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A Milwaukee County Circuit Judge was arrested by the FBI on Friday and charged before the Federal Court for allegedly helped an undocumented immigrant to avoid arrest.
Judge Hannah Dugan is Face two for the obstruction and concealment of the arrest individual. She made a first appearance in court and was released.
The arrest on federal accusations is an escalation in the accent put by the Trump administration on the conduct of judges, in particular with regard to the application of immigration. The Ministry of Justice has repeatedly said that he would investigate local officials who do not help federal immigration authorities.
“We think that judge Dugan Dugan intentionally oriented the federal agents far from the subject to be arrested in his courthouse, Eduardo Flores -Ruiz, allowing the subject – an illegal foreigner – to escape the arrest,” said the director of the FBI Kash Patel on X in a position on Friday morning. “Fortunately, our agents have hunted the PERP on foot and has been in detention since, but the judge’s obstruction has created an increased danger to the public.”
Dugan’s lawyer said on Friday that “Judge Dugan regrets and protests his arrest with all my heart. It was not done in the interest of public security, ”according to the AP.
In the accusation documents, the investigators said that the federal in civilian agents went to Dugan’s courtroom on April 18 with the intention of arresting Flores-Ruiz. A Mexican immigrant, Flores-Ruiz, had been withdrawn from the United States in 2013, but immigration officials learned that he was back in the country illegally because of his arrest in a case of local domestic violence.
After being informed of the presence of agents by his assistant to the courtroom, the judge “became visibly angry, said that the situation was” absurd “, left the bench and entered the chambers,” according to court documents.
Witnesses told investigators that Dugan had confronted the federal agents in a public corridor, where she asked several times to leave, saying that they needed another type of mandate to arrest. Dugan ordered agents to speak with the chief judge of the courthouse.
Several witnesses – including the deputy for Dugan’s courtroom and the prosecutor and the specialist in victims on the Flores -Ruiz affair – would have said that Dugan then directed Flores -Ruiz and his lawyer to leave by a “jury door”, which leads to a non -public zone of the court of the courthouse, according to court documents.
One of the witnesses told the investigators that Dugan had arrested both when they were trying to go out through the normal door in the courtroom, saying something to “wait, come with me”.
Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer quickly left the courthouse before the agents could catch them, according to the investigators. The agents found Flores-Ruiz outside the courthouse and identified. He took off by running but was finally captured.
CNN contacted the lawyer for Flores-Ruiz to comment. Flores-Ruiz has not yet pleaded for the federal accusations linked to his efforts to escape the arrest and is detained, according to his judicial file. This is a distinct case of accusations against Dugan.
Fight the Trump administration methods and priorities
Trump administration officials quickly praised arrest as an important step in making their repression of immigration and holding figures that they consider responsible corrupt.
The Attorney General Pam Bondi declared in an interview on Fox News after the arrest has been executed that “if you destroy evidence and you are clogging justice, when you have victims sitting in a domestic courtroom and you escort a criminal defendant by the rear door, it will not be tolerated.”
“I think some of these judges think they are going beyond and above the law, and they are not,” added Bondi.
Trump Tom Homan’s Tsar Frontier said in a post on x that “no one should be surprised by the arrest of two judges”. The second judge to whom he referred is the former judge magistrate Joel Cano, who is accused of having accommodated three alleged gang members on his property.
“If you actively train our application efforts or if you host or knowingly hide illegal ice at the ice, you will be prosecuted,” he said.
Opponents of the administration, however, attacked arrest as a threat to the legal system.
The Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, a Democrat, said in a declaration The fact that the Trump administration used “a dangerous rhetoric to attack and try to undermine our judiciary at all levels” and stressed that the “fundamental demand for justice in America” is the defendants are innocent until guilt is proven.
“I will continue to trust our justice system while this situation takes place before the Court,” said his declaration.
The mayor of Milwaukee, johnson rider, said that the arrest could scare residents from coming to justice, undergoing public security in the city.
And the Democratic representative Gwen Moore, whose district includes Milwaukee, described Dugan’s arrest as “shocking” in a statement and said that he had “all the characteristics of the implementation”.
“The application of federal laws entering a community and the arrest of a judge is a serious affair and would require a high legal bar,” said Moore, adding that she was “very alarmed by these increasingly deficient actions of the Trump administration, and in particular ice, which challenged the courts and acted with contempt for the Constitution.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
Evan Perez of CNN and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.