Jack - House of Cards

Episode Date: June 22, 2025

President Trump may be shielding El Salvadoran President Bukele from an investigation into allegations that Bukele used US aid to support MS13, and traded away MS13 leaders as part of the agreement to house migrants at CECOT.Kilmar Abrego Garcia had his detention hearing in the middle district of tennessee on the human smuggling charges brought by the department of justice, and the testimony generated more questions than answers about the veracity of the charges against him.A Trump appointed judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania upholds the 21 day notice requirement for removal under the Alien Enemies Act Proclamation.Donald Trump– the criminal defendant who got Alieen Cannon to toss out the charges against him on the grounds that the special counsel prosecuting him was illegal, has called for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election.Plus listener questions…Do you have questions for the pod? Thank you CB Distillery!Use promo code UNJUST at CBDistillery.com for 25% off your purchase. Specific product availability depends on individual state regulations. 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. President Trump may be shielding El Salvadoran President Bukele from an investigation into allegations that Bukele used U.S. aid to support MS-13 and traded away MS-13 leaders as a part of the agreement to house migrants at Seacoast. Kilmar Abrego Garcia has had his detention hearing in the Middle District of Tennessee on the human smuggling charges brought by the Department of Justice. And the testimony generated more questions than answers about the veracity of the charges against him. A Trump appointed judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania upholds the 21 day notice requirement for removal under the Alien Enemies Act Proclamation.

And Donald Trump, the criminal defendant who got Eileen Cannon to toss out the charges against him on the grounds that the special counsel prosecuting him was illegal, has called for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election. This is Unjustified. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 22 of Unjustified. It is Sunday, June 22nd, 2025. I'm Alison Gill.

And I'm Andy McCabe. Let's just dive right in, AG. So this past week, we got a magistrate judge in the Middle District of Tennessee held a detention hearing for Kilmar Abrego Garcia. And at the conclusion of the hearing on Friday in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, US magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes said she would rule at a later date on Abrego-Garcia's bid

to be released on bail pending trial. Now it was a long hearing and it didn't conclude until after we had recorded last week's episode. So to cover it all in retrospect, we have joining us to talk about the hearing someone who was actually there. Yes, from All Rise News, please welcome Adam Klaasfeld. Adam, how are you, man? Doing well, Andy. Thank you so much. Pleasure meeting you.

Yeah, it's great to meet you as well. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. That's right. This is Adam's first time on Unjustified. So we really appreciate you and we appreciate All Rise News. We appreciate you being there. And we appreciate the people who subscribed to All Rise News, who made it possible for you to be there in the courtroom. So first of all, you called me like on a break, like on a 10 minute break from the hearing, because it was a marathon hearing.

And you said, oh, this is bad. This is like triple hearsay, double hearsay. Like really, like things aren't going well for the government, gotta go. And then you ran back inside and I was like, no, wait, come back, tell me more. I'm about to record Unjustified. So talk a little bit about what you meant by that

in that phone call. I briefly mentioned it in last week's episode. But the totality of the hearing, it seemed like, did not go well for the government. It didn't. And when we had that exchange, when I called you, what had just happened, we were on a lunch recess, and at the end of the morning session there was this cross-examination of the FBI agent behind this investigation of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia and we found out a few facts during that cross-examination.

One, we found out that the investigation began on April 28th after the Supreme Court issued its ruling to facilitate a break goes release home from El Salvador. So that was one of the things that we learned. We learned that within a sort of three week time span, they went from the start of an investigation that remember, initiated this was an investigation about this 2002 stop, a traffic stop. 2022. 2022. Excuse me, 2022 traffic stop in the Middle District of Tennessee.

Within three weeks, starting from April 28, they go from the initiation of an investigation under the cloud of the Supreme Court decision to a sealed indictment. Between that time, what happens? Well, as we found out in the indictment, there are six co-conspirators listed anonymously in the indictment. We learned that one of them is a man by the name of Jose Hernandez Reyes. He's CC1.

He is someone who is alleged to be at the top of this human smuggling operation. CC3 is his close relative. Now, both of them, we learned during this cross-examination, are getting assistance with their criminal records because both of them were sentencing, excuse me, leniency on their incarceration because both of them were convicted in connection with this undocumented immigrant smuggling operation. are they getting leniency that Mr. Hernandez Reyes is sent from his 30-month sentence to a halfway house. CC3 and him both have certain immigration perks. Now, the details of the deal are a little foggy, but what comes out at the end of this, this whispering cross-examination by Mr. Arrigo's defense attorneys, that he

asks the agent whether he made any promises of help with the incarceration or help with any of the immigration consequences of that. And he says no. He says, absolutely not. I would not do anything like that without taking it up the chain of command. Asked if he knew who did, he didn't know, and that was the end of the morning session. Now, as I'm sure everyone here understands, it's not unusual for there to be cooperating witnesses who have certain incentives to testify that say, you know, that is in criminal conspiracies. What's unusual here is that the person the people who are cooperating are alleged to be at the very top of this conspiracy. And they are going after the man who is accused of being a relatively small fish and has no

record. And in the context of a Trump administration that has gone all out on trying to expel undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, here are two people who are getting immigration assistance in order to cooperate in the investigation of Mr. Abrego, who has never been convicted of any crime. And so that's- So, Andy, let me ask you something. You've done a lot of this. You've worked a lot of mafia cases and a lot of conspiracy cases. Do you often roll down like that to go after smaller fish? Because it seems to me that you usually get the lower fish to flip on

the bigger fish. And secondly, to maybe allegedly, and we're not sure, give asylum to two MS-13 gang members in order to get one out. This is something that you brought up, Andy, last week. And so it seems like that's what's happening. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to go one step further than you, Adip. They have taken the concept of cooperation and flipped it on its head. It's typically, as you describe it, AG, it's you try to get people who are less culpable or lower down in the organization to provide information that you can use to charge and convict people who are more culpable that's the way it's supposed to work and you don't make promises to them in those. In those interactions. to them or for them is lay out for them the structure there is under the law to receive lenience in your sentence if you are considered to be a good cooperator. So it works, it's

a peculiar way that people cooperate in the federal system, but you can tell a defendant, hey, if you cooperate and the prosecutors think that you've provided substantial assistance and that you've been truthful and done everything they asked and told them all about all of the criminal activity you've ever engaged in, even things they don't know, even things they haven't charged you with, they will at the termination of this whole proceeding send a letter to the judge, it's called a 5K1 letter, and it entitles the judge to make a downward departure in your sentencing range.

And that's how it works. So you can lay out the process for them, and then they get to make a decision with their attorney as to what they're gonna do. But you can't promise what the judge is gonna do, and you can't promise what you're gonna do. Absolutely not. Agents can't offer anything.

You don't have any bargaining chips to lay out on the table. This is just ridiculous. The idea that you would take two convicted human traffickers and also alleged members of this gang, which by Trump's proclamation makes them terrorists now, you take two convicted terrorists currently serving time and you dangle for them the prospect of staying here in the country, presumably. That's what assistance with immigration would amount to in return for convicting one guy who was driving a car that allegedly had some of these people in it. I don't remember seeing in the indictment or the affidavit a shred of evidence that indicates that he knew this whole massive conspiracy existed.

It may be the extent of his involvement was being offered a certain amount of money to pick these people up at place A and drive them to place B. They're going to need more than that to convict him if that's in fact all they have. We don't know what they have, but boy, I would not want to be the agent responsible for that case. And then Adam, there were a couple of issues of hearsay and double hearsay in some instances about those other things that Pam Bondi threw into her press conference that haven't been charged like underage people in the

van, for example, or drug trafficking or things like that, other things that he wasn't charged with. Do you want to talk about that, what the judge said about that? Absolutely. Well, it was unclear whether certain evidence would even be permissible during this hearing because, as folks may remember, when Pam Bondi rolled out this case, one of the things that she accused Abrego of was sex offenses, the sexual misconduct. Now he hasn't been charged with anything and if you look into the detention memo, they

claim that he solicited a nude from a minor. Now when this testimony was supposed to come in, it was the FBI agent attesting to what he heard from... We found out actually, excuse me, I need to step back and correct myself, that he did not hear this directly from a cooperator. This was an interview a cooperator had with another agent. So all of this was coming in secondhand. There was another moment where there was, I'm sorry, it's about a week old now, so I'm drawing back. When they drilled down on this particular allegation, there was an allegation that one of the members of this conspiracy thought that he was inappropriate with the younger women whom he was transporting and that this

was bad for business. So this was a rumor from one of the cooperators, what they had heard, what they understood to be the case. The judge ultimately, before the morning session, initially refused to let that testimony in because of multiple layers of hearsay as she put it. Now after in the afternoon session she said give in the lower standard for a hearing like this it's you know she will let it in but give not the type of consideration that something that was not multiple levels She used that phrase multiple times in regard to this evidence. This isn't a direct accusation from a person on the witness stand. This is something that other members of the conspiracy allegedly understood and it bothered them because it allegedly threatened their business.

So that is what Pam Bondi put in a press conference and said about Abrego. There it was revealed during this hearing to be something understood by someone who was convicted of crimes. A rumor. Yeah, a rumor. That's never getting into his case in chief. Not a chance. This hearing is a term in pretrial release and the standard is, as you've referenced, very low. The issues at stake are only two. One is danger to the community and the other is risk of flight. And so I can see how she would feel like under the circumstances and the danger to the community side, maybe she needs to let it in just to be, yeah, just to like let it all out there. But that's never come. I mean, unless they come up with a somebody

who was victimized by him who wants to take the stand and make that allegation publicly. I don't think that information ever gets into trial. I will say also, it will find out she has his reserve decision on the matter, but it But it is far from clear to me having sat through that hearing that she will rule in favor of the government on the matter of his detention. Now, if she did rule in favor of the government, the way that the process works in Tennessee, it's a little more complicated. I've never seen this happening in the Southern District of New York.

This was a hearing that precedes a detention hearing. seen this happening in the Southern District of New York, it goes to a did this was be a hearing that precedes a detention hearing. And it seems that she is skeptical that the government has met the bar to even get this second hearing that would go toward his detention. So if she rules in his favor, consider that level of her skepticism of the evidence. You know, she she expressed she said, she noted that on under the bail reform act, she must presume that Kemar Bregarcia is innocent of the crimes charged and you just have to look at his in that light, the danger to the community and the risk of flight. And she seemed very skeptical by the end of a full day on Friday, but we'll see what she does. But what about the government's argument that if he is released on bail, we'll just re-arrest

him anyway. That heads-eye-win, tails-you-lose is what you called it when we talked on Substack Live. Absolutely. There was something also, Twilight Zone, about it because what they had said is that the trial itself could be scuttled if the judge orders his release because in that state he would be put into immigration custody and then he's deportable to any country but El Salvador. Now the defense attorneys for Mr. Obregó said, well, that's not, he would have some defenses against that if they sent him to Mexico with reason to believe that the Mexican government would send him to El Salvador while that would be chain deportation and that would be a defense against deportation

But the government's position here is you can't release him your honor Because if you release him we'll never get to try him because another arm of the government will try to deport him We will make it impossible for ourselves to try him Okay in essence. Yeah, it was Those two arms of the government belong to the same body. Yeah, they could say to one arm could say to the other arm Okay, don't do that because we want to do our trial. Oh, well All right before we let you go, there's a couple other things I wanted to ask about. First of all, the US attorney himself argued this and you and I were both kind of astonished

by that. And I want to ask you about that. And if the judge mentioned it at all, like what are you doing? What, like from the Californians, what are you doing here? And also apparently, Abrego Garcia has a brand new crackerjack legal defense team for this criminal part of the trial. And but he though his his public defenders in this hearing were also very great. So address those those two things, if you would the US Attorney and his legal team.

Yeah, so the US Attorney are it's something that I have not witnessed before where a US attorney himself would argue the case on his by himself rather than through one of his assistants. Although I have seen in the second Trump administration senior attorneys are arguing all the time. You look at the case of Eric Adams and who's by himself at the government's table, but Amo Bovi. And we're seeing this pattern play across throughout Trump's second term that these people who are the senior members closest to the political branches are arguing by themselves. Now the judge didn't really remark upon it. Uh, though she did, uh, uh, express her familiarity, uh,

with him, uh, throughout the hearing, she didn't say anything along the lines of where are your assistants or something like that. But I, you know, I, did you need a map to get here? Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, it's funny because this was the first time that I've specifically covered the Middle District of Tennessee and I thought, well, you know, maybe they do things a little differently here. So I asked the local reporters, have you ever seen the US attorney argue the case? And they hadn an either and i'll say in twenty years of covering the courts i have never seen a u.s. attorney add you know the u.s. attorney argue rather than an assistant argue in a high profile criminal case it's just never have you experience

unbelievably rare but everyone's once in a while, particularly in New York, and the example that comes to mind is Giuliani. Yeah, I was going to say the guy who likes to be in front of cameras probably. Yeah. So if there's like a super high profile, like multiple homicide mafia case or something like that, a US attorney will step in and take some cuts as the first chair, cross-examine some witnesses, things like that. There is a feeling in the US, at least in New York when I was there working as an agent,

they wanted at least the division chief of either office, eastern or southern. If the division chief hadn't gone in and been a part of a big trial, they kind of had a little bit less respect for them. But the US attorney, super, super, super rare. And that's for a trial, for a detention hearing? Are you kidding me? That's like the low man on the totem pole. You go in and handle a magistrate court

and detention hearings and initial appearances. So my guess is the politics, it's probably the US attorney calculates that it's good for him politically to be seen by the administration with his hands dirty. But also it could be because he doesn't wanna have to deal with half of his staff saying, I'm not doing it. There could be that kind of, I don't know.

I mean, I'm just speculating here, but there could be a little rebellion involved there. You know, I have to say, I saw it in the light of the recent history with Mayor Adams, where you had this mass exodus from SDNY, and who's there to take the case? Well, it's none other than Emil Bovi, taking the Acela up from Washington, DC himself,

because there was no one with him from the Southern district at the government's table. And here we had another high profile resignation. Now we don't have confirmation that Mr. Schrader, the former criminal division chief in the middle district of Tennessee, Schrader, the former criminal division chief in the Middle District of Tennessee, when he resigned on the day of Kilmar Briego Garcia's sealed indictment, that there was a causal connection. But there is reporting saying that he resigned because he thought that the case was political. And if he declined to take the case for that reason, it does make one wonder why there isn't an assistant in that district at the government's table with him. There was someone, I believe even on the legal briefs, the only signatures are his and people working on a task force, but it's not assistance who

are with the middle district of Tennessee, as I understand it. Nicole Soule And speaking of high powered attorneys, during this hearing, Mr. Abrego was represented by public defenders. This is a detention hearing, but he has gotten rid of, well, I know he's just hired. He hasn't changed because the other part of this case, the discovery thing is still being represented by the ACLU and Mr. Gullert and associates. But this, he is hired. Oh my gosh. He's, let's see. First is the deputy criminal chief of the US Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Tennessee named Rasco Dean. And then also Hecker himself from the New York

City firm Hecker and Fink. These are high powered defense attorneys. Absolutely. And I think David Patton is there now too, if I have that correct. These are some of the top criminal defense attorneys. And I thought he was very well represented by the federal defenders in that hearing. There was a very memorable line by Mr. Shabazz during oral arguments toward the end where the US attorney had made a comment about the preponderance of the evidence, how they only need to get, in his words, past the 50-yard line. And Mr. Shabazz said something to the effect of,

they're at the 10-yard line, it's fourth down, and they have no quarterback. Um. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. And I have to tell you, having sat through those oral arguments, that line was earned. I mean, he spoke, he had some very withering dissection of these cooperating witnesses testimony.

He went through the fact that Mr. Abrego doesn't have one misdemeanor conviction, not one felony conviction, not 34 felony convictions was how he put it zero. And he went through the evidence systematically. And I have to say the judge didn't contradict him. Now I don't make predictions. My sense of it was it was a rough day for the government and we'll wait to see her ruling. Well, that's going to be my new like, ouch when this happens when a public defender says something random, it'd be like, shabazz. That's going to be my new... You've been shabazzed.

You got shabazzed. Well, it's been a week. We still don't have a... Can you check the docket really quick to see if we have any ruling? She said she would rule soon. Yeah, she said sooner than later. And when judges say that they're being open-ended in a very calculated way, I will put it this way, I have not seen a docket alert. And even at the time of our recording, I am not seeing any docket alerts that would indicate

that she ruled. All right. Well, we'll keep an eye on it. Maybe we'll have it. But we'll hear me say breaking news, breaking news in a moment as we sometimes have to do here on unjustified before we go to air. But we appreciate your time. And I really, really encourage everybody to go to Substack,

search for All Rise News and subscribe and support what Adam Klaasfeld is doing. We had a couple other big things going on today in court. You were following one of them. I was following the other. And it's like, we're just one people, we're just one person operations. We can't be at multiple places at once.

So we really, really appreciate all the hard work you're doing. Yeah, Adam, thanks so much. It's great to have you on and getting the color and the details from exactly what happened really makes these legal briefs and stuff kind of come alive. So appreciate you helping us out with that. Thank you so much, Andy and Alice said. It's been a pleasure. No problem. Everybody, we've got some impressive reporting from ProPublica about the possible agreement between President Bukele and the Trump administration.

We're going to cover that right after this quick break. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, it's AG. Whether it's post-workout soreness or the kind of nagging pain that builds up just by living life and being 51, for me personally, I found relief with CBD from CBDistillery.

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product that can help. And it's not just me. Millions of people are turning to CB Distillery and over 90% say their sleep is improved. If pain's getting in your way, try the relief stick. You might be surprised how quickly it becomes a staple in your routine. And for a limited time, you can save 25% on your entire purchase. Just visit CBDistillery.com and use promo code unjust. That's CBDistillery.com, promo code unjust. One last time, CBDistillery.com. Specific product availability depends on individual state regulations. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. So that other part of the Abrego case that I was talking about is the potential violations of Judge Senezes discovery order. You'll recall she

ordered a two week truncated discovery period to get to the bottom of whether the government defied her court order when she told them that they had to outline the ways to her in which it was facilitating the release of Abrego, something the Supreme Court itself ordered the government to be prepared to do. But for six weeks, the government obfuscated their obligations, stonewalled the discovery process. And for that reason, the plaintiffs, Abrego's lawyers, say that the case is not over and should not be dismissed despite the government's motion to dismiss the original complaint and dissolve her discovery order, Judge Sinies' discovery order. Now as Boasberg pointed out in the other case in his

criminal contempt memorandum in the Alien Enemies Act proclamation situation, you can't ignore a court order even if it's eventually deemed unlawful by a higher court or mooted because of mitigating circumstances. In other words, you can't defy a court order because you don't think it's right. You have to follow it until the point it's mooted or overturned. And those outcomes do not preclude you from being scrutinized for disobeying the order. Now one of the things that the government was slippery about during discovery, Judge Sinis's discovery process, was the release of its agreement with President Bukele of El Salvador. And it had been posited that there was likely something politically

embarrassing about it that caused the government to open an investigation on April 28th while they were under a sanctions review and cook up some criminal charges against Abrego on hearsay in an effort to avoid the discovery process, right? Kind of a fair assumption to make. Yep. And Andy, you had brought up the fact that they were having, Pam Bondi was having these massive press conferences about arresting violent MS-13 gang members and then all of the charges being dismissed. Weeks later. Yeah. Crazy. Well, this week, ProPublica, who does excellent investigative journalism, has some reporting on what that embarrassing political aspect might be.

Yeah, that's right. So T. Christian Miller and Sebastian Rotella write for ProPublica. In mid-April, President Donald Trump sat down in the Oval Office with President Naïve Bukele of El Salvador to celebrate a new partnership. They had recently negotiated an extraordinary deal in which El Salvador agreed to incarcerate in a maximum security prison hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants that the Trump administration had labeled as violent criminals, though few had been convicted of such crimes. The US also sent back accused members of the notorious Salvadoran gang, MS-13, which both the US and El Salvador

have designated as a terrorist organization. Now, Bukele's presidency has been defined by his successful crackdown against MS-13. He has jailed tens of thousands of alleged gang members, transforming one of the hemisphere's most dangerous nations into one of its safest. Although human rights groups have criticized his tactics, Bukele remains very popular in El Salvador.

That's just the way of it. Now, during their meeting at the White House, Trump praised Bukele as one hell of a president. He shook his hand saying, we appreciate working with you because you want to stop crime and so do we. A long running US investigation of MS-13 has uncovered evidence at odds with Bukele's reputation as a crime fighter. The inquiry, which began as an effort

to dismantle the gang's leadership, expanded to focus on whether the Bukele government cut a secret deal with MS-13 in the early years of his presidency. New reporting on that investigation by ProPublica shows that senior officials in Bukele's government repeatedly impeded the work of a U.S. task force as it pursued evidence of possible wrongdoing by the Salvadoran president and his inner circle. This goes on to say that Bukele's allies secretly blocked extraditions of gang leaders

whom US agents viewed as potential witnesses to the negotiations and persecuted Salvadoran law enforcement officials who helped the task force. That's according to exclusive interviews with current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials, newly obtained internal documents and court records from both countries. So, wow. In a previously unreported development, federal agents came to suspect that Bukele and members of his inner circle had diverted U.S. aid funds to MS-13 as part of the alleged deal to provide it with money and power in exchange for votes and reduced homicide rates. In 2021, agents drew up a request to review US bank accounts held by Salvadoran political

figures to look for evidence of money laundering related to the suspected diversion of US funds. The list of names assembled by the agents included Bukele, senior officials, and their relatives according to documents viewed by ProPublica. So the US was investigating Bukele giving laundering money and giving it to MS-13 in exchange for votes and to chill the violence. And reducing the violence because that makes his political fortunes better, right? Quote, information obtained through investigation has revealed that the individuals contained within this submission are heavily engaged with MS-13 and are laundering funds from illicit business where MS-13 are involved, the agents wrote.

The people on the list, quote, are also believed to have been funding MS-13 to support political campaigns, and MS-13 have received political funds. So that's a quote, two quotes from the actual request that the agents submitted for access to these bank records. Now, the outcome of the request is not known, but its existence shows that the US investigation had widened to examine suspected corruption at high levels of the Bukele government. The investigation was led by joint task force Vulcan, a multi-agency

law enforcement team created at Trump's request in 2019. If you remember, AG, back then it was like Trump was like all over MS-13, constantly talking about MS-13 arrests and things like that. So that's when this task force got stood up. Agents found evidence that the Bukele government tried to cover up the pact by preventing the extraditions of gang leaders who faced US charges that included ordering the murders of US citizens and plotting to assassinate an FBI agent. Wow. So he would block their extradition to the United States to face charges. Yeah. Wow so he would block their extradition to united states to face charges yes when this task force started actually kind of identifying information.

That would lead them ultimately to a charge and an extradition request the allegations here is that the government. What block those extraditions cuz they don't want those people ending up in us jails and then telling federal agents all the things that they've done. That they got money from Bukele. Exactly. Now in addition, U.S. officials helped at least eight of their counterparts in Salvador law enforcement flee El Salvador and resettle in the United States or elsewhere because they feared retaliation by their own government. That's according to current and former U.S. officials. It has been clear from the beginning what Trump wants from El Salvador, an ally

who would accept and even imprison deportees. Less clear has been what Bukele might want from the United States. In striking the deal with the Salvadoran president, Trump has effectively undercut the Vulcan investigation that he stood up in 2019 and shielded Bukele from further scrutiny. That's according to current and former US officials. Quote there was good information on corruption between the gang and the bukele administration Christopher moose oh a former senior official at homeland security investigations or hsi just of course part of the s who worked on vulcan said this about the salvadoran quote, it was a great case. In May of 2021, Bukele's legislative majority in Congress ousted the attorney general and justices of the Supreme Court, which oversees extradition requests.

Within seven months, newly installed justices reversed or halted six requests for senior gang leaders wanted in the US, according to interviews and documents. Quote, Bukele's people were coming to the Supreme Court and saying under no circumstances are we extraditing the MS-13 leaders, said the US official familiar with the investigation. Quote, delay, interfere, undermine, do what you have to do. Hmm. Now get this Andy, senior Bukele officials helped an MS-13 leader with a pending extradition

order escape from prison. That's according to court records, US officials and Salvadoran news reports. At least three other top MS-13 gang leaders were released from Salvadoran custody after the US filed extradition requests for them. That's according to Justice Department documents. Wow. Published accounts in the United States and El Salvador have reported allegations that Bukele also pushed for the return of MS-13 leaders to prevent them from testifying in

U.S. courts about the pact between Bukele and MS-13. Despite his government's refusal to extradite gang bosses to the United States, the Trump administration in March deported one MS-13 leader accused of terrorism. The Justice Department is now seeking to dismiss charges against a second MS-13 leader, which would allow him to be sent back to El Salvador, according to recent court filings. And if that wasn't enough, here's where it really gets weird. John Durham, ring any bells. But what?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The same Durham that Bill Barr tapped as special prosecutor to investigate the investigators of the Mueller probe. The oranges truly included. Yeah. So after more than five years leading the Vulcan task force, Durham wrote letters asking the judge overseeing the case or cases to dismiss charges against two gang leaders in U S custody, allowing them to be deported to El Salvador.

The letters were dated March 11 and April 1, weeks after the Trump administration began negotiating the mass deportation deal with Bukele's government. Then in April, Durham asked for the dismissal of terrorism charges against a lower-ranking MS-13 prisoner, Vladimir Antonio Arvalo Chavez, alias Vamp Vampiro according to recently unsealed court records. Yeah so after millions spent on an operation involving investigators and prosecutors from the United States, El Salvador and other countries, Vulcan had amassed a trove of evidence aimed at incarcerating the MS-13 leaders who had overseen the killings, rapes, and beatings of Americans.

Prosecutors told defense attorneys they had more than 92,903 pages of discovery, including 600 pages of transcribed phone intercepts, 21 boxes of documents from prosecutors in El Salvador, and 11 gigabytes of audio files. Durham said prosecutors were dropping their pursuit of the cases quote due to geopolitical and national security concerns. During the negotiations over the use of el salvador's prison trump officials agreed to pay some six million dollars to house the deported men and exceeded to an additional demand. Bukele had one specific request, according to Milena Mayorga, his ambassador to the United States. Quote, I want you to send me the gang leaders who are in the United States, she quoted Bukele as telling US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

So there we go. Thanks to ProPublica, we have confirmation of what you were thinking, Andy. Yeah. That he wanted these MS-13 gang leaders so he could silence them. Makes no sense at all, right? I saw, we talked about this at the very beginning of Unjustified.

It came up first at the case of Cesar Humberto Lopez Larios. He was a legit national leader of MS-13. He had been arrested on June 18th, or thereabouts 2024. And if you look him up, if you look, run his name in that date or whatever, you'll come across the DHS press release that day talking about how he is like

the worst of the worst. A serious bad worst of the worst guy and a leader of what they only referred to as a transnational criminal organization, because that's actually what it is And he was incarcerated in New York and the word on the street was that he was in the MDC and that he had begun cooperating so We also learned in March that the charges against him had been dismissed and that he had been slated for deportation and that that the charges against him had been dismissed and that he had been slated for deportation. That really, really rang some alarm bells for me. It was only about a week or so after

that, we had another guy here, Henry Josue Villatoro Santos. He was the guy who was arrested here in Northern Virginia and they had the big press conference at the FBI Northern Virginia sub-office. Bondi was there, Patel was there, everybody was there. They talked about how great it was, they picked up this massive mastermind leader of MS-13, which was really debatable when you look the facts. But they never said his name. And then the guy was finally presented a day later,

and within about a week, he was arrested on March 27th, by May 1st, charges dismissed. So that's what they're doing with the actual criminals who they are deporting. A lot of these guys are, who knows, wanted by the El Salvadorans. They'll never see a day in a US court. They'll never actually get to fight the charges against them. They'll never get to profess their innocence or prove it in any way. And more importantly, if they're as bad and significant as the administration

says they are, they'll never get convicted and forced to serve those sentences here, which is our way of protecting Americans against the horrible things that these allegedly horrible people might do in the future. Like, who knows what happens to them when they're in El Salvador? Next time the Bukele government needs a deal, these guys are out and probably back here in America. So Trump stands up Vulcan, puts Durham in charge of it, starts investigating, finds Starts investigating finds that Bukele was laundering money, US taxpayer dollars from USAID to pay MS-13 gang members

In a deal with them and then refusing to extradite MS-13 gang members to the United States because he doesn't want them talking about the deal between them and Now Durham is dismissing charges against MS-13 gang members who have raped, murdered, robbed, committed crimes against Americans, sending them to El Salvador because Bukele wants it. So makes me wonder why Trump set up Project Vulcan in the first place to get Bukele under his thumb and have him agree to certain things? I don't know. It's all speculation. At least to say, I think he probably had no idea what he was getting into. But the whole thing is dirty.

Yeah. That was the flavor of the minute back in 2019. He's trying to prove that MS-13 was the worst thing that we had to deal with here in the country and they're they're a bad you know a transnational criminal organization responsible for a lot of horrendous crimes. The people who are actual members are bad dudes. Yeah and so your goal with investigating them is to work your way up the food chain start taking out some of the leadership and when you get that leadership in custody and they're facing massive prison sentences here in the United States, that's when they start to cooperate and provide real, actionable information that, in this case,

if the allegations are true and guys like Lopez Larios and others were actually providing information about the Buckeye government, that information is super relevant to our diplomatic, political, kind of geopolitical understanding of another country and also possibly could have led to additional charges. So, but no, the flavor of the minute now is deportation. And they needed someone with a big hole in the ground to take all these Venezuelans.

I want you to do me a favor though. That's right. It's kind of what the whole thing boils down to. Yes. That's what it seems like. All right. Well, fantastic reporting from ProPublica. There's a lot more detail to that story.

You can check it out at ProPublica.org. I highly recommend supporting their investigative journalism because it is top notch. All right. We have more information and stories to get to, but we have to take another quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay.

Next, we head to the Western District of Pennsylvania, to the court of Trump-appointed Judge Stephanie Haynes, the only judge in the country that has ruled President Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act is lawful. So this past week, she issued a ruling upholding the 21-day notice. The government had only been giving 12 hours notice to some of these deportees, and sometimes even less than that. The government then issued a memo saying it would grant a seven-day notice. Like they're haggling at the swap meet. Exactly. 21 days. How about seven? How much for the used Hyundai? It's like pawn stars. Best I can do is seven. Exactly. So Judge

Haynes said that the seven day notice is not enough. And she gave a hypothetical in her ruling to illustrate the point. Yeah, she said the court offers the following hypothetical to illustrate its point. Assume that detainee John Doe, who's housed at Mochannon Valley Processing Center, MVPC, in the Western District of Pennsylvania received notice on June 1st, 2026 at noon that he is subject to removal under the Alien Enemies Act and the Proclamation. His only

recourse is to file with the judiciary in habeas. Thus, unlike an individual in expedited removal proceedings, he apparently may not tell an immigration officer of his intention to apply for asylum or his fear of prosecution and thereby obtain a hearing. That's 8 U.S. Code section 1225 B1A1. So assume that John Doe then begins drafting, through whatever means are available to him, a habeas petition to file in the federal court of the Western District of Pennsylvania and or places to call to his attorney if he's got to make a call to his attorney if he has one. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know, I feel like the assumption that John Doe knows how to draft a habeas petition, like I'm a lawyer, I don't know how to do that. But okay. I'm

going to keep keeping with her hypothetical, which is really remarkably long and detailed, she goes on to say halfway through drafting his petition or while waiting for a call back from his attorney or while still looking for an attorney on June 4th, 2026 at 5pm, he's placed on a plane which will arrive in the Northern District of Texas at 745pm that same evening. He has no opportunity to take his partially drafted petition with him or call his attorney or find an attorney before he's transferred. After arriving at Blue Bonnet Detention Center in the northern district of Texas at 11 30 p.m. on June 4, 2026, he takes most of the day on June 5 to acclimate himself to his

surroundings and look for means within the facility to redraft his habeas petition and places another call to his attorney. I'm guessing blue bonnet doesn't have a legal library, but whatever. Let's keep rolling. By the time he finds means for drafting a petition or hears back from his attorney, it is June 6th, 2026 at 12 PM. And he stands to be removed from the country in just two days. Might there not be significant risk that this individual will not reach the judiciary before

his seven days have run their course, meaning that he would be removed without any hearing whatsoever? Might not his movements from one facility to another, his quest to draft a petition and or his search for word from an attorney, take even longer than the timeframes that the court has just described?" Yeah, she's like, even my hypothetical is pretty fast. It almost took seven days to get the hypothetical out. She goes on to say, the court cannot help but answer those questions in the affirmative. Therefore, having considered the Supreme Court's longstanding holding that no person shall be removed from the United States without opportunity at some time to be heard, and after again weighing the realities of ICE removal proceedings, the risk of errant removals,

and the burden upon the government, the Court reaffirms its finding that due process clause mandates the notice requirements that this Court articulated in the ASR case, 21 days, regardless of the contours of the distinguishable expedited removal proceedings. Accordingly, the court finds that the WJCC, that's the plaintiff here, has shown a likelihood of success on the merits in so far as he seeks the following notice before his removal from the country under the Alien Enemies Act Proclamation. He wants one, 21 days notice and an opportunity to be heard. 2. Notice that clearly articulates the fact that he is subject to removal under the AEA. 3. Notice in English and Spanish

the language of the ones sought to be expelled and if needed Spanish to English interpreters shall be provided for any necessary hearings. 4. notice of all the foregoing to his counsel. She goes on to say that since the plaintiff is getting a 21 day notice, there is no irreparable harm argument as to the lawfulness of the AEA. So she's again denying an injunction of the proclamation itself. She thinks it's lawful Trump's use of the AEA.

But she is siding with the Supreme Court's interpretation. Well, she's interpreting what the Supreme Court said when it said meaningful notice. She's saying, look at my hypothetical, meaningful notice here is 21 days. Other judges have said 30. And I think four other judges have said that the AEA itself is unlawful in the first place. That still hasn't made it up to the Supreme Court. We're still waiting on that. So we just wanted to give you that quick update from the Western District of Pennsylvania. The one judge who has proclaimed that the AEA is lawful,

the way that Trump is using it, but stood up for her 21 day thing when the government said, what about seven? So. Okay, eight. Yeah. All right, we have two more quick stories and then listener questions. We're going to take one more quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back.

Hey everybody. Welcome back. All right. Two more quick headlines for you. First is from the Associated Press. I can't, I just can't with this, Andy. President Donald Trump on Friday called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election won by Joe Biden, repeating his baseless claim that the contest was marred by widespread fraud. Earlier this month, Trump directed his administration to investigate Biden's actions as president,

alleging aides masked his predecessor's cognitive decline. Biden has dismissed the investigation as a mere distraction. It was unclear what Trump had in mind when he called for a special prosecutor. That's for sure. But in the event Attorney General Pam Bondi heeds his call, she may face pressure to appoint someone who's already been confirmed by the Senate. Why? Why would she face pressure to appoint someone

already confirmed by the Senate, Andy? Well, that's a little awkward for DOJ because two of its senior leaders, Todd Blanch, the Deputy Attorney General, and Emile Beauvais, who I don't even remember, he's like chief henchmen or something now. They championed the strategy in the United States versus Trump case in Florida in which they argued successfully that the special prosecutor was unconstitutional unless he or she was approved by the Senate or confirmed

by the Senate. That and because they were appointed, because Jack Smith was appointed not to an office that already existed. Yes. So remember that weird argument that if they had created the office and then two seconds later appointed him to it, it would have been fine. That was what Judge Cannon put in her 93 page. I can't believe I remember the number of pages in her.

That's pretty sad. I know. I need a life. You're right. She's me. I just overeducated cat lady over here. But you know, I mean, just sometimes get out a little bit. I'm just saying or whatever. But that was her argument. Yeah. And so anyway, yeah. So he'll have to follow what Eileen Cannon said. And I mean, who knows better what their arguments were than the people who made them that are now at the top of the Department of Justice? There you go. There you go. I, you know, there's, I can't imagine any of those people being

hypocritical and taking a position now that is opposite of the one they had earlier. Do you think that could happen? I don't know. Stay tuned. Well, he'll say, hey, we got him confirmed by the Senate. Is Durham around? I mean, he's not as busy because he just shite-canned all of his Vulcan cases.

So he might be available. I think he was confirmed by Congress. I can't remember. Not for, as a US attorney, not as a special prosecutor. That's right. Anyway, that's a bizarre thing. But we were expecting this. We knew he was going to investigate this.

Because just a few days ago, actually, FBI Director Kash Patel, and I hate saying that sentence. He tweeted- I'm not crazy about hearing it, but go ahead. Yeah, no, sorry. Don't make me throw damn Bongino in there. But Kash Patel tweeted and Ed Martin, the whack-a-dagpa, retweeted, the FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 US election, Like stuff he could have brought up the whole time he was being prosecuted for this. Oh wait, we just now found diddy diddy ships at sea. We've just found these documents,

including allegations of interference by the CCP. Uh, China, right? That's China. China, China, China. It's China gate. China. I have immediately declassified. He says, China, China, China. It's China gate. China. I have immediately declassified. He says, he this get this. He says, I have immediately declassified the material and turn the documents over to the chairman, Chairman Grassley for further review. Andy, how often does the FBI hand over evidence in an active investigation to Congress? That would be never. I mean, in the old days. Now, who knows?

But I gotta tell you that handing that over to Grassley means one thing about this information, and that is that it is evidence of nothing. There is no purpose for it. If you have strong evidence in a real investigation, you don't hand it over to anybody, because if you leak it, you're not gonna have a case. That's right.

If it gets out into the public, you could lose your case. You could totally undermine your prosecution. You keep that tight. You keep it buckled down. You would also be a gross violation of DOJ and FBI policy and on and on and on and on and on. But you know, you're giving it to grass. So you might as well just like get in the car, sky ride it, get onto the highway, roll down the windows and just heave it out the window. Throw it out like Mean Girls burn book.

Exactly. Have the same effect. Yeah. Oh, anyway, very, very interesting information. One last story before we get to listener questions. This one comes from Politico. This is a little bit of good news. The California court has upheld a recommendation that attorney John Eastman should lose his

law license because of his central role in President Donald Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 election. A three-judge review panel of the California State Bar Court found that Eastman's conduct was so egregious and his remorse so lacking that the only remedy was to permanently prohibit him from practicing law. Quote, Eastman continues to fully deny his many unethical actions. He denies he misled the courts. He denies that he made multiple false and misleading statements. He denies that he conspired to subvert the law

in order to benefit his client's desire to remain in office after his client lost a fair and lawfully conducted election. That's Judge Kearse McGill in the panel's unanimous ruling. Quote, he used his skills to push a false narrative in the courtroom, in the White House, and in the panel's unanimous ruling. Quote, he used his skills to push a false narrative in the courtroom, in the White House, and in the media. That false narrative resulted in the undermining of our country's electoral process,

reduced faith in election professionals, and lessened respect for the courts of this land, the judges concluded. Eastman plans to appeal to the California Supreme Court. Good luck, buddy. Yeah, good luck. I mean, I'm no expert the California Supreme Court. Good luck, buddy. Yeah, good luck. I mean, I'm no expert on California Supreme Court bar appeals, but this seems like a decision

that was based on facts, right? That's a scathing, unanimous panel review. This is not some esoteric interpretation of law that's been applied by the bar counsel there. It's the facts, which they've laid out for you that this guy is an unrepentant liar. So the, I, it's so, you know, only thing is the permanently barred for practicing law. Appellate courts are very unlikely to get in and reinterpret the facts that were

presented to the lower court. It's really, it's not, that's not what they're there for they're there for to fix Errors and legal interpretation. Yeah All right time for some listener questions If you have a question we have a link in the show notes You can send us a question by clicking on that and filling out the form and we'll see if we can answer them Andy What do we have today? All right

So I got a couple lined up because I feel like we've been going light on the questions the last couple weeks because shows are So long and probably today again too, but here we go. So I thought lightning round would be appropriate. I got a couple here. The first one actually has a few really tight questions in it and it comes to us from Amy and Amy says, hi, Allison and Andy. My question is about the legality of the ICE detentions taking place en masse. I understand these detentions are not the same as typical police arrests for someone suspected of committing a crime. So from there, Amy, I'm going to cut right to your actual questions. One, do ICE agents need a warrant? The answer is only if they're trying to get into some place that

they are not legally present in. Like if they're looking at- A private residence, for example. But if it's a business, they can be in public spaces of that business, but not private spaces of that business. Private ones if the business lets them. If the business has the ability to consent, they can come in. Okay. The next thing is, do they need to read Miranda rights to detainees?

Not really, because what happens in most of these detentions, they just walk up to people and say, let me see your authorization card, your green card, what have you. And people say, I don't have a green card. My visa is expired. That point, you're deportable. That's a civil violation, too, right? Not a criminal. That's right.

It's not a criminal case. So you don't have, it's not like they're going to be going into criminal court and proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt based upon the things that you said. It's simply a civil violation of being here without status. And so they can go with that. The next question, do detainees have a right

to access a lawyer and a speedy trial? So lawyer, yes, as we've been talking about in a lot of these immigration cases, you do have a right to be heard before you're deported. And that brings with it a right to have legal counsel in that hearing. We just talked about the seven days versus the 21 days. So there's different time periods that you have to get to do that depending on where you are in the process. Speedy trial, not really. That's a criminal law thing. It doesn't really apply to these immigration proceedings. Once detained, what rights do detainees have? And this, she means like conditions of confinement. We're hearing stories about people being held in really awful conditions in some of these temporary locations

that they're putting detainees, they do have the right to be treated humanely and to be given food and shelter and a place to sleep that's not the floor, things like that. The problem is if there are violations of those conditions, it's really the violation applies to the agency and they have to correct it. It's not the sort of constitutional violation that could result in you like getting

your green card or asylum or something like that. So it doesn't really help them in that respect. So that's what it that's my lightning round on the ICE detentions there. Any comments from you, AG? Um, no, but I, you know, I would, well then I guess yes, because I'm about to say something. No, but here's a bunch of stuff. I was asked by a follower or a listener about churches and the difference between businesses and I was looking into it and I say to go, what I really recommend is go to the Imm law center website and the ACLU. They have really detailed information about what happens if ICE comes to your door, if

they approach you on the street, if they come to your car, if they come to your business, if they come to your church. They have all of the information about your rights in there and people you can contact in case you are detained by ICE and how to do that. So that's where I recommend ACLU immigration law center, really, really important information and resources on specifically like what kind of building they're trying to get in.

What about Dodger Stadium? I hear the- I hear the- Dodger said, no, you cannot come in. Which is great, because that was a Dodger's Padres game. So you're talking about 50,000 cannot come in. Which is great because that was a Dodgers Padres game. So you're talking about 50,000 Southern Californians. And so they wouldn't even let them in the parking lot.

But then DHS was like, that's not ICE. And to my, which I respond, well then prove it. Wear ICE uniforms. If you're ICE. Like, how am I supposed to know? Some other heavily armed, fully masked deployment of people in law enforcement SUVs. Well there are tons of people impersonating ICE officers now. Yeah, that's true. But in this case, I mean, that was so obviously them.

You can't deny things that are provably false. I mean, like, crime any... Yeah, like the Dodgers would come out and say that if it weren't. Right. They would have... Oh, so the Dodgers just made this up out of whole cloth? It's so ridiculous. All right. Next lightning question. This comes from Taco Don. Taco Don says, hi AG and AC.

I guess I'm AC in this one, Taco Don. But anyway, thanks for being a bright light in these darkening times. It means a lot. My question is simple. Can the American people sue the Supreme Court for wrongdoing or harm caused by their actions and judgments? No.

Taco Don, I wish, because that would be cool, but you can't because it's the Supreme Court. So they are not subject to the jurisdiction or rulings of any other inferior court. You can't sue them. There's no court you could file a lawsuit against them in. No, they only redress against the Supreme Court is impeachment.

That's right. That's right. All right. So my final question, I've been saving the best for last. It's a long one, but it's going to have a short answer. So here you go. This comes to us from Tim Dog. And Tim Dog also says we could use any cool sounding name other than Tim Dog if there was one that we preferred, but there's not. I like Tim Dogg. Soul Invictus. There you go. All right.

Tim Dogg says, what's the story with Ben Folds doing the music for the show? The rumor around my apartment, which I heard from myself and I'm not a credible source, is that Andy was the drummer for the Ben Folds Five in the early 2000s during the period that Bob Mueller managed the band. Is that true or have I misled myself? Serious though, I'm curious. More seriously, thanks for what you guys do and how you do it. I hate podcasters, but you two are all right in my book, especially for a couple of feds. Kidding or am I? Okay. There's a lot there.

First of all, I'm going gonna text my friend Ben and ask him if Bob Mueller managed Ben Folds five in the 2000s. The idea of that makes me scream. Cause I never heard that. I mean, I've spent a lot of time with Bob Mueller. I can tell you that's about one of the last things I could ever imagine him doing. And I've spent a lot of time with Ben Folds

and I'm pretty sure he would have mentioned that. That dude was our manager. He couldn't get us any gigs cause he's mean. Oh, I'm sorry. I would have mentioned that dude was our manager he couldn't get us any gigs because he's mean oh I'm sorry I shouldn't swear on this particular show anyway Tim dog um no no Andy were you I don't think oh no I can't draw them no I wish I could I wish I had a drunk kid I'd beat on it but not well so the story is that the Bens does the music for the show because Ben Folds is a friend of mine. And I've interviewed him a few times on the Daily Beans. You can look up those interviews by going to wherever you get your podcasts and searching Ben Folds Daily Beans.

And he did us a solid and I asked him if he had any music he wasn't using and he sent us some. And so that's why he does the music for this particular podcast. And, you know, we've done some cool political stuff together. And so that's it. I mean, that's the long and short of it. It's just like, you know, I'm friends with the, they might be giants and they do the music for the Daily Beans podcast. In a previous life, I was a musician.

And so. Nice. I was not. But you have really cool guitars. You have way cooler guitars than I have, sir. I'm a wannabe musician. It's guitar, not drums. But yeah, I can play a little more now than I used to,

which is good. Yeah, but that's the story. Although now I really do want to ask him if Bob Mueller managed Ben Folds. I think you should because I know he didn't, but I'd just be interested to hear how he answers the question. I'm thinking we'd get something more than just a plain old no. That would be fair. And what's interesting is I wouldn't put it past that to be real.

I would put it past Bob Mueller. But I don't know, that's just you being the drummer for Ben Folds Five and Bob Mueller being the manager in the early aughts, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I mean, maybe that's how Mueller and I got to know each other and he later pushed me into all those big jobs because he saw my skills behind the kit and he was like. He was scouting for the FBI. That's right.

In music venues. This dude, he's got mad fills and also would be great as the AD of counterterrorism. Alright, we gotta stop this thing. It's off the rails. Yeah, it is. It's gone off the rails, but we really appreciate your questions and please send them in. Anything at all. Obviously we'll answer pretty much any questions. So send it to us at the link in the show notes. And Tim, we appreciate your question. Taco Don, appreciate you. Amy, we appreciate you. And we will see you all next week. Do you have any final thoughts before we get out

of here? No, I think that one covered it. I'm good, but looking forward to seeing what the mess delivers for us next week. Ed Martin It'll be something. Ed Martin, the whack-a-dag pod doesn't sleep. Andy MacKabe No, it's been light on whack-a-dag pod in the last couple of weeks. I feel he's going to be coming back with a vengeance. Ed Martin I think he will too. All right, everybody, we'll see you next week. I'm an Alison Gill.

Andy MacKabe And I'm Andy McCabe. Music Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joel Reeder at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned independent podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com.