conuly

Jack Goldsmith at Executive Functions points out that this appears to be a carefully orchestrated campaign aimed at (a) keeping liberals in panic-mode, (b) keeping the MAGA base happy, and perhaps (c) moving the Overton window so when they do it for real, it won’t inspire as much opposition.

Technically, neither Trump nor Miller actually said the administration was considering suspending habeus corpus, much less by executive order. Both called on friendly “reporters” who asked questions worded to suggest that, and both replied to those questions with ambiguity and plausible deniability. “We’re not planning that, but we’re not NOT planning that. Wink, wink, nudge nudge.”