Dear Sen. Lee: What Are You Doing to Preserve the ‘Glorious 246-Year Legacy of Independence from Tyranny’?*
Dear Senator Lee:
I won’t take the time to detail the known ways Trump and his administration have set about to undermine our constitutional form of government, eliminate constitutional checks on the executive, and establish a tyrannical regime all while openly engaging in acts of public corruption. Nor will I detail the known ways you have participated in and enabled Trump’s illegal conduct by acting in certain ways when you shouldn’t have and failing to act when you had a duty to do so.
I trust you find oppressive tactics an affront to our country’s glorious 246-year legacy of independence from tyranny. Such conduct, I assume you agree, echoes despotism, making it fundamentally at odds with American values.
You said as much when Trump was charged in the classified documents case with multiple crimes against the United States. You posted:
“The Biden Administration’s actions can only be compared to the type of oppressive tactics routinely seen in nations such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, which are absolutely alien and unacceptable in America. It is an affront to our country’s glorious 246-year legacy of independence from tyranny, for the incumbent president of the United States to leverage the machinery of justice against a political rival. Such an act of absolute disrespect echoes despotism, making it fundamentally at odds with American Values.”
(Emphasis added.) You claimed he was above the law.
We know, of course — as do you — the exact opposite of your claim is true: failing to prosecute Trump for blatant violations of law that put the entire national security apparatus of the United States at risk would be comparable to despotic regimes and fundamentally at odds with American values, an affront to our country’s glorious 246-year legacy of independence from tyranny.
You recently posted on X, “This has the feel of a coup — not a military coup, but a judicial one.” (Emphasis added.)
Your tweet was in response to a validly issued federal court order that Trump’s conduct violated the law and exceeded executive authority. We have seen this kind of behavior before from you, your apostacy to the Constitution, your contempt for legal and constitutional safeguards when the GOP is the party in power — and attempts to stay in power through violent, illegal means. How, exactly, was that not “an affront to our country’s glorious 246-year legacy of independence from tyranny” that “echoe[d a] despotism . . . fundamentally at odds with American values”?
The New York Times recently reported:
“Congressional Republicans, egged on by Elon Musk and other top allies of President Trump, are escalating calls to remove federal judges who stand in the way of administration efforts to overhaul the government.
“The outcry is threatening yet another assault on the constitutional guardrails that constrain the executive branch.
“Judicial impeachments are rare and notoriously time-consuming. The mounting calls for removing federal judges, who already face increasing security threats, have so far not gained much traction with congressional leaders. Any such move would be all but certain to fail in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority would be needed for a conviction.
“But even the suggestion represents another extraordinary attempt by Republicans to breach the foundational separation of powers barrier as Trump allies seek to exert iron-fisted control over the full apparatus of government. And Democrats charge that it is designed to intimidate federal judges from issuing rulings that may go against Mr. Trump’s wishes. . . .
“The push comes as arch-conservative House Republicans have filed articles of impeachment against federal judges whom they portrayed as impediments to Mr. Trump, accusing them of acting corruptly in thwarting the administration. . . .
“Given the slim chance of successful impeachments for rulings rather than criminal misconduct, Democrats say the impeachment drumbeat is an obvious effort to cow judges and discourage them from making what Mr. Trump would consider adverse rulings. They say it follows a longstanding pattern of Mr. Trump and his allies attacking judges when the courts don’t go their way.
“‘It’s clear they’re trying to create an environment of intimidation to the judiciary to try to make certain that they don’t rule against President Trump and his policies,’ said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
“‘It is all about raw politics,’ said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and a senior member of the panel. ‘It may seem absurd and hypothetical to us here, but to judges, it is extremely threatening. It is plainly a device to bully and intimidate judges to think twice about issuing orders.’
“Political pressure on federal judges has reached a level that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted it in his year-end report issued in January. He scolded those who would try to browbeat the judiciary, saying that ‘attempts to intimidate judges for their rulings in cases are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed.’ . . .
“Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said in a social media post that ‘corrupt judges should be impeached and removed’ after earlier suggesting that rulings against the administration smacked of a ‘judicial coup.’”
Musk and Republican Lawmakers Pressure Judges with Impeachment Threats (Carl Hulse, March 1, 2025, updated March 3, 2025) (emphasis added).
Your loosely defined form of corruption in this context appears to mean a federal judge having the audacity to rule against Trump for his executive overreach and illegal conduct. There are lots of corrupt judges under your definition, even ones appointed by Trump, and the number is growing. Judges Who Have Thwarted the Trump Administration So Far (Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek, February 11, 2025)
Speaking of corruption, have you paid any attention to Trump and his administration?
Or are you choosing not to speak or act even though you have a sworn duty to do so?
Or is it now so common, open, and notorious within the Trump administration that you no longer recognize it as corruption — just business as usual?
By the way, this post’s original working title was something much different. It was, “Captain Moroni Springs Alleged Rapists/Human Sex Traffickers from Romanian Jail and Lets Them Loose in Florida.” I’d planned to discuss that topic and certain of Trump’s pardons, including that of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. Trump pardons Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht for online drug scheme (“Trump . . . pardoned Silk Road founder . . . who was sentenced to life in prison for running an underground online marketplace where drug dealers and others conducted more than $200 million in illicit trade using bitcoin”). Trump’s reckless and chaotic use of tariffs as pretext to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the country is, obviously, just another in a long and growing list of failed sleights of hand.
Something in the news changed my mind on the subject of this week’s essay. Your colleague on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), who is very intelligent but sometimes presents as a racist imbecile,[i] said something during his colloquy with three nominees for justice department positions that caught my attention, something I did not expect to hear from the likes of him and, sadly, I doubt we will ever hear from the likes of you — unless you are speaking against Democratic nominees.
The questioning focused on whether “the administration could simply ignore some court orders.” That topic has been foremost in the news of late, as noted in the Times article quoted above, with the House and Senate ceding Article I power to the unitary executive and the judiciary constituting the only remaining guardrail before the country flies off the edge and crashes into full blown tyranny.
The nominees refused to give straight answers. One nominee said:
“There is no hard and fast rule about whether, in every instance a public official is bound by a court decision. There are some instances in which he or she may be lawfully bound and some instances where he or she may not be lawfully bound.” (Emphasis added.)
Complying with federal court orders is now optional, at least for the Trump administration.
In a no nonsense tone, Senator Kennedy responded: “Don’t ever, ever take the position that you’re not going to follow the order of a federal court, ever. You can disagree with it, within the bounds of legal ethics, you can criticize it, you can appeal it, or you can resign.” Sen. Kennedy Advice to Judicial Nominees (emphasis added).
You, on the other hand, have made public your opposition to any impediment, including — especially — constitutional checks on this executive, that slows Trump’s rapid descent into authoritarianism. Sen. Mike Lee pushes to limit judges from blocking Trump’s agenda. See also Trump and his GOP allies aren’t being subtle about their contempt for the Constitution; The One Question That Really Matters: If Trump Defies the Courts, Then What? As Trump steamrolls Washington, courts flex their power to slow him down.
Please explain to your constituents, in detail, everything you are doing since Trump began flooding the zone with oppressive tactics that trample Article I powers — including implementing DOGE — to assure his administration is not “an affront to our country’s glorious 246-year legacy of independence from tyranny,” and to prevent behavior by the executive that “echoes despotism . . . fundamentally at odds with American values.”
It’s your duty.
Sincerely,
A constituent and registered Republican (so my vote in the primaries has the possibility of making a difference).
R.VanWagoner https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner publishes. https://richardvanwagoner.medium.com/subscribe
*My brother the very talented fiction writer and novelist, Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, deserves considerable credit for offering both substantive and technical suggestions to https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner. Rob’s second novel is a beautifully written suspense drama that takes place in Utah, Wyoming, and Norway. This novel, The Contortionists, which Rob himself narrates for the audio version, is a psychological page-turner about a missing child in a predominantly Mormon community. I have read the novel and listened to the audio version twice. It is a literary masterpiece. The Contortionists is not, however, for the faint of he
[i] GOP senator insults Arab American advocate at hearing on hate crimes (A “Senate Republican badgered an Arab American activist Tuesday during a congressional hearing about hate crimes with questions about whether she supported terrorist organizations [she does not], finally telling her that she should ‘hide your head in a bag.’”).