On Friday, FBI agents arrested a county judge in Milwaukee and charged her with obstructing justice and concealing an individual from arrest.
After an undocumented immigrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, appeared before her in court on an unrelated misdemeanour charge, Judge Hannah Dugan learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were waiting in the hallway outside her courtroom to arrest him.
Dugan told the agents they could not perform the arrest without a judicial warrant and adjourned the hearing, directing Flores-Ruiz to leave her courtroom into a public hallway.
Milwaukee-based attorney Ann Jacobs says it appears that two Drug Enforcement Administration agents who remained in the hallway as Flores-Ruiz left did not take any action towards an arrest while he was still inside the courthouse. He was later pursued and arrested outside.
One week later, FBI agents arrested Dugan, accusing her of helping Flores-Ruiz avoid arrest.
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“The message is crystal clear: ‘If you cross the Trump administration, we will arrest you,'” says Jacobs. “The goal is to chill judges from ruling against the Trump administration” with “the hopes that they can cudgel the judiciary into simply becoming meekly obedient to the executive branch”.
Dugan’s long-time friend Emilio De Torre, who spoke at the protests, says FBI director Kash Patel’s public celebration of her arrest is “absolutely disgusting and damaging”, and slams the effects of Trump’s attacks on civil society. “People here in Milwaukee are not taking kindly to the fact that our community, our economy, our family, now our courthouses and our schools are being disrupted by the heavy-handed overreach that we see.”
Produced by: Democracy Now!
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