The Republican offensive against the courts and judges in recent months has been as subtle as a sledgehammer. The Washington Post recently summarized, for example, that the White House has pushed forward with “delegitimizing” the independent judiciary, and there’s overwhelming evidence to bolster the point.

And President Donald Trump wrote last month, “Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country! These people are Lunatics, who do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect Decisions and Rulings. … The danger is unparalleled!”

Around the same time, the president — who recently wrote that American courts are “broken,” “rigged” and guilty of “corruption” — also used his platform to amplify an item from a right-wing blog that read in part, “When judges exceed their constitutional authority by obstructing or overturning executive actions without legitimate constitutional grounds, they not only overstep their role but may also commit acts tantamount to treason and sedition.”

He has plenty of company. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has targeted a specific federal judge. White House advisor Stephen Miller condemned “Marxist” judges, who “must be stopped.” With the president’s blessing, Elon Musk and congressional Republicans have targeted a variety of judges with impeachment measures.

But the Trump administration hadn’t gone so far as to actually arrest a sitting judge — until now. NBC News reported:

The FBI arrested a county judge in Milwaukee on Friday, alleging that she obstructed the detention of an undocumented immigrant who was wanted by federal authorities on an administrative immigration warrant by escorting the man and his defense attorney though a non-public jury door. The arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan marks a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, in line with its rhetoric about going after local and state authorities on immigration-related matters.

Dugan faces charges of obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States, as well as a charge of concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest. After the local jurist was arrested by the FBI, she made an appearance before a federal magistrate judge and was released on bond.

(There was a related case in 2019, when prosecutors working for Trump’s Justice Department charged a Massachusetts judge with obstruction of justice after she allegedly allowed a defendant to leave the building through a rear door in order to evade ICE. She was not, however, arrested by the FBI, and the federal charges were dropped in 2022.)

Shortly after Dugan was taken into custody, Kash Patel, Trump’s highly controversial FBI director, published a tweet that effectively spiked the football. “We believe Judge 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,” he wrote in a missive that was deleted a short time later. “Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public.”

Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin didn’t quite see it that way.

“In the United States, we have a system of checks and balances and separations of power for damn good reasons,” the senator said in a statement. “The president’s administration arresting a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move, and it threatens to breach those very separations of power. Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country, and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by. By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this president is putting those basic Democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.”

“While details of this exact case remain minimal,” Baldwin continued, “this action fits into the deeply concerning pattern of this president’s lawless behavior and undermining courts and Congress’s checks on his power.”

I was also struck by Attorney General Pam Bondi — who’s already gone too far in targeting judges by name — who went to Fox News in the wake of Dugan’s arrest.

“[Judges] are deranged, is all I can think of,” Bondi said during her 18th appearance on Fox this year. “I think some of these judges think that they are beyond and above the law, and they are not. And we’re sending a very strong message today: If you are harboring a fugitive, we don’t care who you are. … We will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.”

To be indifferent to the authoritarian threat from this administration is to fail to pay close enough attention to unfolding events.

Through her legal counsel, Dugan issued a statement Friday afternoon that read, “Judge Hannah C. Dugan has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge. She has retained former United States Attorney Steven Biskupic to represent her. Judge Dugan will defend herself vigorously and looks forward to being exonerated. This will be the extent of any statements or interviews at this time.”

Biskupic served as the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Wisconsin during George W. Bush’s administration.

This post has been updated to include a statement from Judge Hannah Dugan’s defense counsel.