NO INSANE CLOWN KINGS

 

JOYCE VANCE

 

No More Benefit Of The Doubt

Joyce Vance

Mar 07, 2026

Last Sunday, we discussed a number of cases pending in front of federal district judges in Minneapolis. Friday night, one of them, Judge John Tunheim, dropped a decision that is well worth your time—even on a Friday night. It involves allegations from people detained by ICE that their property was seized and not returned to them. Another word for that might be theft, although one supposes it could also be the result of extraordinary carelessness. Federal law enforcement agents routinely collect, and subsequently return, the possessions of people they detain. But that isn’t happening here.

Judge Tunheim felt so much urgency about the matter than he got his ruling out on a Friday night, not a typical time for a federal judge to be finishing up at work. But he decided it was time to deliver a reckoning to the Trump administration and apparently, didn’t want to delay. His order starts like this:

“During Operation Metro Surge, ICE repeatedly failed to return personal property to detainees ordered released by the Court. In some cases, weeks after their release, and in violation of Court orders, Petitioners continue to be deprived of access to their most essential physical possessions, intensifying the harm of their unlawful arrests and presenting further risks to their safety, liberty, and well-being.”

You can tell from the start. This is not a happy Judge. And it gets worse for the government.

Judge Tunheim says that the former detainees can submit claims for their “lost or missing property.” Then, he directs the government to “promptly remedy all ongoing violations of Court orders in these cases by compensating all claims submitted by Petitioners.” He gives the government 30 days to do that. It’s not entirely clear but I read this as saying “all” submitted claims must be paid. The government doesn’t get to evaluate the claims or argue about the dollar amount. It just has to pay up. In 30 days.

Then comes the kicker. The Judge says that holding the government, which here would mean the U.S. Attorney and other officials, in contempt “is not the appropriate action yet,”…..“but.” “But” does a lot of heavy lifting here and Judge Tunheim doesn’t beat around the bush in clarifying just how disturbing the Trump administration’s conduct has been. He writes, “the Court directs Respondents,” (that’s the government here), to handle the claims “with the same urgency that it used when arresting and transporting detainees, including these Petitioners, out of the state of Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge.” Ouch.

And the Judge isn’t giving the Trump administration any deference. They get 30 days. The Judge has scheduled a hearing for Day 31 “to address whether and to what extent Petitioners’ claims have not been satisfied. If Petitioners’ claims have not been satisfied by that date—more than thirty days after the date of this Order—the Court will impose civil contempt and daily civil fines until full compliance is achieved.”

You might think that would be as bad as it could get for the government. You would be wrong. Because the Judge identifies an additional question that must be dealt with, “A primary question at the hearing will be the identification of the appropriate official to pay the civil fines.” The question he’s posing is this: If the government goes into contempt, which the Judge seems to be anticipating, who has to pay the fines? Presumably, that won’t be the taxpayers. There are some interesting options, starting with the U.S. Attorney and ICE issues and potentially heading much further up the government food chain.

The Judge spends some time on the facts of each the five cases he rules in with this order. Suffice it to say, they are outrageous. The first case involves six individuals, identified only by their initials. They were “arrested at gunpoint in their home” in January and subsequently asked the court to release them. On January 19, 2026, the Court ordered the government to “produce a warrant justifying entry into Petitioners’ home” by 5:00 p.m. that day. The government didn’t, and presumably couldn’t, leading the court to order that all six be released within 72 hours.

That’s easy for the government. A direct order from the court requires compliance by the United States. But of course, since it’s the Trump administration, that didn’t happen. The Court threatened the government with contempt but it still took three additional days before all of the individuals were released from custody. In early February, those people had to go back to court—the government hadn’t returned their property, including documents like work permits and drivers licenses. The government dragged its feet, returning documents later than the Judge’s order permitted. In once case, Judge Tunheim notes they still haven’t returned an individual’s work permit.

In another one of the consolidated cases, the government said it couldn’t find the individual’s property. That defies belief. There are careful rules for inventory and storing of property seized during an arrest or detention. It took the government 30 days to advise that “Petitioner’s “cellphone, clothing, boots, and jewelry have been found” and could be picked up. In another case, the government advised the court that an individual’s Minnesota driver’s license, Guatemalan driver’s license, and Guatemalan Consular Identification Card had been “lost.”

In another case, a woman who had been detained was released was still missing “all of her personal property.” That included headphones, an iPhone, a watch, a wallet with debit and credit cards, personal documents, and a Minnesota identification card a month later. Finally, the government advised the court the property had been found. But they didn’t turn it over, they backpedaled and said it had been lost after all. Then, they found it again, in a sealed bag used for storing property in Texas. Judge Tunheim wrote in his order, “At the time of the Court’s hearing on March 5, 2026, it was unknown if this sealed property bag included all of Petitioner’s personal property.

In the final case, the detained individual reported that he had not received his “nail gun,” “[o]ver $100 in cash,” his social security card, or his “Work Authorization Card” after being released from custody. Ice advised the court, after the deadline for doing so, that the individual’s “social security card had been located and was being transported back to Minnesota from Texas but that ‘ICE is still actively working on locating the remaining property.’”

You just can’t make up a clown show like this. Lost. Not lost. Lost. Not lost. And, The standard procedure is for law enforcement to create an itemized list of all property seized when an individual is detained, so that it would be immediately clear what items were in which locations. The failure to handle routine law enforcement tasks suggests an absolute breakdown of good order and discipline at ICE and CBP. There is literally no reason for the court to have confidence in any representations they make. And this is only the cases in front of Judge Tunheim. Judge Bryan has another 25 cases like this, as we discussed in The Week Ahead.

The Judge had the U.S. Attorney, Daniel Rosen, in court on this matter previously and Rosen told the Judge that the “Department of Homeland Security intends to remedy these violations by reimbursing Petitioners for their property.” Rosen told the Judge they can expedite this process, individuals wouldn’t need to file lawsuits, and if their property was found afterwards it would be returned, even if they had already been compensated. The Judge found that papers like work permits, which are issued by DHS agencies, should be reissued promptly and at no charge. The government has its marching orders.

It’s easy to understand why the Judge is out of patience given all the history he lays out in these cases. The government doesn’t deserve any more chances. It has shown no good faith here, only the drive to execute Trump’s inhumane mass deportation policy. Judge Tunheim has advised the government, very specifically, that if it doesn’t comply with the court’s order it will be in contempt. It’s about time.

Judge Tunheim concludes with this, “In the cases before the Court, Petitioners were unlawfully arrested and detained, and the Court ordered their immediate release. Yet Petitioners’ hardships did not end when they were released from detention because Respondents retained personal belongings that are critical to ensuring Petitioners’ daily safety and well-being.” He notes that the cases he is handling in this order aren’t just about these specific people, that they are representative of what people across Minnesota experienced during ICE’s Operation Metro Surge. And he points to the fact that many of them “are the principal breadwinners for their family and…the loss of their work authorization documents has resulted in lost wages and hardships for their family.” Others are experiencing food insecurity because they don’t have access to finances or phones. Without their phones they can’t access stored documents, or even their loved ones. They have lost jobs and can’t get new ones without their documents. And, he concludes, “Perhaps most troublingly, many petitioners, including Christian A.S.C., are terrified that the loss of their personal identification documents will subject them to additional arrests because they will not be able to prove who they are or aren’t.”

This, in a nutshell, is what this administration is all about. The cruelty isn’t incidental, it’s intentional. This is how brutal dictatorships treat people, not democracies. And who stands against the administration? It’s not Congress, where Republican Senators are lining up to confirm Trump’s new, not even marginally competent nominee to be DHS Secretary. It’s up to the federal district judges now.

Courts around the country are no longer willing to give this Justice Department the benefit of the doubt. Traditionally, judges applied what’s known as the presumption of regularity, assuming that federal agents and prosecutors were doing their jobs properly, acting in good faith, and following the rules unless there was clear evidence to the contrary. But when it comes to matters tied to Trump’s priorities, there is now ample evidence that the presumption doesn’t hold. Judges are beginning to recognize that reality. Confronting it isn’t pleasant, but it’s necessary—and the courts that are doing it deserve our support.

We’re in this together,

 

The Desire for Terror

And the defense of democracy

Timothy Snyder

Mar 08, 2026

A purpose of the war on Iran might well be to provoke a terrorist attack inside the United States. This would provide Donald Trump with a pretext to try to cancel or “federalize” the coming Congressional elections.

Self-terrorism might not have been the initial aim; but as time goes by, and failures and atrocities mount, its appeal will grow. Trump could think that he has much to gain; the war itself makes terrorism more likely; there are plausible vectors of terror; and the United States has let down its defenses.

Trump has already telegraphed the move. We know that he is obsessed with the fall elections, which his party will almost certainly lose by spectacular margins, and that he fears the accordant loss of power. This is clear from his own statements and actions. In a social post right after starting the war, he claimed (wrongly) that Iran had tried to hurt his cause in past elections.

We lack any other explanation for the war, at least from the American side. Trump is incoherent, and his administration is inconsistent. Much of what has been said about Iran is not true. The propaganda is contradictory. It is as though the war itself is not the main goal, but that it was simply important to somehow get the thing started.

War, famously, is the extension of politics by other means. But what are the politics? The president and especially the Secretary of Defense present the United States as a kind of war crimes central, a place where the rules do not apply. War crimes to do not win wars. Instead they provoke further war crimes and other retribution.

The Tehran regime is, so to speak, a convenient partner in the mutual provocation of terror. Iran is ruled by ruthless people with a record and a capacity for carrying out terrorist attacks beyond its borders. A terrorist attack on the territory of the United States might be a response by Iran or one of its proxies. Trump seems to have anticipated this, without seeming to care about loss of life: “Like I said, some people will die.” And if they do, he has his pretext.

The actions of Americans and Israelis in Iran could give rise to the sort of rage that could generates spontaneous terror by people associated with Iran and by people who are not. We bombed a school and killed 175 children. We are killing first responders. Bombing Iran’s civilian energy infrastructure and setting Teheran on fire is not simply a war crime; it is an experience of millions of people. After last night’s (apparently Israeli) strikes on oil depots, people are being warned that the air is not safe to breathe, and black rain is falling from a black sky. Because Iran is largely cut off from the internet, we are not seeing much of this.

Worse, we stand at the brink of a water war that could threaten the lives of tens of millions of people. The region lacks fresh water and depends upon the desalinization of sea water. Iran was facing a catastrophic drought before the war began. Its government is now claiming that one of its desalinization plants was targeted. And Bahrain is also claiming that Iran has attacked one of its desalinization plants. The truth will emerge with time. If this war becomes a water war, there will be plenty of blame to share. But people who survive the deprivation of water would not be wrong to believe that an American war was the ultimate cause.

Another possibility is an American act of terrorism on the territory of the United States, either presented as an Iranian attack or not. Most terrorism inside the United States is domestic and is right-wing, and this war has been very divisive among American fascists. Historically, fascist competitions for power have been accompanied by internal violence.

Russia is another possible source of a terror attack inside the United States. It is not hard to see why Moscow would contemplate such a thing. In the current circumstances, it would be easy to deflect blame. Given that Putin himself consolidated authoritarian power on the strength of wars against Muslims and terrorist attacks inside his own country, he will have had no trouble imagining such a path for Trump. It is not hard to see him giving Trump such a gift. Russia has some relevant capabilities.

During the first year of this second Trump administration, defenses against all of these vectors of terrorism have been removed. There are three levels of the problem: policies have been changed; leadership is incompetent and experienced personnel are gone; and fiction about immigrants has displaced the actual problem of terrorism.

At the level of Trump-era policy change, Russia is the most curious case. The Trump administration has been resolutely pro-Kremlin, to the point of tolerating Russian backing of Iran in this war and ensuring that Russia makes money from selling oil. Right now the Trump administration is asking Ukraine for help with drone defense in the Persian Gulf region, while denying the significance of the Russian war on Ukraine that led the Ukrainians to develop that capacity in the first place. Under Trump, American monitoring of Russian sabotage has been scaled back.

Domestic terrorists are also getting a pass if they are right-wing; the Department of Homeland Security has deprioritized domestic terrorism and is no longer keeping up its database. An unqualified but right-wing recent college graduate is in charge of its program designed to prevent domestic terrorism. These examples could be multiplied.

Tulsi Gabbard, who is in charge of the agency that coordinates intelligence, has no qualifications. She was last observed taking part in the federal seizure of ballots in Georgia: this has nothing to do with her job description, and strongly suggests an intention to “federalize” the coming election.

It goes on. Kash Patel, the head of the FBI, is also lacking in qualifications. He treats his job as the infrastructure of celebrity. There is currently no director of Homeland Security. The last one was fired for a scandal of titanic self-absorption. The presumptive successor, Markwayne Mullin, has no relevant experience. His single qualification is that he is a Trump loyalist and is willing to tell the Trump story to the media. He has been taking part in all of the fiction.

And fiction is the problem. Calling American protestors terrorists after killing them makes everything worse; it is crime covered by indecency inviting incompetence. Everything has to be adjusted to Trump’s view of the world. We cannot follow right-wing terrorists because they are seen as Trump’s allies, to be pardoned and forgiven. We cannot take the Russian threat seriously, because Trump treats Putin with sympathy and no doubt understands that Russia intervenes on his behalf. The Trump administration cannot take real terrorism seriously because it must inhabit the grand fiction that the real danger to the United States are undocumented immigrants. A year of using the word “terrorism” in reference to that unreal threat has created unreality, and unreality undoes capability.

None of this requires any sort of grand plan in the White House, let alone a conspiracy. None of it even requires very much initiative. Self-terrorism is more a matter of allowing things to fall apart, and then grabbing opportunely at a bit of the falling wreckage, which is something that Trump does well. The chain of events -- the disabling of counter-terror; the war on Iran; the terror attack; the attempt to cancel elections -- might not be completed. The last piece that has to fall into place is the public reaction. Our reaction.

It is up to the relevant authorities, local and state as well as federal, to try to prevent a terrorist attack -- the third link in the chain. May those who are trying succeed. But it is up to us, all of us, to prevent the attempt to cancel elections, the fourth and final link. The self-terrorism chain is closed only if we play our assigned part, only if we choose to ignore the patterns and fail to make the mental preparations.

We must not allow ourselves the luxury of surprise. In the circumstances, we have no excuse for being surprised. Let me cite lesson 18 of On Tyranny:

18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.

It is not just Hitler in 1933. That is one case among many. History is rife with examples of leaders who exploit, generate or manufacture crisis in order to stay in power. In the moment when a republic is meant to give way to a new form of authoritarian regime, the provocation and exploitation of terror is just what one would expect to happen. It is not, in a historical or a political sense, surprising. If we fail to remember history now, we will help the Trump regime generate a sense of panic when the terror attack comes.

We must anticipate, with sadness and resolution. We will be horrified, but we cannot be surprised, if there is a terrorist attack on the United States. If choose to be surprised, we co-create a moment that Trump will exploit to undo what remains of our democracy. If the unthinkable happens, it will happen because some of Trump’s people thought about it, some of them created the conditions for it, and some of them looked away. The responsibility for catastrophe will be theirs. And the responsibility for democracy will be ours.