Tag: fbi
Shameless Grandstanding: Bondi And Patel Overreach In Feeble Case Against Judge

Shameless Grandstanding: Bondi And Patel Overreach In Feeble Case Against Judge

When word broke on Friday about the arrest of a sitting Wisconsin state court judge, Hannah Dugan, on charges of obstructing the arrest of an illegal immigrant, my immediate reaction on Bluesky was “Whoa. Feels like massive overreaching.”

Having now reviewed the charging documents and some accounts of colleagues, my off-the-cuff assessment stands. The arrest of Judge Dugan was a long stretch that is hard to square with the principles of federal prosecution which govern the decision whether to charge every federal case.

A perusal of the facts, as laid out in the affidavit of an FBI agent accompanying the criminal complaint, easily isolates the weak spot in the case.

The six-agent team that had gathered in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to arrest Eduardo Flores Ruiz, who was appearing in Judge Dugan's courtroom on domestic violence charges, had not worked out a protocol for Ruiz's arrest. Dugan was angry when she learned of their presence and demanded that they speak with the chief judge. She then returned to her courtroom, adjourned Ruiz’s case, and directed him to leave through the jury door.

Although the key detail is obfuscated in the FBI affidavit, the jury door led directly back to the same public hallway, where one agent was waiting as Ruiz and his counsel emerged. (The others were conferring with the Chief Judge.) The agent followed Ruiz and his lawyer and went down the elevator with them. Other agents joined them and sought to arrest Ruiz in front of the courthouse. Ruiz ran and was arrested after a foot chase lasting the length of the courthouse.

For those wanting more facts, this long Twitter thread by Ann Jacobs of the Wisconsin Election Commission dissects the allegations and highlights the many weak aspects of the case.

Based principally on these details, the FBI has charged Dugan with two federal crimes: harboring or concealing Ruiz so as to prevent his discovery and arrest (18 U.S.C. §1071) and “corruptly obstructing or impeding the due and proper administration of law,” i.e., Ruiz’s deportation.

The challenge for the feds will be proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Dugan intended to prevent Ruiz's arrest. It seems at least equally plausible that Dugan wanted to avoid any scene in or in front of her courtroom. The idea that Judge Dugan was seeking to prevent Ruiz’s arrest doesn’t add up. She directed Ruiz to leave through another door but, as she well knew, into the public hallway where the agents were waiting. That's hardly consistent with a desire to prevent his arrest. And of course, he was arrested in short order.

It's very unlikely that a Wisconsin jury is going to view this case sympathetically in the first instance. But if Dugan testifies and proffers another explanation, it's hard to see how a jury convicts her beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed, if the case goes to trial, the feds will be at genuine risk of losing, ignominiously, on a Rule 29 motion based on a finding from the judge that no reasonable jury could find that the government proved intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

In any event, here's my prediction that Judge Dugan will not be convicted on these charges.

It's also worth noting the likely impact of the case. Ruiz was in court to answer serious charges of domestic abuse, which seem to be his only brush with the law since he entered the country without authorization. Given the widespread publicity, we have to expect that other people here illegally will be far less likely to risk arrest on federal immigration charges by showing up for court. That's a far greater cost to public safety than the short chase that Attorney General Bondi emphasized.

(I also want to note this was not the only immigration-based story unfolding over the weekend. We saw two particularly cruel instances of administration officials apprehending two different women who were making their scheduled reporting visits to the ICE office, wreaking havoc on their families.)

So the case is fairly weak, and the FBI overreached. It's not the first time that's happened, and it's not unique to the Trump administration. Of far greater concern is the unprofessional and corrupt political exploitation of the charges by FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Patel’s social media post trumpeting the arrest, which he quickly deleted, was the least of it. His gross abuse of discretion began with the decision to physically arrest and handcuff Judge Dugan at the courthouse as she was arriving for work Friday. A defendant like Judge Dugan should have been permitted, and 999 times out of 1000 would have been permitted, to surrender voluntarily after receiving a summons. FBI and DOJ rules give guidance for when to physically arrest a charged defendant – e.g., that the defendant is a flight risk, or a danger to the community, or is likely to destroy evidence, or has an extensive criminal history. Every one of the factors points to self-surrender rather than arrest, much less in sensational fashion at the courthouse as she arrived for work.

Treating Judge Dugan like a violent, dangerous criminal was obviously designed to score broader political points about the Administration’s wholesale deportations initiative. Patel decided to humiliate Judge Dugan for a sensational headline and to strike fear into the hearts of other judges. That not only contravened DOJ guidelines; it was bush and cowboyish.

Which brings us to Attorney General Bondi and her deeply embarrassing and unlawful exploitation of the arrest. Within hours of the episode, Bondi took to the airwaves of Fox News, where she cheerfully trashed Judge Dugan. She presented the allegations in the complaint as fact and added her own editorial denigrations. She said of the judge, “shame on her,” and of the charges, “you can’t make this up.” She continued, “we could not believe that a judge really did that,” and “what has happened to the judiciary is beyond me,” finally asserting that Judge Dugan is “deranged.”

Since she came to office, Bondi has had a consistent tin ear and an abhorrent proclivity to pepper her every public statement with blandishments of Trump and a suggestion that DOJ attorneys work for him personally, rather than the public.

It is a fundamental constitutional requirement in this country that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty, and that the government must prove all elements of a criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt. It is probably the single most important rule that a prosecutor must live by.

Accordingly, the U.S. Attorney’s Manual, the operating bible for federal prosecutors, requires strict adherence to that command. That includes forbidding prosecutors from offering opinions on a defendant’s guilt, supplying their own character assessments, or making any statement that could influence the outcome of a trial at the charging stage.

It is drummed into the head of every federal prosecutor that in announcing the filing of charges, you stick to the four corners of the charging document. Moreover, you emphasize that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty, a statement that appears routinely in every press release announcing an indictment.

Bondi’s diatribe transgressed all of these guidelines and more. For any prosecutor, state or federal, Bondi’s trashing of a just-charged defendant was breathtaking. In this and multiple other instances in her short tenure – her speech introducing the President at the DOJ particularly jumps to my mind – she has appalled DOJ veterans of all stripes and eras. She is a disgrace to her office.

Harry Litman is a former United States Attorney and the executive producer and host of theTalking Feds podcast. He has taught law at UCLA, Berkeley, and Georgetown and served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Clinton Administration. Please consider subscribing toTalking Feds on Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Substack.

Dan Bongino

Putting Dan Bongino In Top FBI Post Signals Trump's Real Agenda

The selection of right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino for a senior FBI role hammers home that President Donald Trump is eliminating the guardrails that prevented right-wing conspiracy theories becoming criminal prosecutions during his first term. It also shovels more dirt on the farcical idea that Trump and his allies want depoliticized law enforcement.

A regular pattern played out over Trump’s first term as the president sought to wield federal law enforcement as an extension of his will. Right-wing conspiracy theorists, typically led by Trump adviser and Fox News host Sean Hannity, would offer bogus claims that Trump’s foes had committed crimes. Then Trump, an inveterate Fox viewer, would publicly or privately demand investigations and often get them. But the probes would ultimately fall apart without significant charges after Trump’s own appointees — Republicans who nonetheless evinced some semblance of independence and professionalism — figured out there was nothing to them.

Trump’s second-term selections are intended to eliminate the disruptions caused by appointees with a higher priority than carrying out the president’s whims. They are sycophants who are zealously loyal to the president and some either previously worked as his personal lawyers or have long public records of calling for criminal investigations of his foes.

Trump said on Sunday that Bongino, who embarked on a career as a right-wing media commentator after serving in the New York Police Department and U.S. Secret Service and losing several congressional campaigns, will serve as deputy director of the FBI. Bongino worked as a Fox contributor and host before leaving in 2023 to focus on his eponymous podcast, which streams on Rumble and airs on Westwood One radio stations.

In announcing Bongino’s new role, Trump said the podcaster would help restore “Fairness” to the justice system. But Bongino is one of the last people you’d select for such a role if your intention was really to run a nonpartisan bureau: He is an inflammatory partisan who has declared that “owning the libs” is “my entire life right now” because they are “pure unadulterated evil" and has fawned over Trump as “an apex predator” and “the lion king.”

Bongino gained influence and an audience during Trump’s first term specifically because of his willingness to issue florid denunciations of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. On his NRATV show and in frequent guest appearances on Fox (particularly on Trump’s belovedFox & Friends and on Hannity’s show), Bongino described Mueller’s probe as “an obvious frame job and set-up” that is “designed to cover up for the misdeeds of the Obama administration” and called for the special counsel’s firing.

That left him well-positioned to jump to a Fox job in early 2019 amid NRATV’s collapse.

Bongino’s’s views of law enforcement weaponization seem entirely based on who is doing the weaponizing.

“The FBI is lost, it’s broken, irredeemably corrupt at this point,” Bongino said in 2022 after bureau agents executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home. “It’s way past time to clean this FBI house up. They have burned every last shred of faith and trust freedom-loving Americans had in it.”

“It's clear now we're living in the police state,” Bongino said after a federal grand jury handed down an indictment of Trump over his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. “The republic is now officially dead.”

But at the same time, Bongino said there should be “an FBI raid at the White House" to target then-President Joe Biden, whom he described as “the real criminal” based on fictitious right-wing corruption claims.

An inveterate conspiracy theorist, Bongino has also pontificated about the Democrats planning a coup in the lead-up to the 2020 election; said that election was marred by “unbelievably suspect behavior”; and suggested that pipe bombs planted near the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on January 5, 2021, were an “inside job” and the FBI is withholding the perpetrator because the information would “blow up the entire January 6 insurrection narrative.”

After Trump returned to office in January, Bongino called for an investigation into “special tyrant” Jack Smith and urged the president to “set up a courtroom” in the White House and “start making judicial decisions.” Now he’ll be one of seniormost figures in federal law enforcement with a mandate to carry out such deranged ideas.

It’s unlikely Bongino will be hindered by the higher-ups Trump has installed.

Kash Patel, the Trump-appointed FBI director, said in a 2023 interview that a second Trump term would target “the conspirators, not just in government but in the media” who had “lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” The appendix of Patel’s 2023 book “names more than 50 current or former US officials that he claims are ‘members of the Executive Branch deep state,’ which he describes as a ‘dangerous threat to democracy,’” in what has been frequently referred to as an “enemies list.”

At the Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi previously parlayed frequent Fox appearances defending Trump into a post on his first impeachment legal defense team. Her acting deputy, Emil Bove, previously represented Trump in state and federal prosecutions.

Meanwhile, Ed Martin, who will oversee major cases in the District of Columbia as its acting U.S. attorney, “was an organizer in the ‘Stop The Steal’ movement that falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump” and then “worked as a defense attorney for some people charged in the January 6 riot.”

Over the first month of the Trump administration, this new team has proved grim for the rule of law, with January 6 perpetrators pardoned en masse, top prosecutors and FBI leaders purged, and Justice Department lawyers resigning after receiving what they viewed as unacceptably partisan orders to dismiss charges or launch an investigation.

On Sunday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association told its members that Patel had committed to selecting as his deputy “an on-board, active Special Agent as has been the case for 117 years” in order to preserve “operational expertise and experience, as well as the trust of our Special Agent population.” But Trump doesn’t care about any of that, and he announced hours later that Patel had picked Bongino, someone who lacks that experience but shares the president’s desire to punish his political enemies. And that means the months ahead will be worse.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Emboldened Neo-Nazi Terrorists 'Quickly Rebuilding' As Patel Takes Over FBI

Emboldened Neo-Nazi Terrorists 'Quickly Rebuilding' As Patel Takes Over FBI

The Base, a paramilitary neo-Nazi/white supremacist group founded in 2018, was a major target of the FBI and its former director, Christopher Wray, during Joe Biden's presidency. And in 2022, according to The Guardian's Ben Makuch, The Base "seemed to disappear" in the United States.

But Makuch, in an article published on February 24, warns that The Base appears to be "regrouping" in 2025.

"An international neo-Nazi terrorist group with origins in the U.S. appears to be quickly rebuilding its global and stateside ranks, according to information obtained by The Guardian from its digital accounts," Makuch reports. "Founded in 2018, The Base has been the intense focus of a years-long FBI counterterrorism investigation that has resulted in more than a dozen of its members arrested. It has plotted an assassination, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, which made it a proscribed terrorist organization in several countries."

The Base's "regrouping," according to Makuch, "comes at a time when the Trump Administration has made it a policy goal to move away from policing far-right extremism" and the FBI is now under the direction of Trump loyalist Kash Patel.

Makuch reports, "Experts say federal law enforcement ignoring far-right groups such as The Base could expose Americans to increased domestic terror threats…. A flurry of new images on The Base's various social media accounts, some closed and some open, show members claiming to be in the U.S. and across Europe brandishing pistols or military-style rifles and donning the trademark skull mask of the accelerationist neo-Nazi movement — one that demands acts of terrorism to bring down world governments. In one photo, a member is holding a knife and what appears to be a pistol in front of the Base flag in the United Kingdom, while others feature members in Bulgaria, Italy, Belgium and Sweden. "

Steven Rai of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) warns that The Base's activities in the U.S. need to be taken seriously.

Rai told The Guardian, "The Base has released a slow but steady trickle of propaganda over the past several months that has mostly highlighted their presence in Europe, so this shift in focus towards the U.S. should raise alarms. The timing of this shift is particularly noteworthy. While neo-Nazi accelerationist groups like The Base have been on their back foot due to intense law enforcement pressure, which disrupted their most integral organizers and propaganda artists, they may sense an opening with the recent change of administration in the U.S…. Violent extremists are absolutely paying attention to the changes in the national security establishment in the U.S."

Terrorism expert Colin Clarke, who serves as director of research at the Soufan Center, stresses that The Base are well-aware of changes in leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Clarke told The Guardian, "I think groups like The Base, far-right extremist groups that are strategic, have been waiting for the right opportunity before reinvigorating their respective organizations. This means that far-right extremist groups likely perceive the reelection of Trump as a green light to rebuild without fear of arrest or prosecution."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Kash Patel

FBI And NOAA Bosses Order Staff To Ignore Directive From Musk

Newly appointed FBI Director Kash Patel has instructed agency employees to refrain from responding to a recent email from the Trump administration. According to The Guardian, the email, sent to hundreds of thousands of federal workers, requested them to list their accomplishments from the previous week as part of tech billionaire Elon Musk's efforts to reduce the size of the federal government.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) gave federal employees a mere 48-hour window to detail their achievements, causing widespread panic across key agencies, including the FBI.

“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”

However, Patel — who was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday — countered the request. According to ABC News, Patel's message to FBI personnel stated: "The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is responsible for all our review processes, which will be conducted in accordance with FBI procedures. Please hold off on any responses for now. We will coordinate further information if required."

This directive comes amidst reports that Patel may also be appointed as acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Separately, John Durham, the top federal prosecutor in New York's eastern district, has also advised his staff to delay their responses.

Rear Adm. Chad Cary, director of NOAA also directed employees to stand down from responding and said the directive "came as a surprise to all departments, and NOAA leadership is seeking guidance," according to ABC News.

Elon Musk, tasked with cutting government costs during Trump's second term, announced the request on his social media platform X. "Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump's instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week," he stated. "Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."

This unusual directive has caused chaos across various agencies, including the National Weather Service and State Department. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has strongly criticized the move, calling it "cruel and disrespectful" to federal workers, particularly veterans in civil service.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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