Bushies declared Geneva obsolete. Trump thiunks the Constitution irrelevant.
Jonathan Last asks at The Bulwark, “If you were Chris Krebs, would you flee the country?”
Last week Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum. This one instructs the Department of Justice et al. to launch an investigation into Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). His alleged crime? Testifying to the Jan. 6 Select Committee that Republican officials “lied to the American people about the security of the 2020 election.” In Trump’s telling, Krebs “falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.” That is, Krebs committed HERESY by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action!
I further direct the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and all other relevant agencies to immediately take all action as necessary and consistent with existing law to suspend any active security clearances held by individuals at entities associated with Krebs, including SentinelOne, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest.
I further direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with any other agency head, to take all appropriate action to review Krebs’ activities as a Government employee, including his leadership of CISA.
Blah, blah, blah, hereby, blah.
Another Trumporandum targeted Miles Taylor for “his unethical laundering and release of sensitive Government data to advance his false narratives.” Meaning this NYT op-ed from 2018. (Trump would know from unethical.) Maybe Krebs and Taylor can sit together on the flight.
One might see these as more Trumpish distractions from his disastrous tariff policy. They are that, but let’s not assume Trump cannot play golf and chew gum at the same time. He came into office promising revenge. He wants it all, and he’s doing his best Queen of Hearts to get it.
Matt Ford warns at The New Republic that Trump is musing about sending Americans to a Salvadoran gulag. That would be the joint where cosplaying DHS Secretary Kristi Noem shot her propaganda ad in front of caged, mostly Venezuelan prisoners:
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also said it was under serious consideration. “The president has said if it’s legal, right, if there is a legal pathway to do that, he’s not sure,” she told reporters at a press briefing. “We are not sure if there is. It’s an idea that he has simply floated and has discussed very publicly as in the effort of transparency.” She claimed the practice would be reserved for “heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly.”
“Banishment” or “exile”
Heinous and violent being in the eyes of Trump himself, Krebs and Taylor (or you) ought not see themselves as exempt even from an act “flagrantly illegal and spectacularly unconstitutional.” Trump wipes his ass with the Constitution (many people are saying).
But let’s be clear with our terminology, Ford urges:
First, a word on words: Some commentators have described this potential practice as “deportation.” This is not accurate. That term only applies to the removal of noncitizens from a country or political community to which they do not legally belong. More accurate terms would be “banishment” or “exile.” For clarity’s sake, I’ll use the term banishment for removals from one U.S. state or city to another—more on that later—and the term exile for forcibly removing a U.S. citizen to another country, as Trump is mulling.
Would it be legal? Absolutely not. No law allows a federal court to sentence a defendant to serve their sentence overseas. Nor is there any statute that allows the president to unilaterally remove a U.S. citizen to another country at a whim. In the 1936 case Valentine v. United States, for example, the Supreme Court held that the president has no power to extradite a U.S. citizen to another country except when authorized by a treaty or an act of Congress.
It is insane that Ford even has to examine the case for exile:
The Supreme Court has never directly ruled on whether a U.S. citizen could be exiled to a foreign country because the federal government has never attempted it. However, the courts have operated under the assumption for at least the last 150 years that U.S. citizens cannot be denied reentry into the United States.
Which brings us back to my post below on nervousness about being able to get back into the country after leaving it. Ford cites one case from 1922 about an effort to deport Chinese Americans and other efforts from the 1960s to strip citizenship from draft-dodgers and others targeted by the government.
“We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to, and does, protect every citizen of this Nation against a congressional forcible destruction of his citizenship, whatever his creed, color, or race,” wrote Justice Hugo Black in 1967. “Our holding does no more than to give to this citizen that which is his own, a constitutional right to remain a citizen in a free country unless he voluntarily relinquishes that citizenship.”
From these cases, Ford overoptimistically believes, “we can divine a few principles. U.S. citizenship is constitutionally sacrosanct, and U.S. citizens cannot be involuntarily deprived of it.”
But those cases were based on the very same Fourteenth Amendment that Trump wants reinterpreted by a MAGA-friendly Roberts court to deny birthright citizenship to “anchor babies.” This isn’t the 20th century anymore. The Roberts court is not the Warren court. Roberts oversees the court that overturned 50 years of precedent with its Dobbs decision.
And Donald Trump is a convicted felon.
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