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Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s defiant vow to block President-elect Donald Trump’s planned mass deportation of illegal migrants could see him removed from office.

That’s according to Sen. Rand Paul who warned that the Democrat mayor could not only lose his job but face potential prosecution if he defies the incoming Trump administration’s orders.

Johnston raised eyebrows when he described a potential “Tiananmen Square moment” where police and thousands of Denver residents would be “stationed at the county line” to “keep out” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Paul called out the first-term mayor’s rhetoric and plan as a “form of insurrection” during an interview on “Face The Nation” Sunday.

“The stated Trump plan is to use the military or military assets, deputize the National Guard, and have them act as immigration agents. Do you believe that is lawful?” host Margaret Brennan asked Paul.

“You know, I’m 100 percent supportive of going after the 15,000 murderers, the 13,000 sexual assault perpetrators, rapists, all of these people. Let’s send them on their way to prison or back home to another prison,” the Kentucky Republican responded.

“So I would say all points bulletin all in. But you don’t do it with the Army because it’s illegal. And we’ve had a distrust of putting the Army into our streets because the police have a difficult job. But the police understand the Fourth Amendment. They have to go to judges. They have to get warrants. It has to be specific,” Paul continued  “And so I’m for removing these people. But I would do it through the normal process of domestic policing.”

“Now, I would say that the mayor of Denver, if he’s going to resist federal law, which there’s a long-standing, standing history of the supremacy of federal law, he’s going to resist that. It will go all the way to the Supreme Court,” the senator noted.

“And I would suspect that he would be removed from office,” he continued.

“I don’t know whether or not that would be a criminal prosecution for someone resisting federal law. But he will lose. And people need to realize that what he is offering is a form of insurrection where the states resist the federal government,” Paul added.

“Most people objected to that and rejected that long ago. So I think the mayor of Denver is on the wrong side of history and really, I think will face legal ramifications if he doesn’t obey the federal law,” he said.

In an interview with 9NEWS, Johnston appeared to walk back his initial plans to defy federal law.

“Would I have taken it back if I could? Yes, I probably wouldn’t have used that image. That’s an image I hope we can avoid. What I was trying to say is this is an outcome I hope we can avoid in this country. I think none of us want that,” he said.

“Trump’s new border czar, Tom Homan, has said that he is willing to arrest leaders like yourself for standing in the way of these policies that they want to enact. Would you be willing to go to jail for these things?” reporter Marc Sallinger asked.

“Yeah, I’m not afraid of that, and I’m also not seeking that,” the mayor replied. “I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people how to solve hard problems.”

Frieda Powers
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