DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: The Executive vs. Judicial is not a new Trump phenomenon – do your research!

I’m going to begin this week offering a suggestion; if you do not like Trump, even so still consider not making every political happening in the US a “he’s a dictator” rant.

It reeks of not doing all the research.

Did you notice judges are going to jail?

Next it will be politicians – pay attention.

That’s why so many seem to be losing it these days.

For now, it is a former judge from New Mexico and a sitting judge from Milwaukee who got into some big trouble last week.

Trouble that got them arrested.

If nothing else, we can say United States Attorney General Pam Bondi is being true to her word regarding arrests.

First there was Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan. She’s being charged with two federal felonies.

According to FBI Director Kash Patel, Dugan was arrested for obstructing ICE during the arrest of an illegal individual in the US when they showed up at the courthouse with a deportation order.

The subject was Eduardo Flores Ruiz.

Bondi explained “This guy was in court being prosecuted by a state prosecutor for domestic violence battery. He beat up a guy and girl. He beat the guy 30 times and knocked him to the ground and beat up the women so badly they both had to go to the hospital. It is so rare for victims to want to cooperate, and they were sitting in the courtroom with the state prosecutor.”

Apparently, Dugan allowed the subject – an illegal alien – to evade arrest.

CNN’s Elie Honig said in a recent report, “Strip the politics out of it, this is a crime” and goes on to say, “Law enforcement shows up at a building with an arrest warrant. They are looking for person A. Person B, then says there is a secret door out the back and I’m going to show you the way. That person is then ushered out the back door. That is textbook obstruction.”

Ruiz had been deported in 2013. He came back into the country illegally and then committed these crimes.

Yes, I realize the constitution does allow for everyone to have their day in court i.e., due process, but how many due processes do we have to “do?”

Remember blue people, was it not your buddy Bill Clinton in 1996 who signed his Immigration Reform Act that stated illegals could be deported without judicial hearings.

Like I said last week regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia and due process, I get it. I work in the court system and have worked on behalf of the due process group.

In Garcia’s case, Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana said he had been seen by 17 judges, some of them twice. He also probably racked up about $5 million in legal fees. And just as a reminder he didn’t have to pay a dime of that money during his US tour before being sent home – we (taxpayers) paid it for him.

Former Federal Democratic Judge Joe Cano and his wife were also arrested last week for harboring illegal immigrants at their home in New Mexico. Not just any illegals, but the Tren de Aragua gang member kind.

Newsweek reported both husband and wife are facing charges of evidence tampering and hosting three people with alleged links to the Tren de Aragua gang. This includes a man named Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, detained for being in the U.S. illegally.

Newsweek explains there were firearms in Ortega-Lopez’ possession (thanks to the judge’s daughter) and he was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by an illegal alien. He entered the country illegally in 2023.

Cano, a judge since 2011, had been restricted by the New Mexico Supreme Court from sitting on the bench in March after he resigned when Ortega-Lopez was arrested at Cano’s home. The dude was living in the family’s guest house.

Bondi said Cano’s charges were unsealed and he was charged with obstruction, and he admitted post Miranda. He reportedly also took one of the TDA member’s cell phones and beat it with a hammer, destroyed it and then walked to the city dumpster to dispose of it. His wife has been charged with destroying evidence.

There have been protests regarding judges being arrested. Signs that read “Hands off judges and, “Keep your crooked hands off our democracy.”

I would like to ask these poster children if they are familiar with the Constitution.

Montana Congresswomen Harriet Hageman said Article 2 of the Constitution states the executive power shall be vested in the President of the United States of America.

“It is the president who defines the executive branch,” she said. “When you read this language, it goes on to say that no court may take over that rule and that no court may define or limit the scope of the duties of an official of the Executive office of the President.”

I’m not one to quote former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (during Clinton), but here I go.

Gingrich testified at a judicial hearing earlier this month and discussed the judicial branch. For his full testimony: gingrich360.com/2025/04/02/house-judiciary-committee-testimony.

Here are a few factoids he has stated about judicial vs. executive branch business.

It’s obvious after I read his words that the Trump haters have an obscured view regarding Trump, because he isn’t the first to have executive vs. judicial controversy.

So, if you’re going to hate on Trump for it, go ahead and bad mouth Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Thomas Jefferson.

First, the Declaration of Independence speaks specifically against dictatorial judges.

Isn’t that what we were trying to get away from back then?

Gingrich reminded that Thomas Jefferson when asked about judicial supremacy said, “That is an absurdity. That would be an oligarchy.”

Gingrich added, “It is dangerous because if judges think they are unchallengeable they are inevitably corrupted. Corrupted in a moral sense, not taking money.”

He maintains with each passing decade judges have become more hostile to the American tradition openly talking about using foreign sources of information because, “the American Constitution is so old and antiquated.”

Should a justice who believes our Constitution is old and antiquated serve on the American bench?

The founding fathers based the US Constitution on the balance of power with three co-equal branches and that means there can be no supremacy.

Jefferson is an example of taking on the judiciary in the Judicial Reform Act of 1802. President John Adams had appointed Federalist judges on his way out of office to hamstring in-coming Jefferson’s agenda. Jefferson realized he could not do anything fast enough to correct Adams’ appointments, so he and Congress abolished 18 out of 35 federal judges by abolishing their courts with the judicial reform act.

So, when Trump does that, do not call it a first – do your research.

Andrew Jackson when tackling the bank of the United States, which he said was an overly centralized form of power was told the Supreme Court said it was constitutional, so he said “fine, that’s their opinion.” He said, “I have a different opinion, and I’m the President of the United States and they are a court. They get their opinion in court I get my opinion in the White House.”

Blue people, does that sound like something you hate about Trump? You better hate on Jackson first.  

Lincoln said in his first inaugural speech the Dred Scott decision might be the law of the case, but he added it could not be the law of the land.

“And Lincoln refused to enforce the Dred Scott decision while he was president,” Gingrich added.

Gingrich also mentioned the judicial system and national security stating it has become out of touch with reality.

“The idea that the courts are now going to take on the responsibility of defending the United States is a clear and fundamental violation of the Constitution and fundamental violation of executive branches power.

Congress should pass a law repudiating every interference of the courts in national security issues and return it to the Congress and the president where it belongs,” Gingrich said.

It’s also important to point out congress does have the power to limit appeals, and they can cut budgets. They can say for example in the future the 9th circuit can meet but it will have no clerks (Gingrich’s example here).

And they can say they’re not going to pay the electric bill for two years and “since they seem to be rendering justice in the dark, they don’t seem to need their law library.”

Alexander Hamilton said in the Federalist papers, “The judiciary is the weakest of the branches.”

Is the modern model we are playing with now the total opposite of American tradition?

I suggest more research for your own examples of how Trump is not breaking new ground with executive vs. judicial issues.

Nope, it seems like that has been an argument since this country began – and I suppose it shall be as we march forward into the future.

Rita Cook is a freelance writer for The Ellis County Press. She can be reached at rcook13@earthlink.net.