| In Thursday’s newsletter, we looked at what happened this week under President Donald Trump. Here’s the second part of that rundown, as Trump’s clashes with the courts escalated in a big way. Here’s what’s going on. The FBI arrested a local judge in Wisconsin The FBI on Friday charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstructing an immigrant arrest. In court filings, they alleged that an undocumented immigrant was appearing before this judge for an unrelated case when immigration agents entered the courthouse. They say she sent the agents away in an attempt to avoid the arrest, my colleagues at The Washington Post report. Several Democratic senators immediately said this represents a concerning moment for the erosion of the separation of powers: one branch arresting an official of another branch. “This is a red alert moment. We must all rise up against it,” Sen. Edward J. Markey (Massachusetts) said on social media. “In the United States, we have a system of checks and balances and separations of power for damn good reasons,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin) said in a statement. “The President’s administration arresting a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move, and it threatens to breach those very separations of power.” Kimberly Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore Law School and author of the newsletter Simple Politics, called this arrest “shocking.” “Given how the Trump administration is violating the Constitution so blatantly, we will see whether this shocking development — arresting a judge — is grounded in the rule of law,” she said, adding she believes that the courts will give this judge due process. Harvard sued the Trump administration One of the most prestigious universities in America is suing the Trump administration for violating its First Amendment rights on how to run its school and teach its students. The lawsuit comes after the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard after the university refused its submit to a years-long federal oversight. “The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting,” the university’s president said. The lawsuit also argues that even if Harvard somehow wasn’t eligible for federal funding, the administration didn’t follow the proper procedures to end it. “I think they have a real case here,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School and host of the Passing Judgment podcast. “It seems to be on the most foundational level they are arguing they are being targeted based on the content and viewpoint of their speech and that they have not obtained due process punished. The government’s actions seem retaliatory.” Judges across the country blocked Trump’s executive orders One judge temporarily blocked Trump from requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, a proposal that election experts said could make voting significantly more difficult for millions of Americans. “The president does not oversee federal elections in any way,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. Another judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funds to punish cities it says are protecting undocumented immigrants. Two separate judges blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funds from public schools that promote diversity. Lawsuits across the country are challenging Trump’s method of hurriedly deporting migrants under the wartime Alien Enemies Act that treats immigrants as invaders of the U.S. The Supreme Court has said Trump can continue to deport migrants under this law, but said the government must first provide detainees an opportunity to contest their removals. Federal judges have temporarily blocked deportations at nearly every turn over concerns the migrants aren’t getting the chance to contest. “This is not the Inquisition, it’s not medieval times,” one of those judges, Alvin Hellerstein in New York, declared. “This is the United States of America.” Immigrant-rights experts tell me that due process is a right that the Constitution affords everyone in the country, regardless of legal status. This is all building into more potential clashes with the Trump administration and the courts. This week, the Trump administration also deported four men to El Salvador after a judge told them to hold off. The judge is now looking into “potential violations of the temporary restraining order.” Levinson, with the Passing Judgment podcast, said she is heartened by the tension between Trump and the courts: “You don’t want a rubber-stamp judiciary,” she said, “particularly when you have a president embracing this incredibly robust view of presidential power.” Elon Musk is stepping back from DOGE Elon Musk said this week he’ll step back from U.S. DOGE Service to focus more on Tesla. He quickly became one of the most controversial figures in the Trump administration, and he turned what is generally a popular idea — cutting waste and fraud in the government — into an apparent political liability for Trump and Republicans. Democrats found an easy villain in an unelected billionaire firing federal workers, like those who study cancer research or uphold food safety. Three months in, the group he oversees, DOGE, has cut nowhere near his goal of $1 trillion. A Pew Research Poll finds a majority of Americans (59 percent) say the Trump administration is being “too careless” about the cuts. Some people inside the Trump administration feel the same way. “I like what DOGE stands for. I don’t like how they’ve done it,” one Trump appointee told my colleagues in The Post as we chronicled how Musk lost his grip on slashing government. “They got rid of the cancer — and a lot of the healthy cells, too.” Ukraine-Russia tensions rise as Trump tries to find a peace deal Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine on his first day in office. Instead, this week it is escalating. Russia just attacked Kyiv hours after Ukraine rejected Trump’s “final offer” peace deal that would have given Russia much of the territory it invaded. “Vladimir, STOP!” Trump posed on his social media site as dozens in Kyiv were injured — a remarkable call out to a world leader to whom Trump has repeatedly given the benefit of the doubt. A top Senate Republican, Chuck Grassley (Iowa), called out Trump on Friday for seemingly being weak on Russia: “U ought to c from clear evidence that he is playing America as a patsy,” Grassley wrote on social media. “Obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest,” Trump told Time magazine this week about his promise to end the war on his first day in office. “But it was also said that it will be ended.” | 
