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mondaire jones
'Full-Scale Authoritarian Takeover': Vance and Musk Take Aim at Federal Judges
"We must push back hard against these next leaps down the pathway to tyranny," said one Democratic in the House.
Feb 09, 2025
Facing a string of judicial rulings in recent days that have struck down or at least put on hold a variety of efforts by the Trump administration that appeared to overstep its executive authority, both Vice President JD Vance and billionaire oligarch Elon Musk on Sunday took aim at the power of judges by saying their powers—despite being the recognized co-equal and third branch of the U.S. government—should be curbed or disregarded.
"If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal," Vance tweeted Sunday morning, in a legally dubious post. Despite the claim, military generals are not free—either from laws of war, international human rights treaties, or chains of command—to do anything they please.
"If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal," Vance continued. "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power."
Shortly before Vance's tweet, Musk, the world's richest person and who has been tasked by Trump to run the Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) effort to dismantle key government agencies and programs, floated the idea that life-time appointed judges should, based on a set annual quota, be subject to termination by the political party in power. Currently, both chambers of Congress and the White House are controlled by Republicans.
"I'd like to propose that the worst 1% of appointed judges, as determined by elected bodies, be fired every year," Musk said on Sunday morning. "This will weed out the most corrupt and least competent."
Over the last week, federal judges have intervened to block DOGE efforts to have unfettered access to a key Treasury Department payment system and also blocked the so-called "Fork in the Road" offer to federal workers put forth by the unsanctioned Musk-led team at DOGE.
After a U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer responded to a suit brought by 18 state attorneys general on Friday by blocking DOGE access to the Treasury system, Musk retweeted a message suggesting that the best thing to do might be to ignore the order.
Musk also called for Engelmayer's specific ouster. "A corrupt judge protecting corruption," Musk tweeted. "He needs to be impeached NOW!"
Outside critics, Democratic lawmakers, and legal experts responded with grave concern to the comments about judges by both Vance and Musk, arguably President Donald Trump's closest advisors.
After initial litigation losses for their illegal actions, Trump Admin now begins intimidating/attacking judiciary. Vance—ignore court orders. Musk—impeach “corrupt” judges. We must pushback hard against these next leaps down the pathway to tyranny.
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— Rep. Lloyd Doggett (@doggett.house.gov) February 9, 2025 at 3:19 PM
In an email to CNBC on Sunday, Duke Law School professor Marin K. Levy explained that the state attorneys general and the judge in the Treasury case "were all acting well within their authority. What we saw here was the judicial system working as it is supposed to."
Mondaire Jones, a former congressman from New York and now a commissioner on the U.S. Commission for Civil Rights, characterized Vance's comments as being part of the Trump-led "fascist movement in American politics."
In a Sunday morning appearance on "Face the Nation," Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said what the nation is witnessing with Trump allowing people like Musk to run roughshod over federal agencies—and now attacking the judiciary—is nothing short of a "constitutional crisis" and "full-scale authoritarian takeover."
"We are seeing an executive branch," said Omar, "that has decided they are no longer going to abide by the Constitution in honoring Congress' role in the creation of the agencies, in their role deciding where money is allocated. And so the only recourse we have—since our congressional leadership, the Speaker [of the House Mike Johnson], will not stop the executive—is through the judiciary."
We're witnessing a constitutional crisis and a full-scale authoritarian takeover.
The executive branch has decided they’re no longer going to abide by the Constitution.
However, our judiciary system is fighting back. One-by-one, we will stop this illegal government takeover. pic.twitter.com/MMFgrLlXVV
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) February 9, 2025
"When you think about the checks and balances we have," Omar continued, "the courts are the only recourse we have at the moment. And when we talk about the illegality of what the executive branch is doing, we have seen every single executive order that has been challenged in the court we found to be illegal."
Omar said that fact, hopefully, will offer some solace to the "American people that our courts are working as they should. The checks and balances are working, but what is not working is the way the executive is behaving and the congressional leadership that is failing the American people."
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'Huge Victory' for Democracy as NY Court Orders Congressional Map Redrawn
"It's important that the Independent Redistricting Commission get to work expeditiously and present a map that fairly reflects the racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic diversity of our great state," said U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Jul 13, 2023
Progressives on Thursday expressed hope that a ruling by a state appeals court in New York will give the Democratic Party an opportunity to regain control of several U.S. House seats that were won by Republicans in last year's midterm elections following what critics called an "undemocratic process" of drawing the state congressional map.
The appellate division of the state Supreme Court sided on Thursday with the Democratic Party, which had argued in a lawsuit that the district map that was drawn for the 2022 midterms was only meant to be temporary.
The current map was drawn last year by a special master who had been appointed by the state Supreme Court after it ruled that Democrats had unfairly gerrymandered the previous map. That ruling took the responsibility for redistricting out of the hands of the state's Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC).
The five-judge panel on Thursday voted 3-2 in favor of ordering the IRC to "commence its duties forthwith" and redraw the state map.
If it stands, the ruling is set to give the New York Legislature, which is dominated by Democrats, final say over the state's 26 U.S. House districts in the coming years. The party could retake as many as six seats currently held by Republicans who won their elections last year, including U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler in the 17th District and Rep. George Santos in the 3rd District.
Marc Elias of the voting rights group Democracy Docket called the ruling a "huge victory" for fair districting.
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the ruling presents the party with an opportunity to retake seats it lost after "the current congressional map was drawn by an unelected, out-of-town special master appointed by an extreme right-wing judge, who himself was handpicked by partisan political operatives," referring to Judge Patrick McAllister of the state Supreme Court.
"It's important that the Independent Redistricting Commission get to work expeditiously and present a map that fairly reflects the racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic diversity of our great state," said Jeffries.
The special master-drawn map forced progressive former Rep. Mondaire Jones out of the 17th District and changed the district where grassroots organizer Rana Abdelhamid had been campaigning, pitting her against other progressives and forcing her to end her U.S. House bid. Jones announced earlier this month that he is running again in the 17th District.
The ruling handed down on Thursday "is huge and could have massive national implications," said Abdelhamid.
Democrats could now win back enough seats in New York to offset losses that are expected in North Carolina, where the right-wing state Supreme Court earlier this year cleared the way for Republicans to redraw the state map.
Republican lawmakers said they will appeal Thursday's ruling, which would give the state Court of Appeals the final word. The Court of Appeals has moved to the left in the last year, with liberal Judge Rowan Wilson—who dissented last year when the court rejected Democrats' appeal of the appointment of the special master—having replaced former Chief Judge Janet DiFiore.
Organizer Victor Shi called the appellate division's ruling a "victory for anyone who cares about democracy and voting rights."
"The right to participate in the democratic process is the most essential right in our system of governance," said the court. "The procedures governing the redistricting process, all too easily abused by those who would seek to minimize the voters' voice and entrench themselves in the seats of power, must be guarded as jealously as the right to vote itself; in granting this petition, we return the matter to its constitutional design."
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Progressive Mondaire Jones Launches Campaign to Reclaim US House Seat
"I'm running to finish the work I began," said Jones.
Jul 05, 2023
Pledging to "finish the work" he began when he served in the U.S. House from 2021-23, former Rep. Mondaire Jones launched a congressional campaign Wednesday in New York's 17th District, more than a year after redistricting in the state pushed him to leave the district and run unsuccessfully in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
The progressive attorney announced his candidacy with a video posted on social media in which he described his working-class background and highlighted his work in Congress and his former constituents offered endorsements of his commitment to ending gun violence and strengthening infrastructure.
"Some people in my party got mad at me when I tried to block members of Congress from getting rich off the stock market or when I said no to taking money from corporations," said Jones. "I have never been Washington's choice, because I stand up to corruption."
"We've got to get Washington back on the side of working people," he added. "I know we can do better."
In Congress, Jones was an outspoken supporter of Green New Deal legislation and Medicare for All before the New York state Supreme Court threw out the state Senate Democrats' congressional map on the grounds that it was unfairly partisan.
A court-appointed special master redrew the map, placing Jones in the same district as former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), a corporate Democrat who until this year chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which recruits candidates and raises campaign funds to elect Democrats.
Maloney angered progressives when he announced he would run to represent the 17th District, which includes several suburban communities north of New York City. Jones opted to leave the district and run instead in the 10th District. Both Democrats lost—Jones to Rep. Dan Goldman, a Democrat who largely self-funded his campaign, during last year's primary election; and Maloney to Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican, in the general election.
Speaking to News 12 Westchester on Wednesday, Jones expressed regret about forgoing Maloney's primary challenge.
"I never imagined that I would wake up one day and would have to decide against primarying a member of the Democratic party at a time when we were seeing an assault on our democracy," he said. "To that extent, yeah, I do regret not being the Democratic nominee last cycle."
Liz Whitmer Gereghty, a school board member and sister of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), is running against Jones in the Democratic primary. As Politico reported Wednesday, Gereghty "has been courting support from members of the Michigan congressional delegation."
Gereghty toldHuffPost Wednesday that she is committed to passing legislation regarding "gun control and abortion rights," but was "vague" about her position on policies aimed at addressing economic injustice.
"This is not a Washington-driven campaign or even a Michigan-driven campaign," Jones told HuffPost. "This is a campaign that is rooted in the Hudson Valley, in New York's 17th Congressional District."
Gereghty was endorsed late last month by EMILY's List, a national group that supports pro-choice female candidates, while Jones released a list of local leaders who are supporting his campaign.
The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which was an early supporter of Jones' 2019 campaign, said the former congressman "worked to increase opportunity for all New Yorkers, including fighting to protect civil rights, expand access to affordable childcare, and tackle climate change."
"We are confident this track record combined with his grassroots support and positive vision for a more equitable America will resonate with voters," said Mayor Annise Parker, the group's president and CEO. "With growing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and racism across our country, including within the halls of Congress, Mondaire's election is a powerful symbol of hope for our community."
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