Jack - Defy. Deny. Disparage

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

Kilmar Abrego Garcia has pled not guilty to the two charges of smuggling migrants, and has asked the court to release him on bail pending his trial.The Department of Justice is trying to dismiss the discovery proceedings as moot, but Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have filed a sanctions motion requesting Judge Xinis proceed with determining whether the government defied her order.The Western District of Texas became the fourth court to find that Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is unlawful and blocked the government from removing anyone under the proclamation in the districtAttorney General Pam Bondi fails to respond to Judge Boasberg's order to report how the government is facilitating the due process for those trapped in the Salvadoran prison, and instead files a motion to stay the order.Plus listener questions…Do you have  questions for the pod? Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

MSW Media. Kilmar Abrego-Garcia has pled not guilty to the two charges of smuggling migrants and has asked the court to release him on bail pending his trial. The Department of Justice is trying to dismiss the discovery proceedings as moot, but Abrego Garcia's lawyers have filed a sanctions motion and have asked Judge Sinis to proceed with determining whether the government defied her court order. The Western District of Texas became the fourth court to find that Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is unlawful, and they blocked the government from removing anyone under the proclamation in their district. And Attorney General Pam Bondi fails to respond to Judge Boesberg's order to report how the

government is facilitating the due process for those still trapped in the Salvadoran prison and instead filed a motion to stay the order. This is Unjustified. Hey everybody, welcome to episode 21 of Unjustified. It is Sunday, June 15th, 2025. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. All right.

Those headlines aren't all we're going to cover today. In addition to all that, Republicans in the Senate have modified the contempt provision in the budget reconciliation bill, making it nearly impossible for movements to file civil motions for preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders. Yeah. Plus we have reporting from CBS that the sidelined lawyers at the Department of Justice have been relegated to a room where they watch Netflix and do jigsaw puzzles all day. They're calling it the rubber room, your tax dollars at work. But before we get into

a break of Garcia and Boasberg and all that, let's cover a few hot topics in the news. First, Alina Habba, former parking lot lawyer, current US attorney in New Jersey, finally secured an indictment from a federal grand jury against Representative LaMonica McIver. She was the representative, one of two. She was with Mayor Roz Baraka at the ICE detention facility in Newark that day. By the way, one of two, she was with Mayor Ros Baraka at the ICE detention facility in Newark that day. By the way, there's been an uprising there and four people have escaped. And so it seems like he should have been there, that they should have been there to inspect that particular privately owned detention facility. But as we know, Hobbit

dropped the charges against the mayor, Ros Baraka, and he's suing her for false arrest, defamation, and malicious prosecution. But they returned a grand jury indictment against him in a few days. In fact, by May 21st, they had dropped the charges completely. The one for LaMonica McIver, that grand jury indictment, took three weeks. And it makes me wonder, Andy, if they're up to their old tricks, like did they go to one more than one grand jury trying to get the indictment? I don't have any proof of this, but they do have a history of doing this.

And guess how I know. How is that? Are you saying that they shop it around that they take a bite at the apple and it doesn't turn out to be as tasty as they'd like and so then they wait six months and take another bite at the apple and that one also sucks for them? There was someone near me or close to me that got a no true bill returned and then they went back for a second bite with a different grand jury and that person was none other than Andrew McCabe. But I don't see anybody talking about the fact

that it took them three weeks to get this grand jury undone. It only took them a couple of days to get Ros Baracas, which says to me that perhaps they got no true bill from at least one grand jury. But again, that's just speculation. I wanna make sure everybody is clear on that. I mean, it's possible. It's in the realm. But also possible is that it took them a lot of time to scrape up even the very small amount of evidence that it takes to get a jury, a grand

jury to vote for an indictment. It's hard to come up with that sort of minuscule level of evidence when there's essentially no crime. So, you know, what, I don't know what they said to them. We will never know that those proceedings are secret. But, you know, this is ridiculous. She's on video pretty clearly doing nothing and interacting with those officers in a very benign way. It looks like she may have bumped up against one of them with her shoulder or something. It looks like accidental contact there. But yeah, we'll see. That's another not particularly strong case that it seems DOJ is willing to

push forward. Yeah. We have a few particularly not strong cases and we'll get to a lot of those soon. I also wanted to discuss this $1 contempt provision. You'll recall that earlier in the budget reconciliation bill, what I have dubbed the billionaire bailout bill and what constituents of Senator Joni Ernst have dubbed the we're all going to die anyway bill. They had a provision in there that said, hey, you can no longer do contempt for, you know, temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions with zero dollar bond.

Yeah, the court's discretion, they have to issue a bond. And so I had written up a thing on, at mullishrewrode.com saying nothing stopping judges from charging a $1 bond. And so I had written up a thing on at mullishrewrode.com saying nothing stopping judges from charging a $1 bond. And then we saw a judge come back, I think it was Judge Boesberg. A $1 bond. And issue a $1 bond. It just in case this law passed. Well, the Republicans have caught wind probably because Judge Boesberg and a lot of other judges have been issuing $1

bonds. And they've modified the language to say that it actually has to cover the actual value of the proceedings for the government, which could be millions of dollars. I mean, in a lot of these cases, especially what the government determines to be. I mean, I think they have probably calculators and things like that, but it's a lot of money. And it's for TROs and preliminary injunctions, which is the step on the way to a more permanent injunction. But they have modified that language. And this concerns me, frankly. Yeah, so basically the way it works is the bond is laid on at the beginning. And if the movement, let's say the plaintiff,

loses their effort to have the injunction imposed, then they have to pay the bond. Right, like so if Abrego Garcia wanted to file a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction like he did civilly, he would have to put up enough money to cover the government's expenses, legal expenses. Legal expenses, which is such, which is so absurd because in almost no circumstances, does the government ever get paid back for their legal work. They have the Department of Justice, those people are all getting paid by-

We pay them. We pay them. Yeah, we pay them already. They get salaries. It's not a by the hour sort of endeavor. So yeah, this is just- We can have all of our money back, all of our tax dollars back, to fund the Department of Justice. Okay. But still not okay, because now this only reserves temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions for people who have money and means. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. It's disturbing for sure. We'll keep an eye on that. But also something else cool is going on that we talked a lot

about rule 53 way back, going all the way back to the Jack Smith days. Because as we know, Governor Newsom and Attorney General Bonta in California filed a lawsuit against Trump so he could get back control of the California National Guard like he's supposed to have. There was a hearing in Judge Breyer's courtroom, Judge Breyer, brother of justice, former Supreme Court Justice Breyer and Bill Clinton appointee held a hearing and had determined that the government actually did run afoul of the authority it cited in order to send troops to California and said by noon on Friday, the control of the Guard has to go back to the governor. Of course, that's been stayed now by a panel on the Ninth Circuit.

And so we're waiting till Tuesday the 17th to get a hearing on that particular stay. And the rest of this order, we'll see what happens with that. But the thing I wanted to talk about, the thing we've been talking about for a long time, Rule 53, is that Judge Breyer allowed cameras in his courtroom, sort of, Zoom, right? He held this hearing via Zoom with cameras and released it to the public. And this is a trial that they're doing about allowing cameras in the courtroom. I mean, would have been great to do this in 2022. You know, when we had all the trials of the century coming and coming up and when we had a lot of the pre pre trial hearings for what Jack Smith was doing. But I think this is a step in the

right direction. I love that they're doing a trial run of cameras in courtrooms in federal courtrooms because you know, some state courtrooms have are already on camera. But I think this is great that they're doing this trial run. I totally agree with you. Way overdue. And classic that it's California that's dragging us into the future, maybe. Yeah, I mean, we're in a different time than when this all started 250 years ago. We're in a battle for the preservation and the communication of truth versus spin and lies and misinformation and, you know, whatever, deep fakes, AI, all the rest of it. Like into the gap that we currently have with people understanding actually what happens in a federal

court, that gap is filled by commentary and nonsense that can, you know, re-characterize the truth. And that, so this is a very pretty easy, you know, technological fix to that and why we're not doing it. There's no good reason why we're not doing it. It just simply hasn't been done and it's tradition and the federal courts are a hard place to modernize. But maybe, maybe we're on the cusp of that. Yeah, agreed. All right, everybody, we're going to get into the weeds on a break of Garcia, but we need to take a quick break. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back. So everybody stick around, we'll be right back. Hey everybody, welcome back. All right, let's talk about where we are in the Abrego Garcia cases, plural, because there

are now two cases. We have the criminal case against him brought by the Department of Justice and Abrego Garcia's civil case against the government. So let's start with the criminal case. As you know, the Department of Justice returned to Brego Garcia to the United States to face two felony counts of smuggling migrants. We announced his return and his indictment last week on the show, but didn't quite yet have the indictment.

And we have that now. So we're going to go over that. And Friday, Garcia had his detention hearing because the government wants him to be locked up while he awaits trial and Abrego Garcia's lawyers want him released on bond. Right? So I mean, let's talk about the criminal case. Yeah. So let's go over the indictment, at least the kind of first summary part of it. It reads, from in or around 2016 through in or around 2025, that's typical lawyer language to make sure you're not pinned down to a specific date. That's hence the in or around. Kilmar,

Armando, Abrego Garcia and others known and unknown to the grand jury conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas. The co-conspirators knew the undocumented aliens did not possess authorization to enter the United States. Abrego Garcia and co-conspirators from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, and elsewhere communicated with each other using cellular telephones and social media applications to facilitate the unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens without authorization and through the United States.

Hmm. It goes on to say that Abrego Garcia and the co-conspirators collected financial payments from undocumented aliens for illegal transportation into and throughout the United States. Into and throughout the United States. And we're going to talk about this in a second because you got to remember when there's a conspiracy, as long as you have agreed to join the conspiracy or they can prove that you're part of it, you are on the hook for everyone else's crimes in that conspiracy. So if one guy in your conspiracy was the one

who brought these people into the United States and you just moved them from Texas to somewhere else, you're on the hook for bringing them into the United, for the conspiracy to bring them into the United States. I mean, pending a bunch of evidence and circumstances, but we got to kind of remember what a conspiracy entails. And we talked about this a lot because Trump was charged with conspiracy. That's right. That's right. You, you basically, the government has to prove that you agreed to the criminal conspiracy. So you knew it and you agreed the government has to prove that you agreed to the criminal conspiracy so you knew it and you agreed to it. And then that you committed one, an act

in furtherance. Not all the acts, but some, you did something to facilitate the overall completion of the conspiracy. Right. So it goes on to say the co-conspirators then knowingly transferred money between one another in an effort to conceal the origin of the payments. Co-conspirators one through five, all persons known to the grand jury, were co-conspirators with Abrego Garcia. All were citizens of El Salvador and all were not United States citizens. Co-conspirator six is also a person known to the grand jury and was a citizen of Guatemala and not a United States citizen.

Abrego Garcia was a citizen of El Salvador, was not a United States citizen and was living in the United States. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was also a member and associate of the transnational criminal organization MS-13. I think that's interesting here as an aside. They went back to tradition. They referred to MS-13 as what it really is, which is a

transnational criminal organization and not as a terrorist organization, which is what they've declared it to be very recently. And I think that was intentional. But it's also the entire government of Venezuela invading us. Yeah, exactly. That's Trandearagua. Excuse me. That was intentional. But it's also the entire government of Venezuela invading us. Yeah, exactly. That's Trandearagua. Excuse me. That's right, that's right.

Okay. MS-13 was a criminal enterprise engaged in, among other activities, acts and threats involving murder, extortion, narcotics trafficking, firearms trafficking, alien smuggling, and money laundering. MS-13 operated throughout North and Central America, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, Texas, Maryland, New York,

Tennessee and elsewhere. You'll notice that there are no charges for money laundering, narcotics trafficking, extortion. I mean, if he's really a member of MS-13 and part of a conspiracy to do all those crimes He could be charged with those crimes presumably but is not no he is not Nor are any of his co-conspirators It goes on to say a brigo Garcia has detailed further below used his status in MS-13 to further his criminal activity Over the course of the conspiracy the co-conspirators knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates. The co-conspirators also worked with transnational criminal organizations in Mexico

to transport undocumented aliens through Mexico and into the United States. So he's charged with two counts in the Middle District of Tennessee, conspiracy to transport aliens and un the middle district of Tennessee, conspiracy to transport aliens and unlawful transportation of aliens, both under Title 8 US Code Section 1324 with a bunch of Roman numerals after it. And you know, I want to make clear here that the term aliens is what is in the law and what is in the language of this indictment. That is not a word that I would use personally. That's right. Also, these charges stem from

a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. And during that stop, the local FBI and DHS referral, they refused to arrest him at the time. They said, let them go. We don't, we don't have anything. Don't we, we're going to detain him. Yeah, that's right. They, they stopped him. I think it was late at night. There were, I think eight passengers in a van. Tennessee highway patrol, I think. Right. Right. And they ultimately were allowed to go on their way and were not arrested.

So Ryan Goodman is the co-editor and chief at just security and an NYU law professor, he pointed out a big inconsistency between the indictment and the DHS referral report from 2022. The indictment says, when asked where they were traveling from, Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia knowingly and falsely told the state trooper he and the passengers were coming from St. Louis. Cell phone location information for the cell phone used by the defendant, as well as license plate reader data for the SUV, showed that the defendant lied to the Tennessee Highway Patrol when he told them that he had been working a construction job in St. Louis

for the past two weeks. Specifically, the defendant had been in Texas earlier that same morning and had not been close to St. Louis within the prior two weeks. But as this is bad, yeah, as Professor Goodman points out the DHS referral report in 2022. So this is a report that was filed not long after the actual traffic stop. that was filed not long after the actual traffic stop. It says, upon approach to the vehicle, encountering officer noted there were eight other individuals in the vehicle with the subject who was identified as the driver. That's Garcia.

Subject stated he was driving, quote, three days ago. That would have been from November 27th 2022 from Houston Texas to Temple Hills Maryland via St. Louis Missouri to bring in people to perform construction work. So the report of the traffic stop says Abrego Garcia told the officers he was coming from Texas. From Houston. Right. But in the indictment it says Abrego Garcia lied to the officers and said he was coming from St. Louis. Yeah.

The DHS report says he left Houston and he was driving to Maryland via St. Louis. Not that he left St. Louis that morning. So this is going to be a very, very problematic piece of evidence for the prosecution. They're going to go deep. You're going to hear about this report a hundred times. I mean, I'm hammering on that if I'm a Virgo Garcia's defense attorney. Then you open the door to all these other things like, okay, who from the government side at the traffic stop, was there anyone on that team that spoke Spanish? Like what language did the, were the questions asked in? What language were they answered in? Is it possible that they just got it all wrong that he said St. Louis was a place they were going to and through on their way to

Maryland, not the place that they came from that day? Yeah. And is this smuggling aliens, quote unquote, or is this giving people rides to jobs? Exactly. That comes down to intent, right? Yeah. So did you- Which is an important piece.

Did he know? Do they have any evidence to indicate that he knew that these people were in the country illegally? I mean, technically, 8 USC 1324 prohibits the movement of, again, in the language of the statute, illegal aliens. If you know they're illegal or if you recklessly, if you know or should have known under the circumstances, there's an intentional standard in the statute. So wait, if I give a ride to somebody that I happen to know is undocumented, am I in

trouble with the law? Like, do I have to be transporting them for anything, for any reason, or is it across state lines? I mean, like... Okay. So here's the statute and the second part, which is, I think, the one that they're probably charging under here. Any person who knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered or remains in the United States in violation of the law, okay, you have to either know that or you're recklessly disregarding facts of that. And then you transport, move or attempt to transport or move such alien

within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise in furtherance of such a violation of law. So it's not just like your neighbor says, can you give me a lift to Whole Foods? And you do. And it turns out they're, they don't have status. This is meant to get people who should know. Like hiding people, right? Yeah, and you're moving them for the purpose of... An illegal act. ...of remaining illegally in the United States. Yeah, okay, good luck, Pam Bondi.

Yeah. She's still gonna need evidence that he knew what was going on here. And it's gonna have to be more than he got a phone call from CC1 who said, hey, I'll give you a thousand bucks to drive these eight people to Maryland. That's not gonna be enough.

Yeah, unless CC1 has a real huge incentive to say that that's what a Braco-Garcia said. Yeah. Another huge, huge problem, and this was a big story this week, is the resignation of Ben Schrader. He spent 15 years in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nashville. He was most recently the chief of the criminal division and he resigned. He walked away from a 15 year career in law enforcement, uh, or in prosecution and, you know, in the office there

and in the criminal division because he felt the case was being pursued for political reasons. He up and left. Yeah, that's not a good sign. And not a good sign at all. Again, I have some personal experience with that. Several of the prosecutors and the, uh, who were assigned to investigate me in DC, uh, left the case. One of them left the office, um, for what we heard were the same reasons. This is just, I'm just saying this case against Aurego Garcia, it does not look very strong. No, it really doesn't. And I got to tell you, we're about to hear as we're recording this, they're in a hearing right now. Uh, the other part case, no, no, no, excuse me, we're still on the criminal case. They have a criminal case hearing today for Abrego Garcia. As we sit

here and record this to determine whether or not he be held without bail or whether he's out on bail pending this trial. And Adam Klaasfeld, our friend from All Rise News, you should subscribe if you haven't yet. We're going to be live on Substack later today on Friday. That will, by the time you hear this, it'll be up on my Substack because I'll post that in that interview there too. He's physically at the hearing. He flew down to Tennessee to go to this hearing. Called me real quick in between, you know, on a court break and sort of emphasized the fact that these two co-conspirators are,

well, the two main ones, the first two, the CC1 and CC2, the star witnesses against Abrego Garcia are related. They're in prison, one's doing 30 months. They were offered leniency on their prison sentences and on immigration in order for, you know, to obtain their cooperation. And one of them has been deported five times from the United States. And we're gonna get all that in detail in All Rise News and

when I talk to Adam Klaasfeld. But I'm watching right now, I'm watching his feed very closely. And there is still no ruling on whether or not he can be out on bail or whether he's got to stay in custody pending the trial. It's going to be interesting. I can't wait to hear the arguments about the government saying that he's a flight risk. Yeah. When I read the indictment, I thought, man, this is a case built entirely on cooperator testimony. That is not good. You need actual facts, undeniable facts to corroborate the cooperators for the jurors usually to, you know, to accept the cooperators downsides and believe them anyway. So it seems like they have the opposite with the Tennessee

Highway Patrol and the DHS referral form saying that first of all, they let them go. They said we don't have anything to detain them. And second of all, contradicting the very important fact that's in the indictment. Yeah. The only other evidence they refer to in the indictment is the phone, the phone, cell phone tracking that is now contradicted by the DHS report, right? Their big thing is he said he was in St. Louis, but his cell phone wasn't there. In fact, his phone shows it was in Houston, Texas. Well, the night of he told the responding officers he was in Texas that morning. So like, yeah, that's washed out. So it's, yeah, this could be, maybe they have more evidence that they did not share with the grand jury. But what's in the indictment right now, it's

not very confidence inspiring. Pretty flimsy. But I want to talk about the other Abrego Garcia case. That's the discovery part, the contempt, getting to contempt, right? The judge CINES part of this civil case. But we're going to take a quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. So like I said before the break, the other thing we wanted to cover today with a Brego Garcia is the second case, the civil case filed by his lawyers against the government many moons ago. As you know, yes, a Brego Garcia filed suit because he didn't get any due process. All of the courts, including the Supreme Court

said that the government needed to facilitate his return and to be prepared to tell the courts what they were doing to facilitate his return. That's straight from a Supreme Court order. So the lower court, Judge Sinise, ordered the government to tell her what it was doing to facilitate his return, not facilitate his return. Just tell me what you're doing to facilitate his return. Right. What steps are you taking?

Yeah. And the DOJ completely ignored or failed that failed to do so. They ignored that order. So Judge Sini started a discovery process, two week discovery proceedings to discover whether or not the government was in contempt for violating her court order. We were, we were six weeks into that two week discovery process. That's a long two weeks. When the government returned to Braco Garcia to the United

States and indicted him. And then they filed a very cheeky motion to dismiss all the discovery proceedings in the civil case as moot because they had returned. Well, we returned him, so bye. No one fell. Yeah, right? Sorry.

Now, I said this isn't over. You can't violate a court order. I've learned this from Judge Boasberg. Even though his TROs were vacated by the Supreme Court, you still couldn't violate them until that happened. And so even if they're moot now, and Abrego Garcia's lawyers said it's not over, they came back and filed the next day and said the same thing I said, this isn't over by a mile. Um, and they filed an opposition to the government's motion to stay the discovery proceedings in order to dismiss them outright as moot. And this week after judge CINES granted a brego Garcia's motion to file for sanctions against the government in this case, they

did just that. That's right. So on June 6th, the government filed, now this again, this is the government, not Abrego Garcia. They said, as the attorney general recently announced, Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States today to stand trial on criminal charges in the Middle District of Tennessee. Considering this development, the court's preliminary injunction should be dissolved and the underlying case, that's the civil case, should be dismissed as moot. So Abrego Garcia's lawyers responded on June 8th and buckle in folks, because this one's a doozy. They said, though Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is at long last back in the

United States following his illegal removal to characterize the government as having complied with the court's order is pure farce. The government flouted rather than followed the orders of this court and the United States Supreme Court. Instead of facilitating Abrego Garcia's return, for the past two months, defendants have engaged in an elaborate all-of-government effort to defy court orders, deny due process, and disparage Abrego Garcia. In its latest act of contempt, the government arranged for Abrego Garcia's return, not to Maryland in compliance

with the Supreme Court's directive to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador, but rather to Tennessee so that he could be charged with a crime in a case that the government only developed while it was under the threat of sanctions. The Tennessee indictment was filed under seal on May 21st, yet six days later the government continued to insist to this court that it quote does not have the power to produce him the government's convenient ability to return a brego-garcia in time for a press conference unveiling his indictment puts the lie to its previously feigned powerlessness to

comply with this court's injunction. Who? Yeah, that's really well, well written and it is just calls him out for lying. It's flat out. Yeah. Six days after they filed the indictment under seal, they were still telling the court we can't get him back. Right. So no ruling on that motion to dismiss yet, but Abrego Garcia's lawyers filed their sanctions motion against the government because Judge Sinise granted their motion to file a sanctions

motion. They say for nine weeks, the government defied this court's order affirmed by a unanimous Supreme Court to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States following his illegal removal to El Salvador. For nearly eight of those nine weeks, the government likewise flouted this court's order to produce expedited discovery concerning what, if anything, it was doing to comply. This motion addresses the latter, seeking sanctions under federal rule of civil procedure 37

for the government's repeated violations of its discovery obligations. The government's defiance has not been subtle. It has been vocal and sustained and flagrant. The defendant's defiance of judicial orders has been accompanied by misrepresentations, stonewalling, and even questioning of this court's authority. The defendant's defiance of this court's discovery orders in particular has been egregious, defined by open refusal to produce any evidence of its professed compliance and the meritless assertion of an array of purported privileges

to shield its actions from scrutiny. So to be clear, this isn't a sanctions motion because the government failed to facilitate his return. This is a sanctions, it's not even a sanctions motion because they failed to tell the judge what they were doing to facilitate his return. This is a sanctions. It's not even a sanctions motion because they failed to tell the judge what they were doing to facilitate his return. This is a sanctions motion based on their stonewalling of discovery. Discovery. That's right. It goes on. The relevance of the information sought is beyond question. It's responsive at its core to the basic questions posed by the court at the outset regarding Abrego Garcia's custodial status and what efforts the government had taken, or would take, to facilitate his return to the United States. The lengths the government has gone to to resist discovery relating to these core questions

raises a strong inference that the government is trying to hide its conduct from the scrutiny of this court, the plaintiffs, and the public. What the government improperly seeks to hide must be exposed for all to see. Accordingly, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 and Local Rule 105.8, plaintiffs respectfully request that the court impose the following sanctions. One, find established for the purposes of this action certain facts set forth below. Two, compel the production of information and documents the government

has improperly withheld or in the alternative, appoint a special master to investigate the extent of the government's willful noncompliance with the orders of this court. And three, impose fines based on a finding of civil contempt. Yeah. Special master, special master. Let's go. I love a good special master. Let's get Barbara Jones in here. Come on. Let's find out what's going on. I want an extra special master. Oh man. That is a heck of a sanctions motion and we'll be keeping an eye on this particular

part of the Abrego Garcia docket. Tell you what Annie, I want to check one more time to see if we have any updates on the criminal aspect of the detention hearing of Abrego Garcia. And the survey says? Nothing yet, but I will keep you posted. We will keep you posted. And we have actually still more news to get to. We want to talk about Judge Boesberg's docket. So let's shift to that real quick. Roger. The origins of this case go back to March, March 15th,

the Ides of March, when Judge Boesberg ordered the two planes headed to El Salvador be turned around and the people aboard them be returned to the United States. They were sent there under Trump's Alien Enemies Act Proclamation. The Supreme Court vacated Judge Boesberg's orders to turn the planes around and grant a class, a nationwide class, but they agreed, nine-nothing, that due process

is required. And they said that Judge Boesberg can't issue a nationwide injunction stopping removal under the Alien Enemies Act because those cases have to be handled through habeas petitions filed individually by those being detained in the US under relevant jurisdiction and that you can have a class within a district, but not nationwide. So everybody in the Northern District of Texas, for example. For Western District of Pennsylvania now. Mm-hmm. Now, it says, the lawyers for those who remained at Seacoat filed with Judge Boesberg to certify that all of those removed under the Alien Enemies Act still being held in El Salvador because they're not in a district in the United States, certify them as a class, which Judge

Boesberg did, and he also gave the government a week to facilitate due process There were two tell well He told the government you need to facilitate due process and I give you a week to tell me how you're gonna do it Not to do it. Just how you're gonna do it and that week was up on June 11th Yeah, yeah he wanted to be careful about not being too, not to dictate to them the process because there is an element of now we're in the realm of kind of foreign relations and the courts are sensitive to stray into those areas. That's pretty much exclusively within the president's Article II authority. So he said, you have to do it, but you can

come back to me in a week and tell me how you're going to propose to give them the sort of due process that they would get here. Mm hmm. Yeah. So when the Supreme Court said we have to give deference to the, you know, to the executive branch on how they want to deal with foreign affairs. Great. You deal with it, but you got to tell me what you're doing to deal with it. And qualitatively, it has to be equivalent to the due process that they would get here. Meaning like, due process here means you get notice and then you get 30 days to find an attorney and have a hearing and all the rest, then that's what they would have to get there

if you're going to propose that doing it there. Right. So tell me how you're going to do it. Now naturally the Trump administration filed a motion with Boesberg and the DC circuit to stay his order. They haven't responded to this, you know, you have a week to tell me how you're going to facilitate due process. So they filed a motion to stay this. And Boesberg's ruling. Yeah. Boesberg's ruling for everybody who remains in C code. And apparently the government went to the appeals court before they asked the district

court, which is a big no-no. But regardless, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay, temporarily pausing Boasberg's order while they consider the matter further. The three-judge panel on almost all the motions in this circuit, by the way, is somehow composed of at least two Trump appointed judges. So they pause this and I've been keeping my eye on that. Like every single emergency motion for a stay that's gone up to the DC circuit court of appeals has had two or three Trump appointees on it. I don't know how the math is mapping because there are 11 justice judges in that circuit and only four of them are Trump appointees, maybe five.

So anyway, I thought that that was just a little bit odd. It is a little bit odd. Well, Judge Boasberg addressed the government's motion to stay his order on June 12th. And in his order, he addresses the government's having gone over his head to the circuit court. He says, on June 4th, 2025, this court granted in part and denied in part the motion for preliminary injunction brought by Frenkel Reyes Mota, Andre Jose Hernandez Romero, and four other non-citizens presently confined at the Terrorism Confinement Center, Seacoat, in El Salvador. Relevant here, the court held that the government violated the due process rights of these plaintiffs

when it deported them to Seacoat pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act before affording them a meaningful opportunity to challenge their deportation through a habeas corpus proceeding. The court moreover held that these Seacoat plaintiffs could vindicate their due process rights outside of a habeas proceeding and that they could do so on behalf of a class comprising all non-citizens removed from US custody and transferred to Seacoat on March 15 and 16, 2025. The court concluded that because the proper remedy

for a violation of due process is providing the process that was due, I love that. So obvious, but also funny. The government must, quote, facilitate the C-Code class's ability to challenge their removal through habeas, end quote, ensure that their cases are handled as they would have been if the government had not provided constitutionally inadequate process. Mindful, however, of the sensitive national security and foreign policy concerns at play, the court did not order defendants to take any concrete steps.

It instead gave them a week to propose what actions they thought would be appropriate. Yeah. And now that was the point where you were bringing up where the judge was even like, hey, we're showing you deference to the foreign affairs stuff. Now the judge goes on, this is good. He says, six days later, the government appealed and sought to stay the preliminary injunction. On the afternoon of June 10th, they filed an emergency motion with the court of appeals asking for an administrative stay and a stay pending appeal.

They also, and it appears subsequently, asked this court to stay the injunction pending appeal. They also, and it appears subsequently, asked this court to stay the injunction pending appeal. So that's him saying, you went to the appeals court first. Several hours later, the Court of Appeals entered an administrative stay, quote, to give it sufficient opportunity, consider the emergency motion for a stay pending appeal. In light of that development, this court will deny Trump's, you know, the government's motion as moot. The defendants have received the relief that they seek. The injunction is stayed. The fact that such relief has been provided through an administrative stay rather than through a stay pending appeal does not alter the fact that for as long as the former remains in place, it would be pointless

for this court to weigh in the propriety of the latter." So he's like, you're supposed to come to me first. You went to them, then you came to me. They stated administratively. So I'm dismissing your thing as moot. And he says, come back and tell me if you want me to do it different. He's like later in the thing. But now both of Boasberg's orders are stayed here. His order on criminal contempt and his order to get the info on facilitating due process for those at Seacoat. They're both paused by administrative stay by three judge panels of mostly Trump appointees at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. You know, this thing is really weird because like they went to the circuit first. If the circuit turned them down, did they expect that Boasberg was then going to go

in a different direction? Like why did they file with Boasberg? They already made the error. They already offended him by going to the circuit first. This is probably just a mistake. They probably meant to probably go to Boasberg first. I don't know. What do you think? I don't know. It's so stupid.

Once they realized that they had skipped him, which is like anyone should have known that and not done it, then they were like, what do we do now? Well, let's just file with him to make him feel better. I mean, it's so obviously a waste of his time. It's just a, it's a head scratching move by the lawyers at DOJ, but we get a lot of those now, so I shouldn't be so surprised. Yeah, it is a little bit bonkers. And Andy, before we go to break, we have some additional

updates on other alien enemies act proclamation cases. A fourth court now, the Western district of Texas has found Donald Trump's alien enemies act Proclamation is unlawful. And it's much of, oh, for the same reasons that the other three courts have found it unlawful. This is Judge Breonna's. It's a 56 page ruling he issued on June 9th. And he basically says that when assessing whether the proclamation they're calling it, the Alien Enemies Act Proclamation, is lawful, the court addresses three key ways in which it falls on its short, on its face. So these are the three things. First, the court agrees the plain ordinary meaning of invasion and predatory incursion, as the terms were understood in 1798, actually require a militarized effort against and militarized intrusion into the territory of the United States with the specific purpose of conquering or obtaining control

over territory. So the court rejects the respondent's invitation to broaden the meaning of invasion and predatory incursion. Nice. They also, he also says the proclamation doesn't establish Trans-Aireguas as a foreign nation or government. Because they're not. And finally, the proclamation doesn't allow for voluntary departure as required by the Alien Enemies Act. So he's in violation of the Alien Enemies Act in several ways.

Meanwhile, in the Fifth Circuit for the AARP case, of course, that's the one from the Northern District of Texas, the Blue Bonnet facility, the one where the Supreme Court in the middle of the night blocked the removal of migrants under the Alien Enemies Act and remanded it back down to the Fifth Circuit. You remember the one where Judge Ho was really mad about having to come up with a due process plan. Like such a, such a unreasonable request. You can make me, but I don't have to like it. He said. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, you know what? None of those, none of those detainees like it either. So we're all on the same plane. So anyway, in that case, maybe to try to head

off their obligations at the past, the government filed notice with the fifth circuit that they were going to cave and grant seven whole days of notice to the people they intended to remove under the Alien Enemies Act. As a reminder, the government's original policy was no notice, zero days, zero hours. Then it was 12 hours, after which the person would have 24 hours to file a habeas petition. Now they're saying seven days. Of course, other judges have said 30 days, one said 21 days, and now four courts have found the proclamation to be unlawful.

So, you know, I imagine all these cases are going to get back up to the Supreme Court where they will ultimately have to decide whether the AEA is lawful, and if so, what the proper notice to file a habeas petition should be. Let's remember there's a language problem. These people are on mass detention facilities. Access to lawyers and places where these facilities are located is incredibly troubling. Like

a lot of these lawyers, they have to drive like three, four hours just to meet with one detainee and see them. So seven days is better than none, but man, I still feel like it's, they should be giving these people like 30. I think. Yeah. Well, I don't think they should be able to do anything under the alien enemies act. I think it's right. But if they were, yeah, because that's going to be up to the Supreme Court. That's what the Supreme Court told the fifth circuit to do. They were like, tell me what you think of the alien enemies act. And if you think it's cool, tell me what the Supreme Court told the Fifth Circuit to do. They were like, tell me what you think of the Alien and Enemies Act, and if you think it's cool, tell me what the due process should be.

And so that's what James Ho doesn't want to have to bother figuring out because it's very, it puts him out. It's very, very hard. It makes it very, his life very, very hard. What is he supposed to do? Answer the phone in the middle of the night? Come on, really? This isn't a Denny's.

So that, I can't believe you said that. I got to steal that line. I'm taking that one. Anytime anybody asks me, anybody, what are my Denny's? Come on. Yeah. Yeah. After 9pm, what is this? A Denny's? So we're going to keep an eye on that because it will make its way back up to the Supreme Court. And I honestly don't know whether the Supreme Court will find that Trump can have this proclamation, whether it's lawful or not, but they will certainly address the due process because they've agreed to that nine nothing. Even Thomas and Alito are on board with some due process has to be available.

Crazy. Yeah. And if they're on board, man, you know, you're really on the wrong side if you're arguing there. Yeah. All right. We just have a couple more stories and listener questions. This was a very, very busy news week, so thanks for hanging in with us. We're going to take one last quick break. Stick around.

We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Just a couple more stories, then we can get to your questions. So if you have a question, click on the link in the show notes to submit it, and we'll be happy to oblige. But let's talk about this reporting from ABC. I thought you would find this interesting. And since we hear it unjustified focus on what's going on in Trump's Department of Justice, this was a pretty relevant story. When the Trump

administration swept into the DOJ and purged, demoted, transferred, or otherwise sidelined career lawyers not perceived to be team players. That's what they did on January 20th. And amid that upheaval and exodus of longtime federal prosecutors, one quiet 10th floor office in a remote outpost of the Justice Department has come to symbolize the withering impact of changes at the agency. Those who work there call it the rubber room. Inside that room nearly a dozen of the government's most seasoned civil rights, environmental, and national security lawyers have been reconstituted as members of the newly created Sanctuary Cities Task Force. At first glance the

job seemed promising but the more these attorneys looked into it the more they concluded that the task force was a sham, a Potemkin operation that seemed more aimed at stashing away career lawyers than putting them to work on legitimate stuff. That's according to interviews with six people with knowledge. That's right. So lawyers there have been assigned menial research tasks and left with hours of idle time, an effort they view as intended to coerce them into resigning, those with knowledge of the task force said. Quote, this is a hard thing to talk about, said Tom Mariani, an environmental litigator

who resigned rather than accept reassignment to the rubber room. I can't tell you how much personal distress I feel over how these folks were treated. The term rubber room is an allusion to a now infamous reassignment center where New York City officials transferred public school teachers and administrators who some considered burned out or incompetent but who could not be fired because of union rules. But in this case those being transferred have been elite veteran attorneys from the Civil Rights Division, the National Security Division, and the Environment and Natural Resources Division, whose performance had not previously been questioned. For months,

they did little or no work, were cut off from other Justice Department litigators who were actually working on sanctuary city cases and had no supervisors they could turn to for support. At least four of those assigned to the task force have filed formal complaints with the Justice Department's Inspector General alleging waste, fraud and abuse, CBS News has learned. Man, that's fascinating to just give, you know, relegate somebody and give them busy work. I remember there was somebody, one of the people that Comey shared his contemporaneous notes with that was like moved behind a plant to HR or something like that.

I remember covering that under the old Mueller, she wrote a thing. That's interesting. Seems like an MO comment in the Trump administration. Another quick story from Law and Crime. The US Department of Justice on Friday filed a motion to dismiss a FOIA lawsuit aimed at unearthing volume two of former special counsel Jack Smith's final report on the Mar-a-Lago investigation. The underlying litigation is a relatively terse five page lawsuit filed in January by the New York Times in the Southern District of New York, by the way, not in Judge Cannon's district on behalf of one of their reporters there at the Times. Savage. The plaintiffs

accused the DOJ of failing to make a determination for expedited processing of their FOIA request for the second volume Of the Smith report and they failed to do that within the timeline mandated by federal law So now the Trump administration in no uncertain terms wants to wash its hands of the whole thing and have the lawsuit dismissed Because of course they do of course The filing also offers itself as in the alternative a motion for summary judgment Of course it does so we'll keep you posted and keep an eye on that for you. Again, as I said, this case is in the Southern District of New York. So we'll see where that goes. But I wish I sure would like to see volume two of the Jack Smith report if it hasn't been shredded

and burned. Yeah, for real. I mean, it's, I don't know, I shouldn't be surprised by this. There are there, the government has lots of ways to push back on FOIA requests, but like failing to answer and missing deadlines, those are not the most effective ways to do that. Cause then you end up in court with things like the New York times. They have great lawyers. They do this all the time. That's how they get a lot of their best information. So that's how they push these laws, right? Like when I wanted to dismiss the Eric Adams case, all they had to do was say, we, we have made a determination that there's insufficient

evidence to continue with this case and want it dismissed. You didn't have to be like, because we want him to do our stuff and we want to be able to indict him later. You didn't have to be all weird about it. They seem to do that, just not take the easy way. They could have put a Brego Garcia through the INA hearings. They could have removed him to a third country. They could have gone and fought the judge's order that prohibited deportation to El Salvador. There's all kinds of things they could have done that would have been more legal than what they did, butful. Yeah, yeah, this is where they are. All right, so listener questions.

If you have a question, there's a link in the show notes where you can submit one. What do we have today? All right, so this one kind of hits with the theme that we've hit on at the beginning of the show. And it comes to us from Allison, of all people. Not you, Allison, but another Allison. Oh, fine.

There you go. And it starts, hi, A.G. and Andy. Thank you so much for your smart and incisive analysis of these crazy and depressing abuses. Your practical and thorough approach keeps me sane. My question goes to the authority of ICE agents in these roundups. They are often driving unmarked cars,

wearing masks and no ID, and are armed with military weapons like they're an invading force. They are administrative agents, not law enforcement, and can't arrest people for general crimes. What laws govern their conduct? Can they be so heavily armed? And are they trained to use those weapons?

Are they trained like police to know the limits of their authority and what is their personal liability for violations of civil rights and other laws? So there's a lot packed in there. I'll hit the kind of top mine themes here. So they actually are law enforcement officers. They go through the law enforcement academy in Glencoe, Georgia, where many federal agents,

not FBI agents or DEA agents, but many other federal law enforcement officers go through. So they have that kind of basic federal agent training in all kinds of things from the law to arrest procedures, you know, probable cause, fourth amendment, all those topics, also firearms and, you know, tactical vehicle operations and things like that. They are not required to where to show their faces. There is no law or policy that says that you have to be personally identifiable when you are out operating under a color of law and executing arrests.

If you ask the agents, what I think most of them will say is that the masks are an effort to avoid becoming captured on video that goes viral and then provokes what they think is harassment of them and their families. How likely that is, I'm not going to opine on that, but that's, I think, what's driving most of them to try to conceal their identity. their identity. It's typically a policy, not a law, that you have to be identifiable when you're doing these things in terms of who you work for. In other words, what your authority is. If you don't have your agency name and your badge clearly displayed, you run the risk that the person you're going after doesn't know that you're law enforcement. Maybe they just think they're being kidnapped and they'll try to resist. That's what I'm thinking, right? Like if I'm a cop, I want to be easily identifiable. I want to say real big where I'm at. I want my badge right there. I want you to, my face

probably, I don't know, but whatever. But I want to be identifiable so people don't think I'm a bad guy and shoot me, especially if I'm in an open carry state. And also so other cops don't think you're a bad guy. If you're unmarked and you're picking somebody up, they might call the police who respond and think you're a kidnapper. So in the pre social media era, which I'm old enough to know very well, that was what everybody thought when I was working on the streets in New York. It was that's what the era of Ray jackets, right? You always wore the big yellow letters on your back. Now it's become very different. As for the military weapons, I mean, there's a good discussion

to be had about like the impact of all these much heavier weapons and vehicles and things like that, that law enforcement across the board are using, not just ICE agents, but also local police, FBI, all kinds of, you know, it happened particularly during the time of the wars in the Middle East when the government could get things like this that from the military that the military is no longer using in terms of like, especially in terms of these heavily armored vehicles.

And, you know, law enforcement are like, hey, they're bigger, better, safer. We need them for our safety. Of course, communities are like, Hey, they're bigger, better, safer. We need them for our safety. Of course, communities are like, yeah, but it's totally militarizing, like this relationship between the police and the communities that they, that they've placed. My dog is jumping on my lap. Doggo wants to answer questions. So I think you have really good questions, Allison, but there's not really an obvious violation of law here that's going on. It's maybe a confluence of some kind of bad ideas.

And I think the overall effect on the community has been really not great. It's been negative. So, I don't know. What are your thoughts? Again, policy or not, I think it's wrong and scary and it incites fear in communities. The fear that they claim they're trying to protect us from. My personal belief is that the guy who's been washing dishes for 25 years at my local restaurant, Bono Forketta, doesn't scare me, but these unmarked cars with people that are decked

out more than, you know, veterans who've been served tours in Afghanistan. When they were there, they were like that, that's more gear than I had in a war zone. That's what fright, that's what's scary. And I think it's wrong. And it also, like you said, it, it alienates the community. Nobody's going to want to come forward and report crimes. Nobody's going to want to cooperate with you to help you solve crimes. That's very true. Very true. And especially now that this, this thing that you've heard the administration say a thousand times, oh, we're only going after the murders and rapists and the hardened criminals. No.

Now they're coming out and admitting it. Like, well, we go after a criminal, but whoever's there, when we get there, even if the criminal's not there, we demand paperwork from everyone and whoever doesn't have authorization gets thrown in detention and deported. We did that after 9-11, and we had 3,000 people dead because we didn't really know what else to do. The Wall Street Journal exposed the fact that it wasn't Stephen Miller who ordered them to arrest more people and go to Home Depot and go to 7-11.

3,000 a day. He wants them to hook up 3,000 people a day, which is insane. You don't have enough law enforcement to do that. But yeah, you start, you start, they're desperate to just pump the numbers up and they're doing the same kind of things that we did in the wake of 9 11, which we realized after the fact we're wrong. They didn't get us anywhere. And we put a lot of people who are guilty of nothing other than overstaying their visas into really horrible situations, incarcerated in state prisons and places all over New Jersey, because we then had to figure out if they were terrorists or not, and how do you prove

a negative? So a lot of them sustained really bad conditions for a long time before they were finally deported. So we're like back at that level of enforcement for no reason. These people are, they haven't done anything. So I don't know. But yeah, I get it. I think that how we're doing it is crazy and what the agents look like and how they're conducting themselves kind of adds to that climate of fear, which I don't know how you come back from that. Yeah, well, thank you so much, Allison,

for that question. It's very thought-provoking. And I know we're all thinking about these things as we're seeing what's happening with ICE, with these raids in our neighborhoods and at workplaces. And so I really appreciate that question. And if you have a question you want to ask us, you can send that to us by clicking on the link in the show notes and submitting your question on that form. All right, everybody have a great rest of

your week. We will see you next Sunday on Unjustified. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and And I'm Andy McCabe. independent podcast dedicated to news, politics, and justice.