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‘What Fascism Looks Like’: Bondi’s War on Judiciary Is ‘Red Line’ for Democrats
House and Senate Democrats are drawing a red line after agents from President Donald Trump’s FBI arrested a sitting judge—whom Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested is “deranged” and implied believes she is “above the law.”
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan is “accused of escorting the man and his lawyer out of her courtroom through the jury door last week after learning that immigration authorities were seeking his arrest,” according to the Associated Press. “FBI Director Kash Patel said Dugan ‘increased danger to the public’ by letting Mexico native Eduardo Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer leave her courtroom through a jury door April 18 to help avert his arrest, according to an FBI affidavit.”
Shaking her head, Attorney General Bondi, a frequent Fox News guest, hours after the arrest on Friday said (video below): “What’s happened to our judiciary is beyond me.”
Asked what motivates these “once upstanding people in their communities and their professions” to “put it all on the line for this,” Bondi responded, “They’re deranged.”
“I cannot believe—I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law, and they are not,” she continued. “And we’re sending a very strong message today, if you are harboring a fugitive, we don’t care who you are , if you are helping hide one, if you are giving a TdA member guns, anyone who is illegally in this country, we will come after you, and we will prosecute you. We will find you.”
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“Crucially,” The New Republic noted, Judge Dugan “is not accused of supplying a member of Tren de Aragua with guns. She is charged with two federal counts of obstruction, one for concealing a person from discovery and arrest, and another for obstruction of federal government proceedings.”
“Bondi, who has been a fierce defender of the president’s immigration agenda—including its wrongful deportation of immigrants—has now taken up the mantle of antagonizing state and federal judges on behalf of the increasingly hostile executive branch,” TNR added.
The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, commenting on Bondi’s remarks, wrote simply: “AG Declares War on ‘Deranged’ Judiciary. #2025”
“The fact that she’s connecting this to the broader judiciary is the most striking thing here,” observed Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake, who called it “a significant escalation of the administration’s efforts.”
Democrats are calling it something else: fascism.
“This is not normal,” wrote U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). “The Administration’s arrest of a sitting judge in Wisconsin is a drastic move that threatens the rule of law. While we don’t have all the details, this is a grave step and undermines our system of checks and balances.”
“Pam Bondi is not the President’s personal lawyer and DOJ is not a cudgel to target whoever the President doesn’t like,” wrote U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). “This is a democracy and We The People will not let this President trample over our constitution. I’m not afraid of Donald Trump and you shouldn’t be either.”
“There are no kings in America,” Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared. “Trump and Bondi can’t just decide to arrest sitting judges at will and threaten judges into submission. This is a dangerous escalation, an attack on the separation of powers, and we will fight this with everything we have.”
“First, Trump ignored the Supreme Court,” said U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “Now, his FBI arrested a judge. This administration is threatening our country’s judicial system. This rings serious alarm bells.”
“Understand what this is: If Kash Patel and Donald Trump don’t like a judge, they think they can arrest them,” wrote U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN). “This is stunning — we must stand up to this blatant power grab. Republicans: How is this not a red line for you?”
“They arrested a judge?! They can no longer claim to be a party of law and order,” wrote U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH). “This will have to be a red line for congressional Republicans. Unbelievable.”
“In the United States, we have a system of checks and balances and separations of power for damn good reasons,” U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, said in a statement. “The president’s administration arresting a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move, and it threatens to breach those very separations of power. Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country, and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by. By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this president is putting those basic Democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.”
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“This is what fascism looks like,” wrote U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). “Attorney General Bondi threatening judges she claims are not cooperating with Trump immigration policies and saying ‘we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.’”
U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) wrote: “Kash Patel has long bragged about using acts of intimidation as FBI Director to appease Donald Trump. This extreme use of federal law enforcement is another example of this intimidation being used to stoke fear in immigrant communities and create chaos in our legal system.”
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor, issued this statement:
“Americans are watching with outrage the stunning news that Trump’s FBI has arrested a sitting judge in Milwaukee for alleged obstruction of an immigration arrest. While all the facts are not yet in, the implications of this arrest are chilling. This is a drastic escalation and dangerous new front in Trump’s authoritarian campaign of trying to bully, intimidate, and impeach judges who won’t follow his dictates. We must do whatever we can to defend the independent judiciary in America.
“As Judge Wilkinson, a conservative Reagan appointee to the Fourth Circuit reminded us last week, this Administration has shown brazen contempt for the judiciary. They are flouting court orders on a daily basis and trying to impeach judges who have entered injunctions against their lawlessness. This contempt for the judicial function is now being weaponized, with the Administration literally arresting a judge over alleged defiance.
“Every American should be deeply troubled by this massive escalation, and Judiciary Democrats are standing strong for judicial independence. This is an unmistakable descent further into authoritarian chaos.”
Watch the video of Attorney General Bondi below or at this link.
Bondi declares war on the courts: “What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me … they are deranged … we are sending a very strong message today … we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.” pic.twitter.com/K4JjG7kvXt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 25, 2025
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Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
