Attempting to deflect from courts repeatedly ruling against his immigration policy, President Donald Trump lied to reporters on Monday, claiming that the courts fabricated the need for cases to be heard—despite the right to a trial being a constitutional law for more than 234 years.
“The courts have all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they said, ‘maybe you have to have trials.’ Trials, we’re going to have 5 million trials? Doesn’t work, doesn’t work. You wouldn’t have a country left,” he said.
Trump has been under fire for denying detainees due process. Students like Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk have been abducted for their pro-Palestinian advocacy, and legal U.S. resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongly captured and deported to El Salvador.
On April 30, a court ordered the release of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian immigrant who was held by the Department of Homeland Security while it tried to find a reason for his deportation.
Contrary to Trump’s statement, the U.S. Constitution explicitly lays out the right to a trial in the Sixth Amendment:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Similarly, the Seventh Amendment notes:
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
These rights were part of the ten amendments ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, and nothing in U.S. law or Trump’s executive orders have nullified them. The Sixth Amendment ensures that accusations leveled by the government against people have to be proven in a court of law and not just by royal fiat, as was done by the British government in the colonial era.
Trump’s unconstitutional remarks come just one day after he told NBC “I don’t know” when asked if the president needs to uphold the Constitution. Like every president before him, Trump took an oath of office, making it clear that this was a core element of his presidential duties.
The presidential oath of office states:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
The oath is not ambiguous, and defense of the Constitution is not optional.
Trump’s ignorance of U.S. law and history was also on display when he recently argued that the Declaration of Independence was a “declaration of unity and love and respect.” The document famously severed the relationship between colonists and England, leading to the bloody Revolutionary War where hundreds of thousands died.
Of course, Trump is the only president who has been impeached twice. In both instances, he was found to be in violation of the Constitution.
No wonder he thinks the right to a trial came “out of nowhere.”
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