AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
We look now at how the Trump administration is escalating its attacks on judges. On Friday, FBI agents arrested a county judge in Milwaukee, Judge Hannah Dugan, and charged her with obstructing justice and concealing an individual from arrest. The FBI accuses her of helping an undocumented immigrant leave her courtroom in her Wisconsin courthouse April 18th to avoid arrest by agents waiting in the hallway.
That day, a Mexican immigrant named Eduardo Flores-Ruiz was before her in a hearing on battery charges he faced stemming from an argument over loud music with his roommate, the roommate’s girlfriend and her cousin. Flores-Ruiz had been working in the U.S. for about 12 years as a cook in Milwaukee after he was first deported in 2013. The day before the hearing, an immigration judge had issued a warrant for his arrest.
After he left Judge Dugan’s courtroom, agents reportedly saw Flores-Ruiz walking down the hallway to the elevator and leave the courthouse. They arrested him minutes later outside.
Judge Dugan’s arrest just this past Friday came a week after all this unfolded, has drawn massive backlash across the country. Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin said, quote, “This action fits into the deeply concerning pattern of this president’s lawless behavior and undermining courts and Congress’s checks on his power,” unquote.
FBI Director Kash Patel is facing accusations he broke DOJ policy by posting a photo online of Judge Dugan in handcuffs.
On Saturday, protesters rallied outside the FBI building in St. Francis, Wisconsin, to protest the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants and the arrest of Judge Dugan.
PROTESTER: [inaudible] to do what she did and respect everything she tried to do. People think — people think we are not near fascism, but we are. They think it can’t happen here, but it can, and is happening here right now. And if we don’t stop it before it gets too far along, we’re going to be no better than Germany was in the ’30s and ’40s.
AMY GOODMAN: Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan was released Friday after her arrest by the FBI. On Sunday, reporters asked President Trump about the case.
REPORTER: What’s next for cleaning up the courts after Judge Dugan’s arrest?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, it’s terrible. What happened there is terrible. That that could happen with a judge is so a shame. And we have to — look, we have to bring our country back from all these criminals that Biden allowed to come in. These are world-class criminals and people that are insane, people from jails, murderers, drug addicts, drug dealers. And, you know, we have a country. We have to be proud of our country. We can’t let these people stay, and the courts are allowing them to stay. And we’re not going to — we’re just not going to allow it. So, hopefully, the Supreme Court will come to the rescue of our country.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by Ann Jacobs, a Milwaukee-based attorney who personally knows Judge Hannah Dugan, has appeared before her in court. Jacobs is also chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Ann Jacobs, welcome to Democracy Now! What happened here?
ANN JACOBS: It’s a fascinating story, isn’t it? And thank you for highlighting the fact that the director of the FBI made a photograph of Judge Dugan being taken away in handcuffs, which is just appalling and such an abuse of power.
What happened here was the, according to the complaint, immigration authorities, six people — two FBI, two ICE and a couple of DEAs — I may have the numbers exactly wrong, but six people go to pick up this gentleman in court. Like courthouses across the country, we have metal detectors, so no guns allowed. And they come into the courthouse, and they say — they go to Judge Dugan’s courtroom, and they say, “We’re here to arrest this guy.” And she says, “We’ve got a protocol. You have to go talk to the chief judge,” whose courtroom is some distance away. And they say, “Fine.” And she goes back in.
The interesting part of all this is, apparently, four of the six go off to the chief judge’s office, leaving the two DEA agents behind in the hallway. There’s some lengthy discussion in the complaint about what happens in the courtroom, but I think it’s undisputed, which is that she allows the public defender and the gentleman at issue to go out a side door. And from that side door, they exit on to the public hallway. In the public hallway are the two DEA agents sitting there, ostensibly waiting for him. The attorney and the gentleman come out into the hallway, and they look around. This is in the complaint. They look around. Nothing happens to them. So they walk to the elevators, and they go downstairs to leave the courthouse. The DEA agents — we don’t know why — don’t arrest him. One of them gets into the elevator with them, and they go downstairs. And then, eventually, he is arrested.
That’s the sum total of what really the accusations are against Judge Dugan. There’s a lot of very breathless — “she was stern,” “she walked quickly,” “she appeared angry.” There’s a lot of those sort of salacious tidbits. But in the end, the sum total of what she did is direct him to a side door and send him out to the public hallway.
AMY GOODMAN: To a public hallway, where the agents —
ANN JACOBS: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — could have gotten him there. But she did express anger — right? — to the agents before he appeared in court, that they were — concerned that they would arrest him in her courtroom. Is that right?
ANN JACOBS: That’s certainly what the complaint says. And I want you to think about a couple of things. First of all, if you’ve ever met a judge, they’re not always very happy when their courtroom is being disturbed. Secondly, and the assumption is that the only reason she’s upset is that ICE is there to arrest him in her courtroom — in other words, that there’s something about him that she is upset about. In her courtroom, she’s in misdemeanor court. In her courtroom are witnesses, victims and the like, for whom an ICE going around — ICE agent going around arresting people can really impede the justice for those folks. So, it’s not only the fact that somebody who’s charged with a crime is getting arrested — and I am simply reading into the complaint. It is equally logical to be upset about the fact that they’re coming into a courtroom where you need to have everyone in the community, documented or not, be able to feel safe.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to Pam Bondi, the attorney general of the United States.
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: No one is above the law in this country. And if you are destroying evidence, if you are obstructing justice, when have you victims sitting in a courtroom of domestic violence, and you’re escorting a criminal defendant out a back door, it will not be tolerated, and it is a crime in the United States of America.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaking on Fox News. Ann Jacobs, your response?
ANN JACOBS: As lawyers, we have really strong ethical rules on what we’re allowed to say and what we’re not allowed to say, in part to prevent impacting a court case, and especially for government attorneys, who are required to be honest and accurate and everything else. And I think those sort of comments that she’s making are unfortunate and designed to sort of taint the view of what happened here. It also makes it sound like this was going to be a trial and what have you.
This is a pretrial hearing in misdemeanor court with an out-of-custody defendant. This is not some day of justice, as it were. It’s a pretty ordinary day in a pretty ordinary court, where you’re going to have lots and lots of misdemeanor misdemeanants, persons charged with misdemeanors in the courtroom. And adjourning the case is not a denial of justice. It’s a pretty ordinary thing. And she sent him out to a public corridor, where law enforcement was waiting. And law enforcement looked at him and watched him walk to the elevators. It’s just a bizarre story.
AMY GOODMAN: What message do you think the Trump administration is trying to send to judges as it loses one case after another, scores of cases around the country, whether we’re talking about Trump-appointed judges, conservative judges or not?
ANN JACOBS: The message is crystal clear: “If you cross the Trump administration, we will arrest you.” I mean, I think that’s literally what they are trying to do. So, I think the goal is to chill judges from ruling against the Trump administration, requiring that they follow applicable laws and procedures when it comes to detentions, arrests, to require them to have valid warrants and the like. So, certainly, that’s the intention of this, with the hopes that they can cudgel the judiciary into simply becoming meekly obedient to the executive branch.
AMY GOODMAN: Ann Jacobs, we want to thank you so much for being with us, an attorney based in Milwaukee, knows Judge Hannah Dugan well, has appeared before her in court.
This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. We’re staying in Milwaukee now, where on Friday FBI agents arrested a Milwaukee county judge, Judge Hannah Dugan, after they accused her of obstructing justice and concealing an immigrant from arrest, when, in fact, the federal agents very soon after arrested the immigrant who had appeared in her court.
We’re speaking now with Emilio De Torre, the executive director of Milwaukee Turners, which was founded by immigrants and refugees in 1853. He’s a longtime friend of Judge Dugan, spoke at both the Friday afternoon protest outside Milwaukee County Courthouse and at a Saturday protest in front of the FBI headquarters in St. Francis, Wisconsin, which was held to protest her arrest. Judge Dugan is a former board member of Milwaukee Turners.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Emilio. Start off by explaining what Milwaukee Turners is and your response to the judge’s arrest.
EMILIO DE TORRE: Well, thank you for inviting me, Amy.
The Milwaukee Turners is a 171-year-old civic society, founded, as you said, by immigrants and refugees. We operate out of an historic landmark in downtown Milwaukee. The longest continuously running gymnasium is there. We teach yoga, gymnastics, rock climbing, have trained Olympians there. There’s a concert hall there. We do a variety of programs across two counties.
In regards to the arrest, this is devastating. It’s affecting folks all over, especially as it’s rolled into the wake of the confusion of some almost a hundred students in Wisconsin who face the retraction of their F-1 and J-1 visas. This is just upsetting people all over the county.
AMY GOODMAN: You were one of the —
EMILIO DE TORRE: I think the fact that —
AMY GOODMAN: You were one of the first people to protest her arrest, to get copies of the complaints against the judge and share them with the public. Can you talk more about what we know about her arrest and how this has affected the judge and the overall Milwaukee community, and her long history in Milwaukee?
EMILIO DE TORRE: Sure. People were tremendously upset. I had folks calling early in the morning alerting me to what had happened. As we shared copies of the complaints on Facebook, we had people reaching out who had gone to grade school with her, high school with her. She is a well-known and respected person, a former executive director of Catholic Charities, worked for Legal Aid, Legal Action, a former Milwaukee Bar Association president. She’s not just some secluded figure in a courthouse. She is an active part of the community. She’s known for giving out copies of the Constitution and flags on Constitution Day and Flag Day. This is somebody who is well respected in multiple communities across the city.
And this has a devastating effect on our social fabric, and also this sends a ripple of fear. This affiliate here, where I’m speaking to you from, is on MATC’s campus. And with students being threatened in Marquette, at UWM, UW-Madison, MATC, Concordia, people with visas, people who may be undocumented are now frightened to even come to the courts to pay municipal citations or to bear witness to a crime or to file for licensing. They don’t understand what’s going to happen if they feel as though a judge who is an integral part of the community can be picked up for what is seemingly nonsense, especially if it just appears to be a photo op to frighten other judges.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you respond to Kash Patel, to say the least, breaking with convention, the head of the FBI, tweeting out, using words like “perp walk” and showing a picture of the judge in handcuffs, and writing, “No one is above the law”?
EMILIO DE TORRE: It’s absolutely disgusting and damaging. I think it sends an incorrect message to all of these armchair quarterbacks who are just going to believe a short-character tweet. And locally, it has devastated many communities, not only just immigrant communities, but all folks who have known Judge Dugan for the decades of her selfless involvement here in the county. I personally find it disgusting that he would use such terminology for somebody so well respected.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think this has anything to do with the major Republican defeat over the special election for a judge, where Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, spent I don’t know how many millions on that race and even came out to Wisconsin and spoke, and still lost? Do you think this is retribution for that?
EMILIO DE TORRE: I think it can surely be connected to that. I think it’s a part of an attempt to stifle the judges. Like Ann Jacobs said, it’s an attempt to cudgel folks into submission. Hannah is known for elevating the rule of law and for honoring due process. And to make this statement against somebody who has been so admirable in her practice for so many years is ridiculous. And the fact that Kash Patel would add this terribly insulting photo and statements to it has actually had a reverse effect here in Milwaukee. I think people are more strongly supporting the judge, more strongly coming out on behalf of immigrants, and more strongly rejecting this message. And certainly, you can connect it to the amount of money that they attempted to dump into the state Supreme Court race.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, in related news, federal agents in New Mexico have arrested a former judge, Jose Luis Cano, and his wife. They’ve been accused of tampering with evidence linked to a former tenant who the government claims was a member of a Venezuelan gang. That was another judge, a former judge, who was arrested. The overall message being sent, and what’s happening on the ground now around organizing?
EMILIO DE TORRE: The overall message being sent is being linked to the same types of statements that were made in 1930s Germany and 1940s Russia. Folks were actively comparing the recent federal statements from the United States to Stalin’s statements about repressing the judiciary. I think these are just underscoring it.
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. It really seems like an unjust and, perhaps, quite illegal grab into our courthouses. And it is having the opposite effect, I think, that the federal government had intended it to have.
AMY GOODMAN: Emilio De Torre is the executive director of Milwaukee Turners, longtime friend of Judge Hannah Dugan.
When we come back, we speak with Martin O’Malley, former head of the Social Security Administration. He’s issued a dire warning that Social Security could collapse due to sweeping Trump cuts. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Heart of Darkness” by Pere Ubu. The band’s leader David Thomas died last week at the age of 71.
