The Trump vs. Boasberg Tug-of-War

The Naha’s Great Tug-of -War, held annually in Okinawa, Japan, is considered the world’s premier tug-of-war contest. It features a massive rope that is 200 meters long and weighs 43 tons.

Believe it or not, both the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics also featured tug-of-war competitions. At the Paris Olympics in 1900, the mixed Scandinavian team won the gold, but four years later in St. Louis, the United States claimed all three medals.

And yet, the aforementioned events pale in comparison to the monumental tug-of-war currently being waged between the executive and judicial branches of our federal government, especially over the issues of immigration and deportation.

Representing the executive branch is the modern-day record holder in arm-twisting, deal-making, and smack-talking, President Donald J. Trump. He also has advanced degrees in both marketing and media relations, earned a black belt in debating, and is the best self-promoter since Muhammad Ali, P.T. Barnum, and Lady Gaga.

In the other corner, representing the judicial branch, is a collection of unelected and ever-serious jurists in black robes who seemingly wield more power than Rocky Marciano’s famous “Suzy Q” punch (or make that a Mike Tyson right hook for the younger crowd). Leading the pack is James “Jeb” Boasberg, a graduate of Yale Law School where one of his roommates was Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Hmmm… interesting coincidence, don’t you think?

During his undergrad days at Yale, the 6’6” Boasberg played on the university’s basketball team and was also a member of the ultra-secret Skull and Bones society. Rumors abound concerning Skull and Bones, ranging from it being a branch of the Illuminati to it controlling the CIA. In his 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep, future president George W. Bush wrote "[In my] senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society; so secret, I can't say anything more."

As Laugh-In’s Arte Johnson would say while dressed as an undercover German army officer… “V-e-r-r-r-y interesting!”

So, who will win this high-stakes standoff between Trump and Boasberg? President Trump is calling for Boasberg’s impeachment, while Boasberg has threatened to hold the president in contempt of court for “a willful disregard” of his March 15th order to stop deportation flights.

Perhaps emboldened by Friday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that delayed the contempt hearings while the defense mounts its case, ICE agents placed another 28 Venezuelan detainees onto buses later that evening and transported them from the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, TX to the Abilene Airport. However, no sooner did they arrive at the airport, but the buses made a U-turn and headed back to the prison with the detainees still on board. Why the about-face? Because SCOTUS issued a temporary injunction preventing the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport illegal immigrants without due process until an appeal by the ACLU could be heard.

I never was a fan of afternoon soap operas, but this saga is starting to have more subplots than General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, and the Young and the Restless all rolled into one.

I am the last person to question the wisdom of our Founding Fathers who, having lived under the tyrannical rule of King George III, put in place this brilliant system of checks and balances. But sometimes you gotta scratch your head as you watch one branch of our tri-headed federal government attempt to outflank and outmaneuver the other.

The only problem with checks and balances is that sometimes it results in an endless stalemate and nothing gets done. Meanwhile, people – some of them convicted criminals, drug dealers, and violent gang members – get to remain in America at taxpayers’ expense while the two feuding parties work out their differences.

I am no fan of dictators and demagogues, but in this isolated case, I think the executive branch is right and the judicial branch is dead wrong. Due process should be limited to American citizens and people who are in our country legally… and that’s it.