Milwaukee Judge Charged With Putting Herself ‘Above The Law’

Following the FBI’s arrest Friday of a Wisconsin judge accused of helping an illegal immigrant charged with violent crimes elude, at least briefly, federal authorities, the left — right on cue — took to social media and the streets to declare “No Justice, No Peace.” 

“The arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan is a chilling attack on judicial independence. Judges must be free to uphold the law. Every American who believes in due process should be alarmed,” Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. bloviated on his X account. 

“We don’t arrest judges. That’s not how democracy works,” chided Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C.. “An independent judiciary is the cornerstone of our legal system — undermine it, and you undermine justice itself.”

The “no one is above the law” left once again has been caught up in  their own rhetoric.

We do arrest judges, when there is evidence to suggest they broke the law — as is the case with Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan. Indeed, judges must be free to uphold the law; they are not entitled to break the law, disregard it, or rewrite it, as several judges steeped in the Trump “resistance” movement have been accused of doing. Representative democracy in a republic, the U.S. system of government, works when judges don’t flout the separation of powers that is at the heart of the founders’ Constitution. 

And, if Judge Dugan did what she is accused of doing, it should be easy for anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of that ingenious founding document to see how the rejection of the rule of law in pursuit of personal politics is an abuse of the judiciary. 

Dugan, according to the criminal complaint, was charged Friday in federal court on two very serious allegations: obstructing a U.S. agency and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest. FBI Director Kash Patel in an X post said Dugan “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest.” 

‘Wait, Come with Me’

The complaint notes federal authorities appeared at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 to arrest Flores-Ruiz as he was about to appear before Dugan for a pretrial conference on three misdemeanor counts of battery. The illegal immigrant that officials say had been previously deported from Mexico, is accused of striking a man “in the face and body with a closed fist approximately 30 times” during an argument about the volume of the suspect’s music. Flores-Ruiz, according to the local complaint, also struck a woman who attempted to intervene in the domestic incident. Both went to the hospital for treatment of their injuries. 

A clerk informed Dugan to the presence of Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents in the hallway on the morning of April 18, according to the federal complaint. The judge was furious. 

“Judge DUGAN became visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers,” the complaint states. 

She was “visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor,” according to the complaint. She demanded that the federal law enforcement officials obtain a judicial warrant beyond the administrative warrant they had presented and told them to speak with the court’s chief judge, law enforcement officials said in the complaint. 

While several members of the federal arrest team were down the hall to speak to the chief judge, the courtroom deputy saw Dugan get up and say to Flores-Ruiz something like, “Wait, come with me,” according to the complaint. The judge then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his legal counsel out of the courtroom through the “jury door,” which leads to a non-public area of the courthouse. But not before the activist judge adjourned the illegal immigrant’s battery case, according to the state prosecutor working the case on behalf of the state. Dugan did so, the attorney told federal officials, even though Flores-Ruiz’s “victims were present in the courtroom.” 

“According to the affidavit, Judge Dugan’s actions directly resulted in Flores-Ruiz temporarily avoiding federal custody. He was ultimately arrested outside the courthouse, following a brief foot pursuit,” the Department of Justice stated in a press release. 

In a statement to several media outlets, Dugan’s attorney said the judge “has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge,” adding that Dugan will “defend herself vigorously, and looks forward to being exonerated.”

“A Mockery of the Justice System’

Due process. That’s what advocates for illegal immigrants (no matter their crimes) and their allies in the Democratic Party insist they are protesting in Friday’s federal arrest of Dugan, as well as recently retired New Mexico Magistrate Jose Luis Cano and his wife Nancy Ann Cano. The couple faces charges of evidence tampering tied to their alleged housing of an illegal immigrant from Venezuela with alleged connections to the designated terrorist organization Tren de Aragua. 

At a protest Sunday in front of an FBI office in suburban Milwaukee, demonstrator Kate Pociask called Dugan “brave.” 

“It was nice to have somebody be a model citizen about how other people need to be treated,” she told NBC Milwaukee affiliate WTMJ-TV 4. The leftists gathered at the FBI building for a second straight day linked arms and demanded federal prosecutors drop the charges. 

The accomplice media outlet found two of the four avowed socialists in the Wisconsin Legislature — Reps. Ryan Clancy and Darrin Madison — at a rally reportedly of “hundreds” and made sure to quote both. Madison proudly spoke of working with the judge when he was a “young organizer.”  

“Our courthouses, just like classrooms and operating rooms, have been sacred spaces,” Clancy said. “When we discourage people from being in those safe spaces, we make a mockery of the justice system,” Clancy told WTMJ. Apparently the local news outlet couldn’t find one person in the greater Milwaukee area who believes Dugan’s alleged actions, helping an accused violent legal immigrant escape justice, made a mockery of the justice system. 

Think about it. What would happen to you if you were accused of obstructing officers from arresting a suspected criminal? Good chance you would not be “above the law.”

State Rep. Dan Knodl, a Milwaukee-area Republican, on Sunday told The Federalist in an interview that Dugan, who was quickly released from custody, “will get her day in court.” 

‘Cascading Effect’

Knodl has deep concerns about the influence federal judges overstepping their authority are having on courts downstream. 

“What we’re seeing is a cascading effect from the federal district courts who have decided to block Trump’s orders,” the lawmaker said. “You get federal courts ignoring laws and state courts are next. Here we see state courts, even down to the circuit courts, really ignoring the law and taking matters into their own hands.”

“Now you have judges deciding they are going to make the law,” Knodl said, referring to the liberal-led Wisconsin Supreme Court spuriously upholding Gov. Tony Evers’ power-grabbing veto in which he scratched out the legislature’s intent and unilaterally increased per-pupil public school funding every year for the next 400 years. 

Surprise, surprise. Another leftist Wisconsin judge is following in the footsteps of Dugan — rule of law be damned. 

Sawyer County Circuit Court Judge Monica Isham is threatening not to hold court in the wake of Dugan’s arrest. Isham, who boasted that she was the first “Native American, first minority altogether to serve as a Circuit Court Judge in Sawyer County,” declared in a letter to colleagues obtained by Wisconsin Right Now that “she has no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by ICE and sent to a concentration camp…” 

“Should I start raising bail money?” the judge, who has been on the bench for two years, snidely wrote. 

Isham threatened that if the state court system doesn’t provide support and guidance for judges, “I will refuse to hold court in Branch II in Sawyer County.” 

“I will not put myself or my staff who may feel compelled to help me or my community in harms [sic] way,” she wrote. 

“If this costs me my job or gets me arrested then at least I know I did the right thing,” Isham added.

‘She Should Resign or Be Removed’

Shutting down the administration of justice in protest over a feud with the Trump administration can hardly be construed as “the right thing.” What does the Wisconsin Court System have to say about it all? The system’s director could not be reached for comment on Sunday. 

Congressman Tom Tiffany, who represents Sawyer County as part of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, has some thoughts on the subject. 

“Monica Isham is choosing to protect illegal aliens over the law,” Tiffany wrote on X.  “She should resign or be removed.”

Knodl said Assembly Republicans are expected to talk about the “constitutional crisis” this week in caucus. The legislature has the power to impeach judges. Some Republicans have said they would like to do just that. Impeachment in the Assembly requires a simple majority. Conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds vote by members. Republicans control both houses, but with nowhere near a supermajority in the Senate. 

“We need to exercise the authority that we have as the legislature. Over the decades we’ve done the opposite, we’ve given up our authority to the executive branch and now the judicial branch is just taking it,” Knodl said. 

“You can go a lot of different directions with this court, but she [Dugan] should be prosecuted and answer for her misdeeds,” the lawmaker added. 

‘Watched with Frustration’

If convicted, the liberal judge with the “social justice” resume could face six years in prison and $350,000 in fines. Dugan is unlikely to see anywhere near that kind of punishment. While judges have been arrested, charged, and convicted of crimes over the years, relatively few  who have broken the law in recent decades have faced much in the way of accountability, according to a Reuters review. Only 15 federal judges have been impeached in U.S. history, with eight of those removed from the bench, according to the Federal Judicial Center. 

In 2019, Massachusetts Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph was arrested and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, aiding and abetting obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting obstruction of a federal proceeding, and perjury, according to MassLive.com. 

“The year before, prosecutors say, Joseph allowed a man who was subject to an immigration detainer to avoid capture by exiting through a side door of a Newton courthouse,” the news outlet reported. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, in 2022  President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice dismissed the charges after the judge agreed to the relevant facts. The matter was then referred to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct. The panel finally filed formal charges in early December. 

“A rebuke by the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct may not be the best news for Judge Shelley Joseph, but it’s music to the ears of anyone who’s watched with frustration as criminal illegal immigrants pull a fast one on ICE officers,” a Boston Herald editorial opined. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.