The Abrego Garcia Case Is A Microcosm Of Everything Bad About Trump II
INSIDE: Paula Xinis ... Nayib Bukele ... Ed Martin
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Why The Abrego Garcia Case Is ‘Extremely Important’
Morning Memo is keenly focused on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia because it has become a microcosm of the first three months of the second Trump presidency.
Remember the context: As best we can tell, Abrego Garcia was on the third deportation flight from Texas to El Salvador on March 15. The other two flights contained people deported under the Alien Enemies Act without any judicial review. The AEA deportations were the first to be challenged in court, which led to the big blow up in U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s court about whether the Trump administration had willfully violated his order blocking them.
It was in the midst of that legal battle that the case of Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation emerged, an error the Trump administration admitted, serving as the perfect signifier for why due process is so essential. If Abrego Garcia could be deported in error – and in violation of an existing order by an immigration judge – isn’t that precisely why the law offers procedural protections that all of the deportees that day were entitled to at some level?
It was within that context that the Abrego Garcia case has unspooled and has come to supplant the AEA cases at the nexus of the constitutional battle between the executive and judicial branches. That more than anything else – even the humanitarian concerns about Abrego Garcia himself – is what makes this case “extremely important,” as the federal judge overseeing it said yesterday in court.
Within the case, we’ve had numerous vignettes that serve to highlight the repeat offenses of the Trump II presidency:
The DOJ lawyer who was candid in open court about the government’s mistaken deportation and subsequent stonewalling of him was promptly fired and his supervisor suspended. Retaliation for perceived disloyalty, the severe erosion of Justice Department independence, and the purging of government professionals: check, check, and check.
The replacement legal team for the administration has been willing to be a useful pawn in the government’s stonewalling, going into court without sufficient factual information to make its case and making bad faith legal arguments along the way – a pattern that has emerged in many of the cases the Trump administration is defending against.
The Trump administration’s brazen defiance had confounded U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, as it has so many federal judges in other cases. In pushing the envelope so aggressively, the Trump administration has forced the judiciary to confront the limits of its own powers and whether it’s willing to push back even if it means a constitutional clash. Xinis seemed to find her sea legs yesterday in the hearing I covered in person, as Josh Kovensky and I report here. But even with Xinis moving things along more quickly, I’d feel remiss in not pointing out that Abrego Garcia will still remain wrongfully imprisoned as this legal drama plays out.
The Trump administration’s positions inside the courtroom have often been at odds with its public statements, as it has gone from admitting the deportation was in error to launching a full-scale propaganda campaign from the White House on down, sowing misinformation, inventing facts, smearing Abrego Garcia with falsehoods, and furiously trying to muddy the waters to obscure its own malfeasance. Sound familiar?
The propaganda campaign culminated with a chummy Oval Office set piece this week with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele that mirrored February’s ugly Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. For his own short-term gains, Trump aligns himself with foreign leaders whose interests are adverse to the United States while disparaging longtime friends and allies.
In theory the Abrego Case should enter a quiet public phase now while the parties furiously engage in expedited discovery, but I have low confidence that the Trump administration will abide by the order Judge Xinis issued yesterday. If it continues to stonewall her, itcould lead to another round of hearings or premature attempts by the administration to appeal and to try to get the Supreme Court involved again sooner than later. Either way, this continues to be THE case to watch right now.
Another Dire Warning In A Growing List Of Them
The president defied a Supreme Court ruling to return a man who was mistakenly sent to a gulag in another country, celebrated the suffering of this innocent person, and spoke of sending Americans to foreign concentration camps.
This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror, and it has to be identified as such to be stopped.
The Dubious Case Against Mahmoud Khalil
NBC News: Government’s case against Mahmoud Khalil is reliant on tabloid accounts, review of evidence shows
Federal Courts Hold The Line In Key Cases
U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan of DC blocked key provisions of President Trump’s executive order against the law firm Susman Godfrey.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from clawing back $20 billion in EPA funding – a move that had led to the forced resignation of at least one federal prosecutor who balked at acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin turning it into a criminal investigation.
The Trump administration must unfreeze billions in climate funding, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy of Rhode Island ruled.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Boston temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending the Biden-era program that gave temporary legal status to migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti.
Meanwhile, On The National Security Front …
Sputnik Ed: Acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin appeared on Russian state TV more than 150 times but did not disclose those appearances to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering his nomination to be the permanent U.S. attorney, the WaPo reports.
Signal Fiasco: CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s Signal messages from the notorious Yemen attack group chat that mistakenly included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, were deleted, the agency conceded in a court filing.
Pentagon Leaks: Two top Pentagon officials – Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick – have been placed on leave after a probe into potential leaks of sensitive information.
The Trump II Clown Show
WSJ: The Little-Known Bureaucrats Tearing Through American Universities
WaPo: Pete Marocco, the official who oversaw the dismantling of USAID, leaves State Department.
WSJ: Trump Picks Investigator Behind Hunter Biden Tax Case as IRS Acting Leader
DOGE Watch
WaPo: DOGE is collecting federal data to remove immigrants from housing, jobs
NYT: Inside Trump’s Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations
WaPo: Some DOGE staffers hold high-powered jobs at multiple federal agencies
The Destruction
NYT: Trump Administration Memo Proposes Cutting State Department Funding by Nearly Half
Wired: HHS Systems Are in Danger of Collapsing, Workers Say
NYT: The White House wants Congress to rescind more than $1 billion from public broadcasting, which could effectively eliminate almost all federal support for NPR and PBS.
‘This Is About Much More Than Justice Riggs’
TPM’s Khaya Himmelman has the latest on the GOP’s attempt to overturn the result of the North Carolina Supreme Court race.
Today’s Must Read … If You Can Bear It
Via the WSJ:
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Thanks for this full reporting, David. Great work.
Thanks for these helpful updates!