I mentioned this in today’s newsletter, but I wanted to share more details of this remarkable decision by the Fourth Circuit… authored by conservative icon Harvie Wilkinson.
It's the words of the order that were thunderous. The author was J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee and a conservative icon particularly known for deference to the Executive. It’s an opinion that is by turns politic, blunt, reproachful, and horrified at the precipice that the Administration’s lawlessness and arrogance have brought us to. It ends with an extraordinary direct appeal to the Executive to “vindicate [the rule of law] and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.”
The opinion is short—only six pages—and plain-spoken. It aims to bring home the stakes of this historic showdown moment to everyone, not just lawyers. Early in the opinion, Wilkinson writes:
“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 assemblage of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody, there is nothing that can be done.
This should be shocking not only to judges but to the intruder sense of liberty that Americans far removed from the courthouse still hold dear.”
Future accounts of this high-crisis moment that document the democracy’s demise—or its resurgence, as the case may be—will include the words that Wilkinson wrote yesterday.
Considering everything—where we are as a democracy, the stakes of the Abrego-Garcia case in particular, the truculent posture of the Administration, Wilkinson’s place and reputation in the federal judiciary—the opinion is fairly magnificent.
You can find the full opinion here.
Friday afternoon dogs
Via my wife’s magnificent Substack, some pictures of Eli’s difficult morning.
We had spring thunderstorms this morning, and both dogs were frightened. Auggie ran to find Dad. But Eli and I sat in the dry bathtub together for a while, and even though he was trembling, he snuggled up to me. Eventually my head was aching, and I needed coffee, so I went to get some during a lull in the storm. When I came back, he had shifted to my closet. How he gets the doors open, I still don’t know. I sat with him for a while, but as the storm faded, he fell asleep.
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