The Only “Judicial Coup” in This Country Is by Trump Against Judges

But shocking as all that has been, nothing touches what Trump is trying to do to Judge James Boasberg over those three planes full of alleged Venezuelan gang members. The administration’s latest legal gambit, to invoke the state secrets privilege in an attempt not to have to disclose any information about the detainees or the flights, amounts to an effort by Trump to say that he can take any action against anyone he deems a danger to the state. That’s an attempt at dictatorship.

Let’s go back in time. First of all, what was the Alien Enemies Act, whose authority Trump invoked to detain the Venezuelans? It was part of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, passed by Congress under President John Adams. If you learned high school history the way I did, you were told that passage of that law was, to put it mildly, not one of America’s finer moments. Passed as the young United States stood on the brink of war with France, with various French nationals milling about our cities, it gave the president extraordinary emergency powers. The next president, Thomas Jefferson, allowed all aspects of the broader law to expire except for the Alien Enemies Act, which allows the president to declare certain unnaturalized persons “alien enemies.”

It’s been invoked only three times, all during wartime. It does include language referring to “any invasion or predatory incursion,” which is what Trump is claiming. But Georgetown law prof Steve Vladeck told NPR: “No one has tried to argue that that ‘invasion or predatory incursion’ language could be used in any context other than a conventional war.” That is, until last week.