Many people are upset that Elon Musk, who was not elected or even duly appointed as a public official, is on a “destructive rampage” through various government agencies, a rampage that appears to be both illegal and decidedly random and irrational.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/05/musk-republicans-government
In response, some people have also gone beyond legal boundaries to torch Teslas at dealerships around the U.S. because of Musk’s own destructive rampage.
A quick aside: coming to the defense of “DOGE” and Musk, the President and the Secretary of Commerce have been making sales pitches for Tesla. This is a clear departure from Presidential norms and typical behavior of federal Cabinet members.
As a lawyer, and a professor of law and policy, what mostly gets my attention here is that our Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has vowed to prosecute people who have set Teslas on fire as “domestic terrorists.”
“The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,” Bondi said on March 20th. “Let this be a warning: If you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.” While she did not specify the charges against three defendants accused of lighting fires (or attempting to) with Molotov cocktails in Oregon, Colorado, and South Carolina, the department announcement stated that, if convicted, they could receive a “minimum penalty of five years and up to 20 years in prison.”
Fair enough, we might suppose –– Bleach Bondi will not allow crimes to be committed without consequence. In that case, why has she publicly supported the blanket pardons of all duly convicted January insurrectionists, many of which pleaded guilty? As we will see, many of them clearly qualify as “domestic terrorists.” Yet she has called for the creation of a “weaponization working group” that will examine the “pursuit of improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions” stemming from the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. She did not publicly object to President Trump’s blanket pardon of nearly 1,600 defendants related to January 6 on his first day in office.
So, she as top official in the DOJ now aims to punish the people who were making sure that those who committed crimes would face “consequences”? She is aiming the might of the DOJ against people who were doing their jobs to administer impartial justice and provide the due process of trials before competent federal judges? And besides, is torching a Tesla clearly evidence of “domestic terrorism”? I think not.
A domestic terrorist is defined as an individual who commits acts dangerous to human life that violate criminal laws within their own country, with the intention to:
- Intimidate or coerce a civilian population
- Influence government policy through intimidation or coercion
- Affect government conduct through mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping
For the “Tesla torchers,” perhaps you could argue that #2 applies, assuming that there is truly “intimidation” in such actions. And perhaps it might influence Musk to stop his destructive rampage, “thus” influencing government policy? But Musk is not even a government official, and the White House said in February that he is not, and has no authority over public policy.
By contrast, those who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 were, by all reliable accounts, engaging in acts of domestic terrorism, designed to not only influence government policy through intimidation and violence, but to overturn the results of a free and fair election in November of 2020. And most legal experts agree that the prosecutions of those involved went through the usual and proper processes of the criminal law.
Not everyone agrees that due process was provided to all defendants in all cases; the decidedly partisan New York Post does not agree. See https://nypost.com/2023/03/08/an-egregious-denial-of-due-process-for-jan-6-protesters/)
Bondi seems to agree with Trump and the New York Post that the January 6 defendants were all “peaceful tourists” and “patriots.” She has announced plans to investigate the conduct of prosecutors and federal agents involved in the January 6 investigations, stating, “We will find them, and they will no longer be employed.”
But this is blatantly hypocritical. Bondi has endorsed Trump’s pardons of actual domestic terrorists. And, as noted below, she is perfectly willing to back up Trump in his threats and orders against any law firm or lawyer who would dare stand up to executive orders and government actions that are clearly illegal. Many law firms that represented (and won their cases) before various courts in Trump’s first term of office have been threatened, and cowed, by Trump’s bullying tactics. They may not be “terrorized,” but they have been intimidated and coerced for voicing the “wrong” political policies and daring to defy Trump in his first term of office.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/25/trump-law-firms
These punitive actions are manifestly unfair and un-American: the only “wrongs” committed by the targeted firms and individual lawyers were that they represented clients and issues in the courts that went against Trump’s agenda. Representation before the courts is a form of political speech, the most highly protected category of speech under the First Amendment. That the law firm of Paul, Weiss did not “fight back” was evidently a calculation based on short term financial gains and losses.
But it hardly represents impartial justice coming from Trump and Bondi. During her confirmation hearing, Bleach Bondi promised during to “administer justice impartially and free from political considerations.” Her avowed view was that the criminal prosecutions of Mr. Trump were a weaponization of the justice system. She, however, would be impartial and apolitical?
Impartial justice is exactly what most legal experts say is founded on “due process” and the “rule of law.” But Trump (sworn to uphold the Constitution twice, in his first and in his second Inauguration) seems content to violate due process and the rule of law whenever it shows him as a “strong leader” who will do “whatever it takes” to rid the nation of “invaders” and “radical left lunatic” judges. This entails not only ignoring the will of Congress and the Courts to project a “manly” image of strength and resolution. Rushing to give Trump cover, Fox News now rails against “activist judges” who are simply trying to provide due process and follow the rule of law.
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6370386591112
The case that has Fox fulminating against “activist judges” is the mass deportation of supposed Venezuelan gang members who “invaded” the U.S. They were deported with no due process, no showing to any court of law that they were criminals or represented any sort of threat to the U.S. And it was based on a law, the Alien Enemies Act (1798) that has never been used in a situation like this one, and was that was crafted to deal with actual invasions by foreign nations. To be fair, it’s likely that there were some very bad actors in that group of Venezuelans. (It would be error to call then deportees, since deportation signifies an actual legal process.) But many of them were apparently guilty only of being Venezuelan and having a tattoo or two.
One federal district court judge, James Boasberg, has questioned the legality of the government’s actions when the ACLU and the Democracy Forward Foundation brough a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the removal of the alleged gang members. Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order, which was appealed by the DOJ, and today (Mar. 26) a D.C. Circuit Court upheld the restraining order by a vote of 2 – 1, with one Trump-appinted judge dissenting.
Notably, threats against the judge, both physical and legal, have come from Trump supporters.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/bondi-says-judge-no-ask-212631559.html
Trump himself wrote on Truth Social, “If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!”
It is truly remarkable that the Chief Justice, just a week ago, warned against threatening federal judges who were just doing their job. In response, Trump “doubled down” on his criticisms of the judge, despite there being no evidence yet provided by the DOJ to Judge James Boasberg that the people sent away were criminals, or even actual Venezuelans, or that even one is a known “murderer.” In an excellent Amicus podcast, linked below, Quinta Jurecic explains why the DOJ has no rational legal grounds for taking the 238 Venezuelans and sending them to El Salvador, where U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for a prison there which is sometimes described as a concentration camp.
Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International, noted that the government’s action came despite “a court order explicitly barring their removal,” and represents not a flagrant disregard of the United States’ human rights obligations. It’s made worse by Trump (and Fox News) calling for “the firing of a federal judge of the United States Judiciary.”
The Amicus interview with Quinta Jurecic can be found here, in a podcast called The Rule of Law took a Very Dark Turn Last Week:
Impartial justice? Words tend to lose their ordinary meaning in the hands of hypocritical, “gaslighting” Trumpian politicos. For many years, angry conservatives decried “the War on Christmas,” or the “War on Coal,” or even a “War on Hamburgers.” (Seriously. Fighting climate change through law and policy, we were told by Fox News and others, was a “war” on regular Americans whose enjoyment of a burger was threatened by “that fascist” Joe Biden’s climate polities.)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/28/joe-biden-climate-crisis-republicans-meat
But now we are witnessing a real war, not a fake one; it’s a war on Truth, a war on Due Process and the Rule of Law, a war on Free Speech, and War on Democracy, all subjects to be taken up on Perfectly Legal But Wrong in due course. Unless and until the Supreme Court rules that Trump and Musk’s destruction of rules, norms, and institutions are illegal –– and, more importantly, that Trump and Musk actually comply with legal orders –– the war on anything Trump doesn’t like will continue his corruption of the rule of law. Trump, Vance (and Steven Miller) are signaling loud and clear that compliance with the law is optional, and that they may not.
J.D. Vance, for example, said in February that judges who have issued rulings temporarily blocking some of Donald Trump’s most contentious executive orders should not be allowed to control the president’s “legitimate power.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/jd-vance-judges-trump
“Our” Department of Justice should not be in service to the whims of a mercurial and often revenge-seeking President. AG Bondi’s selective persecutions and prosecutions at the behest of the President’s retributive agenda are perfectly legal. And perfectly bad for America.