{"id":129763,"date":"2025-08-06T14:47:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T22:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/06\/congress-just-deleted-habeas-corpus-from-the-constitution-on-its-website\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T14:47:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T22:47:21","slug":"congress-just-deleted-habeas-corpus-from-the-constitution-on-its-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/06\/congress-just-deleted-habeas-corpus-from-the-constitution-on-its-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Just Deleted Habeas Corpus From The Constitution On Its Website"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pop quiz: how many sections does Article I of the Constitution have? If you choose to look it up on the official website of Congress, congress.gov<\/em>, because you don\u2019t want to trust not some sketchy Substack for sedition hobbyists, you\u2019d say it has eight<\/a>. Except it has ten. Congress has just deleted Section 9 (and 10) from the website where it maintains the \u201cConstitution Annotated\u201d as a public service. But it\u2019s gone now. Because the sketchy sedition hobbyists are the ones running Congress now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We may need Nicholas Cage to steal the paper copy of the Constitution before it gets the Wite-Out treatment too.<\/p>\n

Section 9 includes eight different clauses, but likely the most relevant to the Republican leadership is the right of habeas corpus. \u201cThe Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it,\u201d reads the Constitution. At least the copy maintained by the non-profit National Constitution Center<\/a> reads that way, because the congressional version skips it entirely. The Trump administration struggles mightily with habeas corpus, the provision descended from English legal tradition that gives people the government locks up \u2014 or exports to El Salvadoran torture camps \u2014 the right to force the government to explain why. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem famously floundered when asked to define the right<\/a>, but next time she won\u2019t have to worry because Congress shot it down like a rambunctious puppy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s just gone\u2026 the copy jumps directly from the end of Section 8 to Article II. [UPDATE<\/strong>: I was working quickly and didn\u2019t even focus on the semicolon there. The deletions actually start before the end of Section 8.]<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The website is an annotated copy so there are separate URLs for landing pages digging into the meaning of each section. If you try to manually override the URL to see what it says about the missing Section 9, you get this:<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The good news for Justice Sam Alito is that Section 9 is also the part of the Constitution that bars anyone holding office from accepting a title. So Sir Samuel of Blackacre can now fully enjoy his medieval European knighthood<\/a> while continuing to collect under-the-table luxury benefits<\/a>!<\/p>\n

The quiet deletion of constitutional protections from the government\u2019s official website marks a bold step into Orwellian fanfic. It\u2019s a move Trump telegraphed last year, when he released his personal Trump Bible, promising his fans a King James Bible and copies of America\u2019s foundational documents\u2026 minus the parts he doesn\u2019t like<\/a>. The Fourteenth Amendment? That thing with Equal Protection and birthright citizenship and banning insurrectionists from office? NO THANK YOU! When his own \u201cLittle Red Book\u201d \u2014 hawked to supporters for $60 a pop \u2014 edited out the parts of the Constitution that didn\u2019t fit his vibe, many rolled their eyes. But it was already an assault on the rule of law, with MAGA officials attempting to force his FrankenBible into schools<\/a> as an educational text. American civics with the Reconstruction stuff neatly removed.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, the exclusion of the Twenty-Second Amendment might have been a red flag too.<\/p>\n

But erasing laws in a privately published book is one thing. Congress removing inconvenient laws is another. Of course, removing it from the website doesn\u2019t actually change the law. The Supreme Court \u2014 presumably \u2014 would still refer to their previously published pocket Constitutions. It\u2019s not really about changing the law though, it\u2019s about laying groundwork. Someone is going to go on cable news and declare \u201cI don\u2019t know what these hippies are talking about, habeas is not in the Constitution, look here!\u201d and they will go completely unchallenged. Make America Not Understand Rights Again is a goal.<\/p>\n

As I write this, I keep refreshing the congress.gov site hoping that it will reappear. Hoping that this is some sort of glitch or accident caused by a DOGE intern spilling on the keyboard. It\u2019s not coming back, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump Derangement Syndrome\u201d is such a powerful gaslighting trope because Trump\u2019s clumsy, ramshackle oafishness is a feature and not a bug. Authoritarianism via amateurism. A Nixonian power grab raises hackles, but bumble along embracing the stupidest fascism cosplay and one of two things happens: (1) you get away with it because the Supreme Court gave up on the rule of law or (2) you get called out and play it off as a joke that critics are \u201ccrazy\u201d for taking so seriously. If enough people call out Congress for this, it\u2019s going to be \u201ca harmless oversight\u201d and purely coincidental that their version of the Constitution excludes the part that makes dictatorships slightly harder.<\/p>\n

Oh, and you should watch out for bills of attainder and ex post facto laws too. Because that\u2019s also in Section 9.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong>: The Library of Congress blames a \u201ccoding error.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

It has been brought to our attention that some sections of Article 1 are missing from the Constitution Annotated (https:\/\/t.co\/zhCGgJPRVf<\/a>) website. We\u2019ve learned that this is due to a coding error. We have been working to correct this and expect it to be resolved soon.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Library of Congress (@librarycongress) August 6, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

As a reminder, the Librarian of Congress was fired by the Trump administration<\/a> and replaced by two-bit stooge Todd Blanche<\/a>. To be clear, the person currently running the Library of Congress is\u2026 THE GUY FROM DOJ WHO KEEPS LOSING HABEAS CASES. Surely a coincidence.<\/p>\n

Blanche has, of course, been busy trying to smooth over a story with Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a> that could get her better prison accommodations<\/a> in exchange for saying \u201cDonald Trump who?\u201d when asked about Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s sexual trafficking operation. So Blanche can be forgiven for being asleep at the switch at the Library!<\/p>\n

But as 404 Media insightfully points out<\/a>, this isn\u2019t exactly a dynamic section of the website. For years<\/em> no one has even touched it. The thing about a coding error is it requires someone messing with the coding in the first place. So who was that? And why? <\/p>\n

[UPDATE 2<\/strong>: They\u2019ve put it back up. So our short national nightmare is over and the people who decided \u2014 for some reason \u2014 to start messing with the code on a website that hasn\u2019t otherwise changed in six years can go back to explaining how it\u2019s crazy that we thought it was weird that they deleted habeas and exclusive congressional authority to issue tariffs (oh yeah, that\u2019s section 10) from the official website.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Congress Just Deleted Habeas Corpus From The Constitution On Its Website<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pop quiz: how many sections does Article I of the Constitution have? If you choose to look it up on the official website of Congress, congress.gov<\/em>, because you don\u2019t want to trust not some sketchy Substack for sedition hobbyists, you\u2019d say it has eight<\/a>. Except it has ten. Congress has just deleted Section 9 (and 10) from the website where it maintains the \u201cConstitution Annotated\u201d as a public service. But it\u2019s gone now. Because the sketchy sedition hobbyists are the ones running Congress now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We may need Nicholas Cage to steal the paper copy of the Constitution before it gets the Wite-Out treatment too.<\/p>\n

Section 9 includes eight different clauses, but likely the most relevant to the Republican leadership is the right of habeas corpus. \u201cThe Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it,\u201d reads the Constitution. At least the copy maintained by the non-profit National Constitution Center<\/a> reads that way, because the congressional version skips it entirely. The Trump administration struggles mightily with habeas corpus, the provision descended from English legal tradition that gives people the government locks up \u2014 or exports to El Salvadoran torture camps \u2014 the right to force the government to explain why. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem famously floundered when asked to define the right<\/a>, but next time she won\u2019t have to worry because Congress shot it down like a rambunctious puppy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s just gone\u2026 the copy jumps directly from the end of Section 8 to Article II. [UPDATE<\/strong>: I was working quickly and didn\u2019t even focus on the semicolon there. The deletions actually start before the end of Section 8.]<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The website is an annotated copy so there are separate URLs for landing pages digging into the meaning of each section. If you try to manually override the URL to see what it says about the missing Section 9, you get this:<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The good news for Justice Sam Alito is that Section 9 is also the part of the Constitution that bars anyone holding office from accepting a title. So Sir Samuel of Blackacre can now fully enjoy his medieval European knighthood<\/a> while continuing to collect under-the-table luxury benefits<\/a>!<\/p>\n

The quiet deletion of constitutional protections from the government\u2019s official website marks a bold step into Orwellian fanfic. It\u2019s a move Trump telegraphed last year, when he released his personal Trump Bible, promising his fans a King James Bible and copies of America\u2019s foundational documents\u2026 minus the parts he doesn\u2019t like<\/a>. The Fourteenth Amendment? That thing with Equal Protection and birthright citizenship and banning insurrectionists from office? NO THANK YOU! When his own \u201cLittle Red Book\u201d \u2014 hawked to supporters for $60 a pop \u2014 edited out the parts of the Constitution that didn\u2019t fit his vibe, many rolled their eyes. But it was already an assault on the rule of law, with MAGA officials attempting to force his FrankenBible into schools<\/a> as an educational text. American civics with the Reconstruction stuff neatly removed.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, the exclusion of the Twenty-Second Amendment might have been a red flag too.<\/p>\n

But erasing laws in a privately published book is one thing. Congress removing inconvenient laws is another. Of course, removing it from the website doesn\u2019t actually change the law. The Supreme Court \u2014 presumably \u2014 would still refer to their previously published pocket Constitutions. It\u2019s not really about changing the law though, it\u2019s about laying groundwork. Someone is going to go on cable news and declare \u201cI don\u2019t know what these hippies are talking about, habeas is not in the Constitution, look here!\u201d and they will go completely unchallenged. Make America Not Understand Rights Again is a goal.<\/p>\n

As I write this, I keep refreshing the congress.gov site hoping that it will reappear. Hoping that this is some sort of glitch or accident caused by a DOGE intern spilling on the keyboard. It\u2019s not coming back, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump Derangement Syndrome\u201d is such a powerful gaslighting trope because Trump\u2019s clumsy, ramshackle oafishness is a feature and not a bug. Authoritarianism via amateurism. A Nixonian power grab raises hackles, but bumble along embracing the stupidest fascism cosplay and one of two things happens: (1) you get away with it because the Supreme Court gave up on the rule of law or (2) you get called out and play it off as a joke that critics are \u201ccrazy\u201d for taking so seriously. If enough people call out Congress for this, it\u2019s going to be \u201ca harmless oversight\u201d and purely coincidental that their version of the Constitution excludes the part that makes dictatorships slightly harder.<\/p>\n

Oh, and you should watch out for bills of attainder and ex post facto laws too. Because that\u2019s also in Section 9.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong>: The Library of Congress blames a \u201ccoding error.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a reminder, the Librarian of Congress was fired by the Trump administration<\/a> and replaced by two-bit stooge Todd Blanche<\/a>. To be clear, the person currently running the Library of Congress is\u2026 THE GUY FROM DOJ WHO KEEPS LOSING HABEAS CASES. Surely a coincidence.<\/p>\n

Blanche has, of course, been busy trying to smooth over a story with Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a> that could get her better prison accommodations<\/a> in exchange for saying \u201cDonald Trump who?\u201d when asked about Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s sexual trafficking operation. So Blanche can be forgiven for being asleep at the switch at the Library!<\/p>\n

But as 404 Media insightfully points out<\/a>, this isn\u2019t exactly a dynamic section of the website. For years<\/em> no one has even touched it. The thing about a coding error is it requires someone messing with the coding in the first place. So who was that? And why? <\/p>\n

[UPDATE 2<\/strong>: They\u2019ve put it back up. So our short national nightmare is over and the people who decided \u2014 for some reason \u2014 to start messing with the code on a website that hasn\u2019t otherwise changed in six years can go back to explaining how it\u2019s crazy that we thought it was weird that they deleted habeas and exclusive congressional authority to issue tariffs (oh yeah, that\u2019s section 10) from the official website.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pop quiz: how many sections does Article I of the Constitution have? If you choose to look it up on the official website of Congress, congress.gov, because you don\u2019t want to trust not some sketchy Substack for sedition hobbyists, you\u2019d say it has eight. Except it has ten. Congress has just deleted Section 9 (and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":129706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Headshot-300x200-J2fCnq.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}