So given that everything else about the Trump regime's plot to traffic over 250 migrants to a forever torture prison in El Salvador without due process under the guise of fighting an "invasion" by a "narco-terrorist" gang turned out to be a lie, illegal, or straight up fascist fuckery, would it surprise you at all to learn that US intelligence agencies do *not* think Tren de Aragua is working with the government of Venezuela to invade the United States? Yeah, me neither; but the fact that the Trump regime knowingly just made up the so-called "invasion" fundamentally undercuts their entire argument for invoking the Alien Enemies Act, which in turn means they have no legal basis whatsoever for all the fascist repression and unconstitutional criminality they've engaged in here.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-venezuelan-gangs

'They Just Made Sh*t Up': Declassified Spy Memo Undercuts Trump Pretext for Deportations to El Salvador

"A memo released Monday by the Trump administration in response to a Freedom of Information Act request confirmed that U.S. intelligence agencies never agreed with President Donald Trump's claim in March that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro controls the criminal gang Tren de Aragua—an assertion that was used to justify sending hundreds of migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison.

The document said that "while Venezuela's permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States."

As in several previous cases it's important to understand that the regime's lies and illegal manipulations of US law are being exposed by their own internal memos; this isn't a political attack or about motivated reasoning because the Trump administration itself wrote down that they knew Trump was lying, or at least that US intelligence didn't agree with his assessment of Tren de Aragua as an arm of the Venezuelan government. The regime tries to cover that up with vague nonsense about FBI intelligence but one of these groups is paid to monitor the activities of foreign governments the US is actively sanctioning, and one of them gets paid to convince unstable people they're secretly in ISIS to justify an ongoing counterterrorism program that's worth billions of dollars in funding; so I'll let you decide for yourself which of these two groups is more likely to know what they're talking about here. In other words, folks arguing that Trump was governing by fascist conspiracy theory and the regime literally made up a fake war to do white nationalist mass deportations, were completely, and totally correct; full stop.

"So you mean kidnapping folks off the streets and sending them to a foreign gulag was not justified by our own intelligence?" said the Arkansas Justice Project. "They just made shit up to dog whistle their base. The AEA argument was never legitimate and they knew it all along."

Frankly I do understand the temptation to scoff "so, what; we already knew that" in response to this news. But I need folks to realize that while it may have been obvious to anyone paying attention that the regime literally made up a whole invasion to justify their fascist mass deportation theater operation, the entire US establishment has more or less been pretending that it's somehow *possible* Trump is right about Tren de Aragua working for Venezuela to undermine American national security. As the article notes, until very recently not one judge has questioned the underlying logic of Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act or its debunked claims that Tren de Argua is an arm of the Venezuelan government. While the regime has received a modicum more pushback in the media, without direct confirmation that Trump is definitely (instead of just obviously) lying, news outlets have been reluctant to push back when the regime claims they're fighting a narco-terrorist invasion to justify their fascist repression and criminality. Will that change now that we've caught the regime lying through their own memos? Who knows, but it probably won't hurt.

The big picture analysis here is that Trump hacked the imperial presidency and an American war machine already in largely bipartisan agreement that Venezuela represents an "enemy" of the United States, to do his fascist mass depuration schemes. The machine couldn't, or didn't want to see that Trump was obviously lying, because lying about Venezuela and portraying Nicolás Maduro as a international supervillain is already such a normalized part of American foreign policy that pushing back on Trump would undermine the American imperial project. With the declassification of this memo however, the fig leaf has been shredded and the US establishment is going to have choose between imperialism and preventing a fascist takeover in America.

I'm a few days behind on this story because I incorrectly assumed it would go away; which means that now we have to get up to date on Tom "the People Eater" Homan and his threats to arrest elected officials who "obstruct" ICE and Trump's fascist mass deportation campaign. Homan, a man so inarticulate it sounds like his own tongue lives in opposition to the abhorrent shit that comes out of his mouth, is Trump's "Border Czar" - a job that sounds like it should mean he's the head minister for deportations, but mostly appears to involve going on TV to explain why every awful cribbed from the literal Nazis thing Stephen Miller told Trump to do is awesome, and threaten anyone who opposes mass deportations and the fascist apparatus that enables them, including some members of the opposition Democratic Party.

In the wake of the Trump regime's arrest of Wisconsin County Judge Hannah Dugan, the Democratic Governor of that State, Tony Evers issued a fairly milquetoast guideline for state employees on how to interact with federal immigration employees. When Homan was directly asked about Evers and his directive, the Border Czar shot back with a thinly-veiled threat to arrest the Governor of Wisconsin.

https://archive.ph/ljrVW

Trump border czar makes veiled threat against Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers

"Your comments on the Wisconsin governor sending directives to state agencies to not comply with ICE and actually stop your deportation efforts?" a reporter asked Homan.

"Wait to see what's coming. I meant what I said. 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 into impediment or knowingly harbor or conceal an illegal alien, that is a felony, and we will treat it as such," Homan said."

Well, that certainly isn't alarming or anything, is it? Furthermore, while you might be forgiven for assuming Trump's goon nazi border pit bull is speaking out of pocket here, this actually isn't the first time in the past thirty days that Homan has directly threatened elected officials in the opposition party with arrest and prosecution.

https://archive.ph/TxzZ8

Trump’s Border Czar Has Chilling Threat for Every Democratic Leader

"Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said Tuesday that leaders from cities and states with sanctuary policies could expect to face prosecution very soon.

A reporter outside of the White House asked Homan whether he believed that the leaders of sanctuary states and cities should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and possibly go to prison,” alleging that they’d violated law prohibiting U.S. citizens from transporting, smuggling, or harboring undocumented immigrants.

“Absolutely, and hold tight on that one,” Homan replied. “’Cus it’s coming. It’s coming.”

Sharp-eyed readers will note that as crude and malevolent as Homan clearly is, his word selection is careful here. While this is unquestionably a threat to arrest opposition elected officials who don't help the regime conduct mass deportations, Homan's language does (barely) provide him with plausible deniability based on the "question" of whether or not Evers, or any other official actually *did* illegally impede federal officials or "knowingly harbor" migrants from their grasp. Of course, as we already discovered when the GOP tried to imply AOC hosting a webinar on migrant rights was "illegally impeding" immigration officials, the question of whether or not Evers' guidance does so is itself ridiculous fascist propaganda. The Governor has broken no law, as he recently explained himself.

https://archive.ph/89qgj

'Disgusted' But 'Not Afraid': Wisconsin Governor Rips Arrest Threat From Trump Border Czar

"These threats represent a concerning trajectory in this country," said Evers. "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 am not afraid," he added. "I have never once been discouraged from doing the right thing, and I will not start today."

At this point anyone who has been reading along with my analysis of fascism in the Trump 2.0 era, should be starting to see the familiar outlines of a regime propaganda op to create a permission gate for fascist repression, in action. Evers has broken no law, but Homan and the rest of the fascist GOP are committed to spreading the propaganda idea that merely informing migrants of their rights is in fact "impeding" federal immigration officers, and "harboring" migrants illegally. I'm pretty sure the idea here isn't to win the legal argument, but to muddy up the waters enough that the American right will broadly support the regime when it does in fact, start arresting its political opposition.