Marty Levine
April 16, 2025
This is a picture of President (or perhaps I should say Dictator) Donald Trump meeting yesterday with the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. This is the picture of the moment that historians a century from now may point to as the time and place when America ceased being a nation of laws and a democratic country.
It took place in the White House’s Oval Office, which had already been transformed from a place of dignified and serious business to a throne room decorated in Donald Trump’s image of grandeur. Here’s how it looked during the terms of previous Presidents:
And if you think I am overstating, here’s a picture from the Palace of Versailles
That’s just the icing. On Monday, we learned about the cake of tyranny itself.
On April 7, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a lower court had properly ordered the Trump administration to “’ facilitate’” Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” They instructed our President to ensure that Mr. Garcia was afforded all of his rights before taking any punitive action against him.
Our government had admitted it had mistakenly seized and deported Mr. Garcia despite his having been granted protected status by an Immigration Court, which found that he was in danger of serious harm if he were returned to El Salvador. Here’s how Lawfare described the government’s actions:
while driving with his disabled five year old in the backseat, Abrego Garcia was pulled over by ICE officers, apparently without a warrant. (The government has presented none in court.) He was informed that his status had changed. ICE officers called Jennifer to tell her to pick up the child—informing her that they’d otherwise turn him over to child welfare authorities—and then took her husband away. ICE has subsequently acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was flown to CECOT on March 15 due to “administrative error.”
No process, no warrant, no evidence needed for this Trump Administration.
In a country of laws, in our democracy, the Supreme Court’s decision should have been the last word, and the President and all of his Executive Department officials should have quickly moved to comply.
Yet since the April 7th decision, the Trump Administration has done nothing to “facilitate” Mr. Garcia’s return to the United States. And on Monday, in the Oval Office, speaking to the President of El Salvador, Donald Trump did not ask for Garcia to be returned to the United States. He only spoke of his desire to send U.S. citizens to that same prison if he can. He smiled when the press was told by one of his lackeys “That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s up to them. The Supreme Court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him, we would ‘facilitate’ it, meaning provide a plane.”
Garcia is in that jail solely because the US government sent him there and is paying the El Salvadoran government to keep him there. Here’s how legal scholar Aaron Reichlin-Melnick described the situation:
Abrego Garcia is being held in a Salvadoran prison at the U.S. government’s request, not because he committed a crime in El Salvador. Therefore, Bukele could release Abrego Garcia and the U.S. government could grant him humanitarian parole.
Yet, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, President Trump refused to act.
And in that moment, President Trump has shown us he does not respect the rule of law, that even the highest Court speaking unanimously is not enough to get him to comply.
This moment should not have come as a shock. On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump did as all of his predecessors have done and took the required oath of office.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
And as soon as he finished speaking those words, he began showing us that he did not believe he is bound by law and that he does not accept that our constitution’s carefully crafted separation of powers actually can limit his exercise of power. He has chosen to govern by fiat (executive order) rather than by asking Congress, a body that his party now controls, to enact the laws that would implement his agenda.
The extent of this overreach is seen daily as he has directed funds that were legally included in the Federal Budget to be withheld despite existing law that limits and controls the President’s authority to “impound” funds that Congress has allocated. He has ordered legally created components of the Federal government be disbanded or made dysfunctional without seeking changes in the laws that have established these elements of the Executive Branch. In his mind, all that is needed is a signature from his pen and, poof, his will is done.
And he has used his claimed power to punish those whom he finds disloyal to him. Law firms have been coerced to donate more than $1 billion of legal services to be used at his discretion under threat to their ability to continue their businesses. This gives him even more ability to conduct “lawfare” against individuals, businesses, organizations, and elements of state and local governance he wants to attack, knowing he has free legal resources and those he attacks do not. The cost of defending against even frivolous legal attacks can be enough to force compliance.
All of this adds up to a pattern of practice that defines a dictator; he is demonstrating he has learned from Vladimir Putin and others of this ilk.
Here’s a dictator’s response to another court telling our President that another of his Executive Orders violates the laws of land because it requires no more than due process:
Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social
Can you believe it? A Judge ruled against us on 530,000 Illegal Migrants (that Joe Biden flew over the Border in his program to transport Illegals into the Country by airplane) saying that they can’t be looked at as a group, but that each case has to be tried individually. Based on the Court System, that would take approximately 100 years. What is going on with our Courts? They are totally OUT OF CONTROL. They seem to hate “TRUMP” so much, that anything goes! We are trying to bring our Country back from the destruction caused by the Democrats and Crooked Joe Biden. I won on a Policy of Common Sense, and what Common Sense do we have when we have to have 530,000 trials? This Radicalized Judge is saying that Sleepy Joe Biden can fly more than half a million Illegals into America, IN ONE DAY, but we have to hold many years of long and tedious trials to fly each and every one of them back home. Where is the JUSTICE here???
On Monday, sitting in the room he had decorated as a throne room, Donald Trump told us what all of these prior actions added up to. And he told us that if we are thinking that the courts would be the guardrail that would protect democracy, that we were wrong.
Perhaps President Trump will see the error of his ways, and days or weeks from now, I will reread these words and wonder why I was so hysterical and untrusting in our system. May that be so.
But our founders, the men who wrote the documents and established the norms which he is trashing, understood the danger of a despot. Here’s how law professor Frank Bowman understands our history from an essay he wrote for Slate:
And whatever their many flaws, they were men who, before and after the Revolution, saw deeply into the nature of power, recognized the tools of oppression, and were willing to fight, if necessary to die, and to expose those they loved and all they had built to utter ruin in order to live free of such abuses. The Constitution they wrote is in critical part composed of defenses against foreseeable mechanisms of despotism. The right to a fair hearing before one can be imprisoned or exiled is perhaps the most important of these.
In these times, each of us must do what our founders did when they faced a dictatorial tyrant. We must ACT before it is too late:
- Get out on the streets and join in a protest like those that flooded the streets on Saturday, April 5, 2025. Do this as many times as you can.
- Get on the phone and demand that your Senators and your Congressperson do their jobs and stand up and say no at every opportunity to the Trump and MAGA insanity.
- Show up when your Senators or Congressperson holds an open house and ask them the hard questions about what they are doing to protect our democracy and our people’s rights.
- Tell the leadership of organizations and businesses that you have relationships with that you do not want them backing down to the demands of the Trump Administration.
- Be open and loud with your friends and colleagues. Tell them what you are doing and ask them to join you.
- The 2026 national elections are not too far away. Look for candidates for Senate and House who are ready to say no and ready to do the hard work of reversing our national course. Find your role in supporting them so that on the evening of November 3, 2026, we will be smiling and looking forward to the future.
