Noem's answer shows staggering ignorance
By: Rex Huppke
Columnist
USA today
..... Noted puppy executioner Kristi Noem, the current head of the U.S. Department of Homeland security, is a walking babbling example of why putting ignorant and unqualified people in charge of the government might not have been America's best idea.
.....
During a May 20 [2025] Senate hearing, Noem was asked a remarkably simple question by Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan: "What is habeas corpus?"
..... Noen respond, "Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people form this country.
..... That is what nay decent high school civic teacher would call "wrong." In fact, it is remarkably wrong. It is the kind of thing that makes "Saturday Night Live: skit writers' lives easy, and I assume it's exactly what Republicans want to hear, since they had sufficient brain rot to confirm Noem in the first place.
..... Hassan had to senator-slain this basic lea gel right to Noem, correctly saying: "Habeas Corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America form police states like North Korea."
..... I don't think it;s too much to ask that a government official in a position to "protect the homeland" by potentially rounding people up and detaining them should have at least a passing knowledge of this fundamental right.
.....
But Noem was transparently clueless.
..... She continued to let words fall out of her mouth, saying dumbly, "President Lincoln used it" - the president doesn't "use" habeas corpus - and then: "I support habeas corpus. I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not."
..... WHAT ARE YOUR TALKING ABOUT?!?
..... Article 1 of the Constitution clearly states hat only Congress has there right to suspend habeas corpus, and that's only "when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
..... This is not a class Noem can try to B.S. her way through because she forgot to do the reading. This is the U.S. Senate, and she's a high-ranking government official in a position of considerable power.
..... She is also, as evidenced by this insipid display if incomprehension, in no way qualified to hold that high-ranking position of have any kind of power.
..... Norem's doofus dance in the Senate hearing is especially troubling when you consider htat the Trump administration has made clear it wants to suspend habeas corpus to grease the wheels of its reckless deportations.
..... Which begs the question: How can the dumbest administration in American history suspend something its people can't even define?
..... I'm sure they'll stumble into a way to pull it off.
..... And we'll again reminded: Ignorant fools who think they're smart are the most dangerous fools of all.
..... Follow USA Today columnist Rex Huppke on bluesky at @rexhuppke,bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk.