Free Republic

In President Donald J. Trump's vision of American justice, there are two kinds of judges: "smart" ones who allow him and his administration to do whatever they want, and "radical activist" ones who uphold the law and thwart his illegal actions. But Mr. Trump is going far beyond political rhetoric in the realm of immigration courts. He is openly trying to turn judges into rubber stamps for his anti-immigrant agenda. Mr. Trump's manipulation of the system began earlier this year when he fired more than 100 permanent immigration judges who apparently were ruling too often in favor of people the...

It regularly happens that I’ll strike on the seed of an idea for a column that attempts to connect the current news cycle with an analogous event from history, only to discover that the anniversary of that past milepost falls on or near my deadline. I always take this as a sign from a beneficent universe that I am on solid journalistic footing. And so it was last week as I was reading the section of the 44-page federal indictment of former President Donald J. Trump that dealt with the fateful July 2021 meeting in Bedminster, N.J., between Trump and...