What’s so wrong with fraud and First Amendment violations anyway?

Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.

This week, we’ve got some old favorites rearing their ugly heads. From defying court orders to forcing kids to look at the Ten Commandments to doing just a little light voter fraud and a very big monetary fraud, conservatives were out in full force—and full stupidity—as per usual. 

Judge Boasberg will not be intimidated

Despite a full-court press of attacks from the Trump administration, including the Department of Justice filing an absolutely fake misconduct complaint against him, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg is moving ahead with contempt proceedings against the administration. The proceedings are slated to start next week unless President Donald Trump figures out how to get his Big Cool Friends at the Supreme Court to block it. 

Boasberg is like a dog with a bone here (that’s a compliment!), tenaciously digging in to make the administration explain exactly how defying his March 15 order to turn the planes heading to CECOT around was somehow not actually defying a court order. 

One wrinkle? Boasberg needs to take testimony from people involved in that decision, but one of them is now sitting in a lifetime seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. We know exactly what type of behavior this administration rewards. 

Federal judge still won’t throw out the First Amendment, how dare he

U.S. Federal Judge Orlando Garcia, some weenie liberal who doesn’t understand America, just blocked 14 Texas school districts from enforcing the incredibly unconstitutional law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments. 

Well, one particular version of the Ten Commandments. The King James version, natch. 

Garcia held that this violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, because of course it does, but that’s really the whole point. Texas is pushing this precisely because it is unconstitutional, but they really, really want the Supreme Court to have a case so it can rule otherwise. Hey, it worked for abortion, right?

Uh, we might have found the voting fraud you’re looking for?

Every accusation is a confession, etc.

The right continues to howl nonstop about nonexistent voter fraud. Conservatives are so sure that’s what is blocking them from electoral success, versus the fact that their policies are a wallop of fascist suck. But listen: What if they could find some actual fraud? Bet you’d shut your liberal piehole then!

Too bad the fraud that turned up was that Republican Arizona state Rep. Austin Smith seems to have done a wee bit of signature forging on his 2024 nominating petition. Smith pulled the plug on his reelection campaign back in 2024 when the news broke, and this week, he pleaded guilty to attempted fraud and illegal signing of election petitions. 

Do we even need to say he is a believer in Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election? Follow-up: do we even need to say he was a leader in Turning Point USA?

Uh, we definitely found a different type of fraud

It has been difficult to keep track of all the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who got pardons from Trump and turned right around and kept doing crimes, because who was going to stop them? But repeat crime sprees, post-pardon, aren’t just for Trump’s violent little minions. They’re also for those he pardoned for fraud, which frees them up to just commit more fraud. 

Related | Pardoned Capitol rioter sentenced to life for assassination plots

On his way out the door in 2021, Trump commuted the sentence of Eliyahu “Eli” Weinstein, who had been sentenced to 24 years in prison, but he walked out after a bit under eight years behind bars. Weinstein had defrauded investors of roughly $230 million, a staggering sum for the people who lost that money, but basically a rounding error for Trump.

Because Weinstein absolutely totally definitely learned his lesson, he started doing some new fraud pretty much immediately. Now, he’s heading back to prison for 37 years after defrauding dozens of people to the tune of $35 million as part of a scheme where they were told they were getting access to deals to help Ukraine. Any odds on how long he’s incarcerated this time around before Trump pardons him so he can start some new fraud?

Musk couldn’t buy him a seat, but Trump will give him a job

After the 2024 presidential election, Elon Musk was definitely feeling like a superstar, secure in the knowledge that his money could buy him whatever election he wanted. Indeed, his money cleared the way for Trump to win again, so why not slosh some of that money around to other races, right?

That didn’t work out so well in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this year. Musk dumped about $15 million to back Brian Schimel, who still managed to lose to the Democratic candidate by 10 points. 

But you can’t keep a mediocre hard-right white guy down, now can you? Schimel apparently had Attorney General Pam Bondi on speed dial, so he texted her to ask if she would pretty please make him the interim U.S. attorney for Wisconsin. Now, he is. Neat how that works, and a real assurance we’re getting the most quality people, not just whoever Bondi last laid eyes on.

Related | Bid a not-so-fond farewell to Wisconsin’s worst Supreme Court justice