Last month, President Donald Trump shared an edited image of the knuckles of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident with protected status wrongfully sent to a Salvadoran detention facility. The photo showed “MS13” apparently added above his knuckle tattoos, even though other photos of his hand did not have that text. Last week, I had a chance to ask Homeland Security Security Kristi Noem if she had investigated how an edited image came into the president’s hands. Not only did she refuse to answer, she barely acknowledged that the image was edited.
Politics is hyperbole. I know that voters have become inured to politicians saying, “The opposing party is the end of the country as we know it!” But what we are witnessing today is like nothing we have seen since the founding of this country, almost 250 years ago. Every warning light on democracy’s dashboard now flashes red.
Perhaps in just a few months, Trump’s authoritarian ambitions will be realized.
Since taking the Oval Office, Trump has never been coy about his ambitions to rule as a dictator rather than serve as a president, accountable to the people who put him there. In just the past few months, he’s laid out the groundwork to jail innocent people and silence his political enemies, all under the guise of “law and order.” Perhaps in just a few months, Trump’s authoritarian ambitions will be realized. And it will be like how Hemingway described how one grows broke: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”Just last week, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and one of his longest-serving enablers, said the White House was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus for immigrants.
Let’s be clear: Suspending the constitutional right to challenge unlawful detention is not some academic exercise or abstract policy debate, as many on the right may claim. Miller is deadly serious. There is no ambiguity. Equally explicit is the United States Constitution: Only Congress can suspend habeas corpus, and only in cases of actual rebellion or invasion.
Suspending habeas corpus is the move of dictators and despots. It’s the legal backbone of jailing innocent people without cause, without trial, without recourse. It’s what tyrants invoke when they can’t win in court or don’t want to try. Miller says the justification is an “invasion,” but federal courts keep dismissing that claim.
The groundwork for jailing the innocent is being laid right now — not behind closed doors, but out in the open.First, Trump appointed Kash Patel as FBI director, an unqualified podcaster who published a book listing names of Trump’s enemies who should be imprisoned. I didn’t make the top 60; rather, I was mentioned in the foreword to Patel’s list as a legislator who should be targeted.
Next, in Trump’s first hours as president, rather than issuing executive orders that would lower consumer costs, he pardoned or commuted the sentence of every Jan. 6 criminal. A man willing to free hundreds of political allies seems more than willing to jail his political enemies.
Trump demonstrated he’s willing to tell any lie to justify jailing anyone.
Accordingly, last month, Trump directed his attorney general to investigate Christopher Krebs, former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. Krebs made the mistake of declaring the 2020 election the most secure in history. Taylor had the courage to organize other concerned Trump national security officials to bring to light Trump’s constitutional crimes.And Trump demonstrated he’s willing to tell any lie to justify jailing anyone — which brings us back to Abrego Garcia. In April, the Trump administration admitted in court that it had mistakenly sent Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
Every court that’s heard Abrego Garcia’s appeal — including the Supreme Court — has ordered Trump to facilitate his return to the United States. When asked about the case, Trump boasted he “could” return Abrego Garcia, but he “won’t.” To justify the man’s imprisonment, Trump has pointed to the altered image.
History shows us where this is going. Miller’s suggestions are just one more brick in the groundwork of Trump’s path toward total governmental control.
But the other sections of this country have started to stir.
Courts, including Trump-appointed judges, have begun their pushback against the president’s overreaches. They must continue not to sign off on his efforts to investigate and indict his opponents.The press has doggedly covered Trump’s corruption, cruelty and incompetence. It must also uncover the whistleblowers and fair-minded workers in the Justice Department who will expose retaliation against anyone who exercises their First Amendment rights. The only check that’s failed us is the Republican-led Congress. It has confirmed all of Trump’s unqualified appointees and rubber-stamped every piece of his legislative agenda. But I’m still fighting to preserve the checks we still have left. We have seen a wave of energized Americans who refuse to let their representatives whitewash what is going on. In the coming weeks, I’ll introduce legislation to allow the chief justice of the Supreme Court to choose the U.S. marshals who protect our judges, because their safety shouldn’t depend on the president they may have to rule against. I also introduced the Journalist Protection Act to protect members of the press and hold those who target reporters with violence or intimidation accountable.Most importantly, everyday citizens now flood their town squares and stand up in town halls. They must continue to refuse to let democracy die on their watch. What heartens me the most? Seeing this happen repeatedly in deeply red districts. Gradually, then suddenly, we have seen a wave of energized Americans who refuse to let their congressional representatives whitewash what is going on. Fearless about retribution, they are rising across this country shouting again and again and again: “I might have voted for him. But I didn’t vote for this.” We all must stand up and fight, or lose this democracy we have cherished for so long.
Rep. Eric Swalwell
Rep. Eric Swalwell represents California’s 14th congressional district in the House of Representatives. 
