Category: Judicial Watch
Trump v. Slaughter exposes who really fears democracy
In the recently argued Trump v. Slaughter case, most of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to affirm what should be obvious: The president has a constitutional right under Article II to dismiss federal employees in the executive branch when it suits him.
That conclusion strikes many of us as self-evident. Executive-branch employees work under the president, who alone among them is chosen in a nationwide election. Bureaucrats are not. Why, then, should the chief executive’s subordinates be insulated from his control?
When the Roberts Court overturned Roe in 2022 and returned the issue to the states, many voters responded with fury. The electorate did not welcome responsibility. It resented it.
A vocal minority on the court appears to reject that premise. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor warned that allowing a president — implicitly a Republican one — to control executive personnel would unleash political chaos. Jackson suggested Trump “would be free to fire all the scientists, the doctors, the economists, and PhDs” working for the federal government. Sotomayor went further, claiming the administration was “asking to destroy the structure of government.”
David Harsanyi, in a perceptive commentary, identified what animates this view: “fourth-branch blues.” The administrative state now exercises power that rivals or exceeds that of the constitutional branches. As Harsanyi noted, nothing in the founders’ design envisioned “a sprawling autonomous administrative state empowered to create its own rules, investigate citizens, adjudicate guilt, impose fines, and destroy lives.”
Yet defenders of this system frame presidential oversight as a threat to “democracy.” Democrats, who present themselves as democracy’s guardians, warn that allowing agency officials to answer to the elected president places the nation in peril. The argument recalls their reaction to the Dobbs case, when the court returned abortion policy to voters and was accused of “undermining democracy” by doing so.
RELATED: This Supreme Court case could reverse a century of bureaucratic overreach
Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
On that point, Harsanyi and I agree. Judicial and bureaucratic overreach distort constitutional government. The harder question is whether voters object.
From what I can tell, most do not. Many Americans seem content to trade constitutional self-government for managerial rule, provided the system delivers benefits and protects their expressive preferences. The populist right may bristle at this arrangement, but a leftist administrative state that claims to speak for “the people” may reflect the electorate’s will.
Recent elections reinforce that suspicion. Voters showed little interest in reclaiming authority from courts or bureaucracies. They appeared far more interested in government largesse and symbolic rights than in the burdens of republican self-rule.
Consider abortion. Roe v. Wade rested on shaky legal ground, yet large segments of the public enthusiastically embraced it for nearly 50 years. When the Roberts Court overturned Roe in 2022 and returned the issue to the states, many voters responded with fury. States enacted expansive abortion laws, and Democrats benefited from unusually high turnout. The electorate did not welcome responsibility. It resented it.
This reaction should not surprise anyone familiar with history. In 1811, Spaniards rejected the liberal constitution imposed by French occupiers, crying “abajo el liberalismo” — down with liberalism. They did not want abstract rights. They wanted familiar authority.
At least half of today’s American electorate appears similarly disposed. Many prefer guided democracy administered by judges and managers to the uncertainties of self-government. Their votes signal approval for continued rule by the administrative state. Republicans may slow this process at the margins, but Democrats expand it openly, and voters just empowered them to do so.
RELATED: Stop letting courts and consultants shrink Trump’s signature promise
Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images
I anticipated this outcome decades ago. In “After Liberalism” (1999), I argued that democracy as a universal ideal tends to produce expanded managerial control with popular consent. Nineteenth-century fears that mass suffrage would yield chaos proved unfounded. Instead the extension of the franchise coincided with more centralized, remote, and less accountable government.
As populations lost shared traditions and common authority, governance shifted away from democratic participation and toward expert administration. The state grew less personal, less local, and less answerable, even as it claimed to act in the people’s name.
Equally significant has been the administrative state’s success in presenting itself as the custodian of an invented “science of government.” According to this view, administrators form an enlightened elite, morally and intellectually superior to the unwashed masses. Justice Jackson’s warnings reflect this assumption.
I would like to believe, as Harsanyi suggests, that Americans find such attitudes insulting. I am no longer sure they do. Many seem pleased to be managed. They want judges and bureaucrats to make decisions for them.
That preference should trouble anyone who still cares about constitutional government.
Judicial Watch sues DOJ for Jack Smith emails regarding his investigation into Donald Trump
From Just the News: The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch announced Thursday that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department, seeking emails from former Special Counsel Jack Smith over his investigation into President Donald Trump. The lawsuit, which was filed last month but publicly announced Thursday, is seeking Smith’s emails with […]
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Boston sued by Judicial Watch for withholding public records tied to Mayor Wu’s pro-immigration rally
From The Boston Herald: Judicial Watch, a conservative activist group, is suing the City of Boston over public records it says the city failed to produce for internal emails and costs tied to the mayor’s defiant pro-sanctuary press conference that featured a mariachi band. The lawsuit filed Monday in Suffolk Superior Court alleges that the City of […]
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Ilhan Omar accuses ICE of ‘racially profiling’ her son during traffic stop
Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was quick to play the race card after her son was pulled over by ICE in a traffic stop Sunday.
Omar’s son was pulled over by ICE after making a stop at Target, and he was asked to produce his identification, according to the congresswoman’s account. Despite Omar’s accusations of racial profiling, her son was let go by ICE after producing his passport.
‘There’s nothing worse than when a person comes in and does nothing but b***h.’
“They are racially profiling,” Omar said of the ICE raids in Minnesota. “They are looking for young men who look Somali that they think are undocumented.”
“Yesterday, after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by ICE agents,” Omar added. “Once he was able to produce his passport ID, they did let him go.”
RELATED: ‘The voices in her head are not real’: Senator Kennedy issues a hilarious rebuke of Jasmine Crockett
Christian Monterrosa/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Omar’s political allies quickly came to bat for her and her son, doubling down on the narrative that he was pulled over for racial reasons. Notably, neither law enforcement nor the congresswoman have clarified why her son was pulled over in the first place.
“Congresswoman Omar’s son was pulled over by ICE while he was following the law, on his way home from Target,” failed Democrat vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in a post on X. “This isn’t a targeted operation to find violent criminals, it’s racial profiling.”
Despite the left decrying alleged racial motivations, President Donald Trump has maintained his criticisms of Omar and Somali migrants in Minnesota, citing their lack of assimilation and the disproportionally high rates of fraud.
“There’s nothing worse than a person that comes in and does nothing but b***h,” Trump told Blaze News in the Oval Office Friday, “and comes from a place where she shouldn’t be telling us what to do. She shouldn’t be telling us. And everybody agrees with me.”
“What’s happening in Minnesota with Somalia, where billions of dollars are being stolen like candy from a baby, we’re not going to let that go on.”
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FBI stops radical pro-Palestinian New Year’s Eve terror plot: Report
Federal authorities reportedly disrupted a New Year’s Eve terror plot by arresting several alleged members of a pro-Palestinian extremist group.
The FBI told Fox News Digital that the bureau captured four alleged members of an extremist subgroup of the Turtle Island Liberation Front.
‘The group also planned to target ICE agents and vehicles.’
FBI Director Kash Patel described the arrested individuals as members of “a radical offshoot” that is “motivated by pro-Palestinian, anti-law-enforcement, and anti-government ideology.”
According to Patel, the suspects were planning coordinated improvised-explosive-device attacks on New Year’s Eve at five locations across Los Angeles, California.
Federal agents arrested the suspects in Lucerne Valley, where they were allegedly preparing to test explosive devices ahead of the attack, Fox News Digital reported.
The arrested individuals were charged with conspiracy and possession of a destructive device.
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Patel announced that FBI New Orleans arrested a fifth individual believed to be tied to the subgroup who was also allegedly planning a separate attack.
The FBI director credited investigators and law enforcement partners for saving “countless lives.”
FBI Los Angeles is expected to hold a press conference on Monday to provide additional details to the public.
RELATED: How Trump can dismantle far-left extremist networks
Pam Bondi. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
“After an intense investigation, the Department of Justice, working with our @FBI, prevented what would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California (Orange County and Los Angeles),” Attorney General Pam Bondi stated. “The Turtle Island Liberation Front — a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group — was preparing to conduct a series of bombings against multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve. The group also planned to target ICE agents and vehicles.”
“PROTECT THE HOMELAND and CRUSH VIOLENT CRIME. These words are not slogans, they’re the investigative pillars of this FBI,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said.
“Thank you to our dedicated law enforcement and DOJ partners for the collaborative effort. God bless America, and all those who defend Her [sic].”
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When the State Polices Speech
The government may not silence conscience or conversation. The American experiment depends on this simple, yet increasingly threatened principle. And…
Trump promises ‘very serious retaliation’ after ‘ISIS attack’ that killed 2 US Army soldiers, 1 US interpreter in Syria
President Donald Trump promised “very serious retaliation” after an “ISIS attack” that killed two U.S. Army soldiers and one U.S. interpreter interpreter Saturday in Syria.
Fox News reported that a lone Islamic State gunman carried out the ambush, which also left three others wounded. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that “the savage who perpetrated this attack was killed by partner forces.”
‘Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.’
“We mourn the loss of three Great American Patriots in Syria, two soldiers, and one Civilian Interpreter,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, according to the cable news network. “Likewise, we pray for the three injured soldiers who, it has just been confirmed, are doing well. This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them.”
Trump added that “the President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is extremely angry and disturbed by this attack. There will be very serious retaliation,” Fox News noted.
Trump also said Saturday to reporters outside the White House that “this was an ISIS attack on us and Syria. And again, we mourn the loss, and we pray for them and their parents and their loved ones,” the cable news network reported.
Hegseth added on X: “Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on X that the attack in the town of Palmyra “occurred as the soldiers were conducting a key leader engagement. Their mission was in support of ongoing counter-ISIS/counter-terrorism operations in the region. The soldiers’ names, as well as identifying information about their units, are being withheld until 24 hours after the next of kin notification. This attack is currently under active investigation.”
RELATED: Trump warns Israel about interference in Syria after deadly raid, airstrikes
The cable news network added that there are about 900 U.S. troops in Syria.
More from Fox News:
The U.S. had eight bases in Syria to keep an eye on ISIS since the U.S. military went in to prevent the terrorist group from setting up a caliphate in 2014, although three of those bases have since been closed down or turned over to the Syrian Democratic Forces.
On Monday, tens of thousands of Syrians flooded the streets of Damascus to mark the first anniversary of the Assad regime’s collapse.
Those celebrations came a year after former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled the capital as rebel forces swept through the country in a lightning offensive that ended five decades of Assad family rule and opened a new chapter in Syrian history.
The Associated Press reported that Saturday’s attack on U.S. troops was the first to cause fatalities since Assad’s fall.
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Border Patrol Chief Gives Update On When Feds Can Finally Deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia
‘We’re going to deport this individual’
