Symbols of Wider Trump Wrongs

Senator Jon Ossoff, who is up for a quite competitive seat next year, "strongly" agrees that Trump should be impeached:

“There is no doubt that this president’s conduct has already exceeded any prior standard for impeachment by the United States House of Representatives,” Ossoff told the audience at a town hall in Cobb County, adding later that there is “no question” a number of Trump’s actions have risen to the level of an impeachable offense.

The Administration's wrongdoing is akin to a powerful industrial firehose spraying so much water that we have a hard time keeping track. We keep on reading about the latest thing. It can be overwhelming. 

There is a value in symbolic case studies, which provide clarity and allow a special amount of attention. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an example. He has a powerful story. 

The government clearly made a mistake. It is being reckless and criminal. Yes. They are openly ignoring protected rights. That is not legal. Impeachment is supposedly an overall safeguard. It is a paper tiger in many ways, even if Democrats controlled the House. Even more so now. 

(Impeachment retains some value. The two impeachments of Trump had value. They weren't enough and 14A, sec. 3 was but one additional tool that should have been used.)

So, other methods are used. A Democratic senator went down to visit Garcia. It helped to lead to his being removed from a cruel prison. There have been some implications that there was a positive development in his legal case. And, yes, the courts provide another avenue to fight the Administration.  

[The picture is from the linked story, Photojournalist witnesses Venezuelan migrants' arrival in El Salvador: '"They had no idea what was coming"]

The term "synecdoche" is a figure of speech where the part represents the whole. Garcia is a type of synecdoche of the Administration's detention and expulsion program. 

Michelle Goldberg reminds us about someone else:

Andry Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela, sent to rot in El Salvador because the Trump administration claimed his tattoos link him to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. 

There are many, more more, the stereotypical "thugs" tossed about repeatedly, not reflected in the people picked up:

Bloomberg reported, around 90 percent of the migrants sent to CECOT have no criminal records aside from immigration or traffic violations.

The usage of the Alien Enemies Act is patently illegal since we are not at war with the people involved, nor are any other requirements for usage met. One thing that stood out for me, however, was a passage about "time allowed to settle affairs and depart" for "not chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against the public safety." 

The Administration, however, aims to use speed, in part to avoid court review. The Supreme Court has long recognized that even "illegal aliens" have some due process rights:

It is true that aliens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law.

(Citing cases back to 1903. Drawing a line between those here and those who are attempting to enter.) 

[Another symbolic case involved a person supporting autism. OTOH, RFK Jr. is not a big fan of autistic children.]

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, on Bluesky flagged one technique:

There are a lot of cases where ICE has been accused of pressuring parents to agree to be deported alongside their children without giving them anywhere near enough time to make that decision or consult with other family members first. This seems like exactly one of those cases.

The case was another symbol, involving a two-year-old American citizen. When a Trump-appointed judge, who uses "Gulf of America," is concerned, it's a red flag.  

Again, there are many other cases involving children, citizens, and noncitizens. One article:

Trump Has Now Deported Multiple U.S. Citizen Children With Cancer

Appalling but, by now, par for the course. We knew Trump 2.0 would be horrible. He's just going a bit faster than expected. This is why people are fighting. 

To toss it in, there are also lots of symbols of the corruption of this Administration, including numerous corrupt pardons. The article links to a more general story.*

The latest:

President Trump on Wednesday pardoned a Florida health care executive whose mother played a role in trying to expose the contents of Ashley Biden’s diary.

The pardon of the executive, Paul Walczak, was signed privately and posted on the Justice Department’s website on Friday. It came less than two weeks after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution, for tax crimes that prosecutors said were used to finance a lavish lifestyle, including the purchase of a yacht.

His mother was a significant Trump donor. Came the same day for another pardon. Michele Fiore was convicted in connection with a fraud connected to collecting "donations to build a statue memorializing a police officer who had been killed while on duty." The level of corruption is so blatant that it is laughable, in a dark humor sort of way.

Again, people can't keep up with all of these things. I respect those who manage to keep track of different categories, perhaps with the help of color-coordinated spreadsheets.

Such is the value of symbols. 

Meanwhile, Senator Ossoff is right. Trump deserves to be impeached. Republicans have the power to stop him. They refuse to do so, even while a few make some noises about how he goes too far. The party jumped the shark. 

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* The NYT cannot help a "both sides" in which Biden is criticized for not using normal pardon procedures, along with Trump. This again is applied in a bullshit fashion:

Both Mr. Trump and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. were criticized for ignoring the screening and guidelines of the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney in their clemency grants. Clemency experts objected to Mr. Biden’s far-reaching pardons of his son Hunter and other family members, and to Mr. Trump’s sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Yeah, not quite the same, including Trump's ongoing usage of the pardon power to help his cronies. Biden, for good reason, at the end of his term, provides pardons to a few family members to protect them. Trump does a helluva lot more, and it's only a few months in.  

Perspective ... it's a thing.  

A Biden-appointed pardon attorney was fired, allegedly arising from a refusal to recommend that Mel Gibson get his gun rights back. Here's a recent statement she gave to Congress.