April 16, 2025 – The USA Potato

In El Salvador today, authorities denied Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) a meeting or a phone call with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man the Trump regime sent by “administrative error” to the terrorist prison CECOT. Abrego Garcia is Van Hollen’s constituent, and the senator promised his family to try to get him released. That Salvadoran officials cannot or will not produce him raises concerns about his well-being.

Senator Van Hollen had hoped to meet with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, but met instead with Vice President Félix Ulloa. Ulloa at first told Van Hollen there had not been enough time to arrange a meeting with Abrego Garcia, but when the senator offered to come back next week, Ulloa allowed as how a meeting might not be possible at all.

Van Hollen reported that when he asked Ulloa why El Salvador was continuing to imprison Abrego Garcia when it had no evidence that he was a gang member, Ulloa answered that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador to hold him.

Evidently, President Donald Trump thinks what he is doing to Abrego Garcia and the optics of CECOT play well to his base. Jordain Carney and Nicholas Wu of Politico reported today that the White House has “heavily encouraged” Republican lawmakers to lean into the idea of Abrego Garcia—who has no criminal record—as an example of the dangerous criminals they insist Democrats want to bring to the U.S. Yesterday, out of the blue and with absolutely no evidence, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Abrego Garcia engaged in human trafficking.

At least a dozen Republicans have followed the president’s lead. Congressional reporter Craig Caplan reported that yesterday, House Ways and Means committee chair Jason Smith (R-MO) led a delegation of Republican House members to tour CECOT. The delegation included representatives Ron Estes (KS), Kevin Hern (OK), Mike Kennedy (UT), Carol Miller (WV), Riley Moore (WV), and Claudia Tenney (NY). At least some of the representatives had photographs taken of them in CECOT, standing in front of the caged men.

The delegation also met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan, who posted on social media that “[t]he delegation is visiting the country to strengthen bilateral ties and discuss initiatives that promote economic development and mutual cooperation.”

Two days ago, Bukele posted a picture of himself and Trump with their arms around each other with the comment: “Friends.” Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews wrote: “We traded Europe for a guy that builds concentration camps for profit.”

Trump is likely pushing his narrative about criminal undocumented immigrants—although Bloomberg has reported that 90% of the men he has sent to El Salvador have no criminal record—in part because that rendition is stirring up opposition. In addition to popular protests, judges are pushing back.

Today, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued an opinion saying that the administration’s “hurried removal” of the men to El Salvador after Boasberg had issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting them from doing so, demonstrated “a wilful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”

“The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders—especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” Boasberg wrote. Quoting Chief Justice John Marshall, who laid down the foundations of much of America law, Boasberg wrote: “To permit such officials to freely ‘annul the judgments of the courts of the United States’ would not just ‘destroy the rights acquired under those judgments’; it would make ‘a solemn mockery’ of ‘the constitution itself.’”

If the government decides not to try to repair its contempt, Boasberg says the court will use declarations, hearings, or depositions to identify the individuals responsible for making the judgment to ignore the court. Then he will ask the government to prosecute the contempt, but if—as is likely—it refuses, Boasberg says he will appoint a private prosecutor to move the case along. As legal analyst Joyce White Vance puts it: “These cases are about making sure that, American citizen or not, criminal or not, peoples’ right to have the day in court that the Constitution guarantees them is honored. That’s all. But it’s everything.”

Trump is also likely playing to his base because Americans are terribly concerned about what’s happening to the economy on his watch.

Stocks fell again today after Trump’s administration said it would put limits on chip sales to China and after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago that Trump’s tariffs will have “significantly larger than anticipated…economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 700 points or 1.73%, the S&P 500 fell 2.24%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.07%.

Danielle Kaye of the New York Times reports on a recent Bank of America survey that shows global investors have dumped a record amount of U.S. stocks in the past two months. Trump insists that the U.S. has been bringing in $2 billion a day in tariffs, some of which he claims comes from his new levies, but, in fact, Lori Ann LaRocco of CNBC reported today that U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the U.S. is taking in only $250 million a day.

Leila Fadel of NPR reports that China used to buy more than half the U.S. crop of soybeans and now soybean farmers are gravely concerned they’re going to lose that market. At the same time, we are heading in the prime months for the U.S. tourism industry, and Bloomberg reports that a worst-case scenario by the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates that the U.S. could lose almost $90 billion as foreign tourists stay away from the U.S. and boycott American products.

So Trump is hitting his MAGA themes hard.

Today he escalated his attacks on Maine governor Janet Mills. Trump has demanded that Mills prohibit transgender girls in the public schools from participating in girls’ sports. Mills, who was Maine’s attorney general before she became governor, maintains she is bound by the 2021 state law that explicitly protects against discrimination on the basis of gender identity. As Jeremy Roebuck and Joanna Slater of the Washington Post note, Mills has said that law is “worthy of debate” but that Trump cannot change it by decree.

On February 21, Trump threatened to withhold federal education funding for Maine unless Mills promised to comply with his ban. When she reiterated that “I’m complying with state and federal laws,” and that “We’re going to follow the law,” he warned: “You’d better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding.” Mills answered: “See you in court.”

Since then, the administration has attacked the state, opening investigations, cutting and then restoring Social Security Administration contracts, and taunting Mills on social media. On Friday the Department of Education said it would pull all federal funding for education in Maine unless the state agreed to ban the state’s two transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams. Today the Justice Department sued Maine’s Department of Education, and Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to pull past funding retroactively.

Mills said the administration is trying “to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law.” “For nearly two months, Maine has endured recriminations from the Federal government that have targeted hungry school kids, hardworking fishermen, senior citizens, new parents, and countless Maine people,” Mills said. “We have been subject to politically motivated investigations that opened and closed without discussion, leaving little doubt that their outcomes were predetermined. Let today serve as warning to all states: Maine might be among the first to draw the ire of the Federal government in this way, but we will not be the last.”

Trump is also keeping his attack on Harvard in the news. Yesterday, after Harvard defied the regime’s attempt to take over the school, Trump posted “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”

Today, Evan Perez, Alayna Treene, and Marshall Cohen of CNN reported that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is planning to take away Harvard University’s tax-exempt status. Law professor Sam Brunson noted that this is illegal. “In 1998,” he wrote, “Congress explicitly provided that the President could not, directly or indirectly, request that the IRS start or end an audit or other investigation of a taxpayer.” Brunson also noted that the move was “dumb.” “Unless Trump has super-secret information, Harvard hasn’t done anything to violate its tax-exempt status.” Brunson added: “there’s not a single competent attorney left in the Administration.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board helpfully noted that the Supreme Court “has repeatedly held that the government may not use federal benefits or funds to coerce parties to surrender their constitutional rights. This is what the Administration is doing” with its demands on Harvard.

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark reposted a clip of then-senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) on the Fox News Channel when a right-wing group falsely alleged the IRS was targeting them. “This is about whether we have functional constitutional government in this country,” Vance told host Laura Ingraham. “If the IRS can go after you because of what you think or what you believe or what you do, we’d no longer live in a free country.“

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Notes:

https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/kilmar-abrego-garcia-el-salvador-maryland-man-deported/

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/16/kilmar-abrego-garcia-congress-el-salvador-00295147

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20250416a.htm

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-15/us-economy-is-set-to-lose-billions-as-foreign-tourists-stay-away

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/business/stocks-trump-tariffs.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/16/us-customs-tariffs-revenue-generated-since-april-5.html

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/nx-s1-5361357/u-s-soybean-farmers-urge-trump-to-ease-tariffs-on-china-to-protect-their-industry

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/11/maine-education-trump-janet-mills/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/04/16/justice-department-maine-transgender-athletes/

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/16/politics/irs-harvard-tax-exempt-status/index.html