Chuck Darwin<p>Trump has been nominating, <br>and the Senate has been confirming, <br>one pliant and obsequious instrument of the president’s pleasure after another. </p><p>This is nowhere more true than in appointments to the Department of Justice. </p><p>To understand Martin’s danger, it is important to understand how the department in which he would serve as a confirmed official has been operating in Trump 2.0.</p><p>At Attorney General <a href="https://c.im/tags/Pam" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Pam</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Bondi" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Bondi</span></a>’s swearing-in ceremony, she pledged to <br>“not let [Trump] down” <br>and to “make [him] proud.” </p><p>In her introduction of President Trump before his speech in the Great Hall at the Justice Department,<br> she called Trump<br> “the greatest president in the history of our country” <br>and proclaimed that the department was <br>“so proud to work at [his] directive” <br>and would “never stop fighting for” Trump. </p><p>She has portrayed Justice Department attorneys as the president’s lawyers.</p><p>Bondi signaled fierce loyalty to Trump at her confirmation hearing but nonetheless pledged that,<br> “If confirmed, I will fight every day to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice <br>and each of its components. </p><p>The partisanship, the weaponization, will be gone. America will have one tier of justice for all.”</p><p>🔥In office Bondi has done precisely the opposite<br>—aggressively so. </p><p>She has engaged in a range of politicizing actions, <br>including dropping the Eric Adams prosecution, <br>withdrawing charges against and pulling back from investigations of other Trump-allied current or former officials, halting prosecution of a Trump family crypto partner, <br>and firing or demoting career attorneys who worked on cases involving the president.</p><p>She established a “Weaponization Working Group” <br>that is going after the president’s perceived enemies <br>and must report on its progress to the White House quarterly. </p><p>(Martin is a member of the group.) </p><p>The weaponization group is implementing the president’s core philosophy: <br>“If they screw you, screw them back ten times as hard.” </p><p>The goal may be to eliminate future weaponization against Trump interests; <br>but the tactics are weaponization on a scale never before imagined.</p><p>At the same time, Bondi, the chief legal officer of the executive branch after Trump, <br>is stewarding the rule of law in a disastrous fashion. </p><p>She has facilitated the elimination of DOJ independence from the White House, <br>despite pledges to the contrary. </p><p>Her lawyers have been unprepared in court and shown courts unprecedented disrespect. </p><p>They have sought to defend the president’s plainly lawless extortionate actions against law firms, <br>among other lawless executive actions.</p><p>Bondi and her lawyers are not restoring confidence and integrity in the department<br>—they are weakening them. </p><p>Bondi had signaled a pro-Trump agenda during her confirmation process, <br>but now we know the scale on which she is using the department to do the president’s political and personal bidding. </p><p>The Senate’s enabling of these actions in confirming Bondi is the proper background to assess Martin’s nomination</p><p> <a href="https://c.im/tags/EdwardMartin" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>EdwardMartin</span></a></p>
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#bondi
3 posts3 participants1 post today
#politics #bondi #tesla #alt #musk #terrorism #alt #vandalism
Heather Cox Richardson Tesla Protesters Terrorists 3/21/2024
#Bondi and co. need to look up what the definition of #domesticterrorism is.
Replied in thread
The #fascist Pam #Bondi should also be #disbarred for that.
Continued thread
To bolster his efforts to control elections,
Trump has stacked the Department of Justice ( #DOJ ) with officials who have supported his baseless claims of rampant voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election
and who may have worked to overturn state election results on behalf of his campaign.
These include top officials like Attorney General #Pam #Bondi and FBI Director #Kash #Patel
— both of whom would not say who won the 2020 election during their confirmation hearings.
But it also includes those selected to lead offices that enforce federal laws protecting the right to vote.
Trump nominated #Harmeet #Dhillon, one of his loyal allies who has been involved in dozens of lawsuits challenging voting rights laws, redistricting and election processes,
to lead the Civil Rights Division.
Often referred to as the “crown jewel” of the DOJ, the division is core to protecting civil rights and liberties.
Dhillon has yet to be confirmed,
but the Civil Rights Division has already abruptly shifted away from defending voting rights.
So far, it’s dropped voting rights lawsuits against Texas, Virginia and Alabama.
It also retracted a previous request to participate in a lawsuit over unfair voting maps in Louisiana that’s set to be heard by the Supreme Court.
Weiner, the Brennan Center director, said that the country,
even in Trump’s first term,
never had a DOJ so readily turned into “the president’s personal law firm.”
“Which is just not what the DOJ is.
It’s just not what anyone has understood the DOJ to be,” Weiner said.
“But it is incredibly risky.”
In future elections, such officials may be more willing to not act if voting rights are threatened,
or could oppose efforts to protect voting rights.
They may also be more likely to pursue criminal investigations, and even prosecutions, against voters and election administrators over spurious allegations of fraud.
So, since the DOJ and AG say that verbal orders from a judge aren't binding/enforceable,
that means
verbal orders from a cop aren't binding/enforceable, right?
super surprised the felon would shut down a mouth piece that he could use for #propaganda
The US deported more than 250 mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador
despite a US judge’s ruling to halt the flights on Saturday
after Donald Trump controversially invoked the "Alien Enemies Act",
a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang "Tren de Aragua" and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang "MS-13" had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “terrorism confinement centre”.
The confirmation came hours AFTER a US federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the "Alien Enemies Act",
a wartime authority that allows the president broad leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.
The US district judge #James #Boasberg had attempted to halt the deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under Trump’s proclamation, which was issued on Friday.
Boasberg also ordered deportation flights already in the air to return to the US.
“Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.
Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.
The Alien Enemies Act has only ever been used three times before,
most recently during the second world war, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.
It was originally passed by Congress in preparation for what the US believed would be an impending war with France.
It was also used during the war of 1812 and during the first world war.
The US attorney general, #Pam #Bondi, slammed Judge Boasberg’s stay on deportations.
“This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk,” Bondi said in a statement on Saturday night.
But lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union contend that the Trump does not have the authority to use the law against a criminal gang, rather than a recognized state.
On Sunday, the Republican senator Mike Rounds questioned 
whether the deportation flights had ignored Judge Boasberg’s order to turn around.
“We’ll find out whether or not that actually occurred or not,” Rounds told CNN.
“I don’t know about the timing on it. I do know that we will follow the law.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/deportation-alleged-gang-members-el-salvador?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The Guardian · US deports 250 alleged gang members to El Salvador despite court ruling to halt flights
A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport-- claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.
"Betar US" is one of a number of rightwing, so called "pro-Israel" groups
that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests,
an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of #Mahmoud #Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University.
This week, Donald Trump said Khalil’s arrest was
just “the first of many to come”.
#BetarUS quickly claimed credit on social media for providing Khalil’s name to the government.
Betar, which has been labelled an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish advocacy group,
said on Monday that it had
“been working on deportations and will continue to do so”,
and warned that the effort would extend beyond immigrants. “Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month,” the group’s post on X read.
(It is very difficult to revoke US citizenship, though Trump has indicated an intention to try.)
Deporting speakers over supposed ‘propaganda’ is a stock authoritarian move
The group has compiled a so-called “deportation list”
naming individuals it believes are in the US on visas and have participated in pro-Palestinian protests, claiming these individuals “terrorize America”.
A Betar spokesperson, #Daniel #Levy, said in a statement to the Guardian that Betar submitted 
“thousands of names” of students and faculty they believe to be on visas from institutions like Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Syracuse University and others to representatives of the Trump administration.
The group claims to have “documentation, including tapes, social media and more” to support their actions.
It claims to be sharing names with several high-ranking officials, including the secretary of state, Marco #Rubio; the White House homeland security adviser, Stephen #Miller; and the attorney general, Pam #Bondi, among others.
The White House and state department did not respond to questions about whether they are working with Betar or other groups to identify students for deportation.
The Guardian · Pro-Israel group says it has ‘deportation list’ and has sent ‘thousands’ of names to Trump officials