As with Stalin’s show trials, it’s the theatre that counts.
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On Friday morning, Kash Patel, the MAGA loyalist now heading the FBI, posted a hastily deleted, then reposted tweet about the bureau’s arrest of a Milwaukee County circuit judge.
Patel claimed that there was evidence of Judge Hannah Dugan “obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week” and that he and the FBI would have more information for the public soon. He stressed that, while the immigration arrest in question was made outside the courthouse later that day, Dugan’s obstruction “created increased danger to the public.”
Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction — after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week.
We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be…
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) April 25, 2025
Patel later tweeted an image of Dugan outside the courthouse in handcuffs and the message “no one is above the law.” She has been charged with two felonies.
The Milwaukee County Courthouse has been the scene of multiple recent arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as the Trump administration has ramped up its deportation efforts. Dugan’s arrest follows ICE’s arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national, outside the courthouse after his April 18 pre-trial hearing before Dugan over misdemeanor battery charges.
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, ICE agents appeared at the courthouse the day of that hearing to arrest Flores-Ruiz. Agents allege they were led outside Dugan’s courtroom while she directed Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer to a side door leading to a private hallway.
Dugan has indicated that the agents did not have a proper arrest warrant for Flores-Ruiz. Apparently they came armed not with a judicial warrant but with an administrative warrant, which does not meet the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, but which the Department of Justice (DOJ), via Attorney General Pam Bondi, now claims is unnecessary under the Alien Enemies Act.
In the wake of what Judge Dugan did (100% legal), now is a good time for everyone to know what she knows:An immigration or administrative warrant is *not* a judicial warrant. You are not obliged to obey it. Indeed, you can let the person out the back door. docs.google.com/presentation…
Trumped Up Charges?
It goes without saying that such technical or jurisprudential disputes are ordinarily adjudicated and resolved without arrests being made.
The news of Dugan’s arrest — amid the Trump administration’s careless and cruel rollout of its immigration policy; its disappearing of people, sometimes in admitted error; and its confrontation with the courts over these actions — has brought with it a unique anxiety among democracy-watchers.
Bondi made it all too clear what this ham-handed arrest is all about in an appearance on Fox News. She called Dugan “deranged” and sent a public threat to other judges who might obstruct ICE, or stand in Donald Trump’s way.
In essence, Judge Dugan found herself in the DOJ crosshairs as a result of that department’s arguably unconstitutional reliance on a wartime law from the 1700s to sweep away long-standing constitutional protections and civil liberties.
And not merely in the crosshairs but actually arrested — charged with obstructing a US agency and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest, and facing a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $350,000 fine — as the Trump administration seeks to escalate its fear campaign to a new level.
Lest there be any doubt, Bondi made it all too clear what this ham-handed arrest is all about in an appearance on Fox News. She called Dugan “deranged” and sent a public threat to other judges who might obstruct ICE, or stand in Donald Trump’s way:
What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me … They are deranged … We are sending a very strong message today … We will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.
Bondi declares war on the courts: "What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me … they are deranged … we are sending a very strong message today … we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you."
Indeed this is, as Bondi says, a very strong message, directed as it is not at drug dealers, street criminals, terrorists, or even dissidents, but at jurists — members of a coequal branch of government. It is, in fact, the kind of message that power-hungry authoritarians like to send.
Trump, traveling to the Vatican on Air Force One, chimed in:
These are judges that just want to, ya know, show how big and important they are. We have hundreds and thousands of people that we want to get out of the country and the courts are holding us back.
As courts, following the law and respecting the Constitution, will sometimes do.
Both Armies’ Soldiers Take to the Trenches
Congressional Democrats, including Wisconsin’s representation in Washington, have responded. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) said, “The Trump administration again is breaking norms in how it’s dealing with immigration, the legal system, and normalcy… This is stuff I expect from Third World countries.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) put the arrest in context of the domestic war Trump has been waging:
By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this president is putting … basic democratic values … on the line. …This action fits into the … pattern of this president’s lawless behavior and [his] undermining [of] courts and Congress’s checks on his power.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who serves as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, called the situation, “a whole new descent into government chaos.”
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) exclaimed: “They arrested a judge?! …This will have to be a redline for congressional Republicans.”
Judging by initial reactions from across the aisle, Landsman is dead wrong.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) had this to say:
It is abundantly clear that many activist judges around the country have been acting politically in order to sabotage President Trump’s agenda, and disenfranchise the 77 million Americans that voted for him. … Judges are not supposed to write the law, and they certainly are not above it.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) stated that if Dugan broke the law, “she needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent. No double standards.”
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) also supports the arrest, but skipped the long-winded explanations, leaving it at “Lock em up!”
And that’s the view from both sides, all highly predictable. Another day, another battle, another symbol, another norm broken, another previously broken norm ploughed under and forgotten.
Nothing Says ‘Keep Your Head Down’ Like a Pair of Cuffs
Where Dugan’s case goes from here is anyone’s guess. She has been granted release by the magistrate handling her case, and the next move, which would involve bringing the charges before a grand jury, will be up to the DOJ.
Dugan has issued a statement through her attorney:
Hannah C. Dugan has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge. Judge Dugan will defend herself vigorously, and looks forward to being exonerated.
It is a statement notable for its restraint: no thunderbolts about weaponization of the DOJ or a march to authoritarianism.
This is evidently a symbolism and a confrontation Patel, Bondi, and Trump want. They want the images, the handcuffs. Images, better than words, spread fear — the fear that if you step out of line, in act or word, you will find yourself in the same predicament: cuffed, charged, incarcerated, deported.
But outside the courthouse protesters quickly gathered. There is less restraint among those for whom Judge Dugan has — like Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia — already become a symbol of the danger of a step by step descent into dictatorship.
No one is above the law pic.twitter.com/TSrQ4GNMdA
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) April 26, 2025
This is evidently a symbolism and a confrontation Patel, Bondi, and Trump want. They want the images, the handcuffs. Images, better than words, spread fear — the fear that if you step out of line, in act or word, you will find yourself in the same predicament: cuffed, charged, incarcerated, deported.
Several prominent observers, including liberal Norm Eisen and conservative retired Federal Appeals Court Judge Michael Luttig, have already pointed to the gross deficiencies and dangerous motives of the government’s charges against Dugan.
Patel, Bondi, and Trump may not care: As with Stalin’s show trials, it’s the theatre that counts.
But we’ll keep a close eye on this case, as on the other Trump forays into persecution by prosecution. It is on these individual defenses — of the deported, the abducted, and wrongfully arrested — that the defense of our democracy may well ultimately depend.
