In studying media, news, and propaganda, there are moments in time when you realize that if things break the wrong way, you're watching events that will live on in infamy in our collective history; this might be one of those moments.

This morning Trump's FBI arrested a sitting Wisconsin County Judge, Hannah Dugan, at the courthouse where she works; as revealed in an unhinged, since-deleted tweet by FBI Director and noted conspiracy crank Kash Patel. Unfortunately, the arrest has since been confirmed via multiple sources, and was discussed on Fox News earlier today by US Attorney General, Pam Bondi.

The government, which is currently being run by a bunch of Christian Nationalist freaks in a cult of personality who're trying to build a white ethnostate, appears to be accusing Dugan of obstructing federal agents (so ICE) by allowing an undocumented immigrant to hide in her chambers and misdirecting the Gestapo goons coming to seize him. If even half of that turns out to be true, I accuse Justice Dugan of being a goddamn hero.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/judge-hannah-dugan

'Fascism Getting Turned Up' as Trump FBI Arrests Wisconsin County Judge

"Wisconsin state Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-19) said in a statement Wednesday that "several witnesses report that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] did not present a warrant before entering the courtroom and it is not clear whether ICE ever possessed or presented a judicial warrant, generally required for agents to access nonpublic spaces like Judge Dugan's chambers."

Clancy continued:

I commend Judge Hannah Dugan's defense of due process by preventing ICE from shamefully using her courtroom as an ad hoc holding area for deportations. We cannot have a functional legal system if people are justifiably afraid to show up for legal proceedings, especially when ICE agents have already repeatedly grabbed people off the street in retaliation for speech and free association, without even obtaining the proper warrants.

While the facts in this case are still unfolding, it's clear that actions like Judge Dugan's are what is required for democracy to survive the Trump regime. She used her position of power and privilege to protect someone from an agency that has repeatedly, flagrantly abused its own power. If enough of us act similarly, and strategically, we can stand with our neighbors and build a better world together."

I quoted the part with Rep. Clancy's statement both because I agree with every word of his defense of, and praise for Dugan's actions, but also because I wanted to highlight the part about ICE not having a judicial warrant when they entered Dugan's court. This is an extremely sore point for the fascist right and their mass deportation scheme and they've argued that all branches of the government, including the independent judiciary, should allow them to snatch up migrants with only immigration orders that are much easier to obtain for the Gestapo than judicial warrants are. Obviously many government officials and lawmakers with a conscience refuse to do so, Dugan is clearly one of those that isn't willing to collaborate with a fascist regime's mass deportation scheme, and that's why they're charging her.

Furthermore, I think it's safe to say the Trumpenreich is actively trying to intimidate judges who defy their mass deportation plans, while gearing up for a propaganda war about how courts that won't let them do whatever they like to create a white ethnostate are somehow illegitimate, because of the extremely public show they've made of all this. Patel didn't gleefully tweet the news out by accident, Bondi wasn't just bumming around a Fox News camera when the news broke, and as the article notes standard procedure for charging a judge with obstruction would involve inviting her to "to show up and accept process" - not a highly public FBI arrest at the courthouse. This is another example of the Trump regime employing fascist theater to justify the enforcement of unreality; in this case their supposed right to arrest a Judge for stopping the American Gestapo from caging another undocumented immigrant because *they* didn't have the paperwork to allow them to do so.

The perverse part here is that in an American legal logic twisted towards the needs of a reactionary ruling class and authoritarian principles, it's entirely possible Dugan has committed a crime of some kind here. Be that as it may, the truth is that even if she has, nobody has any right to say Justice Hannah Dugan is guilty. She's not guilty, she might be the only one in the whole damn government who isn't guilty. The guilty people are the fascists hunting down migrants and the greedbag "bipartisan" consensus that built them the fascist police state they're using to do it. If you tell me that Hannah Dugan is guilty, then let me just say now that I don't want to be innocent.

#Fascism #Trump #ICE #FBI #HannahDugan #Authoritarianism #Immigration #Courts #KashPatel #PamBondy #Antifascism #MigrantRights #Justice