FBI Head, Erases Tweet Regarding Wisconsin Judge's Arrest; Reason for Removal Remains Undisclosed.
Updated Take:
Jumpin' Jiminy, it's Kash Patel, the far-right crazyman who just happens to be the chief honcho at the ol' FBI, tweeting about the ratcheting of a judge in Wisconsin last Friday. This fella alleged that the judge, Judge Hannah Dugan, was trying to swing a wrench in the wheels of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But, mum's the word, 'cause Patel hastily pulled that tweet down the hatch within two hours. What were his motives? Well, that remains a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
Quiet as a church mouse, Patel then jumped back on the tweetin' bandwagon, retweeting the same hooey-laden info, and the mystery deepens. What got under his skin, you may ask? We're just as perplexed as the next guy. The U.S. Department of Justice took the weekend off, so they ain't gonna shed any light on this one anytime soon.
Patel spun a yarn of federal agents being misled and an illegal immigrant scooting off, thanks to some fancy footwork from the judge. He described the scene with the flair of a cheesy 80s cop show, with the added edge of insinuating that ol' Judge Dugan was a danger to the public at large. Plus, he promised more juicy tidbits shortly and tagged the FBI office in Milwaukee.
Now, if you're curious to see the original tweet, you're out of luck – it's gone as fast as a greased pig in a mud pit. But ol' Patel's phantom re-tweet appears to have the same wording, so we're left scratching our heads as to why he gave it the boot in the first place.
While ICE agents reportedly caught wind of the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 to collar a Mexican citizen in Judge Dugan's courtroom, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel spills the beans that Dugan directed the ICE agents to the chief justice's office, and the baddie slipped out the back door. Five experts all had different twists on Dugan's alleged missteps, but none thought she was criminal material.
Now, the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed (with a Texas-sized yawn) that Dugan was snagged around 8:30 a.m. local time (9:30 a.m. ET) on courthouse property and was charged with two felonies: obstruction and concealing an individual. At her hearing, she kept her trap shut, but her attorney filled the silence with a heartfelt protest of the arrest, stating that it wasn't pulled to keep the public safe. A former federal prosecutor in Milwaukee named Franklyn Gimbel called her arrest "outrageous" and suggested that the FBI could've just given her a ring and asked her to turn herself in. But hey, theatrics are always a top priority for the current admin, ain't they?
Dugan, 65, got her degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981 and earned her law luggage in 1987. She nabbed a seat on the county court, Branch 31, in 2016 and had a stint at Legal Action of Wisconsin and Legal Aid before that.
President Donald Trump did a similar jig with a federal judge in Massachusetts in a case that kicked off in 2019 but was dropped in 2022 by the Biden administration. Trump has made it clear that he's gonna war path on judges as a way to stomp his signature authoritarian style on the U.S. Of course, his buddy Elon Musk, the big kahuna of DOGE, has been itchin' for judge-bashing too. Musk even tweeted about this very situation on Friday, spittin' out, "More judicial corruption."
Kash Patel wangled his way into the big leagues at the FBI in late February, clinching the gig with a vote of 51-49. Every Democratic senator and two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voted against him. Patel was a bigwig in Trump Media, the company that owns Trump's social media platform Truth Social, before trading roles. He raked in at least $2.6 million from consulting and media deals, according to ABC News. And, in his spare time, he picked up the quill and wrote an absolute doozy of a children's book, entitled "The Plot Against the King."
The FBI director's no stranger to the QAnon conspiracy theory, put together a list of alleged deep-state dudes to take out, and has promised to "kick butt" against the media. But some of Patel's online buddies are fretting that he's been moving at a snail's pace when it comes to doling out consequences. So, we'll see if Patel's putting on a show for us all now that he's pushing the "grab the judiciary" portion of authoritarianism.
- The future of technology, policy-and-legislation, and politics may be influenced by the recent events surrounding Judge Hannah Dugan and Kash Patel, the new chief at the FBI, as he takes a more active role in tech-related matters.
- Gizmodo and tech enthusiasts are eagerly watching the unfolding situation between Kash Patel and Judge Hannah Dugan, as it sheds light on the blurred lines between law enforcement and judiciary, the general news, and even crime-and-justice.
- As Kash Patel, now at the helm of the FBI, continues to play a significant role in policy-and-legislation and tech, skeptics question whether his close ties to politicians and Silicon Valley magnates like Elon Musk will lead to potential conflicts of interest in the future.
- The debate over the role of judges in enforcing immigration policy, officiated by Judge Hannah Dugan's recent arrest, has once again brought attention to the complex relationship between policy-and-legislation, politics, and the judiciary in the United States.
