By Leo Hohmann
Famed constitutional attorney and civil liberties advocate John Whitehead sounds off on Trump’s bizarre executive order signed April 28th.
The big news today is that Donald Trump has signed a trade deal with the United Kingdom.
Can you believe it? That was Trump’s “big announcement?” A trade deal with America’s ninth largest trading partner? Whoopee. I personally have never bought anything in any store that said “made in the UK” that I can remember.
Spare me. This is not news.
Those in the news business (they’re really professional propagandists) are also wanting us to have our eyes on the Vatican and who the next pope will be. Wow, an American liberal from Obama’s Chicago stomping grounds.
Here’s all you need to know about the new pope, Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, from The Hill:
“The new pope is considered an ally of Francis, who made him the cardinal in charge of selecting and managing bishops around the world… Francis named Prevost in 2023 to be prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. The role involves recommending candidates for bishops to the pope and overseeing the commission that studies the Catholic church in Latin America, according to the Catholic News Service.”
This confirms that the new pope will be as liberal and antagonistic to biblical truth as the previous pope. End of story. It reminds me of the 1971 song by The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
The entire lyrics, written by Pete Townsend, are prophetic for our times, concluding with “Meet the new boss…Same as the old boss”
So, if it’s not the pope, what is the really big story we should be focused on this week? The one almost nobody is looking at?
Keep the lyrics in the song above in mind as we pivot from the pope to the president.
I’m looking at what the Trump administration is doing behind the scenes, behind all of the daily tweets, pressers and Truth Social posts, beyond all the comments about annexing Greenland and making Canada the 51st state, re-opening Alcatraz or jokes about him becoming the next pope. While taking up a copious amount of time and space on news outlets of the left and right, this frivolous chatter is carefully designed to keep us entertained and distracted.
Here’s what they don’t want you to know.
Last week, on April 28, President Trump signed a disturbing executive order which you can read at WhiteHouse.gov titled “Strengthening and Unleashing Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens.”
When I read it, my first thought was: I wonder what John Whitehead thinks of this document?
Over the last 45 years, there has been nobody as consistently in the government’s face, holding it accountable for violating Americans’ civil liberties than John Whitehead. He has litigated countless important cases, some of them all the way to the Supreme Court, and he’s also a prolific author, having written books such as Battlefield America, The Eric Blair Diaries, and A Government of Wolves.
So I called him and the legendary constitutional expert and founder of the Rutherford Institute granted me a 20-minute interview.
The rest of this article will be focused on what Whitehead told me.
When I asked him to share his initial thoughts as he had read Trump’s executive order, here’s what he said:
“The first thing that hit me was George Washington’s statement, do not have a large standing army on American soil. It began with Obama and some of the other presidents. We began arming of the Department of Homeland Security, and all of their agents with all their military equipment, the MRAP (armored vehicles), the grenade launchers and all the various things they have. The final stage would have to be blending the local police into that process and connecting them (with the feds). And that’s exactly what this order does.”
If it gets implemented, this executive order “is basically martial law to enforce the president’s so-called priorities,” Whitehead said.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prevents presidents from using the American military for a domestic police force, and Whitehead believes that’s exactly where our country is heading with this executive order, combined with previous executive orders by past presidents.
The groundwork has already been laid and the Hegelian Dialectic set.
First, we had Joe Biden who opened up the borders, invited every type of violent criminal imaginable into the country, while collaborating with liberal prosecutors funded by George Soros.
Naturally, crime has spiked dramatically in and around major U.S. cities over the last five years.
Americans are begging for relief.
Along comes the next president, Trump, and he brings an answer to the problem that is as extreme as the original, opposite action by Biden.
Biden basically wanted no police. Trump wants to expand law enforcement and empower police in ways never seen previously in America. His executive order calls for investing in new prisons, and minimizing due process rights. Trump said in an interview with Kristen Welker of NBC News this past Sunday that he does not know who in America is eligible for the due process rights written in the 5th and 14th Amendments.
In his rhetoric, Trump routinely heroizes and idolizes tough militarized police tactics.
“We’ve done so many cases over the years on how to hold police accountable for their crimes. Under this executive order, it would be very difficult to hold anyone accountable in a police uniform …so this (executive order) will allow police to do anything they want to do basically if the community allows it to happen.”
What if you disagree with a police officer who gives an unreasonable and unconstitutional order? Can you question him?
Well, the new executive order indicates you had better not risk it. Those who do can be slapped with “enhanced sentences” for committing “crimes against law enforcement officers.” Such crimes are left undefined.
“Originally, police were there to protect the people against criminals but also against invasions from federal authorities, but basically that’s all gone now,” Whitehead said.
He sees an ongoing “blending” of federal law enforcement with the state and local police forces, a concept heavily fortified by Trump’s April 28 executive order.
“It’s been moving in that direction but this thing finalizes it. I’ve talked with plenty of police chiefs over the years and they’ve been working really closely with the FBI, having them occupy spaces in their offices and stuff. There’s this idea that they have to get ready for an immediate crackdown,” he said. “Homeland Security is working with the local police and instructing them. Again, it’s a form of martial law.”
Whitehead points to a 5-minute video put out by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2016 titled “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexities.”
The video has been used for training at the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations University. It predicts that by 2030 the population is not going to be able to sustain itself economically and everything is going to implode.
All that stands between the coming criminal chaos and the good people in major U.S. cities, the video suggests, is the U.S. Army.
Whitehead said it’s to the point where the American citizenry “has a very short window to push back on this. And the 10th amendment allows for this.”
The problem he sees, however, is how easily people are indoctrinated by President Trump.
“He starts off by saying how great and heroic the police are. I understand that and I’ve worked with (good cops) so much over the years, but there are also some with mental health problems and some are on drugs…. He refers to the police as the greatest of heroes. The actual heroes are the American people who pay the bills and often end up on the wrong side of these kind of operations.”
The EO also allows for more surveillance. Advanced AI-powered technology will allow cops to “predict” where the next crime will be committed and by whom. Throw in the Real ID, a biometric national ID card that Trump’s administration is pushing every state to comply with, and you have the makings for a future dictatorship already in place.
“Basically, it will all be algorithms and they can swoop in, knock your door down, and arrest you based on what they think you might do. It’s basically martial law implemented from Washington, DC. And the Trump administration is acting like the police are going to be the saviors.”
Trump has previously stated that he wants to give immunity to police and this executive order appears to do exactly that, stating in Section 3 that it will: “Strengthen and expand legal protections for law enforcement officers.”
Police already enjoy what’s called “qualified immunity” so exactly what Trump is offering them in expanded protections is unclear.
“The point is, he’s saying basically the police are going to be the gods ruling over us now. And they have an amazing amount of equipment and technology to do it,” Whitehead said. “The Democrats and Republicans both are deeply committed to this type of thing. They’re afraid to push back.”
“If you read over the founding fathers, they were very clear,” he added. “What kinds of rights do we have? When police come in what are they able to do to you?
“I’ve had an opportunity to know a number of really good police who’ve had training in the academy. They say it’s so militarized now. We’re dealing with a military police. It was never supposed to be like that in America. This is not Russia or China. They’re not supposed to be able to drag us off the streets and stuff like that. That’s definitely in our future. They may think you’re mentally insane, and now that may be just because you went on the internet and said something like ‘cops stink’ or ‘cops are stupid.’ And then they put you in a mental institution and you can’t contact anyone. We’ve had some of those cases. It’s very difficult what we’re seeing.
“Once people get used to seeing this, which they tend to do, the tanks coming down the street. At that point, there isn’t any hope, in my opinion.”
He said the bottom line for Americans can be boiled down to one question:
“Do we have rights or do we have privileges? That’s the important point.”
He believes that until we the people start to honestly look into that question, the tide will not turn in favor of freedom.
“I’ve argued for several decades now that before any public official takes office, they should have to take a test on the Constitution. And Trump, when he was talking about the Declaration of Independence, he made no sense. I was like, where in the world did he get that information from?”
Whitehead said the Declaration of Independence clearly states that we, the people, have sovereign rights, granted by our Creator.
“You can’t take them away, they’re there. He actually says (in this executive order) that the only people who have rights are in the government, and they’re able to dictate and tell us what to do. We’re supposed to say heil Hitler and move on.”
Whitehead, who has practiced law and fought for liberty for more than 45 years, isn’t ready to move on, or give up.
“I’m telling you it’s one of the most dangerous periods I’ve ever seen in this country. I’ve tried to warn people—the police community have the equipment to blast some communities away,” he said.
“I think his administration is going to move forward on it. And the police chiefs are, when you see them…there’s this idea that they’re a special class. They are supposed to be our servants. We the people are the government…They put out these executive orders and it’s the type of thing you would see in another country, not in America.”
The order talks about “protecting innocent citizens,” but who is that?
“It’s going to be the people with money, the people in government, the people who line up” and do what they’re told, Whitehead said.
So then, what is the answer?
“I encourage local communities to get together and start to say we’re not going to put up with this,” he said. But don’t count on your local politicians to help organize the pushback.
“I see so many local politicians who are ready to go along with whatever the federal government says and especially what this president says,” he said. “These types of executive orders make the Constitution look like a worthless piece of paper. And why is that? Because the American people, I talk to a lot of people, school kids, average adults, even lawyers, and they aren’t educated about our Constitution.”
“If he (Trump) was a good president, he would make sure the public schools are teaching the Constitution. Because countries that have done these sorts of things in the past, as you know, have headed into doom.”
In his final analysis about Trump’s April 28 executive order, Whitehead said:
“There are some people who are not going to like this when it gets implemented and they’re going to be in trouble. This is going to be overwhelming when AI and all this technology is given to police; the Department of Homeland Security has already done threat assessments on homes across America, so they’re already doing that creepy stuff that George Orwell warned about in 1984.”
©2025 Leo Hohmann. All rights reserved.
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Please visit LeoHohmann.com: Investigative reporting on globalism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and where politics, culture and religion intersect.
The post ‘Meet the new pope, same as the old pope…’ Will we get fooled again? And what’s really going on that they don’t want us to know about? appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.
