FBI Director Deletes Tweet About Arrest of Wisconsin Judge but It’s Unclear Why

Kash Patel, a far-right extremist and conspiracy theorist who just so happens to be the director of the FBI, tweeted Friday about the arrest of a judge in Wisconsin who he alleges tried to obstruct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But it wasn’t long before Patel deleted the tweet. Two hours later, Patel retweeted the exact same thing, and it’s unclear why he would delete the original tweet.

“Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on charges of obstruction—after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week,” Patel wrote in his tweet from 10:11 a.m. ET.

“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,” Patel continued.

Patel went on to write, “thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot,” describing the scene like he’s in a cheesy 1980s cop show, and insisting that, “the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public.” Patel ended his tweet by saying that he will “have more to share soon” and tagging the X account for the FBI in Milwaukee.

Anyone trying to visit the tweet’s original URL now sees a page that reads, “Hmm…this page doesn’t exist. Try searching for something else.” Patel’s new version of the tweet appears to have identical wording, so it’s a complete mystery why he deleted it. The U.S. Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to questions about Patel’s tweet emailed Friday.

ICE agents reportedly arrived at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 to arrest a Mexican citizen in Judge Hannah Dugan’s courtroom, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The newspaper says Dugan directed the ICE agents to the chief justice’s office and the person ICE was trying to arrest left through a side door. The Journal-Sentinel spoke with five experts who all had different opinions on Dugan’s alleged conduct, but none thought she should be charged with a crime.

The U.S. Marshals Service confirmed on Friday that Dugan was arrested around 8:30 a.m. local time (9:30 a.m. ET) on courthouse property. Dugan appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries and has been charged with two felonies, obstruction and concealing an individual, according to the Journal-Sentinel.

Dugan made no comment during the hearing, but her attorney reportedly said, “Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety.” A former federal prosecutor in Milwaukee, Franklyn Gimbel, who spoke with the Journal-Sentinel, called her arrest “outrageous,” and noted that the FBI could have simply invited her to show up and surrender herself. But theatrics are obviously a big deal for the very media-conscious Trump regime.

Dugan, 65, got her bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981 and earned her JD in 1987, according to the Associated Press. She was elected to the county court, Branch 31, in 2016 and worked at Legal Action of Wisconsin and the Legal Aid before that.

President Donald Trump prosecuted a federal judge in Massachusetts in a similar case brought in 2019, but that case was dropped in 2022 during the Biden administration. Trump has made it clear that he’s going to go after judges as a way to impose his particular brand of fascism on the United States. And his billionaire buddy Elon Musk, the head of DOGE, has repeatedly called for the persecution of judges. Musk tweeted about the case Friday, writing, “More judicial corruption.”

Kash Patel was confirmed as FBI director in late February in a vote of 51-49, with every Democratic senator and two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voting no. Patel was a board member for Trump Media, the company that owns Donald Trump’s Truth Social, before resigning that role to take his job at the FBI and has made at least $2.6 million from consulting and media deals, according to ABC News. Patel also wrote an absolutely unhinged children’s book depicting Donald Trump as a king, titled The Plot Against the King.

The FBI director has repeatedly embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory, published a list of so-called deep state officials to target, and has promised to “come after” the media. And yet many of Patel’s supporters on social media have been frustrated by perceptions that the FBI director has been slow to enact retribution against perceived enemies. We’ll see if that changes now that Patel is doing his best to usher in the “arrest judges” stage of fascism.