Week 23: Secrecy as War-Making Method

Unauthorized strikes, militarized immigration raids, and curated intelligence fused into a week where executive power acted first and explained, if ever, later.

The twenty-third week of Trump’s second term unfolded as a study in concentrated power. Across war, immigration, courts, media, and education, authority moved upward and inward, away from shared judgment and toward a small circle around the president. The pattern did not depend on a single spectacular break. It emerged from repeated choices to treat constraint as an obstacle, not a guardrail, and to treat disagreement as disloyalty rather than as part of democratic life. That choice recurred in every arena.

At the close of the previous period, the Democracy Clock stood at 8:00 p.m. By the end of this week, it had moved to 8:01 p.m., a net shift of 1.2 minutes. The numerical change was modest, but it captured a sharp escalation in how executive power was used and shielded from view. Unauthorized airstrikes, managed intelligence, militarized immigration raids, and structural shifts in the courts and universities all pushed in the same direction. They made it easier for those in power to act first and explain later, if at all.

The week’s central development was the decision to bomb Iran. On June 21, President Trump ordered large-scale airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites without congressional authorization. The operation cost hundreds of millions of dollars and carried obvious risks for global oil markets and shipping. It bypassed the War Powers Resolution and any formal declaration of war, treating the most serious decision a democracy can make as a matter for the executive alone. The strikes were framed as decisive and necessary. The process that led to them was opaque by design.

That opacity was not accidental. Before and after the strikes, Trump publicly dismissed his own intelligence community’s assessments that Iran had not decided to build a nuclear weapon and that its program had not been destroyed. Defense and intelligence agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, reported that the operation had not eliminated Iran’s capacity. Senior officials instead promoted a “spectacular success” narrative, likening the strikes to historic atomic bombings and insisting that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were finished. The choice to reject internal assessments in favor of a more triumphant story showed how information itself had become a tool of war-making. Facts were bent to fit the chosen script.

Congress tried to assert itself, but its tools proved blunt. Lawmakers in both chambers criticized the strikes as unconstitutional and backed War Powers resolutions that would have reined in unilateral action. Some members argued that bombing Iran without authorization violated the Constitution’s allocation of war powers. Yet when impeachment articles over the unauthorized strikes reached the House floor, the chamber voted to table them. The formal remedy for executive overreach was set aside. The message was clear: even when war powers are contested, the political cost of enforcing limits can be too high.

As criticism mounted, the administration tightened its grip on information. A promised classified House briefing on the Iran operation was canceled without explanation. When senators were finally briefed, the White House removed the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, from the lineup amid disputes over her assessment. Lawmakers were instead presented with officials more aligned with the president’s narrative. After a damaging leak of a DIA report, Trump announced plans to restrict congressional access to classified information, using secrecy rules to punish oversight rather than protect national security. At the same time, he revoked the security clearances of several former senior officials. The circle of experienced voices able to speak with authority during a crisis narrowed.

The administration’s treatment of the press followed the same pattern. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attacked media coverage of the Iran operation, accusing journalists of cheering against America. A criminal leak investigation was launched into the DIA report, signaling that revealing inconvenient facts could carry legal risk. Critical reporters were singled out by name. CNN’s Pentagon correspondent Natasha Bertrand was targeted for firing. The line between protecting secrets and suppressing scrutiny blurred. The presidency moved closer to a model in which war is waged not only abroad but also against independent sources of information at home.

While bombs fell overseas, a different kind of force was deployed inside the United States. Immigration enforcement became the main stage on which the administration tested how far it could push the fusion of security, punishment, and politics. ICE and DHS intensified nationwide raids, with a particular focus on Los Angeles. Agents operated in masks and plain clothes, tackling people in the street, pepper-spraying bystanders, and making arrests that swept up not only undocumented immigrants but also U.S. citizens and local officials. Daily quotas of thousands of arrests turned enforcement into a numbers game. Fear became the main instrument.

The president deepened this posture by ordering the deployment and federalization of National Guard units and Marines to Los Angeles to support immigration raids, over the state’s objections. Thousands of troops were sent into a major American city to back civil enforcement operations. The move blurred the line between military and police, and between federal and local authority. It signaled that resistance from state leaders could be overridden when it conflicted with the administration’s immigration agenda. The use of uniformed force against protesters and communities underlined that security institutions were being aligned with the preservation of federal power, not with the protection of people.

Behind these visible operations, a vast detention infrastructure was being built out. Plans advanced for a 5,000-bed migrant camp in the Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” created through emergency seizure of 39 square miles of land. The facility, projected to cost roughly $450 million annually and funded through FEMA, represented a long-term commitment to mass confinement as a response to migration. At the same time, ICE signed a contract with private prison company CoreCivic to convert a shuttered California prison into the state’s largest immigrant detention center, with 2,500 beds. Public money flowed into carceral infrastructure. Much of it was run by for-profit contractors whose accountability to the public was limited.

The human cost of this system was immediate. Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado died in transit under the care of a private transport contractor. Iris Monterroso-Lemus lost a pregnancy after being denied medical care in detention. A Honduran mother and her children, including a child with leukemia, were arrested at an immigration court hearing, turning the courthouse itself into a site of fear. U.S. citizen Andrea Velez and other citizens were wrongfully detained in Los Angeles raids. A Pakistani journalist, Jalil Afridi, was briefly detained and had his press credential seized after a State Department briefing. These cases showed how aggressive tactics and outsourced operations made errors and abuses more likely. They also showed how little recourse individuals had when caught in the machinery.

Policy changes reinforced the trend. The administration moved to summarily dismiss hundreds of thousands of asylum claims and to shift prosecutorial authority from U.S. attorneys to DHS, streamlining deportations and weakening independent checks on enforcement. Deals were explored with dozens of countries, including many with poor human-rights records, to accept deportees. The Supreme Court stayed lower-court rulings and allowed deportations to third countries, including conflict zones, expanding executive discretion over removal. ICE imposed a 72-hour notice requirement for congressional visits to detention centers, despite laws allowing surprise inspections. One of the few direct oversight tools available to lawmakers was quietly weakened.

Citizenship itself became more precarious for some groups than for others. DHS terminated Temporary Protected Status for more than half a million Haitians, giving them only a short grace period before they would lose lawful status. At the same time, the administration planned to resettle 1,000 Afrikaners from South Africa while continuing to bar refugees from travel-ban countries. The contrast between these decisions underscored a hierarchy of humanitarian concern shaped by race, origin, and ideology. Legal status was no longer simply a matter of law and need. It was increasingly tied to where one came from and how one fit into the administration’s narrative of deservingness.

The Justice Department’s posture toward courts and law added another layer to this picture. A whistleblower, DOJ lawyer Erez Reuveni, described being fired after resisting orders to mislead courts about deportation injunctions and to proceed with flights despite restraining orders. His letter and related reporting alleged that senior official Emil Bove had urged ignoring court orders in immigration cases. At the same time, DOJ took the extraordinary step of suing the entire bench of federal judges in Maryland over an order requiring a one-day pause before deportations. These moves treated judicial supervision not as a co-equal function but as an obstacle to be challenged and, if possible, punished.

Bove’s own trajectory illustrated how such behavior could be rewarded. At his appeals-court confirmation hearing, he denied urging defiance of court orders and defended his role in dropping a corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a move critics saw as political bargaining to secure immigration cooperation. He had also overseen purges of prosecutors and FBI agents involved in January 6 cases, calling their work a “grave injustice.” Elevating a nominee with this record to a lifetime judicial post signaled that loyalty to the administration’s priorities could outweigh concerns about respect for courts and even-handed enforcement. The bench itself became part of the political project.

The Supreme Court’s decisions during the week shifted the legal landscape in ways that favored executive and elite interests. In a series of emergency orders and rulings, the Court limited lower courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions against federal policies, including in a birthright citizenship case. This narrowed a key tool for quickly halting potentially unconstitutional actions across the country. The Court also held that Medicaid patients could not sue to enforce their right to choose providers, making it harder for low-income patients to challenge state efforts to exclude clinics like Planned Parenthood. In immigration, the Court allowed deportations to third countries to proceed despite safety concerns. These decisions did not abolish judicial review. They made it more difficult for vulnerable people to use courts to protect their rights.

There were pockets of resistance within the judiciary. The Second Circuit ordered the return of Jordin Melgar-Salmeron after ICE deported him in violation of a stay, insisting that the executive obey injunctions. Judges released Mahmoud Khalil and Kilmar Abrego Garcia from detention, citing weak evidence and lack of danger. A Florida panel heard claims that state senate districts had been racially gerrymandered, and a New Orleans jury awarded $2.4 million to a clergy abuse survivor under a revived civil window law. The Supreme Court disbarred former Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro for his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. These actions showed that some judicial capacity to check abuse remained. They did so even as structural rulings and appointments tilted the system toward deference.

Control over information and narrative was contested just as fiercely. The administration moved to dismantle Voice of America and its parent agency, USAGM, firing 639 employees and pushing to defund the broadcaster. A federal judge rebuked the administration for failing to comply with an earlier injunction on VOA firings, but the mass layoffs went forward, weakening an institution designed to provide independent news to foreign audiences. At the same time, watchdog group Media Matters sued, alleging that the Federal Trade Commission had been used to retaliate against it for reporting on extremist content. The case suggested that regulatory power was being turned against critics.

Individual journalists faced direct pressure. Beyond the attacks on Bertrand, the administration detained Afridi and seized his credential, sending a message to foreign reporters that critical coverage could carry immigration consequences. Trump and his press team repeatedly accused journalists of lying about the Iran strikes and of undermining national security. Vice President J.D. Vance misidentified Senator Alex Padilla by the name of a notorious criminal during a news conference, blurring the line between political opposition and criminality. These episodes contributed to a climate in which investigative reporting and dissenting voices were framed as suspect. The cost of speaking plainly rose.

Civil courts became a battleground over media narratives. Trump pursued a defamation-style lawsuit against CBS over alleged editing of election coverage, with a mediator proposing a $20 million settlement. California Governor Gavin Newsom, in turn, filed a major defamation suit against Fox News and Jesse Watters, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars over what he described as deceptive editing and false statements. These cases tested how far public officials and powerful figures could use litigation to shape or punish coverage. They also showed that the tools of civil law, once seen as neutral, were now part of a broader struggle over who gets to define reality.

Knowledge institutions beyond the media were pulled into the same orbit. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with ideological allies skeptical of vaccines. The reconstituted panel voted against thimerosal-based flu vaccines despite scientific consensus on their safety. A CDC presentation cited a non-existent study by an appointee with anti-vaccine ties, allowing misinformation to enter official channels. The Supreme Court upheld key Affordable Care Act preventive-services provisions but confirmed that the health secretary could remove task force members and review recommendations, increasing political leverage over expert bodies. Together, these moves shifted vaccine policy from evidence-based guidance toward a politicized framework.

Higher education and civic education faced parallel pressures. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threatened to revoke Harvard’s certification to host foreign students, citing alleged extremism, until a judge blocked the move. The Justice Department expanded investigations into university hiring and DEI policies, and a settlement forced the University of Virginia’s president to resign over diversity disputes. OMB recommended terminating nearly all State Department pro-democracy programs worldwide, shrinking U.S. support for civil society abroad. In K–12 education, the Supreme Court required public schools to allow religious opt-outs from LGBTQ-themed instruction, and the administration declared California’s trans-inclusive sports policies a violation of Title IX, threatening enforcement. The Court also upheld Texas’s age-verification law for pornography websites, endorsing a model of online regulation that could chill lawful speech. These actions narrowed what could be taught, researched, or supported under the banner of public policy.

Within this tightening environment, the boundaries of belonging were redrawn. Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim socialist who advanced a redistributive platform in New York City—rent freezes, large-scale affordable housing, higher taxes on the wealthy, public groceries, free buses, universal child care—became a focal point. After his primary win, he faced Islamophobic threats and death threats, prompting hate-crimes investigations. Trump-aligned Representative Andy Ogles called for his denaturalization and deportation, alleging misrepresented ties and framing him as effectively aligned with terrorism. Trump amplified these calls. The idea that a sitting American politician could be stripped of citizenship for his ideology and background moved from the fringe into mainstream political discourse.

The same logic appeared in other contexts. Wrongful detentions of citizens in immigration raids, arrests of families at court, and the targeting of journalists and officials at ICE facilities all suggested that certain people’s rights were more fragile than others’. The administration’s framing of immigration and education battles in moralistic, culture-war terms—casting trans-inclusive policies and DEI programs as threats to children or national identity—further entwined religious and ideological conservatism with state enforcement priorities. Dissenters were labeled unpatriotic or corrupt. Oversight was recast as sabotage.

The week also saw a stark act of political violence. In Minnesota, state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated by a gunman posing as a police officer, who also wounded another lawmaker and spouse. The killer’s impersonation of law enforcement blurred the line between state authority and extremist action. At the same time, federal agents in masks arrested elected officials such as New York City comptroller Brad Lander and Newark mayor Ras Baraka at or near ICE facilities, and charged Representative LaMonica McIver. Protesters at Palantir and Medicaid demonstrations were arrested on disorderly-conduct charges. ICE’s new rules made congressional oversight visits harder. Rhetorical attacks on lawmakers, including Trump’s social media assaults on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and his denunciations of intra-party critics of the Iran strikes, added to a climate in which holding office or protesting policy carried growing personal risk.

Economic policy and self-dealing formed the backdrop to these security and rights developments. The Senate advanced a major budget reconciliation bill with deep Medicaid cuts, deficit expansion, and fossil-fuel tax breaks. The parliamentarian ruled that several provisions violated Senate rules, and leadership chose not to overrule her, preserving some procedural constraints. Yet Republican lawmakers called for her firing, signaling a willingness to politicize even neutral referees to push through a partisan agenda. The bill’s substance shifted burdens onto low-income people while preserving advantages for corporations. Fiscal tools were used to entrench inequality.

At the same time, elite actors benefited from the crisis environment. Stephen Miller held a financial stake in Palantir as it secured a $30 million ICE surveillance contract, raising clear conflict-of-interest concerns. Trump Media announced a $400 million share buyback, boosting the value of a politically influential media company closely tied to the president. Trump halted trade talks with Canada in retaliation for its digital services tax on U.S. firms, using trade policy to defend favored corporations. He publicly pressured Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, challenging central bank independence and signaling that monetary policy should align with presidential preferences. Public funds were channeled into detention infrastructure and, after court intervention, into EV charger programs. Alternative models existed—California’s expansion of film and TV tax credits, Mamdani’s redistributive platform—but they operated at the margins of a federal system increasingly geared toward crisis and corporate gain.

Amid these shifts, some elements of routine governance persisted. Federal regulators issued a wide array of technical rules and notices, from chemical risk evaluations and Superfund settlements to medical-device classifications and telecom data collections. The National Archives invited public comment on records disposition schedules, and EPA published environmental impact statements for review. The National Security Council began rehiring staff after earlier deep cuts, suggesting a partial restoration of capacity. Courts clarified AI copyright rules, holding that training models on lawfully purchased books was permissible while using pirated texts likely violated the law. These actions showed that not all institutional functions had been captured or hollowed out. They also risked projecting a sense of normalcy that could obscure the scale of concurrent democratic erosion.

Taken together, the week’s developments moved the Democracy Clock forward not through a single catastrophe but through the steady thickening of a new normal. War could be launched without authorization and sold with curated intelligence. Immigration enforcement could be militarized, outsourced, and expanded into mega-camps. Courts could be reshaped to narrow remedies just as the executive tested the limits of obedience. Media and universities could be pressured, purged, or sued into alignment. Citizenship and safety could be stratified by origin, ideology, and identity, while those who protested or held office faced rising risks of arrest or violence.

The moral floor for public life sagged under this weight. Character, in the sense of aligning words with duty, gave way to narratives crafted for advantage. Ethics blurred as personal stakes and public contracts intertwined. Restraint was scarce in war-making and enforcement. Truthfulness yielded to disinformation about Iran and elections. Good faith in process eroded as rules were bent to their breaking point. Stewardship of institutions was sacrificed to short-term control. Yet resistance did not vanish. Judges issued rebukes and injunctions. Civil society organized protests and lawsuits. Some state and local actors pursued different economic and civic visions.

The week’s significance lies in how these strands coexisted. Routine rulemaking and court decisions continued, giving the appearance of a functioning democracy. At the same time, the conditions under which that democracy could reliably check power, protect dissent, and treat citizens as equals narrowed. The movement of the clock captured that tension: a small step on the dial, and a large step in the ease with which authority could act without effective oversight.