Perhaps consistent with an administration that knows it's breaking the law and violating the constitution under wholly false pretenses, the Trump regime has invoked the “state secrets” privilege to dodge a federal judge's demand for more information about Downmarket Mussolini's fascist clusterfuck operation to ship 250+ migrants it claims, without evidence, are members of a notorious Venezuelan gang, to slave labor prisons in El Salvador:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/trump-deportation-state-secret

Trump administration claims details of mass deportations are state secrets

"According to a court filing submitted by justice department officials on Monday evening, “no further information will be provided” to the federal court in Washington DC based on the state secrets privilege. The filing said the case deals with Trump’s complete and absolute authority to remove “designated terrorists participating in a state-sponsored invasion of, and predatory incursion into, the United States”.

In response to the Trump administration’s invocation, the federal judge in the case said that if the administration would like to provide more information about the Alien Enemies Act operation, they should do so by 31 March.

Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act on 15 March to expel Venezuelan immigrants in the US. That day, 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadoran men were placed on planes and sent to El Salvador, where they were then quickly detained in a massive “terrorism” prison run by the Salvadoran government. For over a week, a federal judge has attempted to compel the Trump administration to release information about the operation."

This story can be difficult to get a handle on because we're ultimately talking about multiple instances of unlawfully activity by the government, and the contemptuous, often clearly false arguments the fascist Trump regime is deploying to avoid consequences for, or in this case even having to explain, those unlawful, often baldly unconstitutional activities. The first question, whether or not the regime can invoke an 18th-century wartime law to conduct "deportations" without due process (which would include a hearing before a judge, the presentation of evidence, and legal representation for the accused), has already been answered in the short term. US district judge James Boasberg blocked the regime's invocation of the act and ordered the government to turn any planes carrying migrants around immediately.

As you may have heard, the Trump regime did not obey the judge's order, and then proceeded to play a series of nazi word games to justify why they didn't have to, that were so devoid of respect for both the judge and the law, Boasberg may end up holding Trump officials in contempt of court. The judge then ordered the Trump administration to explain why the government's actions didn't represent an open violation of his court order. All of which brings us to today, where after threatening to impeach Boasberg, repeatedly arguing in the media that the regime either didn't, or had the right to, violate the US Constitution, and petulantly dragging their feet in an act of open defiance, the Pork Reich has announced that they don't intend to provide Boasberg with any more details about the operation because it would expose "state secrets" and harm America's national security.

Although the Trump regime's "throw buckets of bullshit at the wall and see what sticks" approach to defending its fascist activities makes it hard to pin down the administration's justification for invoking its "state secrets" privilege, we do have two major clues to work with. First the government's filing continues to push the fact-free idea that they are acting to oppose a state-sponsored (by Venezuela) invasion by gang members who are also terrorists, and thus imply everything they're doing is part of an actual war; which means their actions are not subject to judicial review due to the President's legally-established wartime authority to defend America. The number of things objectively wrong with, or false about this argument is literally too staggering to unpack here, but let's just be clear that this is absolute fascist fuckery and bullshit. Our second clue comes from the mouth of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio:

"The rapid expulsion of nearly 300 immigrants came about via a “nonpublic, sensitive, and high stakes negotiation”, secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a separate Monday declaration. The “sensitive” negotiation was likely with the Salvadoran government headed by President Nayib Bukele."

Of course the regime is legally within its rights to invoke its "state secrets" privilege, but that doesn't mean anyone with two braincells to rub together has to believe Trumpworld when it argues that it's fighting a war that doesn't exist, or that telling a court about its activities will damage US relations with El Salvador. These nazis are full of shit.

After securing the craven surrender of high profile liberal law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP without even entering a courtroom, an emboldened Downmarket Mussolini has ordered his comically corrupt Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to seek disciplinary actions against lawyers who are "filing frivolous claims designed to cause delays." What's a "frivolous claim?" Only Trump and Bondi know, but the note about delays makes it clear that Der Führer is angry that his fascist agenda is being blocked by numerous judicial restraining orders and hopes to do an end around the courts by threatening lawyers and law firms into not even filing suits to halt the regime in the first place.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/22/trump-ramps-ups-retribution-campaign-against-legal-community

Trump ramps up retribution campaign against legal community

"The memo, as a result, created a formal mechanism for Trump to unilaterally decide whether to impose politically charged sanctions through executive orders that strip lawyers of the security clearances they need to perform their jobs or prevent them from working on federal contracts.

Multiple legal experts suggested the memo would theoretically allow Bondi to decide a particular lawsuit that triggered a temporary injunction was causing an unnecessary delay, and refer the firm that filed the suit to face the effects of a punitive executive order.

That could cause a chilling effect and lead to the volume of litigation against the Trump administration to decline, the experts said. Even if the lawsuits are in fact for a legitimate purpose, there’s fear that their representation could put them in the president’s cross hairs and endanger their legal practices.

Trump also directed Bondi to open a review into the “conduct” of lawyers and their respective law firms in litigation against the federal government reaching back to the start of his first term in 2017 – and recommend whether it warranted additional punitive actions.

The memo comes as Trump in recent weeks has used executive orders targeting law firms to great effect."

Frankly, I don't have much to add here that we didn't already look at when I wrote up the Paul Weiss surrender situation we discussed a few days ago. The fact is that Trump has no legal authority to harass and punish lawyers for bringing cases before a judge to stop the Trump regime's often illegal, and frequently unconstitutional activities. Providing a check to the executive branch's power when it violates our civil rights, exceeds the President's authority, or is just straight up criming, is literally the prescribed role of the judiciary branch in the American system of government; the lawyers filing suits to stop Trump's fascist agenda aren't doing anything wrong, they're in fact doing their job as defined in the US Constitution. Trump just doesn't give a shit, and if he can't break the judges ruling against him, he'll happily try to further his authoritarian agenda by using his Department of Justice to harass the lawyers filing against his actions, and starving the law firms of federal access and contracts.

The good news here is that unlike some of their cowardly brethren in white shoe DC law firms, numerous legal advocacy organizations more closely associated with civil rights litigation, are openly stating that they have no intention of backing down. Groups like the ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and Democracy Forward, have all issued statements pushing back on Trump's claims and promising to not only continue the fight, but also to keep bringing more cases against an overreaching Trump regime now acting unlawfully pretty much every day.

I'm not sure how much faith I have in the lawyers and the courts to stop fascism; after all, none of these folks have an army or a police force at their disposal to enforce court orders against a fascist regime and a president already granted virtual legal immunity by a 6-3 fascist high SCOTUS. But as I mentioned elsewhere, you can't win if you don't fight, and it is impossible to install a fascist dictatorship without a whole lot of collaboration, cowardice, and capitulation by the society the fascists are trying to dominate. Win or lose, fighting back is the first step towards stopping fascism, and as a society our best hope of resisting remains acting in infinite ways, across every sector, to make it cost more in time, effort, money, and if necessary in blood, to impose fascism, than the folks doing so stand to benefit from that fascism. Saying "no" is at least a start.