from the more-vindictive-prosecutions dept
You typically don’t see felony prices filed towards judges at any stage of the court docket system. If it does occur, it’s used to deal with egregious and fixed felony exercise by sitting judges. The most typical path in the direction of self-discipline depends on the court docket system itself, which permits courts to punish judges for misbehavior and, in uncommon circumstances, have them eliminated by way of inside processes.
However that is no extraordinary US. That is Trump’s United States, the place anybody who displeases the person who needs he might be king is subjected to vindictive prosecutions. What occurred to New York Legal professional Normal Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey (prosecutions at the moment paused resulting from Trump administration fuckery/fuck ups) can occur to anybody.
So right here’s what occurred to Milwaukee County choose Hannah Dugan. After being made conscious of the truth that DEA and ICE brokers had been hanging round outdoors of her courtroom in hopes of arresting migrants who had been doing nothing greater than reporting for his or her court-ordered check-ins, Dugan determined to let the migrant whose felony case she was at the moment dealing with slip out a facet door, moderately than exit the primary door and instantly into the palms of loitering federal officers.
In line with the felony criticism filed by Kash Patel’s FBI — one thing he celebrated on X briefly earlier than deleting his publish — this meant brokers needed to transfer rapidly throughout almost a further 50-100 toes to arrest this individual. A sworn affidavit by FBI particular agent made it clear this was approach an excessive amount of stuff for officers to be doing, particularly one with [checks affidavit again] seven years expertise as a CPA[??][!!].
The federal authorities mentioned this added as much as obstruction. And it selected to criminally cost Choose Hannah Dugan moderately than permit the Wisconsin court docket system to deal with this by itself. There’s precedent for this, in fact. The final time a choose confronted felony prices for acts that may usually be dealt with by the court docket system’s inside disciplinary procedures was in 2019 throughout Trump’s first time period as president.
Little question individuals like Kash Patel and Pam Bondi can be celebrating this newest abuse of the justice system. The FBI and DOJ have managed to show a minor, momentary inconvenience right into a federal felony conviction.
Hannah C. Dugan, a Wisconsin state choose, was discovered responsible on Thursday of obstructing federal brokers, a high-profile victory for the Justice Division in a prosecution of a choose who it mentioned was illegally aiding an undocumented immigrant.
Choose Dugan faces as much as 5 years in jail and, as an individual who has been convicted of a felony, she is probably going ineligible to proceed to carry workplace as a choose in Wisconsin, in keeping with the State Structure.
This wasn’t the top results of a prolonged investigation or the end result of quite a few complaints towards Choose Dugan. That is nothing greater than some federal brokers bitching that they had been momentarily inconvenienced and getting all of the vindictiveness they wished from Trump’s DOJ and Kash Patel’s FBI.
This isn’t over. This conviction might be appealed. And it seems the court docket dealing with this thinks there’s a case to be made. Usually, jury responsible verdicts are accompanied by sentencing dates. That didn’t occur right here, which appears to point the choose dealing with the case isn’t essentially satisfied Choose Dugan’s actions rise to the extent of a federal felony. However regardless of how this finally ends up taking part in out, everybody needs to be on discover that Trump thinks “justice” and “revenge” are the identical phrase.
Filed Underneath: dea, doj, fbi, hannah dugan, kash patel, mass deportations, milwaukee county, pam bondi, trump administration, wisconsin
