The Administration’s Ghastly Game Plan For Savaging Abrego Garcia
A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.
Savagery is the point
It’s difficult to convey the full extent of the Trump administration’s misdeeds in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but let’s try.
You already know the basic outline of the story. The administration illegally deported Abrego Garcia from his home in Maryland to El Salvador, where he was thrown in prison for months. Although the Supreme Court ordered the administration to facilitate his return, the executive branch dragged its feet for weeks. When the administration finally returned him to the United States (without informing his lawyers or the judge overseeing the case), it did so for the sole purpose of incarcerating him again on criminal charges that had been secretly filed in Tennessee.
It is what has happened since then that has become more difficult to express because it is not clear what the purpose of the administration is here. You might have thought about the end of the game was the criminal case in Tennessee: Get a conviction then deport him before or after serving his sentence here. No, as it turned out.
It has become clear now that the administration is not motivated by the desire for any particular outcome, but by the desire for any outcome among the available choices that inflicts maximum pain and suffering on Abrego Garcia.
If this seems far-fetched to you, let me quickly explain the administration’s threat to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country, because it is the best example of the agitation that has marked the administration’s baseless approach to this matter.
At first glance, one might think that deportation to a third country is the business of the moment. Has the man not suffered enough without being sent to a country on the African continent with which he has no connection, where it is not known whether he will be incarcerated again without being charged, and where assurances are tenuous to say the least that he will not simply be transferred to El Salvador? You might be inclined to follow the ins and outs of this story, with the ultimate question being whether the administration will succeed in shipping it to Africa. But it turns out you would have been wrong.
Once the Trump administration took Abrego Garcia back into custody in Maryland in connection with his immigration case (after he was released in Tennessee while his trial was underway), it made little effort to find a third country willing to accept him. His lawyers suspected the administration was content to detain him indefinitely, and so forced the issue by seeking a court order to release him. In a hearing earlier this month before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland, she found that almost nothing had been done by the administration to find a third country and that what had been done was undertaken immediately before the hearing in anticipation of having to answer for its conduct.
So now your inclination might be to check whether Abrego Garcia wins by securing his release rather than being subjected to indefinite detention by a foot-dragging Trump administration. Wrong again!
Facing the prospect of a potentially unfavorable decision by Xinis, the administration said Friday it had found a third country for Abrego Garcia. Liberia, greet you. Xinis summoned the parties for another hearing yesterday, during which the administration said it was preparing to deport him to Liberia as early as October 31.
The administration’s shifting priorities reflect not a grand plan or strategy, but the moment-by-moment choice of which option is presented to it and which torments Abrego Garcia the most. This is really the only explanation that explains the administration’s winding series of positions. But there’s another wild card in the mix.
Abrego Garcia still faces a criminal trial in Tennessee on human trafficking charges leveled by the administration. So far, he’s convinced a judge — not so harsh on the facts I’ve already laid out here — that he’s established a prima facie case for vindictive prosecution by Trump’s DOJ. This shifts the burden to the administration to establish that it initiated the prosecution on a legitimate basis. Importantly, it also gave Abrego Garcia insight into how the administration handled his case.
The administration is fighting like hell to prevent this discovery, which includes a subpoena from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and other top DOJ officials. The judge in the criminal case set two hearing days, Nov. 4 and 5, for all pretrial motions, including the request for vindictive indictment. Testimonies are awaited. Trump’s DOJ moved yesterday to quash the subpoena in hopes of preventing testimony from Blanche and others. Meanwhile, the judge overseeing the criminal case yesterday criticized the administration for its “exaggerated, if not simply inaccurate” out-of-court statements about Abrego Garcia.
So you can see now the added benefit to the administration of resuming the third country expulsion plan, whether from Liberia or elsewhere (it is likely that Abrego Garcia will formally express at a hearing today his fear of being sent to Liberia, which would cause additional delays). They will be happy to avoid further scrutiny of their conduct in the criminal case, even if it means effectively dropping the case by deporting him.
Criminal prosecution, deportation to a third country, and prolonged detention are just tools the Trump administration is using to brutalize Abrego Garcia. The wildness is the point.
Cover?
A Homeland Security officer accompanying local police fired his weapon at a car during a traffic stop in Washington earlier this month, but the police report on the incident contained no mention of gunfire. All charges against the unarmed black man who was arrested were dropped after a judge concluded there was not enough evidence that he tried to flee, his lawyers told WaPo. The man was not injured in the incident, but spent three nights in jail before the charges were dropped.
Former DOJ side with Comey
In an amicus brief, more than 100 former DOJ officials urged a federal judge to dismiss the criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey, arguing that it is vindictive.
The ball is now in Trump’s DOJ court
Former special counsel Jack Smith sent a letter to the Trump Justice Department requesting access to his old records and seeking guidance on what he can say in the testimony Hill Republicans are demanding of him.
Mass Preventive Pardon Alert
Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor and former Justice Department official under Bush II, predicts that President Trump will issue massive preemptive pardons toward the end of his term, especially if a Democrat succeeds him:
[O]We can be absolutely certain that Trump will issue preemptive pardons at or near the end of his second term, probably on an enormous scale – especially since… he will anticipate that a Democratic administration may have little reason to respect the views of Trump’s OLC when deciding whether to prosecute Trump officials. Pardons blunt this possibility. I expect Trump to issue hundreds, if not thousands, of preemptive pardons to everyone in his administration who may face future investigation or prosecution, particularly if a Democrat wins the presidential election in November 2028.
Trump appeals Hush Money conviction
President Trump has appealed his conviction in the Stormy Daniels case, in which he received no sentence, in hopes of having the convicted felon label removed from his biography.
Paul Manafort is still here
Keneth Vogel traces Paul Manafort’s “unlikely journey from high-flying global fixer to federal inmate and back.”
A race to beat the midterm clock
Red states are salivating at the prospect of the Roberts Court gutting what’s left of the Voting Rights Act, and some of them are starting to plan to redraw their congressional district maps if the Supreme Court rules in time for the 2026 midterms, Politico reports.
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