The press is agog over the FBI’s arrest of a Wisconsin state court judge for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant avoid arrest. Politico is calling it the latest episode in “Trump’s shock-and-awe presidency” and “a remarkable escalation” of the president’s “battle with the judiciary.” A Badger State congressman, Darren Soto, calls the arrest “third world country dictator type of stuff.” Yet black robes hardly confer immunity for lawbreaking or abetting crime.

The arrest of the Milwaukee County circuit judge, Hannah Dugan, comes at a time of heightened tensions between the Trump administration and judges, with the president’s deportation policies a particular point of contention. “Some of these judges think they’re above the law,” Attorney General Bondi says. “They are not.” Judge Dugan is accused of obstructing a federal proceeding and “concealing an individual” to prevent his arrest, both felonies. 

The incident at Milwaukee follows an arrest Thursday of a former judge in New Mexico and his wife. They are accused of harboring members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua on their property. Judge Cano denies knowing that his tenants were gang members. Judge Dugan’s arrest echoes, too, the case of a Massachusetts state judge, Shelley Joseph, who in 2018 was accused along with a court officer of letting an illegal migrant elude capture by the federales. 

The Justice Department during President Trump’s first term prosecuted Judge Joseph for letting an accused fugitive from Pennsylvania “sneak out the back door of a courthouse,” the Times reported, rather than face arrest by immigration authorities. Yet prosecutors in 2022, under President Biden, dropped the charges. The Bay State’s Commission on Judicial Conduct filed charges against Judge Joseph in the matter, though, and the case is pending.

Judge Dugan, according to the FBI chief, Kash Patel, “intentionally misdirected federal agents” in her courthouse “away from” Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, allowing the migrant “to evade arrest.” The judge’s lawyer argues that arresting her was not “in the interest of public safety.” It’s hard to imagine what justification Judge Dugan could have, though, for helping anyone evade the Supreme Law of the Land — the Constitution, treaties, and federal statutes.

“They’re deranged is all I can think of,” is how Ms. Bondi accounts for the wave of opposition by judges to Mr. Trump’s policy agenda. That jibes with Mr. Trump’s depiction of a federal district judge, James Boasberg, as a “radical Left lunatic” after the jurist sought to put up roadblocks to the administration’s deportation of alleged Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. Mr. Trump called for Judge Boasberg’s impeachment.

That prompted a rebuke by Chief Justice Roberts, who advised that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” and that “the normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.” That’s well and good in the case of an adverse ruling from the bench. Yet when differences over how to interpret the law cross over into outright defiance of it, or even criminality, it’s hard to see the virtue in looking away.

Was the judge’s arrest overkill at a time when nerves are fraught over due process debates surrounding Mr. Trump’s deportation efforts? That’s the suggestion of a Milwaukee defense lawyer, Franklyn Gimbel, who tells the Journal Sentinel that the FBI had no business arresting the judge “like some common criminal,” as opposed to having “invited her to show up and accept process.” Yet Ms. Bondi insists: “No one is above the law.”