“both the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District have leaned on the “major questions” doctrine. Under that legal theory, the executive branch can only exercise powers that Congress has explicitly granted. The U.S. Supreme Court invoked that doctrine in other recent high-profile cases, including the 2023 ruling that struck down then-President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme.
There is no doubt that Congress has, in fact, granted huge tariff powers to the executive branch. But the narrow question before the Supreme Court is whether the law Trump has invoked to impose these tariffs—the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)—grants such broad authority. The law does not contain the word “tariff” and has never been used to impose tariffs before now.”
“When Democrats pushed the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) through Congress in 2021—with hardly any bipartisan support—Donald Trump warned Republicans not to vote for it. “Patriots will never forget!” said Trump, who described the bill as “a loser for the USA, a terrible deal, and makes the Republicans look weak, foolish, and dumb.”
Patriots may never forget, but it appears that Trump—who is now taking credit for projects funded by the bill—has.”
“The new Trump Doctrine is maximum force with maximum publicity against the easiest targets possible. After blowing up an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean—Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a point of emphasizing that they chose to execute rather than arrest the crew—the administration renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Trump himself threatened that Chicago would “find out why” the name was changed in a social media post promising “deportations” and casting himself as a villain from Apocalypse Now.
As Reason’s Christian Britschghi points out, “Trump and his communications staff keep depicting the president as the bad guy doing bad things” because they like “the theater of armed, uniformed men marching around looking intimidating. They want the public to see the federal government as threatening and capable of exercising force at a moment’s notice.” Watch out: Here comes President Badass.”
“According to Kavanaugh, it is “common sense” to allow immigration agents to seize people based on “relevant factors” such as their “apparent ethnicity” and that they “gather in certain locations to seek daily work.” As for the argument that President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration dragnet will inevitably ensnare U.S. citizens too, and thus violate their constitutional rights, Kavanaugh simply waved those worries away. “As for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief,” Kavanaugh asserted, “and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U. S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.”
But the facts submitted as part of this very case undermine Kavanaugh’s breezy assertion.
…
” One agent ordered him to “Stop right there” while another “ran towards [him].” The agents repeatedly asked Gavidia whether he is American—and they repeatedly ignored his answer: “I am an American.” The agents asked Gavidia what hospital he was born in—and he explained that he did not know which hospital. “The agents forcefully pushed [Gavidia] up against the metal gated fence, put [his] hands behind [his] back, and twisted [his] arm.” An agent asked again, “What hospital were you born in?” Gavidia again explained that he did not know which hospital and said “East L.A.” He then told the agents he could show them his Real ID. The agents took Gavidia’s ID and his phone and kept his phone for 20 minutes. They never returned his ID.”
Those agents did not “promptly” let this U.S. citizen go after a quick chat. Instead, they seized him and “forcefully pushed [Gavidia] up against the metal gated fence, put [his] hands behind [his] back, and twisted [his] arm,” all while ignoring his repeated exclamations of his status as a U.S. citizen.
Kavanaugh did not mention any of those inconvenient details. But he did offer this laughable observation: “To the extent that excessive force has been used [by immigration agents], the Fourth Amendment prohibits such action, and remedies should be available in federal court.”
That observation is laughable coming from Kavanaugh because Kavanaugh joined the Supreme Court’s 2022 majority opinion in Egbert v. Boule, which, as I noted at the time, “made it practically impossible to sue a federal officer over an alleged constitutional rights violation.”
In other words, when Kavanaugh was directly presented with the opportunity to ensure that “remedies” for Fourth Amendment injuries would “be available in federal court,” he did the opposite: He joined the majority in shielding abusive federal officers from facing civil suits over even the most blatant constitutional violations.”
“The New York Times, citing unnamed “American officials familiar with the matter,” reported that the boat “appeared to have turned around before the attack started because the people onboard had apparently spotted a military aircraft stalking it.” That detail further complicates the already dubious legal and moral rationales for this unprecedented use of the U.S. military to kill criminal suspects.
The attack “crossed a fundamental line the Department of Defense has been resolutely committed to upholding for many decades—namely, that (except in rare and extreme circumstances not present here) the military must not use lethal force against civilians, even if they are alleged, or even known, to be violating the law,” Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman notes in a Just Security essay. Lederman adds that the September 2 drone strike “appears to have violated” the executive order prohibiting assassination and arguably qualifies as murder under federal law and the Uniform Code of Criminal Justice.
New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department lawyer, agrees. “It’s difficult to imagine how any lawyers inside the Pentagon could have arrived at a conclusion that this was legal,” he told the Times last week, “rather than the very definition of murder under international law rules that the Defense Department has long accepted.”
As Trump told it, the attack was justified because Tren de Aragua is “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.” He said the strike was meant to “serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.”
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U.S. forces therefore “struck a vessel” that “was assessed to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and to be engaged in illicit drug trafficking activities,” Trump explained. “I directed these actions consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations.”
Trump says the men whose deaths he ordered were “assessed” to be affiliated with Tren de Aragua. They also were “assessed” to be engaged in drug trafficking. Without knowing the basis for those assessments, we cannot say how accurate they were. Last week, Trump joked about the potential for deadly errors: “I think anybody that saw that is going to say, ‘I’ll take a pass.’ I don’t even know about fishermen. They may say, ‘I’m not getting on the boat. I’m not going to take a chance.'” Conveniently for Trump, summary execution avoids any need to present evidence, let alone meet the requirements of due process.
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Trump’s justification for that shortcut is perverse. Although he describes the strike as an act of “self-defense,” he does not claim the alleged drug traffickers were engaged in a literal attack on the United States. To accept Trump’s framing, you have to accept the premise that transporting illegal drugs is tantamount to violent aggression. Although that would be consistent with Trump’s often expressed desire to kill drug dealers, it is not consistent with the way drug laws are ordinarily enforced.
In the absence of violent resistance, a police officer who decided to shoot a drug suspect dead rather than take him into custody would be guilty of murder. Morally speaking, this situation is no different. That much is clear even without considering the fundamental injustice of criminalizing conduct that violates no one’s rights, such as the exchange of drugs for money.
Tren de Aragua’s designation as a “terrorist organization” does not affect this analysis. Trump administration officials “admit they could have interdicted the boat and detained the people on board,” notes George Mason law professor Ilya Somin. “They did not pose any imminent threat of violence, and they were not combatants in any war against the US. Calling them ‘narco-terrorists’ does not change these obvious facts.”
As Reason’s Matthew Petti observes, the unprovoked attack on a boat allegedly carrying drugs “shows how ‘terrorism’ makes everyone killable.” But that rhetorical license to kill does not amount to a legal justification.
“The State Department designation merely triggers the government’s ability to implement asset controls and other economic sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and other statutes,” Lederman notes. “It has nothing to do with authorizing [the Defense Department] to engage in targeted killings…which is why the U.S. military doesn’t go around killing members of all designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
Nor can Trump cite any other statute that transforms murder into self-defense in this context. Instead, he is relying on his “constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive” to use deadly force against civilians he perceives as a threat to “national security and foreign policy interests.”
That logic could be extended beyond drug trafficking. Since Trump frequently describes illegal immigration as an “invasion,” might he decide he has the authority to order the summary execution of people trying to enter the country without permission?”
…
even if you accept the specious equation of drug smuggling with armed aggression, it seems relevant that the alleged Tren de Aragua drug boat reportedly was turning back when the drone strike was launched. “If someone is retreating, where’s the ‘imminent threat’ then?” Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter, formerly the top judge advocate general for the Navy, asked in an interview with The New York Times. “Where’s the ‘self-defense’? They are gone if they ever existed—which I don’t think they did.”
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Geoffrey Corn, formerly the Army’s chief adviser on the law of war, likewise does not buy the “self-defense” argument. “I think it’s a terrible precedent,” he told the Times. “We’ve crossed a line here.””
“Patel’s upbeat tone contrasted with frustration and anger, both inside and outside the FBI, over his handling of the most high-profile moment of his tenure so far. Some FBI employees told CNN they found it galling for Patel to claim personal credit for the most successful parts of the investigation.
After all, it was Patel who had posted on Wednesday that a “subject” was in custody, a claim he had to walk back less than two hours later. Patel’s style also struck the FBI employees as not in keeping with how previous FBI directors handled similar situations, normally trying to credit employees instead of themselves.
Other FBI employees found it ironic that Patel thanked some of the bureau’s support staff key to investigations — since he has overseen moves to decimate those ranks.
Patel’s response during the rapid-fire series of events surrounding Kirk’s horrific murder has led some allies of President Donald Trump to question both publicly and privately whether he is equipped to handle the country’s top law enforcement agency.
A MAGA loyalist and member of the first Trump administration, Patel was a controversial pick to lead the FBI from the start, with many Trump critics questioning whether he was qualified for the job.”
“Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook declared in financial forms that her Atlanta property would be used as a “vacation home” and not her primary residence, according to documents obtained by NBC News that appear to undercut the Trump administration’s allegations of mortgage fraud.”
Trump has pressured South Korea to invest more in the U.S.. South Korea was setting up a factory in Georgia and brought some of their own people to set it up because they have the experience in building that exact type of factory. The U.S. then does a military style raid to remove these people. The administration is either so incompetent that it can’t stop itself from working at cross purposes, or/and U.S. immigration law is so bad that we can’t even get the needed workers legally in to do a job that is a part of a priority set by the president of the United States.