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Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.
On April 30, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, a case about whether the state of Oklahoma must give the Catholic church tax dollars to run a public religious charter school.
This should be a slam dunk.
Remember learning in junior high that there is a separation between church and state, so tax dollars cannot be used for religious purposes? Well, that may have been true then, but it’s looking less and less true now.
The Supreme Court’s conservative religious majority has been on a tear regarding inserting religion into public life—as long as it’s their religion. So they’ve been whittling away at the separation of church and state, ruling in previous cases for tax dollars to go to tuition assistance programs for religious schools in Maine and that having a big-time Christian prayer jamboree led by a public high school football coach is totally dandy and constitutional.
The oral arguments on April 30 looked bleak, with the conservative appointees signaling that they’re pretty open to disregarding a big chunk of the First Amendment, pretending that they don’t know that charter schools are public schools. But they know exactly what they’re really doing: paving the way for state-funded, state-run religious schools.
Conflicts of interest are no big deal
Not content to let multibillionaire Elon Musk be the face of blatant conflicts of interest in this administration, the Trump family trekked to Dubai to let everyone know that President Donald Trump is open for business. Private scammy crypto business, that is.
At a cryptocurrency conference in Dubai earlier this week, the founder of the Trump family crypto company, World Liberty Financial, announced that a state-backed Abu Dhabi investment firm would use Trump’s meme coin, $TRUMP, to make a $2 billion business deal.
The New York Times reported on the confusing details about what stablecoin and exchange are being used … blah, blah, blah … if you’re the sort who follows the glorified casino that is the crypto economy. But here’s the bottom line for everyone else: This is pretty much exactly what it looks like—a foreign government directing millions of dollars to the president’s private company.
This arrangement is so bad that even the Times had to acknowledge it: “Virtually every detail of Mr. Witkoff’s announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr. Trump’s second-eldest son, contained a conflict of interest.”
If only we’d known this would happen. Oh, wait. We did.
Trump’s former criminal lawyer continues to raise hell for everyone else
It’s another week of Emil Bove behaving badly. Last week, we learned that more career Justice Department prosecutors left the office following Bove’s demand for New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ criminal charges to be dismissed.
This week, we discovered that Bove was behind a recent push to investigate student protesters at Columbia University. After a February incident in which some students pushed past a security guard, Bove ordered an investigation. He told career civil rights prosecutors at the DOJ to obtain a list of members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
Yes, a list. Of members. To investigate. DOJ officials had to explain that investigating people based on their membership in an organization sorta kinda runs afoul of the First Amendment. He also wanted to turn the list over to ICE, if you’re wondering if things could get worse.
You can’t just walk up to brown people and say, “Give me your papers.”
That’s literally what U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston said on April 29. The American Civil Liberties Union sued after the Border Patrol performed a three-day sweep in Kern County, California, that can only be described as “papers, please.”
As much as the Trump administration would like it to be otherwise, the Border Patrol is only allowed to stop people if they have a reasonable suspicion that they are violating immigration law. And, no, that standard is not satisfied by just rolling up to any immigrant workers or day laborers and demanding proof of citizenship.
Thurston issued a preliminary injunction covering a portion of California that bars Border Patrol from these tactics while the case proceeds.
For conservatives, it’s doxing for thee but not for me
A few months ago, signs with names, pictures, and possible phone numbers of ICE and Homeland Security agents were posted across Los Angeles. The inclusion of phone numbers—assuming they’re real—constitutes a federal crime, but it’s not the crime of the century.
But you wouldn’t know that from how ICE handled this. On May 1, ICE sent more than a dozen vehicles to storm the streets of Irvine, California, to arrest Michael Chang, who they allege put up the fliers. Instead, they terrorized Chang’s parents, since he doesn’t even live there anymore.
This is nothing but political theater, considering that ICE gave its drone footage directly to Fox News so the right-wing network could breathlessly report on immigration agents basically jackboot-thugging their way into Chang’s parents’ home. The acting director of ICE showed up! To serve a warrant! For a random guy who may or may not have put up some posters!
This is rich coming from an administration run by a guy who loves when his own supporters are doxing pro-Palestinian students or targeting the judge and jury in Trump’s criminal case. But suddenly they are all very concerned about how corrosive and scary it is when people are targeted for doing their jobs.
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