Speaking in the hypotheticals that lawyers engage in — a key component of many Supreme Court arguments — U.S. Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) followed the arrest of a Wisconsin judge to a analogous legal conclusion.
Raskin, an attorney, asserted that if Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan could be arrested for obstructing immigration enforcement, then it’s plausible that people in the Trump administration could be “arrested for interfering with a legal proceeding and perhaps other criminal charges like kidnapping.”
Raskin: So on the logic of this arrest of Judge Dugan, all of the people in the trump administration who participated in defying that order by Judge Boasberg themselves, could be arrested for interfering with a legal proceeding and perhaps other criminal charges like kidnaping.. pic.twitter.com/yH9wi3NZQ4
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 26, 2025
[Note: Raskin is addressing specifically the order by Judge James Boasberg to delay the deportation of hundreds of alleged criminals to El Salvador, an order to which the administration, with the planes carrying the deportees already in the air, replied essentially “too late.”]
Raskin’s logic is that the Trump administration has ignored the courts and therefore interfered with a legal proceeding, as Dugan is charged with having done.
[Other Trump critics and jurisprudence watchers have accused the administration of ignoring the nation’s highest court also, saying Trump’s team is making an specious semantic argument in the case where the Supreme Court ordered the administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom federal law enforcement sent from the U.S. to a prison in El Salvador. Abrego Garcia’s deportation and imprisonment were said by the administration to be a mistake, but he has not been returned.]
Raskin says the situation concerning Dugan’s arrest represents part of the “intense assault on judicial independence” by the Trump administration over the last month, which he says has shown Trump 2.0 “defying federal court orders systematically” and “demanding impeachment of judges.”
Raskin asserts that the first felony charge levelled against Dugan — “interfering with a legal proceeding” is “essentially what they’ve been doing all along.”
The logical analogy won’t likely soon result in kidnapping charges aimed at administration operatives — Raskin’s “essentially” is doing a lot of bridgework in his analogy. And in presenting his hypothetical Raskin doesn’t appear to be raising a real threat, only suggesting that a similarity in the behaviors contemplated could logically result in similar charges.
Commenters aren’t so sure. As one writes: “Obstruction of justice is not defiance of a court order. The latter is merely contempt. The former is quite serious.”
Obstruction of justice is not defiance of a court order. The latter is merely contempt. The former is quite serious
— Publius (@Publius215) April 26, 2025