CNN
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When the Trump Justice Department took the extraordinary step of arresting a local judge seven weeks ago, plenty feared what it could portend.
Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan’s case will play out in the weeks and months to come – she’s pleaded not guilty to obstructing the arrest of an undocumented immigrant – but arresting judges and public officials isn’t something to undertake lightly. Critics warned of the chilling effect it could lead to and the precedent it would set.
Virtually nothing in the past seven weeks will have tempered those fears.
The fervor to arrest public officials who run afoul of the Trump administration doesn’t appear to be going away.
Since Dugan’s arrest:
The Justice Department has criminally charged a big-city mayor and a Democratic congresswoman.
A Republican congressman floated arresting 100 more judges who ruled against President Donald Trump.
Trump earlier this week floated arresting Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
And on Thursday alone, a Republican congressman advocated criminally charging three Democratic governors, while Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California was handcuffed after interrupting a press conference from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Some in the MAGA movement are now pushing for Padilla to be charged, though there’s no indication he will be.
Almost all of these situations involved officials on the opposite political side of Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown.
As with Dugan, it’s important to account for the nuances of these situations. There’s much we have to learn about Padilla being handcuffed, for instance.
His office said he was just trying to ask Noem a question, while DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin claimed that he “lunged toward Secretary Noem.” (There is video – from multiple sources and angles – for people to draw their own conclusions.)
It’s also not clear that those who handcuffed him knew who he was. Padilla did announce himself at one point as a US senator. McLaughlin said Padilla wasn’t wearing his Senate security pin and that the Secret Service “thought he was an attacker.” Noem said, “Nobody knew who he was.”
Padilla told reporters after the incident that he was not arrested.
But other instances of apprehension – or threats of it – more clearly point to zealous attempts to go after the other side criminally. And the totality of them certainly paints a picture.
GOP Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana was talking about arresting 1 out of every 18 federal judges in the United States, for instance – apparently for the crime of ruling against Trump. (Republicans have claimed these judges are engaged in a “judicial coup” against the president.)
Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama on Thursday floated arresting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for alleged obstruction of justice over sanctuary policies in their states. He did so even though the courts have generally upheld such policies.
“And charges … for obstruction should be brought against each one of you for doing this,” Palmer said. “I’ll leave that up to the Department of Justice.”
(Palmer struck his own comments from the record after Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York argued he was intimidating the witnesses.)
Trump’s justification for floating Newsom’s arrest was even less robust, saying that “his primary crime is running for governor, because he’s done such a bad job.”
And in at least one case, the Justice Department has already reversed course. After charging Democratic Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for his actions at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility last month, it withdrew the charges.
That was followed by a rebuke from a judge that’s pretty notable for this moment in time.
The magistrate judge told interim US Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba that it was “a worrisome misstep by your office” and suggested it involved “political agendas.”
“An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool,” the judge said, calling it “a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences.”
Such concerns don’t appear to be carrying the day in the Trump administration or the MAGA movement. The arrest of the judge in Milwaukee has only preceded more arrests – including of Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, who was indicted for the same scenes Baraka was involved in. The indictment alleges she impeded and interfered with immigration officers outside the detention center.
Some legal analysts have questioned the strength of that case, while McIver has disputed the allegations as baseless and defended her presence at the facility as part of her authorized role as a member of Congress. Her lawyer has referred to the prosecution as “political retaliation against a dedicated public servant.”
It’s at this point that many Trump supporters will say: Well, Democrats started it. It’s true that Trump was indicted no fewer than four times in recent years.
But the only criminal case to actually reach a conclusion resulted in a conviction.
And the substance of his federal indictments were things even many Republicans had criticized Trump for. A historic number of GOP senators voted to convict Trump in connection with the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and Trump’s own former attorney general, William Barr, repeatedly said that Trump’s classified documents indictment was “entirely of his own making.”
In other words, these were serious cases involving weighty issues of trying to overturn a democratic election and protecting national secrets.
What we’re seeing today is a much more cavalier application of the concept of criminally charging public officials. And the fact that examples keep coming in quick succession suggests we’ve reached something of a turning point.
And that’s regardless of the propriety of what happened with Padilla.
