Littwin: Trump hasn’t arrested Mike Johnston yet. But he’s suing the Denver mayor.

It looks like I was wrong the other day when I warned Mike Johnston to watch his step because, according to a recent executive order, the feds could arrest any local and state official for interfering, by Donald Trump’s reckoning, with federal immigration laws.

In the executive order, Trump said these officials — only Democrats in blue states, I presume — are engaging in a “lawless insurrection.” And if Trump has any official arrested for insurrection, Johnston would be an obvious target because, you know, Trump doesn’t seem to like him.

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Trump certainly doesn’t like Johnston in the way he loves all those lawless, and in many cases violent, insurrectionists he pardoned for their January 6 assault on the Capitol. So, if Johnston was accused of jaywalking, I wrote, he might find himself slapped into cuffs and sent off to a gulag.

But, to my surprise, Trump jumped the gun. Instead of arresting Johnston — which could come later, of course — he sued him. And Jared Polis. And Attorney General Phil Weiser. And the state legislature. And the Denver city council.  And the state of Colorado. And the city of Denver. And whoever else looked somehow suspiciously Democratic. I mean, try to imagine what would happen if any of these officials sported a tattoo.

The lawsuit, filed in Colorado federal court, concerns Colorado and Denver laws regarding the extent to which state and local officials must cooperate with ICE in arresting migrants. The suit wants the so-called “sanctuary city” laws to be declared unconstitutional in order to force Colorado officials to fully cooperate in Trump’s mass deportation plans, which seem to be running well behind schedule. 

I’m not a lawyer — although I often rely on my daughter the law professor — 

but I wonder, as a layperson, about Trump’s standing when it comes to the rule of law.

When Trump was asked Sunday on “Meet the Press” whether he was required to uphold the Constitution, he said, “I don’t know.” He said he had “brilliant” lawyers to figure that out. But even without lawyers, you’d think he’d remember what he said when taking the presidential oath — that he would “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

He doesn’t know? Of course, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know how crass it is to repost an AI-created image of him as Pope Donald I.

 Did you see the ABC interview when he was asked what the Declaration of Independence means? He said the document, a copy of which now hangs in the Oval Office, means an “expression of unity and love,” which is pretty much the opposite of what it means. No love for the king. No unity with tyranny.

In a follow-up question on “Meet the Press,” Trump was asked whether he agreed with Marco Rubio’s assertion that all those in the United States — citizens and noncitizens alike — were entitled to due process.

Guess what he said?

”I don’t know,” he replied.

When reminded that due process was guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment — a quick Google search offers up the critical wording here: that the federal government can’t deprive anyone of “life, liberty or property without due process of law” — you know what Trump said.

“I don’t know.” He then added, “I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”

I’m not a lawyer, but I do know. I’m guessing you do, too.

Trump admits that he is worried that if everyone got due process, like in a court of law,  it could take years to kick out all the people he wants kicked out. Of course, due process also means, to Trump’s surprise, that his powers are somehow constrained. And that even legally protected people’s rights can be trampled.

As we know, Trump is also not a constitutional scholar, or any kind of scholar, for that matter. He’s clearly not up on many of the amendments, like the First, Fifth or Tenth. He does seem to know a little something about the Second Amendment — guns don’t kill people; heedless politicians who ignore gun safety do — and has more than a passing interest in the Twenty-Second Amendment. That’s the one, you might remember, that limits presidents to two terms.

Otherwise, don’t bother him with the rule of law. He’s too busy demanding tariffs on movies made in “foreign lands.” I can only assume this involves his issues with subtitles, but it does help us understand how little he actually knows about tariffs and about trade deficits.

It is instructive how Colorado officials are responding to the lawsuit. Similar suits, by the way, have been brought against Chicago, Illinois and Rochester, New York — all blue cities or states.

Mayor Johnston, who can boldly respond to Trump on occasion, said Denver “will not be bullied or blackmailed, least of all by an administration that has little regard for the law and even less for the truth.” Johnston doesn’t agree that Denver is a sanctuary city, probably because there’s no legal definition of sanctuary city or sanctuary state. He does admit that Denver is a welcoming city, which, I guess, is a crime to some people.

For his part, Polis said Colorado was not a sanctuary state, that it already cooperated with federal officials on immigration and that he wouldn’t comment directly on the lawsuit. He did say that if Colorado laws were found to be unconstitutional, he would follow the court’s ruling.

In the state legislature, meanwhile, they were moving toward passing — on mostly party-line votes — an 11th-hour bill that would greatly expand deportation protections for immigrants.  While the bill is not exactly in response to Trump’s latest lawsuit — it’s been in the works for a while —  it definitely becomes part of the battle against Trump’s overreach.

Polis hasn’t said whether he would sign the bill or not, but from the language we’re hearing, I would guess he won’t.

I hope he does sign it, though. And I hope Polis  understands by now the first rule of dealing with Trump — that making nice with him doesn’t mean he’ll ever make nice with you. In fact, it means just the opposite.

I mean, Trump just did make Polis a named defendant in the lawsuit against Colorado. It’s crazy to think the wannabe dictator will do anything to help Colorado unless it somehow serves him.

Trying to accommodate Trump means, almost inevitably, that he will judge you to be weak.  And when he sees weakness, which Trump-watchers say is intolerable to him, he goes almost immediately for the throat. 

But he’ll have to check with his lawyers first.

Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.

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