Problems for Trump Everywhere He Looks

Meet Gregory Bovino.

Bovino is an agent with Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), one of ICE’s sister DHS agencies. He identifies himself as a Chief Patrol Agent on Linkedin. That’s a high-ranking position in the government’s senior executive service. Bovino writes that he’s been with the agency for 25 years, although it looks closer to 30 now. According to the Chicago Tribune, in September, Bovino was reassigned to command Operation Midway Blitz, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Chicago. He took on a high-profile role in Los Angeles, as well.

The Bulwark described Bovino like this in a tweet: “Bovino wants the community he is embedded in to see him not as a law enforcement officer but as an occupying military commander. He has not tried to establish a working relationship with the city; he has tried to dominate it.”

That’s a highly disturbing feature of this administration, the attempt to blur the line between law enforcement and the military. Bovino is on the wrong side of that line.

Last week, Bovino was at the center of a challenge to Trump administration policies in court, when he was summoned to appear before Judge Sara L. Ellis, who was evaluating tactics federal agents were using against a civilian population that were inconsistent with the way Americans expect their government to act in their communities. Following a Tuesday hearing where claims that Bovino and other federal agents violated the temporary restraining order that prohibited the use of tear gas without warnings to permit the crowd to clear before it was deployed, the Judge took a very unusual step. She ordered Bovino to meet with her every evening to review the events of the day until Wednesday, when she has a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled.

But the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Judge Ellis’ order.

The government characterized it as an “extraordinary and extraordinarily burdensome order” and claimed that it was “entered without any formal finding that the government failed to comply with prior court orders,” which it said, “constitutes a clear abuse of discretion and violates the separation of powers.”

Judge Ellis’ order was unusual, but not entirely unmerited on the facts. She seemed to be trying to head off additional problems before they happened, rather than waiting for someone to get seriously hurt. The Seventh Circuit didn’t see it like that. Either way, she will now hold a preliminary injunction hearing on Wednesday, where she will consider the government’s practices in Chicago neighborhoods against a backdrop of citizen videos that have shown us remarkable misconduct by masked federal agents who look more like the bad guys than the good guys.

The government will be in court in Chicago again on Wednesday on this case and also before the Supreme Court in the tariffs case that morning, following tomorrow’s elections, which will function as an early referendum of sorts on the Trump administration. It is a week full of stories at the intersection of law and politics, including the trial on misdemeanor charges of a man who threw a salami sandwich at federal agents in the District of Columbia. The grand jury declined to indict on felony charges, so we will get a misdemeanor trial this week. There has never been a president who behaved so cavalierly towards the American people who elected him that he elicited challenges from all sides.

The President reigned over a Great Gatsby-themed party over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago as more than 40 million Americans who rely on SNAP benefits faced uncertainty and food insecurity. Is it possible that the Trumps are as clueless as they sometimes appear, like when Melania went to the border to visit children who had been separated from their families in a jacket that was “decoratively” painted with the words, “I really don’t care, do you?” The Gatsby-themed party seemed too dead on. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and … then retreated back into their money … and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

President Obama made one of his infrequent public appearances over the weekend, too, advocating for gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey.

The former president was in rare form, going straight for what increasingly has become a vulnerability for Donald Trump, his Marie Antoinette-like insistence on building himself a ballroom while the people who elected him face increasing economic problems as the shutdown lingers and the prospect of not only SNAP problems but skyrocketing insurance premiums mounts. “As for the president,” Obama said, “he has been focused on critical issues like paving over the Rose Garden so folks don’t get mud on their shoes, and gold-plating the Oval Office and building a $300 million ballroom. So Virginia, here’s the good news. If you can’t visit a doctor, don’t worry, he will save you a dance.”

Ouch.

In his farewell address in January 2017, President Obama reminded Americans that “Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift. But it’s really just a piece of parchment. It has no power on its own. We, the people, give it power. We, the people, give it meaning — with our participation, and with the choices that we make and the alliances that we forge.”

We still do.

We’re in this together,

Joyce