My math teacher used to say that “obviously” means “I don’t know how to prove” and “trivially” means “tenuously at best”. Thanks for the demo of this in action.

It’s been a thing since 1789: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

Enough alarm bells are ringing to suggest that this is not normal. The persecution of political enemies isn't even a veiled threat, they are spoken outright in public.