This is the title of a report prepared by a team of prominent lawyers for the National Popular League that was published in 1920. It consists mostly of a series of sworn testimonies, each termed an exhibit, that describe the criminal activity of the U.S. Dept. of Justice during what is now called “The First Red Scare.” This was, of course, when J. Edgar Hoover, the famous blackmailer, was just getting started. Could be that “criminal activity” seems a bit strong, but f denying people due process and other rights guaranteed by our Constitution is not a crime, I don’t know what is.
Times have changed. I don’t think our Dept. of Justice is so criminal, despite the fact that at its top the DOJ is wholly corrupt. And we’re not rounding up and deporting socialist politicians and labor organizers. No, we are expending a lot more money and energy to round up illegal immigrants and their families, not through the DOJ, but through the Department of Homeland Security, a barely legal offspring of 9/11 hysteria. How bad is this? I read that the DHS will no longer admit staff of the House Oversite Committee to ICE’s prison camps, so we can safely assume that conditions in them are as bad or worse than we had earlier learned. DHS needs to conceal its incompetence, general inhumanity, and contempt for immigrants.
Where do they get their funding? Trump is siphoning off money that was appropriated for other appropriate government activities to fund a bloated ICE and run a crash program to get his illegal wall built in time for the 2020 election. None of this shell game with funds has been approved by Congress. But Trump’s métier is playing shell games with other peoples’ money, always borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and resisting fiercely any oversight. Is the Wall necessary or even useful for national security? Of course not. But it is necessary to Trump’s re-election, so it is Donald’s own Manhattan Project, a full-bore crash program to keep him out of jail. So he’s ready with implausible deniability and a pocket full of pardons for those he is encouraging to break the law.