executive Power”). This from a bar dominated by corporate lawyers, no less.
Why then is the party leadership so cowardly and corrupt?
The bright light comes from insurgent Democrats from Texas to Maine who are coming to Congress to join the progressive core there and may challenge the leadership posts of Jeffries and Schumer in January 2027.
1. They are antidemocratic CONTROL FREAKS quite comfortable contracting out their campaigns to corporate-conflicted, incompetent consultants. This is a long-building drive of political immolation. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said, "The Democratic Party. It’s Dead,” after the 2000 election in a Washington Post op-ed.
These control freaks have excluded the input and voter turnout proposals of progressive citizen groups and progressive labor unions, which could have shown them how to landslide the worst GOP ever in election after election. (See the August 27, 2024, letter to Liz Shuler and winningamerica.net).
2. By definition, control freaks do not like electoral mandates from the public. These Democrats want to win elections THEIR WAY—raise lots of money, including from corporate PACs and Wall Street; run on a very few issues distinguishing them from the Republicans; and declare they are NOT Trump the vengeful, wild outlaw. People want candidates who are fighters, specifically for their rights and interests, not slick politicians giving them double talk.
Imagine if Democratic candidates pushed for “Medicare for All” instead of inadequate Obamacare or fought for an adequate living wage instead of not even raising the federal minimum wage when the Dems controlled both houses of Congress and had a Democratic president?
3. The Articles of Impeachment (H.Res.1155) introduced by Representative John Larson (D-Conn.)—viewed hostilely by Jeffries—offer a mechanism to check Trump’s unbridled destruction of our democracy and “kitchen-table” necessities. Impeachment shines a spotlight on a host of reform agendas that the ossified Democratic leadership does not want to address, unlike restive younger Democratic candidates, some of whom are winning upset primaries. For example, Trump is starting his own wars, without the authority of Congress—a prime impeachable offense. However, American Israel Public Affairs Committee; the Israeli-government-can-do-no-wrong lobby embedded in the party; and the giant weapons manufacturers like Boeing, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin support Trump’s war-making abuses. While pocketing campaign donations from these lobbies, the Democratic Party has no interest in Mr. Larson’s Article of Impeachment regarding Trump unconstitutionally initiating war as a belligerent or co-belligerent against Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Nigeria, and Gaza without constitutionally required congressional authorization.
A similar aversion extends to the “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” clause of the Constitution. This would open up a can of worms for The Democrats because Democratic presidents have failed to faithfully execute the law by ignoring waves of corporate crime, hundreds of billions of dollars in commercial billing fraud, including on Medicare and Medicaid; refusing to push for adequate corporate enforcement budgets; bankrolling huge corporate welfare schemes and allowing the tax code to be turned into Swiss cheese riddled with loopholes for the rich and powerful; and supporting the construction of nuclear power plants that are targets for terrorists, hazardous, and extremely costly compared with renewable wind, solar, and geothermal energy.
The Democratic leadership doesn’t want the November election to be about the concentration of power abuses by plutocrats who have been inflicting so many injustices, crimes, and anxieties on the American people, reducing their livelihoods and public services.
They have not publicly adopted a comprehensive corporate crime reduction agenda for Congress to address, leaving a bill by Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) in isolation (see Corporate Crime Reporter). With then Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democratic leadership rejected legislation favored by the majority of congressional Democrats, led by Rep. John Larson, to raise Social Security benefits, frozen since 1971, by increasing Social Security taxes on higher-income people.
The Dems do not even take a loud, consistent campaign stand against Trump’s crazed tax exemptions for big corporations—many of which pay little or no income taxes on their immense profits. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP): “The automaker Tesla reported zero federal income tax paid on almost $5.7 billion of US income in 2025. Southwest Airlines avoided all federal income tax on $561 million of income last year; its competitor United Airlines achieved the same zero-tax result on almost $4.3 billion of U.S. income. The entertainment company Live Nation Entertainment paid zero federal income tax on $98 million of U.S. income. [and] Yum! Brands, the parent company of the fast-food chains KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, paid no federal income tax on over $1 billion of U.S. pretax profits last year." (See: "88 Corporations, $105 Billion in Profits, Zero Federal Income Tax").
Small wonder that the huge number of Americans who despise Trump also do not trust the Democratic Party, which the media describes month-after-month as being in disarray. Repeatedly, people ask “What does the Democratic Party stand for?” The party does not respond with a coherent COMPACT FOR AMERICA. The Democratic Party is led by political cowards which IS why it is in disarray.
The bright light comes from insurgent Democrats from Texas to Maine who are coming to Congress to join the progressive core there and may challenge the leadership posts of Jeffries and Schumer in January 2027.
More immediate is how feeble the Democrats are in opposing Trump’s intricate campaign to overturn election results. Trump has already said there should not be elections in November. He has spoken about invoking the Insurrection Act to unleash the police and the “Injustice Department” against state election officials, seizing ballots, obstructing mail-in ballots, sending intimidating police to the polls or election certification sites.
In April, Politico published SEVEN very useful, practical ways to keep the November elections free and fair. Best advice for active voters and state officials I’ve seen. (“The Clock Is Ticking to Secure the Midterms—Here’s What the Experts Say,” Politico Magazine, April 20, 2026). Stealing elections has to be done locally, where you are! Stand up to stop cold gangster Trump from committing his greatest impeachable crime this year. Don’t wait for the Democratic Party to show you the way.
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Stop Trump's High Seas Killing Spree
The US must immediately end these boat strikes and take accountability for the harms caused to the victims and their families. And Congress must do its job of conducting oversight to ensure transparent and independent investigations of these strikes.
May 16, 2026
The US military has been carrying out extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Pacific over the past nine months with impunity.
On May 8, the US military struck another boat in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor. US Southern Command claimed “the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes” and “was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
According to The Intercept, there have now been 58 such boat strikes since September that have killed at least 193 people. As with the May 8 attack, the names and nationalities of most of these victims remain unknown.
The Trump administration has accused civilian boats of transporting narcotics to the US and says its killing “narco-terrorists.” But the Pentagon has provided no evidence for these claims or any indication that the people killed posed an imminent threat.
The use of unlawful force will become more normalized at home and abroad unless the Trump administration is held accountable for these illegal killings and its blatant abuse of power.
International and US law do not allow the use of the military to kill civilians suspected of crimes. Boat bombing on the high seas is not a legitimate law enforcement operation. Nor is it curbing the flow of drugs into the United States, as President Donald Trump claims, or combating the root causes of drug use.
Even if the boats did carry drugs, the appropriate response would be to lawfully intercept and detain the suspects and afford them due process of law.
In a desperate attempt to provide legal cover for these murders, the Trump administration is asserting that the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with unspecified drug cartels—the same kind of broad legal authority invoked by the George W. Bush administration in its post-9/11 “war on terror.”
But there is no armed conflict in the Caribbean or the Pacific. The people on those boats are civilians who are not legitimate military targets. “You just can’t call something war to give yourself war powers,” noted University of Pennsylvania professor Claire Finkelstein.
Legal and human rights experts agree.
Last October, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemned the boat strikes. “None of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law,” Türk said in his October 31 statement.
Despite the unsubstantiated, fearmongering claims pushed by the Trump administration, investigations have shown that several of those people killed were fishermen trying to make a living for their families. On January 20, the US attacked the Ecuadorian fishing boat La Fiorella. None of the eight fishermen aboard have been seen since.
Survivors have also endured abuse. In two separate Pacific attacks on Ecuadorian fishing boats in March, 36 survivors said they were “abducted and tortured by American forces and taken by boat all the way to El Salvador before being returned to Ecuador,” according to an investigation by Drop Site News.
“They handcuffed us, put hoods over our heads and pushed us around. We were terrified they were going to kill us,” recalled Jhonny Sebastián Palacios, one of the survivors, in an interview with The Guardian.
The US must immediately end these boat strikes and take accountability for the harms caused to the victims and their families. And Congress must do its job of conducting oversight to ensure transparent and independent investigations of these strikes.
The use of unlawful force will become more normalized at home and abroad unless the Trump administration is held accountable for these illegal killings and its blatant abuse of power.
When federal immigration agents killed American citizens earlier this year, we saw all too clearly the risks of letting the government shoot people and call them “terrorists.” It leaves all of us less secure, undermines the rule of law, and can’t be allowed to become routine.
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