Attention to the Unseen

Cristian Farias writes: The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is so short and self-evident that you don’t need a law degree to understand it, or a judge to explain it to you: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” That language had real teeth during Donald Trump’s first Presidency, as states, cities, and localities invoked it to stop…

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Ruth Marcus writes: Other Attorneys General have shared close—to some, disconcertingly close—relationships with the Presidents who appointed them. Robert F. Kennedy was his brother’s modestly qualified A.G. and consigliere at the age of thirty-five. Eric Holder once described himself as Barack Obama’s “wingman” and the President as “my boy.” But, even on a team of Trump sycophants, Bondi stands out for her fawning devotion. At an early Cabinet Room praise session, Bondi turned to Trump and said, “President, your first…

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The New York Times reports: When House Republican leaders rushed to leave Washington for a long August break, they seemed desperate to quell the anger among their supporters about the Trump administration’s backtracking on a promise to release files related to its investigation of the accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. But halfway through a five-week congressional recess, the clamor shows little sign of quieting. While Republicans had hoped that legal rulings might insulate them from having to confront the issue,…

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Robert J. Shapiro writes: Last week, Donald Trump claimed the authority to deploy the country’s military to the streets of Washington, D.C. to help fight crime. Yet, hard data show it’s not about crime in the nation’s capital. Instead, the evidence points to other, more troubling reasons and aspirations, especially the president’s personal sense of entitlement to power, MAGA’s approach to partisan politics, and an implied threat to public opposition to his exercise of power in the future. Trump is…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Uncle Sam. Miami Vice. When it comes to recruiting new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the Trump administration is getting creative. A social-media campaign launched late last month touted immigration enforcement as an opportunity for father-son bonding and to “deport illegals with your absolute boys,” a slang term for close friends. The WSJ probably isn’t the most reliable source when it comes to definitions of slang terms. The Urban Dictionary, on the other hand, offers…

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Philip Bump writes: Governors of three states — Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia — are sending members of their state National Guards to D.C. to … well, theoretically to combat crime but, if the past week is any indicator, mostly to stand near tourist sites and wear uniforms. This isn’t because there’s no crime in D.C. to combat (of course there is, as the right-wing media insists one acknowledge) but because the mission as established by President Trump isn’t…

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Austin Sarat writes: What is happening in Washington, D.C., should alarm every American. The Founders of this country imagined that the federal government would play a small and secondary role, backstopping state and local government and carrying out functions (such as negotiating with foreign powers) that they could not. The sight of the National Guard and Drug Enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other federal law enforcement agents on the streets of the nation’s capital would have shocked and horrified…

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  Paul Blumenthal reports: The march for voting rights from Selma, Alabama, to the capital of Montgomery in 1965 wasn’t meant to lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. But then came the horror of the scenes on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where police fractured the late John Lewis’ skull and beat organizer Amelia Boynton unconscious, with much of the violence caught on camera. It swayed public opinion: President Lyndon Johnson delivered the voting rights bill to Congress…

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National Guard members arrive at the Guard’s headquarters at D.C. Armory on Aug. 12, 2025 in Washington. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images By Charli Carpenter, UMass Amherst and Geraldine Santoso, UMass Amherst With his Aug. 11, 2025, announcement that he was sending the National Guard – along with federal law enforcement – into Washington, D.C. to fight crime, President Donald Trump edged U.S. troops closer to the kind of military-civilian confrontations that can cross ethical and legal lines. Indeed, since Trump returned…

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Jeff Stein, Michael Isikoff, and Karen J. Greenberg report: A top official in the Justice Department unit assigned to combat domestic terrorism has resigned in frustration after watching his office effectively gutted with much of its funding cut off and its lawyers reassigned to immigration enforcement and other matters. “I no longer had a functioning job. There was nothing for me to do anymore,” said Thomas Brzozowski, who had served as the unit’s senior counsel for the last 10 years,…

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Democracy Docket reports: The broad legal theory behind President Donald Trump’s use of the military in civilian law enforcement took center stage Tuesday during day two of a trial over the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles earlier this year. The three-day, non-jury trial before San Francisco-based federal Judge Charles Breyer concerns California’s claim that Trump’s use of troops in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally prohibits using the military in…

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