Yesterday at 5:16 p.m. EDT
Analysis by Aaron Blake
The Trump administration’s brash moves to crack down on illegal immigration entered a fraught new phase Friday, with the FBI arrest of a local Wisconsin judge who was charged with obstructing the arrest of an immigrant.
This is, needless to say, a significant escalation of the administration’s efforts. Any time you are arresting judges, you enter yet more constitutionally dicey territory, with the administration already flouting and resisting judges’ orders. And the backdrop looms large here: The administration has, in recent weeks, ramped up its attacks against who it labels as radical activist judges who have ruled against many of its immigration actions. (In actuality, several of the judges have been Republican and even Trump appointees.) ...
Some Democrats responded by offering cautious statements that allowed for the idea that the judge might have actually done something very bad. But many others pitched this as an obvious effort to intimidate a judiciary that has stood up to Trump. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) labeled it “an attack on the separation of powers, and we will fight this with everything we have.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/25/pam-bondis-striking-comments-arresting-judges/