Think we’re not in a constitutional crisis yet? We’re not. We’re in several.

One involves Elon Musk and DOGE, barging their way into the United States Institute for Peace, created by Congress under Ronald Reagan, with DOGE staffers apparently ripping the organization’s logo off the wall. DOGE is not an arm of the government. It’s a quasi-private goon squad taking a machete across Washington, D.C., at the personal whims of two men. Any non–ideologically zealous court would toss its actions in five minutes—as indeed at least one already has, with respect to USAID.

There’s so much more. The revocation of birthright citizenship. The attempted federal spending freeze. The attempted firings of agency heads. The ordered removal of federal employees with civil service protections. That birthright citizenship order—contravening the plain text of the Constitution—was issued on Donald Trump’s very first day in office. Arguably, the constitutional crisis started right then and there. Since, three different judges have blocked the order.

But shocking as all that has been, nothing touches what Trump is trying to do to Judge James Boasberg over those three planes full of alleged Venezuelan gang members. The administration’s latest legal gambit—to invoke the state secrets privilege in an attempt not to have to disclose any information about the detainees or the flights—amounts to an effort by Trump to say that he can take any action against anyone he deems a danger to the state. That’s an attempt at dictatorship.

Let’s go back in time. First of all, what was the Alien Enemies Act, whose authority Trump invoked to detain the Venezuelans? It was part of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, passed by Congress under President John Adams. If you learned high school history the way I did, you were told that passage of that law was, to put it mildly, not one of America’s finer moments. Passed as the young United States stood on the brink of war with France, with various French nationals milling about our cities, it gave the president extraordinary emergency powers. The next president, Thomas Jefferson, allowed all aspects of the broader law to expire except for the Alien Enemies Act, which allows the president to declare certain unnaturalized persons "alien enemies."

It’s been invoked only three times, all during wartime. It does include language referring to "any invasion or predatory incursion," which is what Trump is claiming. But Georgetown law prof Steve Vladeck told NPR: "No one has tried to argue that that ‘invasion or predatory incursion’ language could be used in any context other than a conventional war." That is, until last week.

Meanwhile, the state secrets privilege has its roots way back in Aaron Burr’s treason trial, when the government suppressed a letter from a colonel to President Jefferson on the grounds that the letter contained state secrets. The Supreme Court didn’t speak on this until 1953, in United States v. Reynolds, which saw the first formal recognition of the privilege: namely, that evidence in court proceedings could be excluded if the government says its disclosure would reveal state secrets. It was invoked a few times by George W. Bush after 9/11.

Now Trump wants to use it to bar federal Judge James Boasberg from seeing specific information about two Saturday night flights to El Salvador with the Venezuelans aboard (what time they took off, where they were when Boasberg issued his initial order, etc.). Attorney General Pam Bondi (remember how she was supposed to be so much better than Matt Gaetz?) and her deputies argued that Boasberg’s requests for this information constitute "grave usurpations of the President’s powers under the Alien Enemies Act and his inherent Article II powers."

Simultaneously, of course, Trump is demanding that Congress impeach Boasberg, calling him a "radical left lunatic" and a "local, unknown" judge. He’s the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was originally elevated to the federal bench by George W. Bush. John Roberts appointed him to a term on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. He once ruled against Hillary Clinton in a case involving her emails. And: He once ruled for Trump in a case involving his tax returns.

So now we can summarize Trump’s position here. He invoked an ancient (and often criticized) law during non-wartime, which no president has ever done. A federal judge said, Hey, wait a minute and ordered the action ended (that is, he ordered those airplanes turned around). Trump ignored that order; the planes flew on. Now Trump’s attorney general has invoked yet another obscure and controversial law in an effort to shut the judge up. And finally, Trump now demands that Congress impeach the judge because of his refusal to accept the laws of the land.

It wasn’t some lefty who said, of these breaches, that Trump "has declared war on the rule of law in America." That was conservative retired Judge J. Michael Luttig.

Let us recognize the stakes: Today, it’s noncitizens who are the victims of Trump’s lawlessness. Maybe Trump will stop there. But if this gets to the Supreme Court and a majority there upholds Trump’s position, do we really think Trump won’t at least be sorely tempted to galumph his way through that open door? What will happen when a future roundup includes naturalized citizens? Or even birthright citizens, a category we know Trump wants to eliminate? And what happens when it simply becomes anyone who the president doesn’t like?

And if the House votes to impeach Boasberg, do we really think that won’t chill and intimidate other judges?

We don’t have to wait for Trump to defy the Supreme Court to think it’s a constitutional crisis. We are in crises, plural, right now. And it’s only been two months.

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was named law firm of the year by The American Lawyer in 2024. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that the firm will not be repeat winners in 2025.

The firm’s agreement to contribute $40 million to causes dear to Donald Trump’s heart to get him off its back registers somewhere between pathetic and disgusting. The background: Early in his new term, Trump issued an executive order against Paul, Weiss and one of its partners, Mark Pomerantz, who, in his previous job at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, had pursued a case against Trump. The order alleged "wrongdoing" on Pomerantz’s part, and Trump said yesterday that Paul, Weiss head Brad Karp had agreed that Pomerantz had committed "wrongdoing."

The order is probably illegal. And the 2024 "law firm of the year" is acceding to this. This is insane. If the republic survives these next four years and functioning democracy is restored, let’s hope Paul, Weiss’s reputation never recovers. I’ll give the last word here to George Conway: "This Paul Weiss capitulation is the most disgraceful action by a major law firm in my lifetime, so appalling that I couldn’t believe it at first. Any lawyers at that firm—partners or associates—who don’t promptly resign will defile their moral and professional reputations beyond repair."

On March 25, TNR contributors Kim Kelly and Brian Goldstone introduce us to Goldstone’s new book, There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America. By telling the unforgettable stories of five Atlanta families, this landmark work of journalism exposes a new and troubling trend—the dramatic rise of the "working homeless" in cities across America.

Last week’s quiz: "May the road rise to meet you …" With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, a quiz on Ireland, in fact and legend.

1. The legend is that St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. Yes or no: Is Ireland, in point of scientific fact, snake-free?

Answer: Yes. For many years, herpetologists say, the only reptile in Ireland was Ian Paisley.

2. By tradition, what is the leprechaun’s trade?

A. Tailor

B. Cobbler

C. Weaver

D. Wainwright

Answer: B, cobbler. A wainwright, by the way, builds and repairs what? Answer at the end of the new quiz.

3. The four Irish Nobel literature laureates are William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Seamus Heaney, and:

A. James Joyce

B. Oscar Wilde

C. Brendan Behan

D. Samuel Beckett

Answer: D, Beckett. That’s right—James Joyce never won the Nobel. The list of brilliant writers snubbed by the Nobel is rather long.

4. In World War II, Ireland was:

A. With the Allies

B. With the Axis

C. Neutral

D. With the Axis until February 1944, when it switched to the Allies

Answer: C, neutral. De Valera’s condolence to the German ambassador on the occasion of the Führer’s death was, ah, misguided, that’s all, really.

5. Which of the following is not an Irish whiskey?

A. Tullamore D.E.W.

B. J&B

C. Jameson

D. Bushmills

Answer: B, J&B. Scotland all the way.

6. In 2023, The Irish Independent polled Irish music critics and insiders to compile a list of the greatest Irish albums of all time. The winner was:

A. My Bloody Valentine, Loveless

B. U2, Achtung Baby

C. Van Morrison, Astral Weeks

D. Sinéad O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

Answer: A, My Bloody Valentine. Never bloody heard of them. My Boomer vote goes to Astral Weeks, which still transcends Van’s recent looniness.

This week’s quiz: "Extree extree!" Just cuz I’m thinking (and feeling glum) about the state of the American media, a quiz on the history of U.S. newspapers.

1. The first attempt at a colonial newspaper in the United States, Boston’s Publick Occurrences both Forreign and Domestick, was met with what ill fate?

A. The publisher ran out of money after a week.

B. The editor was caught having an affair with the publisher’s daughter.

C. It was suppressed after the very first edition.

D. Its printing press was destroyed in a suspicious fire.

2. What was the first daily newspaper in the United States?

A. New York World

B. The Pennsylvania Evening Post

C. The Daily Athenaeum (of Boston)

D. The Providence Gazette

3. The "man with the muckrake" was a character in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; what U.S. president lifted the phrase and coined the term "muckrakers" to apply to a new breed of hard-charging, establishment-challenging reporters?

A. Theodore Roosevelt

B. William Howard Taft

C. William McKinley

D. Benjamin Harrison

4. Match the owner to the newspaper:

5. Match the famous columnist to the newspaper with which he or she is most closely associated:

6. Over the past 20 years, newspapers have lost what percent of their jobs? It’s the single steepest dive among 532 job categories tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A. 29 percent

B. 44 percent

C. 61 percent

D. 77 percent

That was kinda fun, until question 6. Oh, and: A wainwright builds and repairs wagons. Wait. Does that mean a playwright builds and repairs plays? Yes, that’s exactly what it means. Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com. 

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

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