The Week Ahead

Joyce Vance

The president of the United States greeted the country with this Truth Social post about his intentions in Iran on Easter Sunday: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP

No one seems to have got so far into the post as to notice that he said “Praise be to Allah,” which he would most certainly say was a jest, if asked. But imagine Joe Biden, or worse still, Barack Obama, saying that “in jest” and how Republicans would have responded. Trump is completely off the rails and Republicans are turning a blind eye, pretending it’s not happening.

Earlier this week, Trump’s “spiritual advisor” Paula White-Cain compared him to Jesus. Trump, too, was “betrayed and arrested and falsely accused,” she said. No one in the Republican Party seems to have believed they need to strenuously resist that characterization.

And so, we enter the new week with an unstable president at the helm in wartime. Meanwhile, at home, there are plenty of issues mounting. But Trump seems to have largely gotten away with knocking his connection to Jeffrey Epstein and allegations about his personal conduct off the front burner.

Laura Loomer is influencing policy changes at DOJ

After Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, there appears to be another significant personnel change in the works at DOJ, this one inspired at least in part by Laura Loomer’s dislike of the number three official at DOJ, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. Trump appears to be on the verge of replacing him with the current Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, who has upended its work and overseen a mass exodus of career personnel.

Woodward was the defense lawyer for one of Trump’s co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case, Walt Nauta. His client hung in there with Trump, instead of flipping and offering testimony against him in exchange for a deal. That worked out well for Nauta, but only because Trump won the election. Most lawyers acting in the client’s best interests in that type of situation would have worked toward a plea. Lost in the plot from that case was the conflict of interest Woodward had that could easily have kept him from representing Nauta and might have resulted in another lawyer voluntarily stepping aside. Woodward had previously represented one of the witnesses who decided to cooperate with the prosecution after receiving advice from a lawyer who wasn’t connected to other defendants. Judge Cannon permitted Woodward to represent Nauta despite that conflict, after Nauta waived it. Woodward has also represented White House adviser Peter Navarro, who was prosecuted for obstructing Congress when he ignored a subpoena from the January 6 committee, FBI Director Kash Patel when he testified before a grand jury about Trump’s retention of classified documents, and one of the defendants in the Oath Keepers prosecution.

All that to say, Woodward was a known quantity for Trump when he appointed him. But that doesn’t seem to have been enough to save his job, just over a year into it.

There’s been some suggestion on social media that Laura Loomer is, at least in part, responsible for the change. Loomer is a conservative activist and online influencer who has claimed the ability to impact Trump’s hiring and firing decisions in the past. Last August, Trump was asked about that and said, “She makes recommendations on things and people. And sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody. I listen to everybody. And then I make a decision.” Loomer has never been a fan of Woodward’s.

Her concerns center on Woodward’s wife, apparently, not Woodward. She has had them since before he was confirmed.

Woodward’s wife apparently has the audacity to have her own views on issues, and they are…not racist. Loomer reiterated her take just before Trump made his move at DOJ, also attacking Todd Blanche, the former Trump criminal defense lawyer who is now in charge of the Justice Department in an acting capacity. Blanche and Woodward may have been surprised to learn that, according to Loomer, they’re now Democrats.

That’s a lot of maneuvering, that benefits Dhillon, who has overseen the dismantling of much of the Civil Rights Division’s work, including voter and election protection, and gone on the attack for the administration. That might have made her an attractive candidate for the position to Trump without more. If confirmed by the Senate as “the Associate,” as the number three position at DOJ is called, Dhillon would supervise her old division, Civil Rights, as well as the Civil Division, the Antitrust Division, the Environment and Natural Resources Division, and an administrative division that oversees grant funding. It’s a substantial role and could be a stepping stone to a still higher office.

This is more than a personnel squabble within DOJ and warrants our close attention. Since taking over the Civil Rights Division, Dhillon has made a number of decisions with significant consequences that run contrary to the history of the Division, including:

• Setting priorities for the Division that included putting an end to DEI, supporting gun rights, protecting religious liberty by filing lawsuits challenging what DOJ views as anti‑Christian discrimination, and opposing transgender participation in women’s sports.
• Pressuring colleges and universities over DEI programs and allegations of antisemitism. In one notable instance, the president of the University of Virginia was forced out for failing to move quickly enough to end DEI.
• Ending, as her predecessor Jeff Sessions did, consent decrees with Police Departments. In her case, it was Minneapolis (George Floyd) and Louisville (Breonna Taylor), in cases involving systematic misconduct. She ended investigations in other jurisdictions, changing the environment to one that is far more tolerant of police misconduct.
• Abandoning employment discrimination cases, as well as the work of the disability section to protect access, and work combating housing discrimination.
• Countermanding early work in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minneapolis to investigate ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who fired the shots that killed Renee Good. Much of the career leadership in that office resigned in the wake of that decision.

We don’t yet know who Trump will nominate to be the next Attorney General. Dhillon was confirmed 52-45 for the Civil Rights job, garnering no votes from Democrats but mustering support from every Republican. She’s been effective at pushing her priorities, which are Trump’s priorities, and at pushing career people out the door. A Justice Department under her leadership might make people long for Bondi’s simpering incompetence.

To come full circle, this was Dhillon’s response to Trump’s “Fuckin’ Strait” post this morning:

The Trump Administration appeals Anthropic’s victory.

Thursday morning, the government filed its notice of appeal after Anthropic won a victory against it in the lower court. That means it will try to overturn Judge Lin’s injunction, which prevents Trump/Hegseth’s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk. We’ll likely see an effort to get an order from the Ninth Circuit to set that injunction aside while the litigation is underway this week

The federal civil rights investigation and prosecution we won’t see.

The Buffalo Medical Examiner ruled that the death of a legally blind elderly Burmese refugee dropped off by Border Patrol at a closed shop late at night in winter was a homicide. The facts of the case are terrible. And there’s a federal criminal law designed to address this kind of civil rights violation by federal agents acting “under color of law.”

NBC reported that Nurul Amin Shah Alam died of a burst ulcer caused by severe stress brought on by dehydration and hypothermia, which was brought on by the agents’ abandonment of him. The statute permits prosecution of agents who deprive a person of their rights because they are an alien. If DOJ were operating properly, there would be an open investigation. The potential charge is a serious one, based on the denial of rights, not a homicide. The punishment under the law, “if death results” from agents’ actions, can be life imprisonment or even the death penalty. Any other DOJ would be focused on getting this case and doing justice.

The DHS shutdown is still on.

The House failed to take action to pass the Senate’s bipartisan funding deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security last week. That means the shutdown will continue at least until Monday, when Congress is back in Session. The Senate compromise withhold money the administration wanted to push Trump’s immigration agenda, but would fund DHS until the end of the fiscal year.

TSA workers in the Portland, Maine, airport cheerfully told me last week that they had received some back pay, but had no assurances of receiving paychecks going forward. Hard-working TSA employees are being forced to bear the brunt of Trump’s inability to run the government. It’s surprising Democrats aren’t driving this message every day. And, with hurricane and fire seasons approaching, FEMA funding is sure to be an issue soon, as well.

And, DOJ still hasn’t released all of the Epstein Files.

I have no intention of forgetting that there is more to that story.

Thank you for being here with me at Civil Discourse. It’s going to take all of us, staying informed and working together, to keep the Republic. If you’ve been enjoying the free posts, upgrading to a paid subscription is a great way to help keep the newsletter coming and to contribute to the time and resources it takes to stay on top of law, politics, and this administration.

We’re in this together,

Joyce