Letters from an American - March 18, 2025

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

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March 18, 2025. On Saturday, U.S. District Judge James Boesberg ordered that the Trump administration stop deporting anyone from the United States under the authority of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and that the planes carrying individuals to prison in El Salvador be turned around. Despite the order, the administration declined to bring the planes back and administration officials appeared to mock the order with Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposting the message of Salvadoran President Naib Buckeye that read, oopsie, too late, along with a laughing emoji. On Sunday, lawyers from the Department of Justice suggested that the planes were outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. when Boasberg issued the order, or that the order didn't take effect until it was entered into the

electronic docket, although his verbal order that he said had to be complied with immediately came about 45 minutes earlier before at least one of the planes landed. On Monday, the Justice Department unsuccessfully asked a federal appeals court to remove Boesberg from the case. In a hearing, Boesberg asked the administration to clarify its actions after it appeared to defy the court by rushing the planes off the ground and to El Salvador. In response to the Justice Department's claim that the judge's orders had no authority over the flights

once they left US airspace, the judge noted that the power of the federal courts does not end at the end of US airspace. Boasberg also appeared to reject the claim of the DOJ lawyers that there is no judicial order until it is published in a written filing. The DOJ also refused to tell Boesberg anything about the flights, saying that even their number was a question of national security, although the administration had talked extensively about them on public

media. Boesberg scheduled another hearing today to get the DOJ lawyers to answer the questions they had refused to address. This morning, President Donald Trump took to social media to call Boesberg a radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker, an agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected president. He didn't win the popular vote by a lot. He didn't win all seven swing states. He didn't win 2,750 to 525 counties.

He didn't win anything. I won for many reasons in an overwhelming mandate, but fighting illegal immigration may have been the number one reason for this historic victory. I'm just doing what the voters wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear before, should be impeached." Trump's post sounds as if he is nervous about the increasing unrest over his policies and is trying to convince people that he has a mandate, although in fact more people voted for other candidates in the 2024 election

than voted for him. But it was his suggestion that any judge with whom he disagrees should be removed that sparked pushback from Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, who issued a statement saying, For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.'" Roberts wrote the Trump v. United States decision

of July 1st, 2024, establishing that presidents cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of their official presidential duties. And it seems likely that Trump did not expect a rebuke from him. U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang also sought to stop the administration's power grab. In a scathing 68-page decision, Chuang found that the actions of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to destroy the United States Agency for International Development,

or USAID, likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways. Chuang explained that the destruction of USAID hurt not only the 26 current or recently fired employees and contractors of USAID who had filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. That destruction also hurt the public interest because they deprived the public's elected representatives in Congress of their constitutional authority to decide whether, when, and how to close down an agency created by Congress. While the question of who is in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency

is such a mystery that it has spawned its own social media hashtag, WITAOD, for Who is the Administrator of DOGE, Chuang clearly identified Elon Musk as the person in charge. Trump identified Musk as the leader of Doge, he notes, and Trump and Musk held a joint press conference in the Oval Office to answer reporters' questions about Doge. Chuang noted the many, many times when Trump called Musk Doge's leader. In the lawsuit, USAID employees argued that Musk has acted as an officer of the United States without having been duly appointed to such a

role. The Constitution provides that the President can appoint such officers who exercise significant authority but that they must be confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate. Musk quite obviously was not. The White House has tried to get around this issue by claiming that Musk is only an advisor to the president but Chuang wasn't buying it. Based on the present record, he wrote, the only individuals known to be associated with the decisions to initiate a shutdown of USAID

are Musk and Doge team members. Musk, therefore, exercises actual authority in ways that an advisor to the president does not. Chuang ordered that parts of USAID must be restored, although what effect that will have is unclear since the agency has been destroyed. Trump continued his attack on the rule of law today when he fired the two Democratic commissioners

at the Federal Trade Commission, which protects consumers from collusion and anti-consumer practices. The firings leave only two Republicans on the commission and leave it without a quorum to do business. Beginning with the 1935 case of Humphrey's executor versus United States, the courts have established that the president

cannot fire officials in agencies created by Congress without a serious reason like neglect of duties. Legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern wrote Trump's action here is brazenly illegal under any interpretation of the law as it stands. Trump held a phone conversation today with Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly about a proposed ceasefire in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump boasted that he would end Russia's war against Ukraine

in a day, and he is now eager for any end of the hostilities. But Putin seems less eager to reach a solution than to demonstrate his dominance over Trump. Today, when the phone call was scheduled, Putin was on stage at an event. When his interviewer asked if he needed to go because he would be late for the call, Putin dismissed the question and laughter broke out. Brett Bruin, president of the global situation room public relations firm wrote, making leaders wait is an old Putin power play. But this is pretty brutal. Putin is publicly mocking Trump.

While Trump's team portrayed the conversation as productive, Putin maintained that Ukraine was the aggressor in the war, although it was Russia that invaded Ukraine. Putin also demanded that the US and allies must stop all military aid and the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine, conditions that would hamstring Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. Finally today, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has proposed addressing the H5N1

bird flu that is decimating US poultry and cattle farms by simply letting the disease run rampant. He suggests such a course would permit scientists to discover birds that are immune to the disease. But veterinary scientists say that letting the virus sweep through flocks is a really terrible idea for any one of a number of reasons. As Gail Hansen, former state veterinarian for Kansas, told a Apoorva Amandavilli of

the New York Times, chickens and turkeys don't have the genes to resist the virus and every infection is a chance for the virus to mutate into a more virulent form, one of which could mutate so it could spread among humans. If H5N1 were permitted to infect 5 million birds, that's literally 5 million chances for that virus to replicate or to mutate, Hanson told Mandeville. The danger of this shoot first, ask questions later

attitude of administration officials was on display today in articles about the men deported to El Salvador. A Washington Post article by Sylvia Foster Frow followed the story of four Venezuelan friends who had come to the US illegally. They shared a townhouse in Dallas where immigration officials picked them up last Thursday. The men signed deportation papers expecting to return to Venezuela, but although there is no record that the men committed crimes in the US and their families

insist they are not affiliated with the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang whose members White House officials claim were on the weekend's deportation flights, the men are shown in the videos of those deported to prison in El Salvador. A Reuters story by Sarah Knowsian and Christina Cook reported that family members who suspect their loved ones have been sent to El Salvador have launched a WhatsApp helpline. have launched a WhatsApp helpline. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions,

Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.