As the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice attempts to jail the opposition party’s frontrunner presidential candidate, Americans have naturally been distracted by the largeness of these questions: did Trump “do it” (whatever “it” is (there’s a new thing every month or so)), will justice be delivered equally among the rest of our crooked politicians, and what will actually happen — just technically speaking — if Trump is both convicted of some crime or other and triumphant in the next election? The subject is important, if nebulous, and I’ll be covering it in greater detail as the election season heats up. But today, with federal norms so fundamentally altered in the name of ‘preserving norms,’ I find myself much more captured by a question for the Industry. What will happen to private citizens of political utility under this overtly politicized DOJ regime? The prosecution of a major presidential candidate is a huge, easy target, and for good reason. Trump will have many defenders, whether he deserves them or not. But what about the rest of us?

Last week, to broad industry shock, Biden’s DOJ filed a lawsuit against SpaceX for “discriminating” in favor of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Only hiring Americans? Not in this country, asshole (this country is America). As Alex Tabarrok reported for Marginal Revolution, the SpaceX story was a strange case for many reasons, the government’s own policy ostensibly in conflict with the lawsuit most importantly among them. On Twitter/X, Elon argued the decision to hire American citizens wasn’t his choice. It was the law, which by the way our government was also following.

At its most basic, the conflict between SpaceX and the DOJ appears to be rooted in confusion over terminology. Space companies are ITAR-controlled, which means they can only hire “US Persons.” The phrase “US Person” apparently includes refugees and asylum seekers waiting for their day in court, while the phrase “US Citizen” does not. The government has itself used the phrases interchangeably, I guess by mistake, for years. Nonetheless, the DOJ is taking Elon Musk to court, and the reason is obvious: the Democratic Party considers him an enemy.