“Chilling”: Wisconsin Gov. Evers Pushes Back After Trump’s Border Czar Threatens to Arrest Him

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We begin today in Wisconsin, where Democratic Governor Tony Evers is pushing back after Trump’s so-called border czar Tom Homan suggested Wisconsin officials could be arrested if they follow local immigration policies that defy Trump’s mass deportation agenda. He made the veiled threat when questioned last Thursday by the far-right website Gateway Pundit.

JORDAN CONRADSON: Your comments on the Wisconsin governor sending directives to state agencies to not comply with ICE and actually stop your deportation efforts?

TOM HOMAN: Wait ’til you see what’s coming.

REPORTER: Any updates on the —

TOM HOMAN: I meant what I said. You cross — you can not support what we’re doing, and you can support sanctuary cities, if that’s what you want to do. But if you cross that line of impediment or knowingly harboring and concealing an illegal alien, that is a felony, and we will treat it as such.

AMY GOODMAN: “Wait to see what’s coming,” said White House border czar Tom Homan, threatening Governor Tony Evers.

Well, on Friday, the Wisconsin governor responded to Homan in a video statement posted online. Evers spoke in part about a memo he issued last month to Wisconsin state employees that echoes guidance given by other state and city governments, which instructs them to call a state lawyer if an ICE agent or other federal agent shows up at their workplace and questions them. It also tells workers not to give agents access to nonpublic areas. This is an excerpt of the video statement by Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers.

GOV. TONY EVERS: Yesterday, a Trump administration official, in not so many words, apparently threatened to arrest me for distributing guidance that asks state agency employees to consult with an attorney if federal agents show up at state buildings with legal documents. The goal of this guidance was simple: to provide clear, consistent instructions to state employees and ensure they have a lawyer to help them comply with all federal and state laws — nothing more, nothing less. But Republicans and their right-wing wing allies, including Elon Musk, lied about this guidance, spread misinformation, accused me of doing things I didn’t do or say, and fueled a fake controversy of their own creation.

Now, I’m used to Republicans and the right wing lying about me. It comes with the job. But this time these lies came at a cost. I haven’t broken the law. I haven’t committed a crime. And I’ve never encouraged or directed anyone to break any laws or commit any crimes. But when President Trump’s handpicked appointee Tom Homan was asked about me and this guidance after he apparently threatened to arrest elected officials across the country, he said, “Wait ’til you see what’s coming.” “Wait ’til you see what’s coming.” Overnight, Republican lawmakers piled on, encouraging the Trump administration to arrest me. Chilling threats like this should be of concern to every Wisconsinite and every American who cares about this country and the values we hold dear.

We live in the United States of America, folks. We are a country of laws. The rule of law matters. Following the law matters. In this country, the federal government doesn’t get to abuse its power to threaten everyday Americans. In this country, the federal government doesn’t get to arrest American citizens who have not committed a crime. In this country, we don’t threaten to persecute people just because they belong to a different political party. These threats represent a concerning trajectory in this country. We now have a federal government that will threaten or arrest an elected official, or even everyday American citizens, who have broken no laws, committed no crimes and done nothing wrong. And as disgusted as I am about the continued actions of the Trump administration, I’m not afraid. I have never once been discouraged from doing the right thing, and I will not start today.

AMY GOODMAN: Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers speaking in a video posted online Friday.

This comes after the Trump administration escalated its attacks on judges and immigrants the week before, when FBI agents arrested Milwaukee, Wisconsin, County Judge Hannah Dugan on charges of obstructing justice and concealing an immigrant from arrest as federal agents waited in the courthouse hallway. She opened a side door for the immigrant to pass out of.

Meanwhile, in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, President Trump says he doesn’t know if he needs to uphold the Constitution or if people in the U.S. are entitled to due process rights.

For more, we’re joined in Superior, Wisconsin, by Lisa Graves. She’s the former deputy assistant attorney general of the United States, now the director and founder of the policy research group True North Research and co-host of the podcast Legal AF. Her forthcoming book is titled Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights.

We welcome you back to Democracy Now!, Lisa.

LISA GRAVES: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: “Without precedent” could also describe our president, Donald Trump. If you could first respond to this direct threat against the Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers?

LISA GRAVES: Well, it really is an outrageous act, this veiled threat against Governor Evers and any elected official in the United States. What Governor Evers did was issue guidance to consult lawyers. Of course, state and local officials have a right to consult lawyers when they encounter federal agents or local and state agents. And so, it’s really nothing abnormal at all, that the governor did. And what’s abnormal, what’s outrageous is the threats being made by this administration. In fact, what we’re seeing, obviously, what we’re witnessing, is this escalation of attacks on pillars of civil society, as well as on the actual responsibilities under the Constitution that the president and senators and other officers take an oath to uphold.

AMY GOODMAN: So, do you see Wisconsin itself as a target? I mean, going back to Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin often seen as a kind of model for the country. And do you see this as going back to retaliation for Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, complete defeat in Wisconsin over his support for the conservative judge that lost by not a few percentage points, shocking everyone, including, I think, the judge who won, the Democratic judge who won?

LISA GRAVES: Well, that’s right. Wisconsinites rejected this intervention, this extraordinary, unprecedented intervention by Elon Musk to basically try to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, while he also has litigation pending in the state of Wisconsin over his business.

I think what we’re seeing, in a broader sense, is just an absolute degradation of the rule of law. The Constitution requires that no person be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Due process of law means not whim, not caprice, not revenge, not retaliation for not being in the fan club of this president or the men that he has put into these roles in which they’re engaging such destruction, like Elon Musk. And we are — you know, we have seen Wisconsin targeted in that way, obviously by Musk in this most recent Supreme Court race in which he was resoundingly defeated, but I think we’re also seeing this broader attack — the governor of Maine, the governor of Wisconsin, other governors who dare to speak up, defend the rule of law, defend the rights and interests of their citizens, you know, to access Social Security, have their children registered, for example, in Social Security when they’re born in the United States. We’re seeing this assault on the idea, the promise, the demand, the requirement under the Constitution that the writ of habeas corpus not be suspended. That, by its definition, means that people, if they are seized, have a right to have an independent judicial tribunal assess whether there’s evidence against them, assess whether they can be held and deprived of their liberty.

But Trump and this administration has leveled an assault on that legal command that Donald Trump took an oath to uphold. I question whether that oath had any meaning anymore, after John Roberts waved away the criminal liability of Donald Trump in that disastrous immunity decision last summer without precedent — like the title of my book — but that unprecedented decision to say the president is above the law, that he can break the law, rather than that he has a duty to faithfully uphold the law. That’s what the Constitution requires of the president, that he faithfully execute the laws. And nothing could be no more faithless than breaking those laws. Nothing could be more faithless than disregarding the command, the requirement of the Constitution of due process of law for all persons.

AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, at a judges conference in Puerto Rico, the Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared to forcefully rebuke President Trump and the administration’s attack on judges it deems unfavorable to its agenda. She didn’t call out Trump by name, but said she was addressing, quote, “the elephant in the room.” Justice Brown Jackson said, quote, “The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity. The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.” Again, those are the words of a Supreme Court justice, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Lisa Graves?

LISA GRAVES: That’s right. She’s exactly right. We are seeing this assault on the independence of the judicial branch, on the separation of powers, on the notion that anyone can check the demands of this president, the idea — on the idea that the president and his attorney general can just disregard long-standing laws, disregard precedents and, in fact, that they can decide not to follow the commands, the orders of courts, as we saw in the case of Judge Boasberg’s order involving the Trump administration’s attempts to basically evade the requirement of people getting due process in this country.

So, we are well into a constitutional crisis, not just because of the disobedience of court orders by Trump, but also by these attacks on judges for daring to do their job and enforce our laws and protect our rights, including that right to due process that everyone is entitled to, whether you’re a citizen or immigrant in the United States. So we have a lot to do as citizens, as people in this country, to stand up, to speak out and to not tolerate this outrageous disregard for the command of our Constitution to defend all of our rights against this authoritarian leadership that is expanding its efforts to control the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: So, your book, Without Precedent, if you can just give us a sneak peek? It’s dealing with the Chief Justice Roberts, who has at some points now sided with the liberal judges. But your subtitle, How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights. You’re saying he really laid the groundwork here.

LISA GRAVES: Yes, I am. In fact, I think even if he were to rule against Trump on more than a temporary basis on some of these orders, what John Roberts has done is usher in this new era. He basically signaled to the American people last summer that Trump could do no wrong, that he could not be held criminally liable for his actions, and that anything that constitutes an official act, a so-called official act, is immune from any criminal consequences or prosecution, both retrospectively and going forward. So, John Roberts really paved the way for this authoritarian era we’re in. He also did so by really systematically dismantling core voting rights protections in this country, along with other key rights.

And so, we have a situation where there is an apparent conflict, in some ways, between the Supreme Court right now and Donald Trump, but we’ve also seen John Roberts move heaven and earth, basically, to protect Donald Trump. So, we’ll see what John Roberts does in the coming weeks. But at the end of the day, John Roberts has laid the foundation for this authoritarianism, for this aggrandizement of presidential power and for the degradation of fundamental liberties in this country, including key protections for voting rights, which were won through the blood, sweat and tears of millions of Americans. John Roberts has dismantled key guardrails in our democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: And the Supreme Court ruling about facilitating the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, yet being extremely, somewhat, vague about it, and the fact that Trump has been defiant in saying no, what does that mean when it comes to executive power and judiciary power?

LISA GRAVES: I was concerned about that language, because even though, on the surface, that order seemed to command that the president take action and return this Maryland man to his home, it seemed as though it was not the strongest language that could be issued by this court. And Donald Trump has exploited that language to basically suggest that he can’t do it — although he recently suggested that he could do it, he just won’t do it.

The fact is, is that this court needs to take robust action to defend the ordinary laws in this country and these norms that you just cannot ship someone out of this country, declare them a terrorist with no evidence to any independent judge to assess whether there’s any validity to that. People have been removed from this country who have not been convicted of crimes, and notwithstanding the assertions of Donald Trump on that most recent interview that there are millions of murderers roaming the streets who are immigrants, that’s not actually true. Many people who are people who are convicted of crimes are serving sentences. At the end of those sentences, they are often deported. This is a fake crisis that he has basically tried to plant in people’s minds in order to exercise extraordinary, unconstitutional, anti-constitutional powers. And it is the duty of this Supreme Court, of our Supreme Court, to stand up for the rule of law, to stand up for the due process clause and the writ of habeas corpus, and insist that it be followed.

And I’m not sure that John Roberts, given his background, given his efforts to advance the Republican Party in numerous ways, will actually stand up, or whether — or, instead, whether he will stand with other Republican appointees to the Supreme Court and find technical ways for Donald Trump could get away with this assault on core principles of our democracy and our Constitution. And quite frankly, Amy, given the fact that John Roberts invented immunity for the president, criminal immunity for the president, that has never existed in our constitutional history, to have this type of immunity, this broad immunity, I don’t have confidence that he will — that John Roberts and his fellow Republican appointees will correctly interpret the 14th Amendment when it comes to the rights of citizens, including American citizens born in this country, that is the first clause of the 14th Amendment. This court has veered away from the plain meaning of the Constitution, the plain language, when it suits them to aid Donald Trump. And we need to have a court, the American people deserve a court we can have confidence in, that won’t play partisan politics, won’t put its thumb on the scale of justice in favor of Donald Trump or any other president because of their party or their allegiance or alignment.

AMY GOODMAN: Lisa Graves, we want to thank you for being with us, director and founder of the policy research group True North Research, co-host of the podcast Legal AF, her forthcoming book Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights, former deputy assistant attorney general of the United States, speaking to us from Superior, Wisconsin.

When we come back, award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein. She’s written a new piece, “The rise of end times fascism.” Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: Music by the NMM Song Team led by Rabbi Dr. Koach Baruch Frazier and Rabbi Elya Piazza performed at the opening plenary of the Jewish Voice for Peace national membership meeting this weekend in Baltimore, Maryland. Thousands turned out.