It was another good day for those hoping the forces of democracy will prevail over the forces of chaos and autocracy. Four major stories frame the effective resistance that is beginning to turn the tide against Trump.

A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rebuked Trump’s bad-faith effort to evade responsibility for returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia—and delivered a stirring defense of the rule of law!

Harvard stood firm even as Trump expanded his illegal targeting of Harvard by threatening to exclude tens of thousands of foreign students.

GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski broke the wall of silence behind which most of her Republican colleagues are hiding, chastising them for abandoning the Constitution.

Senator Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in the infamous El Salvadoran prison—a testament to his persistence, resistance, and creative thinking.

Concerned citizens across America are planning another weekend of protests against the unlawful and unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration.

Finally, the damage caused by Trump’s assault on the economy is driving markets lower, forcing Trump to make a desperate and illegal threat: Removing the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Jerome Powell. The threat is a sign of weakness and fear on Trump’s part.

Let’s take a look at these stories to understand why we should move forward with confidence in our defense of the rule of law.

Fourth Circuit panel rebukes Trump over Abrego Garcia while framing the constitutional showdown in an opinion written for the American people, the Supreme Court, and Trump.

The stakes in the Abrego Garcia case pending before Judge Paula Xinis are high. She has ordered the Trump administration to participate in discovery to learn why the government has refused to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia.

The Trump administration appealed Judge Xinis’s discovery order to the Fourth Circuit, repeating the government’s bad-faith arguments to justify its refusal to comply with the orders of Judge Xinis and the Supreme Court.

Trump then asked the 4th Circuit to stop the discovery proceedings designed to learn the “who, why, and how” of the government’s disobedience to the court’s order.

A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit denied the Trump administration’s request to stop the discovery proceedings before Judge Xinis.

In denying the Trump administration’s request to stop the discovery ordered by Judge Xinis, the Fourth Circuit issued an extraordinary opinion that perfectly captures the conflict at the center of the Abrego Garcia case and describes the impending constitutional crisis that would be caused by Trump’s continued refusal to comply with the orders of Judge Xinis and the Supreme Court.

The relatively brief opinion by the Fourth Circuit deserves to be read in its entirety—and today, I am going to ask you to do just that. Rather than directing you to a different site to read the opinion, I have copied it below. I have removed legal citations and procedural references to make an easy-to-read opinion even more accessible.

The opinion by the Fourth Circuit perfectly frames the crisis to come while highlighting the underlying constitutional and democratic values that are at stake. I have bolded some portions of the opinion for emphasis. Otherwise, the words below are those of the Fourth Circuit in their entirety.

Abrego Garcia v Noem | No. 25-1404 | April 17, 2025

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, with whom KING and THACKER, Circuit Judges, join:

The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.

It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all.

The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.

Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.

This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order.

Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or “mistakenly” deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?

The Supreme Court’s decision remains, as always, our guidepost. That decision rightly requires the lower federal courts to give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” [ ]

That would allow sensitive diplomatic negotiations to be removed from public view. It would recognize as well that the “facilitation” of Abrego Garcia’s return leaves the Executive Branch with options in the execution to which the courts in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision should extend a genuine deference. That decision struck a balance that does not permit lower courts to leave Article II by the wayside.

The Supreme Court’s decision does not, however, allow the government to do essentially nothing. It requires the government “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

“Facilitate” is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear. The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art.

We are not bound in this context by a definition crafted by an administrative agency and contained in a mere policy directive. Thus, the government’s argument that all it must do is “remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return,” is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.

“Facilitation” does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns. “Facilitation” does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here.

Allowing all this would “facilitate” foreign detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.

The government is obviously frustrated and displeased with the rulings of the court. Let one thing be clear. Court rulings are not above criticism. Criticism keeps us on our toes and helps us do a better job.

Court rulings can overstep, and they can further intrude upon the prerogatives of other branches. Courts thus speak with the knowledge of their imperfections but also with a sense that they instill a fidelity to law that would be sorely missed in their absence. It can rescue the government from its lassitude and recalibrate imbalances too long left unexamined.

The knowledge that executive energy is a perishable quality understandably breeds impatience with the courts. Courts, in turn, are frequently attuned to caution and are often uneasy with the Executive Branch’s breakneck pace. And the differences do not end there.

The Executive is inherently focused upon ends; the Judiciary much more so upon means. Ends are bestowed on the Executive by electoral outcomes. Means are entrusted to all of government, but most especially to the Judiciary by the Constitution itself.

The Executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with powers come restraints. If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?

And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” would lose its meaning. U.S. CONST. art. II, § 3; see also id. art. II, § 1, cl. 8.

Today, both the United States and the El Salvadoran governments disclaim any authority and/or responsibility to return Abrego Garcia. We are told that neither government has the power to act.

The result will be to leave [Abrego Garcia] in an interminable limbo without recourse to law of any sort.

The basic differences between the branches mandate a serious effort at mutual respect. The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts. Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate.

It is in this atmosphere that we are reminded of President Eisenhower’s sage example. Putting his “personal opinions” aside, President Eisenhower honored his “inescapable” duty to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education II to desegregate schools “with all deliberate speed.”

This great man expressed his unflagging belief that “[t]he very basis of our individual rights and freedoms is the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of Government will support and [e]nsure the carrying out of the decisions of the Federal Courts.”

Indeed, in our late Executive’s own words, “[u]nless the President did so, anarchy would result.” Id. Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both.

This is a losing proposition all around. The Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dint of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply. The Executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions.

The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.

It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.

This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.

The Fourth Circuit’s opinion is brilliant. It is measured, deferential, and brutally honest. It describes the stakes of the coming clash without being confrontational; indeed, the closing paragraph hopes for a resolution that honors the rule of law.

However, the Fourth Circuit also exhibits confidence that the rule of law will prevail, predicting that the “law in time will sign [the Executive’s] epitaph.” Sooner or later, Trump will lose, and his lawless deeds will be recorded in opinions and judgments like those issued by Judge Xinis and the Fourth Circuit.

Any rational president would take the hint and cut their losses before it is too late. Trump won’t act rationally, but the Fourth Circuit opinion is a template for the judgment of history that will be the epitaph of this administration.

Harvard resists more threats from Trump as other universities join Harvard in solidarity.

Trump threw a temper tantrum after Harvard University declined Trump’s invitation to surrender its independence and become a vassal state of MAGA world.

Trump’s first reaction was to order the IRS to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status—a task that the IRS is busily pursuing.

Trump’s second reaction was to threaten Harvard’s foreign students by demanding information that would allow ICE to harass and deport them. See The Guardian, Trump official threatens Harvard foreign student admissions as more universities rally in support.

Per The Guardian,

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said late on Wednesday that Harvard would lose its ability to enrol foreign students if it did not meet the Trump administration demands to share information on some visa holders.

Harvard sent a perfunctory reply that said, in essence, “See our prior response.”

Princeton and Columbia also issued statements of solidarity (joining Stanford University, among others). While it is true that Columbia University did agree to some oversight by the Trump administration, the acting president of Columbia issued the following statement:

To put minds at ease, though we seek to continue constructive dialogue with the government, we would reject any agreement that would require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy as an educational institution.

It looks as though Trump’s continued bullying of Harvard is having the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than intimidating other universities into silence, Trump’s bullying is inspiring them to action.

Courage is contagious! Keep up the good work, Harvard!

GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski breaks wall of silence behind which her colleagues are hiding, chastising them for abandoning the Constitution.

Democrats are only a handful of seats away from controlling the House and the Senate—or at least from being able to mount bipartisan resistance to Trump’s lawless agenda.

On Thursday, Senator Lisa Murkowski said the quiet part out loud as she spoke at an annual leadership summit in Alaska. As reported by the Alaska News Daily,

Murkowski was exceptionally candid, criticizing aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to implementing policy measures and service cuts, some of which she described as “unlawful.”

Murkowski said, in part,

We are all afraid. It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.

It’s called the checks and balances. And right now we are not balancing as the Congress.

I share this with you not to say that ‘we don’t know anything,’ but I’m saying that things are happening so fast through this Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE … none of us understand the half of it,

There is a growing number of Republicans, which needs to happen, who are saying ‘Medicaid is off the table.”

See also Talking Points Memo, Murkowski Calls Out Her Colleagues For Abandoning Their Constitutional Duties

Senator Murkowski’s comments should give us hope that the protests and resistance are having their intended effect. As the Senator noted, her colleagues are getting nervous about cuts to Medicaid that are a necessary part of the House’s recent budget proposal.

As noted in the Talking Points Memo article linked above,

A dozen House Republicans sent a letter to House GOP leadership and Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) earlier this week, warning them that they won’t vote in favor of any reconciliation package that includes sweeping cuts to “Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in the infamous El Salvadoran prison—a testament to his persistence, resistance, and creative thinking.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia one day after El Salvadoran authorities refused Senator Van Hollen’s request. See The Guardian, Maryland senator meets Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador amid battle over US return | US immigration.

We will learn more on Friday after Senator Van Hollen returns to the US, but he deserves kudos for his persistence, resistance, and creative thinking in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In the words of the great Wayne Gretzky, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Senator Van Hollen took a long shot—and was successful. We need more bold action and creative thinking from Democratic leadership!

Weekend Protests on 250th Anniversary of Lexington and Concord

Saturday, April 19, 2025, is the 250th Anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord—events that served as the catalysts for the American War of Independence.

Although nationwide protests will be taking place, the impetus for the protests is being driven from the local level of grassroots organizations. It has been difficult to find reliable, organized platforms to help direct readers to nearby protests.

I suggest you check with your local chapters of grassroots organizations as the the best way to make your voice heard.

But also check out:

The Big List of Protests

Tesla Takedown | Take action at Tesla showrooms everywhere.

FiftyFity.one (This site has been crashing and is a bit difficult to navigate, but many readers recommend it.)

Trump says that Fed Chair Jerome Powell “can’t quit soon enough.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said at a speech on Wednesday that reducing interest rates in the face of unprecedented tariffs would be difficult. Trump immediately told reporters that he was eager for Powell’s termination as Fed Chair. See ABC News, Trump says he’s eager for Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s ‘termination’.

Terminating the Fed Chair over policy differences would be unlawful. The Supreme Court would decide any legal dispute, but the markets would deliver a swift and negative reaction to any effort by Trump to take over monetary policy from the Federal Reserve. Trump has already demonstrated his economic ignorance when it comes to tariffs. The markets would revolt if he claimed the authority to change interest rates for political purposes.

As I said above, the threat against Jerome Powell reeks of desperation as Trump attempts to escape from the tariff war he created without forethought.

Concluding Thoughts

I will hold my usual Saturday morning live stream on Substack on April 19, 2025, at 9 a.m. PDT / Noon Eastern. I will post the recording of the video shortly after the meeting concludes.

Because of the length of this newsletter, I will be very brief in my concluding thoughts. Pundits and Democratic politicians are saying that Democrats should stop talking about the state-sponsored kidnapping of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, DEI, and transgender people. Instead, they say, we should talk about the economy because that is the smart “political” move.

Human rights transcend politics. If we abandon the defense of human rights, then politics is reduced to petty battles over personal power. The object of politics is to ensure the dignity, liberty, and safety of the people.

We must never surrender our commitment to the values that animate our political efforts. Let’s be brave enough to seek political victory without abandoning the people for whom we engage in the art of politics.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Daily Dose of Perspective

The tradition of decorating eggs can be traced back over 60,000 years in Africa. In pre-dynastic Egypt, decorated eggs were associated with re-birth, which led early Christian communities to adopt the custom of decorating eggs during their Easter celebrations.

Thursday, Jill and I dyed eggs with our granddaughters. (ages 2, 4, and 4) in preparation for Easter morning. (Photo of the finished products below.) In doing so, we were repeating a custom that has endured for 60,000 years. Something to think about as we head into another Spring!