Hi, I'm Dahlia Lithwick. Welcome back to Amicus. This is Slate's podcast about the courts,

the law, and the U.S. Supreme Court. It is Tuesday, March 18th on the fourth day of a, I think,

genuine constitutional crisis that began to unfold midair on Saturday night when Judge James Bosberg on the federal district court in D.C.

ordered the Trump administration to turn around deportation flights to El Salvador, carrying Venezuelan migrants.

And the administration actively refused to

comply in open defiance of a court order. By Tuesday morning, the president was calling for Judge

Bosberg to be impeached. Chief Justice Roberts responded around noon on Tuesday, writing, quote,

For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate

response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.

The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose, end quote.

So we are coming to you with this extra episode of amicus, because while events are moving quickly, the courts are moving at well,

the speed of law, which means there's an awful lot to unpack, a timeline to try to pin down,

and some big questions that will not wait till Saturday in what definitely does not feel like, quote, the normal appellate review process.

The government had a deadline of noon today, Tuesday, to answer a whole bunch of questions from Judge Bowsberg, joining me now to figure out whether those questions were answered.

And what it all means is Slate, senior writer, Mark Joseph Stern, quarterback on team jurisprudence here at Slate. Hi, Mark. Hi, Dahlia. And happy constitutional crisis day to you.

Happy constitutional crisis week, possibly month, maybe a year. Let's see. Hey, I think we should start with just a timeline

because it's important to lay out the facts that prove, I think, fairly clearly that we are

now in the midst of a textbook constitutional crisis. Let's be clear maybe before we even do that,

the Justice Department's position continues to be that even parts of the timeline are classified.

On Saturday, it seems that the Trump administration began deporting Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, accusing hundreds without showing any evidence of belonging to the Transdaeragua

gang. The ACLU promptly sued them in federal court at 6.48 p.m., still on Saturday,

federal district judge Bozberg held an emergency hearing at which he determined that the Trump administration could not go around using the Alien Enemies Act.

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