Contempt

Under Trump, federal law enforcement scorns the courts

Take a look at this photo.

That is Gregory Bovino, US Border Patrol chief in Chicago. He’s the man who is running Border Patrol’s operations in “Operation Midway Blitz,” the immigration crackdown in Chicago.

I want you to notice a few things in this picture.

First, you’ll see Bovino is surrounded by several heavily armed agents. He is very well protected.

Second, he is not wearing any helmet or mask. Bovino loves publicity.

Third—he is throwing a tear gas canister at protestors.

And one thing you can’t see in this photo: Those protestors are unarmed.

All of this is par for the course for Bovino, who is a rising star in the Trump administration’s transformation of ordinary immigration enforcement into partisan-driven population control in cities run by Democrats. Gregory Bovino the future of Trumpian federal law enforcement.

He is a grown man who seems to have a teenage addiction to social media, preening and posing and dreaming up heroic images for himself. Never a good sign in an adult, but a hallmark of this administration, the Team of Trolls. Check out this post; if your son put out this kind of self-glorification on his social media, you’d know you failed as a parent:

More important, Bovino, like so many others in the Trump administration, treats our courts with contempt.

Two weeks ago, Judge Sara Ellis, after hearing several days of testimony and argument, issued a temporary restraining order against Bovino and the other leaders of Operation Midway Blitz. Judge Ellis’s order is a remarkable public document, a noble effort to stem the tide of lawlessness in federal law enforcement. It is a document that reveals where we are and where we’re heading.

You can read the entire order here—it’s worth it. But one part is especially relevant to that picture of Gregory Bovino. The judge had specifically enjoined Bovino and other federal law enforcement from:

“Using riot control weapons––including kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), Compressed Air Launchers (e.g., PLS and FN303), Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray, CS gas, CN gas, or other chemical irritants, 40 mm Munitions Launchers, less-lethal shotguns, Less-Lethal Specialty Impact-Chemical Munitions (LLSI-CM), Controlled Noise and Light Distraction Devices (CNLDDs), Electronic Control Weapons (ECWs)––on members of the press, protesters, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.”

That’s pretty clear, right?

And it’s a shame that something so fundamental to Americans’ rights to assemble and free speech needed to be spelled out like that to senior members of federal law enforcement.

Here’s the entire video of Bovino tossing that gas canister.

This time, take a look at the heavily armed men surrounding Bovino. (The person who recorded it is very careful not to record their faces; that’s where we are.) Do those men show in their posture that they are under any threat at all? No. Bovino is simply tossing gas at people who are shouting at him, or even blocking his path, but in no way “posing an immediate threat.”

Bovino casually violated a court order. That is contemptuous, in the moral if not legal sense of the word.

So yesterday, Judge Ellis haled Bovino into federal court, and grilled him about this scene, about the tactics he and his agents are using, and about the Trump administration’s respect for court orders.

Heather Cherone, a senior politics reporter for WTTW in Chicago, was in the courtroom and posted updates on her Bluesky account. She captured the righteous anger of a federal judge at a law-enforcement officer who is clearly out of control.

“Ellis calls Bovino to the stand. He is wearing his uniform. He is sworn in. He has no visible head injury, even though federal officials said he was struck Friday in the head by protestors before he deployed tear gas in Little Village…

“Ellis is reminding Bovino of the oath he took when he became a Border Patrol officer -- the same oath she took when she became a federal judge.

“We both agreed to support and defend the Constitution,” Ellis said. Bovino is listening impassively…

“Folks have the right to be on public property absent exigent circumstances, Ellis says. People standing on sidewalks and filming and shouting do not present an immediate threat to law enforcement officers, Ellis says, explaining her order…”

And on it went.

Judge Ellis seemed particularly angered by what happened on the streets of the historic neighborhood of Old Irving Park, when federal agents deployed tear gas after residents protested their attempts to detain a construction worker—while a parade was going on nearby.

“Kids dressed in Halloween costumes, walking to a parade, do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer,” Ellis said. “They just don’t.”

And the judge added that the entire community had been traumatized by the actions of federal agents, particularly children who witnessed the confrontation and experienced the effect of the chemical agent.

“Their sense of safety was shattered,” Ellis said. “It is going to take a long time to come back, if ever.”

Gregory Bovino cannot be trusted. That essentially was Judge Ellis’s conclusion. She ordered Bovino to appear in federal court each weekday at 6 p.m. to report on daily immigration operations. She also ordered that he turn over all agents’ use of force reports from Sept. 2 through Oct. 25, as well as the bodycam footage corresponding to those reports, by Friday.

And she ordered Bovino himself to wear a body camera from now on. He doesn’t. She ordered that he turn it on, too.

These are extraordinary steps for a federal judge to take against a high-ranking federal law-enforcement officer. For a normal law-enforcement officer, they would represent a deep humiliation and damage his career. But they likely won’t stop Bovino in the near term, or curtail the unconstitutional tactics he and the whole Trump immigration apparatus are using. They don’t give a damn about courts.

But Judge Ellis is telling us something. Government officials and ordinary citizens can and must stand up for our traditional constitutional values and our constitutional rights. The bluster and bombast and social-media trolling of people like Gregory Bovino is hollow. His bullying contempt for all those old constitutional precepts and practices is merely a kind of cosplay. The Constitution is stronger than all that. We are all stronger than his contempt.