Trump is running a 'government at war with its own people,' says Rep. Raskin

Antonio Romanucci, an attorney for Renee Good's family, testified to the Joint House Senate hearing today where not a single Republican showed up to offer one word of defense for the crimes committed by Donald Trump's invasion forces against American citizens in American cities.

The United States legal system allows for individuals to pursue civil justice with the suit against the city, county or state for the conduct of its officers and against the officers individually. These types of legal claims are made under what is called 42 US Code Section 1983. This was part of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1871 and is essential for accountability when an officer behaves unconstitutionally.

Keep in mind that this act is 155 years old and desperately needs an amendment. However, similar legal action against federal law enforcement officers like ICE or border patrol is not currently allowed under Section 1983.

There is a current possible path of civil recovery through the Federal Tort Claims Act or FTCA, but this is challenging. It requires first the filing of a claim with the government agency that has harmed you and then waiting up to six months for a reply. Our current paradox is that America should not require the permission of the federal government to sue the federal government for cases like Renee Good or Alex Freddy. If the government must give you permission to seek accountability for violation of constitutional rights, then your rights are just words on paper.

There is a legislative remedy to this to this paradox. At the state level, Minnesota and other states can pass bills making it a state law, state law to violate constitutional rights. In Illinois, we did this by signing House Bill 1312.

Congress can remove this roadblock to federal accountability by amending Section 1983 and adding four words as you Senator Blumenthal pointed out. So federal officers can be sued civilly if their conduct merits it. The current language spells out that state, county and municipal law enforcement can be sued. And Congress would only need to add the words or the United States to the list of governments whose officers could be brought this civil justice. It's that simple. I'm urging you to consider this amendment and fix a 155-year-old problem.

Leading off our discussion tonight, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, he's the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. He will be chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats win the House of Representatives. Uh, and uh, Congressman Raskin, that proposed change in law would come to your committee.

Uh, what what is your assessment of of that proposal?

Well, Lawrence, we've been fighting for this for the last several Congresses with my colleague Hank Johnson from Georgia.

Um, we have introduced legislation to create a federal Bivens action because the Supreme Court had originally allowed this.

It's been successively undermined by subsequent decisions.

Um, so we could amend Section 1983 to sweep in federal officers.

We could also amend uh, the Federal Tort Claims Act, so people could actually sue the government for damages.

And we believe it's essential to solidify the social contract.

The scenes that you just showed us are so gruesome and so demoralizing because what you see is a government at war with its own people.

And the whole point of the social contract is that we will be safer entering into civil society together.

That's what John Locke said, that's what Rousseau said, that's what Hobbes said, then we would be if we stayed in the state of nature where it's just everybody fighting for themselves.

Well, they're giving us a situation where we are no longer safer inside civil society.

They've turned the social contract into a war of the government against the people.

And so, we have to restore the social contract.

That's what we can do once we take back the Congress.

But we are depending on people all over the country to stay in this fight.

The heroic resistance that we've seen in Minneapolis is a model for what's got to take place all over America and in the upcoming uh, no kings rally.

I was rereading the the old Vaclav Havel essay that he wrote in 1978 called the Power of the Powerless, basically saying when you're up against an authoritarian regime, everybody's got to decide, are you going to live within the lie or are you going to step outside of the lie and live inside the truth.

And I thought about that because I saw a sign at one of uh, the rallies in Minneapolis, which said, we have eyes, stop the lies.

And I think that's where America is right now.

So, uh, Congressman Garcia had a moment in the hearing where he he said, uh, I just want to remind people that uh, Christy Nome won't be secretary forever.

Donald Trump won't be president forever.

Suggesting that three years from now, we could have a Democratic president, we could have a new Attorney General.

That Justice Department would be empowered to do real criminal investigations of these shootings, of these beatings and of these arrests.

Uh, and so those agents uh, may all get a federal pardon from Donald Trump so that the federal government won't be able to do that in the next administration.

Uh, but without that that pardon, this remains an open possibility for the next Justice Department to investigate, doesn't it?

Of course.

Well, we're going to have real attorney generals again, people like Robert F.

Kennedy, people like Edward Levy, uh, people like Janet Reno.

We're going to have a real Justice Department again.

We are going to have a real criminal division again that brings criminal actions against government officials who violate the civil rights of the people.

We are going to restore and we're going to fortify and improve the rule of law.

And we know it's not as simple as just turning the clock back to uh, the time before Donald Trump, because obviously those were the conditions that allowed for Donald Trump and Mega to penetrate our society and take over our government.

We're going to have to fortify democracy and freedom to make them much stronger going forward and having been through this nightmare together and with the heroic resistance and opposition that we're seeing all over the country, we're going to make it through.

We need to obviously mobilize the vote and keep winning the way we won in Virginia, in New Jersey, in California, in Alabama, the way we just won in Texas, a 31-point swing in a state Senate election.

We're going to keep going and we have to defend those elections because Donald Trump, who obviously has no other program for America relating to healthcare, relating to housing for young people, relating to any public good, has one objective in mind, which is trying to steal the election the way he tried to steal it back in 2020 when he called the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger in Georgia and said, I just want you to find me 11,780 votes.

That wasn't Donald Trump trying to stop election fraud.

That was Donald Trump trying to commit election fraud.

And he did it all over the country, and he will try again.

But we are ready for him and we have people fighting all over America to defend the democratic institutions that we've got.

Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

You bet, Lawrence.