Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
No one is above the law.
How about president with felonies?
FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
331–340 of 1001 posts
Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#332If you want a primary source, I recommend reading https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.11...
In particular, part D: "Judge DUGAN escorts Flores-Ruiz through a “jury door” to avoid his arrest."
Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#333This will be interesting for the 5th amendment. They cannot arrest you for putting "drug dealer" on your tax forms as your job since you are compelled to answer that question honestly. The defendant was compelled to appear in court which means he couldn't protect his own privacy by being elsewhere - are these the same thing? I don't know how courts will see it, but it is an interesting legal question that I hope some…
The thesis is that immigrants have no constitutional rights because they aren't citizens, or the stronger form, that they are invaders and thus enemy combatants.
The Supreme Court is going to have to clarify the existence or non-existence of constitutional rights for people living here unlawfully. And then the populace is going to have to make sure that the president doesn't conclude that he can ignore that ruling if he doesn't like it.
Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even if I wanted to arrest a sitting judge, it would have to be an act of gross malfeasance to motivate me to even consider arrest. This logic projects rationality onto an administration that does not merit such assumptions.
Psychological projection is a very apt choice, thank you for that. I’ve read a lot of people referring to “sanewashing” when the media tries to explain the mechanism behind the madness but this captures it much better.
It's a kind of fundamental error we make as humans: we judge the actions of other peoples by the standard of how we would behave, rather than the other person's past conduct or personality. And then we often work backwards from the action we see, guessing at what would have to be true for _us_ to act that way.
Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if this is intended to be a hypothetical but there is no IRS form where "Drug Dealer" is the correct answer. Drug dealing income would be disclosed as "Other income". If you volunteer "drug dealer" my guess is they could use it against you. Similar to showing up at FBI headquarters and shouting "I'm a drug dealer!"
Schedule C to Form 1040 (self-employment income) asks for your "Principal business or profession, including product or service". It's pretty clear that the only correct answer for some people would be something like "drug dealer".
"Independent Entrepreneur"
Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#336Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
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No one is above the law.
How many lawsuits were dropped and people pardoned at the discretion of the sitting president? Wasn't he the target of many legitimate lawsuits that were dropped? Didn't he pardon a bunch of people, including convicted fraudsters who grifted millions of dollars, relatively recently?
Somebody in particular is above the law, as are all his cronies.
Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#338The AP article [1] has the full complaint linked, the crux of the case seems to be around the judge allowing the defendant to leave through a back entrance ("jury door") when they were aware agents were waiting in the public hallway to make an arrest as they exited. " 29. Multiple witnesses have described their observations after Judge DUGAN returned to her courtroom after directing members of the arrest team to the…
See also section D that says "Judge DUGAN escorts Flores-Ruiz through a “jury door” to avoid his arrest" in https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.11... labeled "Case 2:25-mj-00397-SCD Filed 04/24/25" (13 pages)
Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying it's good, for sure. But I don't think it's a sign that the push for autocratic authoritarianism is winning , either. My optimistic take is that this is the sort of stupid overreach that works to turn other arms of government against the executive. The judiciary tends to be prickly about its prerogatives, and Trump's far from the point where he can just push stuff through without some cover.
We are far past the point of any optimistic take like that being realistic.
The fact that HN is letting political posts stay on the front page after months of suppression shows that we are past the point of denying the authoritarian road we are on.
Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine they'll soon be putting a spin on George W Bush-era legal arguments about the applicability of Geneva Conventions on "non-uniformed combatants". In this case, if the ICE agents weren't uniformed at the time of arrest, they can't be considered agents of the federal government, and thus can't be subject to legal redress.
Does that mean they’ll just be trespassers that can be shot if they enter your property unannounced like a gang of hooligans?
Not saying anyone should but in that case they are.