Ignore Trump’s Kettle Logic
David Swanson / David Swanson,org

(March 19, 2025) — I have zero law degrees. I admit to simply opposing kidnapping people and sticking them in distant foreign prisons.

But I feel perfectly qualified — as I think we all should — to reject Trump’s “legal” defenses of his outrages out of hand.

In one AP report, we can read that Trump and/or his lawyers have claimed several things that don’t meet an individual or collective smell test.

First, Trump claimed he could violate a judge’s order to turn around airplanes if the airplanes were already outside of US territory. What? Was Trump himself outside of US territory? Does he have a pass for violating all laws if he does leave US territory? Don’t US courts find people liable for crimes committed far from the US all the time?

Wouldn’t a claim that US courts cannot prosecute US crimes if they have some connection to areas outside the United States not only allow but require international courts, and foreign courts using universal jurisdiction, to step in on behalf of Ye Ole Rules Based Order?

Second, Trump claimed he could ignore a judge’s orders unless he received them in writing. Hey, kids, try this one with a cop next time you get pulled over. “Put that in writing, officer, or shove it up your unified executive.”

Third, Trump claimed that he could say the words “national security,” and all laws and rules would melt away. I have two concerns with this one. (A) It’s laughable fascistic bullshit. (B) I think I would feel more of a sense of “national security” if some dude from Venezuela allegedly got a tattoo than I would if Trump were allowed to kidnap anyone he wants.

Fourth, Trump claimed that dudes from Venezuela having tattoos constitutes a military invasion of the United States, which eliminates all requirement for the government to obey court orders. By itself this reaches the level of diminishing anyone who lowers himself to respond to it.

Trump seems to be saying: “Your honor, I violated your order but there was a war on and the planes were out of your reach because they were not in the nation. Also, this was a matter of national security for the nation that the planes were not in. Also, I never violated anything because there was no order in writing.”

Sigmund Freud related the story of a man who was accused by his neighbor of having returned a kettle in a damaged condition. The man maintained that he had returned the kettle undamaged, and also it had been already damaged when he borrowed it, and also he had never borrowed it at all.

Freud was not nominating this guy for US president.