Dear Leader: Yes, I Totally Support Everything You Do, and Ed Martin is a Fine Man

I wanted to lay down a marker, just in case, so please take the headline as an accurate summation of my views. For the record.

The reason for the desire to clarify my natural admiration is this memo from AAG Brett Shumate to the DOJ's Civil Division, stating the policy priorities to be pursued by the division. One of the five items on the list: "Prioritizing Denaturalization." It leads with examples of attractive cases: "The benefits of civil denaturalization include the government’s ability to revoke the citizenship of individuals who engaged in the commission of war crimes,..." But keep that word "include" in mind. Its categories of "priorities for denaturalization cases" likewise leads with the big guns. But it also includes, inter alia, "individuals who engaged in fraud against private individuals, funds, or corporations." Now, I don't think I've done so or been accused of doing so, let alone found liable. But would this not include, at the division's discretion, say, plain-vanilla civil suits for fraud? And does it actually require a negative verdict? Or even a lawsuit? Do I need to go back over the history of my Columbia Record Club membership just to be safe? And it contains two further high-priority categories, both of which are we'll-think-of-something catchalls: "Cases referred by a United States Attorney’s Office or [not "and"] in connection with pending criminal charges, if those charges do not fit within one of the other priorities," and "Any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue." That is placing an awful lot of faith in the care, integrity, and goodwill of an awful lot of people. 

Of course the focus here is on people like Mamdani or Musk. Undermining the standard argumentative disclaimer that the rantings of individual morons should not be used to tar a whole party, it would appear that Trump actually paid some attention to the urgings of congressman and remarkably frequent liar Andy Ogles about Mamdani, for instance. (See index for multiple references to "Saying, a lot of people are.") But these are prominent individuals. And denaturalization is still tied to the statutory foundation of illegally procuring naturalization or concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation. I certainly answered questions honestly on my citizenship application form!

On the other hand, such a wide sweep of discretion, connected to triggers like being referred to the division by no one in particular, might make one go back and look extra carefully at those forms. And the form contains a fair number of catchalls, spread over multiple iterations of the application form whose language has waxed and waned. Are you, like me, a former Canadian? If the president ever decides to push more vigorously on the notion that the United States should use economic force--at least, limiting it to economic force is his current position--to absorb Canada as a single state, something that could happen at 2 a.m. on any given morning on Truth Social, will you be at all inclined to question his judgment? Proceed with caution. Are you a reasonably prominent former Canadian who, say, has been a vigorous proponent of the stripping of nonimmigrant visas, but is still willing to rashly criticize the regime for "blunderbuss tactics" in related areas, or to question the merits or coherence of Trump's tariffs approach? Did you support regime change in Iraq or Afghanistan back in the day? Did it not occur to you to check "yes" to the question, on older forms, "Have you EVER advocated (either directly or indirectly) the overthrow of any government by force or violence?" I would personally consider such an oversight utterly innocent. Still: Double-check your form. Or just make sure not to say anything too critical of any errors or excesses--incidental, I'm sure!--by the Justice Department, the President, the regime, or, I guess, just about any of the wrong people.

Or just hope for the best. After all, there are only some 25 million naturalized American citizens. They can't all say the wrong thing, right? And even if they do, surely their naturalization won't be wielded against them for purely political reasons. Nevertheless, I want to make one thing utterly clear: I think we're in good hands. And the White House renovations have been fabulous.