Donald Trump and maga Republicans must eliminate Immigration and Customs ICE evil operations

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski says
Homeland Security secretary should resign amid rising calls for her firing or impeachment by Lisa Mascaro for AP published in the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska.

WASHINGTON, DC— A groundswell of voices have come to the same conclusion: Kristi Noem must go.

From Democratic Party leaders to the nation’s leading advocacy organizations to even the most centrist lawmakers in Congress, the calls are mounting for the Homeland Security secretary to step aside after the shooting deaths in Minneapolis of two people who protested deportation policy.

At a defining moment in her tenure, few Republicans are rising to Noem’s defense.

Noem “has, through her words, and I think in her actions — she’s taken a direction that has not been helpful to the situation, and I don’t think that it helps the country," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

“I think you have a secretary right now that needs to be accountable to the chaos and in some of the tragedy that we have seen,” Murkowski added. “... I voted for her. I think the president needs to look at who he has in place as a secretary of Homeland Security. I would not support her again and I think it probably is time for her to step down.”

Top House Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California said in a joint statement that “the country is disgusted by what the Department of Homeland Security has done.”

“Kristi Noem should be fired immediately,” the Democrats said, “or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives.”

Republicans and Democrats call for Noem to step down❗

What started as sharp criticism of the Homeland Security secretary, and a longshot move by Democratic lawmakers signing onto impeachment legislation in the Republican-controlled House, has morphed into an inflection point for Noem, who has been the high-profile face of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement regime.

Noem’s brash leadership style and remarks in the aftermath of the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti, R.N., and Renee Good — in which she suggested Pretti “attacked” officers and portrayed the events leading up to Good’s shooting an “act of domestic terrorism” — have been seen as doing irreparable damage, as events on the ground disputed her account.

Her alliance with Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, who was recalled from the Minnesota operation Monday as border czar Tom Homan took the lead, has left her isolated on Capitol Hill.

“What she’s done in Minnesota should be disqualifying. She should be out of a job,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

But Donald Trump stands by Noem and praises her work

President Donald Trump defended Noem at multiple junctures, strongly indicating her job does not appear to be in immediate jeopardy.

Asked by reporters as he left the White House on Tuesday for a trip to Iowa whether Noem is going to step down, Trump had a one-word answer: “No.”

Pressed later during an interview on Fox (Fake❗) News if he had confidence in Noem, the president said, “I do.”🙄

“Who closed up the border? She did,” Trump said, “with Tom Homan, with the whole group. I mean, they’ve closed up the border. The border is a tremendous success.”

As Democrats in Congress threaten to shut down the government as they demand restrictions on Trump’s mass deportation agenda, Noem’s future at the department faces serious questions and concerns.

The Republican leadership of the House and Senate committees that oversee Homeland Security have demanded that department officials appear before their panels to answer for the operations that have stunned the nation with their sheer force — including images of children, including a 5-year-old, being plucked from families.

“Obviously this is an inflection point and an opportunity to evaluate and to really assess the policies and procedures and how they are being implemented and put into practice,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, where Noem had been the state’s House representative and governor before joining the administration.

Asked about his own confidence in Noem’s leadership, Thune said, “That’s the president’s judgment call to make.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called Noem a “liar” and said she must be fired.

Fighting about DHS funding

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that DHS enforces the laws from Congress, and if lawmakers don’t like those laws, they should change them.

“Too many politicians would rather defend criminals and attack the men and women who are enforcing our laws,” McLaughlin said. “It’s time they focus on protecting the American people, the work this Department is doing every day under Secretary Noem’s leadership.”

The ability of Congress to restrict Homeland Security funding is limited, in large part because the GOP majority already essentially doubled department funding under Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts law.

Instead, Democrats are seeking to impose restraints on Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations as part of a routine annual funding package for Homeland, Defense, Health and other departments. Without action this week, those agencies would head toward a shutdown.

To be sure, Homeland Security still has strong defenders in the Congress.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus said Tuesday in a letter to Trump that he should invoke the Insurrection Act, if needed, to quell protests. The group said it would be “ready to take all steps necessary” to keep funds flowing for Trump’s immigration enforcement and removal operations.

On the job for a year, Noem has clashed at times with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, as Republicans and Democrats have sought greater oversight and accounting of the department’s spending and operations.

Noem has kept a low profile since the Saturday press conference following Pretti’s death, though she appeared Sunday on Fox (Fake❗) News.

She doubled down in that interview on criticism of Minnesota officials, but also expressed compassion for Pretti’s family.

“It grieves me to think about what his family is going through but it also grieves me what’s happening to these law enforcement officers every day out in the streets with the violence they face,” she said.
Once rare, impeachments now more common

Impeachment, once a far-flung tool brandished against administration officials, has become increasingly commonplace.

Two years ago, the Republican-led House impeached another Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, in protest over the then-Biden administration’s border security and immigration policies that allowed millions of immigrants and asylum seekers to enter the U.S. The Senate dismissed the charges.

Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said if the Republican chairman of the panel, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, does not launch an impeachment probe, he would.

Raskin said he would work with the top Democrats on the Homeland Security and Oversight committees to immediately launch an impeachment inquiry related to the Minnesota deaths and other “lawlessness and corruption that may involve treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

More than 160 House Democrats have signed on to an impeachment resolution from Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill.

Anchorage Daily News staff along with Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this story.

Supreme Court enabling Donald Trump's outrageous immunity declaration. Shame on Chief Justice Roberts

Echo opinion by Greg Sargent published in The New Republic: Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear. Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. 

Our American justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS should decide this case promptly.

Digital Disinformation and Vote Suppression

Liz Cheney nukes the Supreme Court vver Trump delay—and hands the Democrats a political weapon. What percentage of voters know that Trump can cancel prosecutions of himself if he wins back the White House?

In the wake of the Supreme Court agreeing to hear Donald Trump’s demand for absolute immunity from prosecution—potentially delaying his insurrection-related trial until after the election—Democrats should take careful note of Liz Cheney’s response to the decision:

Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear. Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS should decide this case promptly.

The court’s decision is terrible news, to be sure, but it gives Democrats an opportunity to clarify a few crucial points, and they should seize it.

First, Democrats should stress that voters need to know before the election whether Trump committed crimes—and this is due to them as a matter of right. Second, Trump is seeking these delays to end all prosecutions of himself if he regains the White House—to corruptly place himself above the law by pardoning himself or having his handpicked lickspittle attorney general do it. Democrats must say clearly that if the court helps delay the trial until after the election, it will be enabling him to do that.

Liz Cheney’s language provides the beginnings of a template. Democrats, don’t mince words: Just tell the plain, blunt truth❗

As many have noted, the Supreme Court didn’t have to agree to review an appeals court ruling against Trump, who is demanding immunity from prosecution for conspiring to obstruct the official electoral count and defraud the United States, among other charges. The high court could have simply let the lower court ruling stand, given that Republican-appointed and Democratic-appointed judges unanimously ruled that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election don’t constitute official acts—and thus don’t get immunity—a clear-cut legal case.

First, Democrats should stress that voters need to know before the election whether Trump committed crimes—and this is due to them as a matter of right. Second, Trump is seeking these delays to end all prosecutions of himself if he regains the White House—to corruptly place himself above the law by pardoning himself or having his handpicked lickspittle attorney general do it. Democrats must say clearly that if the court helps delay the trial until after the election, it will be enabling him to do that.

As many have noted, the Supreme Court didn’t have to agree to review an appeals court ruling against Trump, who is demanding immunity from prosecution for conspiring to obstruct the official electoral count and defraud the United States, among other charges. The high court could have simply let the lower court ruling stand, given that Republican-appointed and Democratic-appointed judges unanimously ruled that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election don’t constitute official acts—and thus don’t get immunity—a clear-cut legal case.

“This is not a difficult legal question,” Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law professor, told me. “All the Supreme Court has done is to introduce several months of gratuitous delay right before the presidential election.”

The court has set April 22, to hear arguments, and if it takes its time in ruling, the decision may not come until late June. That and pretrial logistics might postpone the trial until after the election.

Perhaps you think the Supreme Court has good reason to weigh in on a matter of such importance. But even if we accept this, the court still has the option of deciding the case in time for the trial to proceed before the election, notes Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at University of Texas at Austin. Though justices likely won’t be influenced by the election schedule, Vladeck says, the trial’s timing is “clearly within the court’s control.”

This is where Cheney and Democrats come in.

Note that Cheney stated unequivocally that voters deserve to know whether Trump committed crimes while trying to overthrow democracy—and deserve a full accounting of those actions—precisely because the sheer gravity of what he did threatens the democratic system itself. As Will Stancil points out, Democrats sometimes hesitate to talk this way, out of fear of being perceived as trying to politicize legal processes.

But in this case, Democrats have an obligation to level with voters about what’s really happening here.

At this point, the notion that Trump would use presidential power to end prosecutions of himself is so widely accepted that news accounts note it in passing. “He could use the powers of his office to seek to dismiss the election interference indictment altogether,” The New York Times observes, as detachedly as it might report on Trump’s plans to alter the decor in the White House Oval Office.

So ask yourself this: What percentage of voters is aware that Trump actually will have the power to cancel ongoing prosecutions of himself, if he’s elected president again?

Remember, sizable majorities believe Trump committed crimes in trying to overthrow the election and that the prosecutions are holding Trump accountable under the law, as opposed to trying to hurt him politically. Voters do care that Trump committed alleged crimes, and they do think he is being legitimately held accountable.

But how many voters grasp that if the trial is delayed, the election itself will decide whether that process runs to completion? How many understand that the Supreme Court’s handling of this matter will determine whether Trump has the opportunity—should he win the election—to place himself beyond legal accountability in a way no other criminal defendant can?

Democrats need to seize this moment to make those stakes clear.

It’s not unreasonable for Democrats to worry about the implications of being vocal on this matter. It is potentially problematic to demand that the Supreme Court make decisions in keeping with the political timetable. But Trump himself created an unprecedented situation: Trump tried to nullify constitutional democracy to seize power in defiance of lawful processes. He’s demanding total immunity for any crimes he committed toward that end. He’s dismissing any and all prosecutions for those crimes as inherently illegitimate. And he will use his presidential powers to end those prosecutions the second he’s given the chance.

In short, because of Trump and nobody else, the Supreme Court’s handling of the situation will inescapably either create a potential pathway for Trump to render the law moot, or not do that. This is what Democrats have to communicate to voters.

As of now, Raskin told me, “The Supreme Court has bestowed a giant gift on Donald Trump.”

Any efforts by the hard-right faction of the court to delay Trump’s trial render it an “enemy of the Constitution and the rule of law,” Raskin continued. “The Democratic Party has to stand up. It’s up to us.”

Some Democrats will balk at this kind of talk. But there’s a way for them to allow that the Supreme Court shouldn’t tailor its deliberations to the political timetable while also communicating this undeniable reality: How the court proceeds will of necessity dictate whether Trump has a plausible pathway toward placing himself above the law entirely, or whether that pathway is barred to him.

Liz Cheney’s language provides the beginnings of a template. Democrats, don’t mince words: Just tell the plain, blunt truth.
Greg Sargent @GregTSargent

Greg Sargent is a staff writer at The New Republic.