Abrego Garcia Judge Upbraids Trump DOJ
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Liberia or bankruptcy
I was at the federal courthouse in suburban Maryland yesterday for a hearing in the civil case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The case is mired in procedural pitfalls at this point, but it continues to produce moments I have never seen in court.
The context is that the Trump administration is still trying to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia, and U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has blocked his deportation, which Trump’s DOJ is currently appealing to the 4th Circuit.
Nothing was resolved at yesterday’s hearing, but Xinis took the opportunity to criticize DOJ lawyers for false statements they made about the case to the appeals court.
To take one example, Xinis said it “stuck in my gut” that Trump’s DOJ told the appeals court that it failed to make the required findings before issuing an injunction in the case. She demanded to know who had written the brief submitted to the appeals court (it was a younger lawyer at the government table), after which she read in open court the transcript of the previous hearing showing that she had indeed reached the required conclusions in issuing the injunction.
“It’s important to read,” she chided.
Then she turned to the DOJ’s most senior lawyer: “It is not accurate to tell the 4th Circuit that I did not make any findings. Do you disagree?”
“Based on what you have just read,” he said, “you have drawn conclusions. »
So why did you tell the 4th Circuit otherwise? she asked.
“I’m sure it was a mistake as to where the appropriate answers were sought in the file,” he said, weakly defending his colleague. “It may…haven’t been looked into.” »
Xinis remains particularly angered that Trump’s DOJ took it upon itself to decide that she had not ruled quickly enough on one of his motions and therefore considered her to have refused and appealed that refusal. She reviewed the numerous points in the case where the DOJ requested more time, including informing her of its motion, consented to the delays, and voluntarily agreed not to fire Abrego Garcia, and she asked DOJ lawyers why they did not share this context with the appeals court.
Then things got trickier.
“On what authority can you dictate a court’s timetable for a motion like this? » » asked Xinis.
After some hesitation from the DOJ’s lead attorney, Xinis requested a specific case that would allow the DOJ to consider its own motion denied. “Cite your best case,” she urged.
The DOJ lawyer had nothing, so Xinis cleverly distinguished the cases cited by the DOJ in its notice of appeal.
The two Justice Department lawyers in court yesterday were career employees, not political appointees who had previously taken the lead on the case, and the type of errors and omissions that Xinis focused on were different in nature and degree from the brazen defiance the Trump administration has displayed in this case for most of the past 14 months.
But in a sign that Trump’s Justice Department continues to play fast and loose in this notorious case, it has refused to say whether it will drop the criminal case against Abrego Garcia in order to deport him to Liberia. “It’s a good question to ask about the criminal indictment,” Xinis said, but the Justice Department’s lead attorney would not engage.
Whether intended or not, the hearing was ultimately an opportunity for Xinis to present the arguments to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers. She would do at the appeals court, where the briefing is not scheduled until this summer.
Despite court order, Patel denigrates Abrego Garcia
In the kind of performative verbal sparring that has become de rigeur for Trump officials during congressional hearings, Kash Patel disparaged Abrego Garcia as a “convicted gang rape rapist” and a “criminal” in possible violation of a court order in his criminal case.
Last October, a district judge found that Trump administration officials had already “made troubling out-of-court statements” and ordered prosecutors to provide all DOJ and DHS employees with a copy of his court order reiterating the local rule against statements regarding “the defendant’s prior criminal record…or character or reputation.”
The judge then warned: “With knowledge of local rule, any future statements that present a clear and present danger to Abrego’s right to a fair trial may subject the speaker to sanctions.” »
Monitoring mass deportations
- The DHS inspector general has launched an investigation into the $38 billion warehouse-to-custody program championed by former Secretary Kristi Noem, the Wall Street Journal reports.
- David Venturella, a former career ICE employee and private prison company executive, will be named ICE’s new acting director.
- An exhaustive Politico analysis shows that federal judges have ruled against the Trump administration’s unprecedented mandatory detention policy more than 10,000 times, accounting for 90 percent of habeas cases challenging no-bail detentions.
- The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday became the latest appeals court to reject the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy, mirroring similar rulings from the 11th and 2nd Circuits. The 5th and 8th Circuits have upheld this policy, and the 7th Circuit is deadlocked. The Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve the circuit split.
Corruption: IRS edition
Trump DOJ officials are holding internal discussions about settling President Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for leaking his tax information, which could include dropping any audits of him, his family or his businesses.
What caught my attention was the suggestion in the New York Times article that they are trying to settle the case before a federal judge rules on whether there is enough of an adversarial relationship between the parties to make it a legitimate lawsuit. The judge ordered a briefing on the case by May 20. “White House and Justice Department officials have been exploring ways in recent days to potentially settle the lawsuit before that deadline, according to the people,” the New York Times reports.
Oversight of Trump’s Justice Department
- The FBI has begun questioning current and former CIA officers as part of Trump’s investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan’s role in an intelligence assessment that found Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, NBC News reports.
- A team of FBI agents specially assembled to handle Trump retaliation cases is referred to internally as the “Recovery Team,” NOTUS reports.
- Former Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, who is suing over his wrongful termination, tells Anderson Cooper about some of the most bizarre moments of his brief tenure in the early days of Trump II:
Quote of the day
“I’m not aware of anything like this, with this involvement of senior government officials, on this scale, trying to paint this false image of the United States as a, quote, Christian nation. Trump’s rhetoric over the last 18 months is how he’s ‘going to make America Christian again,’ that it’s his job to promote religion. That’s all part of this play.”Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, on Sunday’s nine-hour prayer festival on the National Mall using public funds for America’s 250th birthday and expected to feature Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)
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