Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: Stephen Miller, Trump’s Tenacious and Evil Ghoul, Forms "Legal Organization" to Attack Biden's Policies
April 20, 2021
The odious Stephen Miller (DonkeyHotey)
By Bill Berkowitz
Stephen Miller may be selling his house in Washington D.C., but he ain’t leaving the political arena, returning to the political wars with a bang, not a whimper. Miller, a top aide to former President Donald Trump, the architect of Trump’s restrictive immigration policies that included ripping children away from their parents, and a fellow that has been dubbed by some as “tenacious ghoul,” appears to have raised a bundle of money to launch America First Legal (AFL). The legal organization aims “to challenge [the] Biden administration initiatives at odds with Trump-era priorities,” The Wall Street Journal’s Brent Kendall reported.
Miller told the Wall Street Journal that “Anything the president does that we believe to be illegal is fair game.” That is likely to include just about every Biden administration initiative!
A senior administration official for the previous White House told Politico: “During the Trump administration, we had the ACLU and three or four other advocacy groups consistently working with Democrats to coordinate against our policies. Miller is taking a page out of their book.”
AFL’s board of directors includes former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, as well as others with deep ties to the conservative movement.
“Those who believe in America First must not shy away from using our legal system to defend our society and our families from any unlawful actions by the left," Miller said in a statement. "Those looking to hold the new administration in Washington to account finally have their answer. Our self-imposed policy of legal disarmament is now over."
"As we know, the Radical Left has been relentless in waging their battles in court. Conservatives and America First supporters badly need to catch up and turn the tables, which is why I applaud Stephen and Mark Meadows for rushing to fill this critical void," Mr. Trump said in a statement supporting Miller's new venture.
America First Legal enters the fray after a period where Trump appointed more than 230 judges to the federal bench and three justices to the Supreme Court.
The Independent’s Chris Riotta reported that “Republican groups have already launched a range of legal challenges to the president’s executive orders, with some of those showing signs of initial success in court. At least one effort led by Texas’ attorney general bore fruit when a judge blocked Mr. Biden’s executive order halting deportations.”
Groups of attorneys general nationwide “have filed lawsuits against the Biden administration challenging its policies on the Keystone XL Pipeline, as well as new oil and gas leases on public lands,” Riotta noted.
America First Legal has the backing of Trump and Trump and a board of directors that includes former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, as well as others with deep ties to the conservative movement.
Some former Trump administration have moved on to conservative think tanks, public policy institutes, and Right-wing media outfits — including former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to the Fox News Channel — and some are having a hard time finding new employment.
According to Vanity Fair’s Caleb Ecarma, “Ben Carson’s next move involves launching a ‘do tank’––i.e. a think tank for actions, as the former HUD secretary describes it. The focus of Carson’s American Cornerstone Institute is vague, but it seems to be another generic pro-conservative-values initiative. Carson seems significantly more passionate about another project: a right-wing youth organization called Little Patriots, a dream that he described to the Post as ‘something like the Boy Scouts, but heavily exposed to the real history of America.’”
Ecarma pointed out that Brad Parscale, the former Trump campaign manager unceremoniously dumped by Trump “has launched two new organizations, the American Greatness super PAC and the American Greatness Fund, the latter of which is a nonprofit advocacy group.”
MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan, recently sitting in for Chis Hayes called Stephen Miller “probably the most repugnant individual to serve” in Trump’s administration.
Bill Berkowitz is an Oakland, California-based freelance writer covering right-wing movements. His work has appeared in BuzzFlash, The Nation, Huffington Post, The Progressive, AlterNet, Street Sheet, In These Times, and many other print and online publications, as well as being cited in several books.
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