The Question Inside Trump's White House Wasn't If They Could Suspend Rights--It Was If They Could Get Away With it

[Amaryllis]

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-question-inside-trumps-white

Joyce Vance
Jun 15, 2026

The headline read “Frustrated by Courts, Trump Weighed Suspending a Constitutional Right.” It teased the story like this: “Secret memos show that the White House debated last year, to a greater degree than previously known, whether to limit habeas corpus rights for undocumented immigrants.”

What follows is an outrageous attempt, even though it ultimately failed, at least for now, to shatter firmly established constitutional rights and protections. In sharing this story, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan are giving us a peek at their forthcoming book. Leaving aside, for the moment, the inevitable debate over whether journalists have an obligation to report in real time as opposed to holding their most interesting revelations for later publication, their reporting in this story puts together some previously known or suspected information with new details to provide detailed support for understanding this administration as a threat to democratic ideals.

On April 29, 20205, A confidential memo written by White House staff secretary Will Scharf, who is a lawyer, warned Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles that a plan to suspend habeas corpus for unauthorized immigrants was in the works. Haberman and Swan write that it was “careful and lawyerly but amounted to a warning against end-running the rule of law.”

Habeas corpus is the legal right to challenge government-imposed confinement. The Latin phrase roughly translates to “you shall have the body,” and the legal doctrine brings people to court to require the government to justify why an individual is in custody—regardless of citizenship status. In other words, it’s the basic check that prevents government from locking people up indefinitely without sufficient reason. It’s a foundational protection against “disappearing people”. Habeas is the heart of due process.

[VBNMW_Realist]

1. Morals Out The Window

From the standpoint of Donald Trump and most of the Republican Party, morals don't mean anything (unless it comes to their favorite bible verses). And the law doesn't mean anything either if they don't get punished for breaking it. I have said this since 2016 and it is even more true now: the only reason that Trump has not been even worse is that the courts will not allow him. When he tried to overturn the 2020 election, he was serious about it even though he knew he had lost. He is a fraudster.

As we saw in this effort to suspend habeas corpus, and some other cases, the legal system along with the US constitution is one of the only things standing in the way of Trump being able to become a dictator, and then appoint a younger crony like JD Vance or someone else who has acted in lockstep with him recently.

The midterms need to be a bloodbath for Republicans to show we will not tolerate wannabe dictators.

[Fiendish Thingy]

3. It will be a bloodbath.

I have no doubt.

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. Which is why they didn't do it

The lawyers knew they would be disbarred, and the rest knew that anyone held without habeas would be ordered immediately released by the courts, laying the groundwork for a colossal constitutional crisis, one that could be the catalyst for an impeachment and removal.

Reminder:

Trump is not omnipotent, and the states and the people are not powerless

Something keeps this administration from enacting the full blown dystopian nightmare scenarios everyone fears- what is it?

My guess is self-preservation.

[wyn borkins]

4. Who's Running The Show (?)

Who indeed (?). It cannot be DJT, because he (most likely) cannot spell nor does he understand either word (habeas corpus).

The Question Inside Trump's White House Wasn't Whether They Could Suspend Rights—It Was Whether They Could Get Away With It (by Joyce Vance on 260616 at Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance)

[Amaryllis]

5. Voight and Miller

[wyn borkins]

6. No Doubt About It...

...and may they soon spend time together in an 8x8 window-less concrete jail cell...