Letters from an American - May 27, 2025

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

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May 27, 2025. Political scientist Adam Bonica noted last Friday that Trump and the administration suffered a 96% loss rate in federal courts in the month of May. Those losses were nonpartisan, 72.2% of Republican-appointed judges and 80.4% of Democratic-appointed judges ruled against the administration. The administration sustained more losses today. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkin ruled that 14 states can proceed with their lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. The administration had tried to dismiss the case, but Chutkin ruled the states had adequately supported their argument that Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency's conduct is unauthorized by any law. The Constitution does not permit the executive to commandeer the entire Appointments power

by unilaterally creating a federal agency and insulating its principal officer from the Constitution as an advisor in name only," she wrote. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon struck down Trump's March 27th executive order targeting the law firm Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr, more commonly known as Wilmer-Hale. This law firm angered Trump by employing Robert Mueller, the Republican-appointed special counsel who oversaw an investigation of the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. Leon, who was first appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, made his anger obvious. The First Amendment prohibits government officials

from retaliating against individuals for engaging in protected speech, Leon noted. Wilmer Hale alleges that the order blatantly defies this bedrock principle of constitutional law. Leon wrote, I agree. He went on to strike down the order as unconstitutional. Today, NPR and three Colorado public radio stations sued the Trump administration over Trump's executive order that seeks to impound congressionally appropriated funds for NPR and PBS The executive order said the public media stations do not present a fair accurate or unbiased

portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens NPR's David Fulkenflick reported White House spokesperson Harrison Fields's statement today that public media supports a particular party on the taxpayers dime and that Trump and his allies have called it left-wing propaganda. The lawsuit calls Trump's executive order an attempt to withhold funding Congress has already approved, textbook retaliation. We are not choosing to do this out of politics, NPR Chief Executive Officer Catherine Maher

told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. We are choosing to do this as a matter of necessity and principle. All of our rights that we enjoy in this democracy flow from the First Amendment, freedom of speech, association, freedom of the press. When we see those rights infringed upon, we have an obligation to challenge them. U.S. District Judge Paul Lashini's today denied the administration's motion for a 30-day extension of the deadline for it to answer the complaint in the lawsuit over the rendition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

The Maryland man sent to El Salvador through what the administration said was administrative error. Despite five hearings on the case, the administration's lawyers didn't indicate they needed any more time. the administration's lawyers didn't indicate they needed any more time, but today, the day their answer was due, they suddenly asked for 30 more days. Shinies wrote that they expended no effort in demonstrating good cause. They vaguely complain in two sentences to expending significant resources engaging in expedited discovery. But these self-described burdens are of their own making. The court ordered expedited discovery

because of the administration's refusal to follow the orders of this court, as affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court. Trump is well known for using procedural delays to stop the courts from administering justice, and it is notable that administration lawyers have generally not been arguing that they will win cases on the merits. Instead, they are making procedural arguments. Meanwhile, stringing things out means making time for situations to change on the ground, reducing the effect of court decisions.

Brian Barrett of Wired reported today that while Musk claims to have stepped back from the Department of Government Efficiency, his lieutenants are still spread throughout the government, mining Americans' data. Meanwhile, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vogt will push to make the Department of Government Efficiency cuts to government permanent in a dramatic reworking of the nation's social contract. Removing the Department of Government Efficiency at this point would be like trying to remove a drop of food coloring from a glass of water, Barrett writes.

Political scientist Bonica notes that there's a script for rising authoritarians. When the courts rule against the leader, the leader and his loyalists attack judges as biased and dangerous, just as Trump and his cronies have been doing. The leader also works to delegitimize the judicial system, and that too we are seeing as Trump reverses the concepts

of not guilty and guilty. On the one hand, the administration is fighting to get rid of the constitutional right of all persons to do process, rendering people who have not been charged with crimes to prisons in third countries. On the other, Trump and his loyalists at the Department of Justice are pardoning individuals who have been convicted of crimes. On Monday, Trump issued a presidential pardon to former Culpeper County, Virginia, Sheriff Scott Jenkins, a longtime Trump supporter, whom a jury convicted of conspiracy, mail-and-wire

fraud and seven counts of bribery. whom a jury convicted of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, and seven counts of bribery. Jared Gans of The Hill explained that Jenkins accepted more than $70,000 in bribes to appoint auxiliary deputy sheriffs, giving them badges and credentials, despite them not being trained or vetted and not offering services to the sheriff's office. Jenkins had announced he would deputize thousands of our law-abiding citizens to protect their

constitutional right to own firearms if the legislature passed further unnecessary gun restrictions. Jenkins was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Although Jenkins was found guilty by a jury of his peers, just as the U.S. justice system calls for, Trump insisted that Jenkins and his wife and their family have been dragged through hell by a corrupt and weaponized Biden Department of Justice. Jenkins, Trump wrote on social media, is a wonderful person who was persecuted by the radical left monsters and left for dead. This is why I, as president of the

United States, see fit to end his unfair sentence and grant Sheriff Jenkins a full and unconditional pardon. He will not be going to jail tomorrow, but instead will have a wonderful and productive life. Today, Trump gave a presidential pardon to Paul Walzak, a former nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes in 2024. The pardon arrived after Walzak's mother donated at least $1 million to Trump.

The pardon spares Walzack from 18 months in prison and $4.4 million in restitution. Also today, Trump announced plans to pardon reality TV stars, Julie and Todd Chrisley, who were sentenced to 7 and 12 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud banks of $36 million Conspiracy to defraud banks of $36 million, and tax evasion. Their daughter spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention. Bonica notes that delegitimizing the judicial system creates a permission structure for threats against judges. That too we are seeing.

Bonica goes on to illustrate how this pattern of authoritarian attacks on the judiciary looks the same across nations. In 2009, following a ruling that he was not immune from prosecution for fraud, tax evasion, and bribery, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi railed about communist prosecutors and communist judges. In 2016, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey rejected the authority of his country's highest court and purged more than 4,000 judges. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe pushed judges to stop protests and the judiciary collapsed. In the Philippines in

2018, Rodrigo Duterte called the Chief Justice Defending Judicial Independence an enemy and she was removed. In Brazil in 2021, Jair Bolsonaro threatened violence against the judges who were investigating him for corruption. But, Bonica notes, something different happened in Israel in 2023.

When Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition tried to destroy judicial independence, people from all parts of society took to the streets. A broad, nonpartisan group came together to defend democracy and resist authoritarianism. Every authoritarian who successfully destroyed judicial independence did so because civil society failed to unite in time, Bonica writes. The key difference? Whether people mobilized. ["The New York Times"] and mobilized.

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. Boss.