Harry Litman
Appearances
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
All right. Let's start with the point you just made, of course. Bondi makes a big thing about how this precipitated a chase on the streets, how dangerous that was. Your point is absolutely right, Ben. The bigger danger is people not showing up, including accused criminals. But my viewpoint as a former U.S.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
attorney and someone who worked with the FBI, I have no viewpoint because nothing like this could possibly happen. There was one case that the Trump administration brought in 2019 and the Biden administration dismissed against a state court judge. But at least in that case, the state court judge was deceptive, tried to hide the guy, had an off-the-record sidebar conference and the like.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
All Judge Dugan did was say, Not in my courtroom. Not in my courtroom. By the way, six plainclothes FBI guys are showing up to make an example. And they want to use the state because these people have gone through, this is what they say anyway, the security apparatus are less likely to be armed. Guess what?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
Very strong principles that used to be articles of faith of the Republicans that you can't commandeer the state to do your business that way. So she did nothing wrong. other than control her courtroom and say, if you want to arrest him, don't do it in here. And they did arrest him. In order to be charged with obstruction under federal law, you need to have some corrupt act.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
That's what they tried to pin on that previous judge, Judge Joseph. I don't know what they're going to say about Dugan, except she said, oh, you can go out this exit, not that one again. It is her courtroom.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
So we can say without the faintest doubt, super aggressive move to try to put the fear of the feds in the state court and in a municipality, Milwaukee, that has some allowance for trying to keep the feds from just imposing their anti-immigration policy. So they're wanting to make Dugan the sort of scapegoat for that. I don't think it'll fly. My best guess is the whole prosecution will collapse.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
But on top of everything else, that Patel and Bondi, the head of the FBI, the highest federal law enforcement officer on the land, come out and notwithstanding the presumption of innocence, Absolutely tarred this judge, compare her to, you know, a terrible Bondi, compares her to some kind of terrible machine gun welding harboring of a defendant. What happened here is she said, not in my courtroom.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
That's the thing we always have to remember. And there are issues of judicial immunity, issues of what you can force the states to do.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
but i'm i'm gonna have i have trouble seeing what the corrupt act is when she said go ahead arrest them and by the way they were negotiating with the chief judge in that courtroom at the same time just not in my courtroom i don't take kindly to having my criminal docket here and you guys are hovering out front waiting to call or somebody as soon as they get out that's not the way you should treat your co-sovereign state court so i i think this was a purposeful kind of
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
Attempt to make an example of this sitting state judge. We would never have considered it. But to make an example of her and under circumstances where it's probably not going to hold up in any event, you can say it's way over the top to try to make a big deal about their anti-immigration policy, you know, and just spread.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
hovering outside a state courtroom without the judge's knowledge until she finds out on Twitter that they're there to arrest. You know, that's just not the way it works with co-sovereign's federal and state system.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
Yeah, well, just, you know, by the way, so this is completely, it's not just going into her courtroom, but this kind of big talk about it is exactly setting up the showdown that's going to happen. But this is one, Ben, you mentioned politics properly here, because this has really been the story of the day. Once again, they've stepped on it. But the politics and the law
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
Coalesce here because there is all kinds of doctrine. It was the sort of shining jewel of the Republicans around the year 2000 that says you can't make the states cooperate with you. There is a difference between. Forcing them to hand over or be complicit in an arrest and not obstructing. Had she hid the guy in her basement or whatever? OK, fine. But that's not what we have.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
And now they're going to run broadside into doctrine much favored by right wing judges about how you can't.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
force states to be part and parcel of federal policy this way and you know they i told you there was another case before it didn't get to this issue because they dismissed it but this is where everything was teed up to be so good luck with what they're going to say about this doctrine that they embraced uh so ardently before There's something special people recognize in politics, but guess what?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
It's also there in law about coming in and trying to mess around and commandeer, would be the legal word, the state political and judicial system into doing federal policy.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Wow! Trump Arrest of Judge Blows Up in His Face
I want to give you two numbers. 90, the number of days he served. 108 now, the number of preliminary injunctions the courts have entered against his moves.