Will they never leave this man in peace?

 

Lawless and without scruples

 

Abrego Garcia finding won't surprise you

 You think?

Kristi v CBS

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused CBS News of selectively editing footage from her Sunday interview, cutting some of her remarks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national who was mistakenly deported and returned to the U.S. to face separate charges.

In a statement on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said CBS “deceptively” edited the secretary’s answers, cutting about four minutes from the nearly 17-minute interview when it aired on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

[...]

“Secretary Noem’s ‘Face The Nation’ interview was edited for time and met all CBS News standards,” a spokesperson for CBS News said in a statement to The Hill. “The entire interview is publicly available on YouTube, and the full transcript was posted early Sunday morning at CBSNews.com.”

  The Hill

CBS thought it might avoid trouble by honoring Trump's extortion to the tune of $16M (for another claim of unfavorable editing) and firing Stephen Colbert. They weren't paying attention to the fact that Trump doubles down on people who bow to his pressure, like any bully anywhere.

So, Noem published the edited portion online in a tweet.

In Noem’s Sunday interview, sections of her responses cut for the live broadcast include allegations against Abrego Garcia that have not been substantiated and which his lawyers deny.

Those include allegations that the Maryland resident “was a known human smuggler, MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors and even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off,” which Noem said in the section of the interview that DHS claims was removed from the live broadcast.

If they want to dictate what airs, they should stick with Fox News interviews.

Earlier this week, attorneys for Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge to issue a gag order against Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi to bar them from making “baseless public attacks” against their client, who faces human smuggling charges stemming from a traffic stop in 2022.

[...]

“If Kilmar Abrego Garcia did not want to be mentioned by the Secretary of Homeland Security, then he should have not entered our country illegally and committed heinous crimes,” a DHS official told The Hill on Friday morning.

Again, they haven't proven that he did commit heinous crimes - or any crimes at all beyond illegal entry. They've been embarrassed by their original removal of Mr. Abrego to an El Salvador prison in error, and they're determined he should not go free. So they're digging the hole their in deeper.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys were told their client could be deported to Uganda, but a federal judge said Monday that the administration is “absolutely forbidden” from removing Abrego Garcia until a hearing is held.

So perhaps it’s time for news organizations to state unabashedly and affirmatively that they are not in the business of amplifying Trump officials’ lies and smears, and any official who feels entitled to such amplification can go stuff it. Perhaps other journalists should stand with them as they do so. Let Noem shriek into the MAGA disinformation abyss about it all she likes—this is a sleazy little scam, and there’s no need to get pushed around by it any longer.

  New Republic

UPDATE 09/06/2025:

If you need more evidence that there’s zero percentage in trying to appease or bargain with authoritarians, check out what happened this weekend when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem attacked CBS News for supposedly editing her Face the Nation appearance in a deceptive way. Unsurprisingly, it concerned the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, about whom Noem and other Trump officials have lied relentlessly for months on end.

[...]

It’s bad enough for government officials to go on national television and rattle off a litany of hideously damning charges as fact when they haven’t yet been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. In this case, officials apparently went to extraordinarily depraved lengths to try to coerce a guilty plea, which doesn’t exactly exude confidence in the strength of those charges to begin with.

[...]

Not airing footage of Noem’s lies and smears unchallenged was, journalistically speaking, the correct thing to do. CBS News is under no obligation to air them, and arguably should not have.

[...]

CBS’s response to this latest saga has been largely defensive and even taken on a pleading quality. In a sense, posting the full video of the interview—including numerous unrebutted lies about Abrego Garcia—lets Noem and her falsehoods get their way, and then some.

  New Republic

CBS now belongs to Trump.  For free.

Fascists on the march

 

Obscene.

UPDATE 09:43 am:

Lives are being destroyed.  

What next for Kilmar Abrego?

 UPDATE 08/24/2025:

Kilmar Abrego hearing on release

 

Abrego whistleblower

 

Homan is a heaping pile of shit

 

Faith and Freedom Coalition indeed.  He's being wildly cheered.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles...

At the very least, I hope they feel as ridiculous as they look.  But  my guess is they think they look like awesome super rangers.

What's ahead for Kilmar Abrego Garcia?

 

The cruelty is the point.

UPDATE 06/29/2025:

Ruling for Abrego

 

One of the stupid  arguments DOJ had for keeping Abrego in custody was that if he were let out, ICE could pick him up and deport him again.  They wouldn't dare.  Would they? 

That would be very ballsy, and perhaps very costly.

Factoid:  According to Adam Klasfeld, who was at the hearing, Abrego's public defender Dumaka Shabazz, at one  point, said Abrego has never even had one misdemeanor charge, not one felony charge, not 34 felony charges.  Nicely done.

Will Allensworth and Richard Tennant led Abrego García’s defense in court last week, with Dumaka Shabazz delivering a stirring closing argument for Abrego García that included an outright accusation that the Trump administration brought its indictment to justify the public embarrassment of the mistaken deportation. Richard Thomason was also listed as a defense attorney. All were federal public defenders appointed to Abrego García’s case.

  Nashville Scene

I've heard only praise for these federal public defenders. But now, Abrego has hired private attorneys for the rest of his case:

Sean Hecker, Jenna Dabbs and David Patton — all of boutique New York City defense firm Hecker Fink LLP — will join Nashville attorney Rascoe Dean of Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison in the high-profile defense of Abrego García.

The best thing the DOJ could do right now is withdraw their charges.

UPDATE 06/23/2025:

Kilmar Agrego in court

They held a hearing today to determine if Abrego Garcia can be free until his trial or if he has to be held in custody.  The prosecutor says he's a flight risk because....if they let him out, he might be deported. !!  

Also, the prosecution's case against him for supposedly trafficking humans is relying on 2 cooperating "witnesses" who just happen to be MS-13 members who are trying to avoid being deported themselves.  The government only started an investigation (such as it is) AFTER they were ordered to return Abrego-Garcia.  Apparently, they brought him back once they got their "witnesses" lined up.

The judge has said the government's case has a lot of hearsay in it.

Listen to Adam Klasfeld (who was at the trial today) discuss it with Allison Gill.

Abrego Garcia is being returned to be indicted

 

[AG Pam] Bondi told reporters that a federal grand jury indicted Abrego Garcia on May 21 in Tennessee over allegations he conspired to transport thousands of migrants without legal status from Texas across the U.S. between 2016-2025. The two-count indictment accuses Abrego Garcia "of conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain" and "unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain."

Bondi says Abrego Garcia will face trial in the U.S. on these charges and, if found guilty, will serve time in a U.S.1 prison before being deported back to El Salvador

[...]

The 10-page criminal indictment unsealed today alleges that Abrego Garcia participated in more than 100 trips smuggling individuals, including unaccompanied minors and alleged members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13.

[...]

After the announcement of Abrego Garcia's return, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the indictment against Abrego Garcia "proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools," adding that the administration would "continue to hold criminals accountable to the fullest extent of the law."

  NPR

Not even close, KKKaroline. Dmocrats never said he was an innocent man. They always asserted his right to due process. Bringing him back to be afforded just that shows the Trump admin for the losers they are, who acted like fools and possibly criminals for denying him due process until now. It remains to be seen whether he can be redeported. This is another loss in the courts for Trump. He's getting quite a long string of them.

UPDATE 06/07/25:

Abrego Garcia’s arrival in the United States represents the Trump administration’s second capitulation on the topic of immigration within days. On Wednesday, the administration returned a gay asylum seeker named O.C.G., who had been living in hiding in Guatemala after being wrongly expelled to the country where he feared persecution.

A federal judge in Boston had ordered O.C.G.’s return from Latin America on the same day that he demanded due process for immigrants summarily expelled to South Sudan, a ruling that the Trump administration has been fighting ever since.

[...]

In a press conference, Attorney General Pamela Bondi claimed that Abrego Garcia was a “smuggler of humans and children and women.” Prosecutors alleged that he “solicited nude photographs and videos of a minor,” but “no charges” have been filed yet on that claim.

  Adam Klasfeld Substack

Gee, I wonder why not.

The government will now carry a burden they previously sidestepped by spiriting him out of the country: proving their allegations beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

[...]

Just Security’s co-editor-in-chief Ryan Goodman already found an inconsistency in Abrego Garcia’s indictment. Prosecutors accused Abrego Garcia of lying to an officer by not revealing he was coming from Texas, but a Department of Homeland Security referral report stated that Abrego Garcia made just that disclosure, Goodman noted.

Still fucking with Abrego-Garcia

 

Today in the Abrego Garcia case

 

Trump: Send out the attack dogs

The Supreme Court in a 7-2 ruling Friday said the Trump administration violated the due process rights of Venezuelan migrants in its rushed effort to remove them from the U.S. last month using the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a 1798 wartime law.

Through its order, the Supreme Court extended its pause on AEA removals from the Northern District of Texas. However, the court did not determine whether the Trump administration can ultimately carry out removals using the AEA.

Instead, it asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to determine whether Trump’s [invocation] of the AEA was legal and how much notice is due to those targeted by the act.

[...]

While granting the migrants’ appeal, the Supreme Court also rebuked the Trump administration for not complying with its previous order on removals using the wartime act. In that order, SCOTUS said that those subject to removals must be given an adequate amount of notice and a change to challenge.

“Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” the court said.

[...]

“The circumstances call for a prompt and final resolution, which likely can be provided only by this Court,” Kavanaugh said. “At this juncture, I would prefer not to remand to the lower courts and further put off this Court’s final resolution of the critical legal issues. Rather, consistent with the Executive Branch’s request for expedition—and as the detainees themselves urge—I would grant certiorari, order prompt briefing, hold oral argument soon thereafter, and then resolve the legal issues.”

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented to the court’s order.

  Democracy Docket

Of course they did.

        click here

Trump 2.0 - Truth is the enemy

 

The entire administration is an embarrassment

 And worse, a danger to our security and wellbeing.

Good grief.

DOJ tripping over Trump's dick tie

U.S. District Judge James] Boasberg, the chief federal district judge in Washington, D.C., is trying to discern whether the U.S. government retains “constructive custody” of nearly 140 Venezuelan immigrants who were hurriedly deported to El Salvador under Trump’s mid-March invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used wartime power. If so, it would be possible to bring them back to receive due process, which Kambli reluctantly acknowledged they did not receive two months ago.

[...]

The judge is now asking for an “expedited” fact-finding inquiry so that he can decide whether to advance the case further. He is asking for statements under oath from administration officials about the U.S. government’s legal arrangement with El Salvador so that he can rule on whether the government does in fact retain custody of the prisoners it has sent overseas.

[...]

Boasberg said during a court hearing that Trump’s claim appears to undercut the administration’s legal position that it has no authority to return Abrego Garcia or hundreds of other immigrants the U.S. sent there in recent weeks, despite growing questions about the legality of the operation.

“Didn’t the president say just last week that he could secure the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia simply by picking up the phone and asking the president of El Salvador to release him?” Boasberg asked. “Was the president telling the truth?”

The inquiry forced Justice Department attorney Abhishek Kambli into a tricky spot.

“That goes to the president’s belief about the influence that he has,” Kambli said.

But influence, the DOJ attorney added, doesn’t equate to legal control.

  Politico

Nice evasion.

Another pointed exchange came as Boasberg pressed Kambli about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s visit to the notorious Salvadoran prison, known as CECOT, where the deportees are being held. Noem claimed during the appearance that the prison was “one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use.”

“Is she wrong about that?” the judge asked.

“I’m not going to necessarily parse out every statement,” Kambli demurred. “Sometimes public statements lack the nuance of any given situation.”

“Is that another way of saying these statements just aren’t true?” the judge said.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” Kambli said.

Drilling down further, Boasberg pressed on whether the U.S. government is paying El Salvador to house the people it has deported there in partnership with the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, a close Trump ally. Kambli acknowledged that the U.S. government had paid “grants” to El Salvador “for law enforcement and anti-crime purposes,” which the country could use to house deported immigrants in its prisons.

Not as clever as the first exchange.

Boasberg also used Wednesday’s hearing to force the Justice Department to acknowledge that those around Trump had spent weeks misrepresenting the Supreme Court’s ruling. Trump allies have claimed that the high court upheld Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act. But the justices intentionally avoided that question. In the meantime, three federal district court judges — in Texas, New York and Colorado — have ruled that Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was improper.

Above the law

In two major interviews, President Donald Trump openly declared that he has the power to bring the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States. And on both occasions, Trump said straight out that he is not doing so because administration lawyers have told him he doesn’t have to—or that he shouldn’t.

[...]

“Bringing him back and retrying him wouldn’t bother me,” Trump told Time magazine, admitting that he has this option. “But I leave that decision to the lawyers. At this moment, they just don’t want to do that.”

[...]

Trump was even more direct in a recent interview with ABC News.Trump shrugged when asked if he could pick up the phone and get Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to release Abrego Garcia [...] .

“If he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” Trump continued. “But he’s not.” Trump added that “we have lawyers that don’t want to do this.”

[...]

Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, says he will now pursue answers to the many questions these admissions raise. This is doable because the federal district judge overseeing this case, Paula Xinis, has initiated discovery designed to reveal what steps, if any, the government has taken to facilitate his return, opening the way for depositions of administration officials.

[...]

Which lawyers have told Trump that he is not required to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return? What exactly transpired in these communications? Which top official—aside from Trump—is internally directing the lawyers to advise Trump this way? Are that official’s initials S and M?

[...]

Admittedly, it will be tough to get such answers. But as David Kurtz and Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo detail, Judge Xinis, who has also ordered Abrego Garcia’s return, has taken a stern line against the administration’s refusal to be forthcoming on what it’s doing toward that end. She seems determined to establish a blow-by-blow account of government malfeasance.

[...]

Miller’s bigger argument is essentially that the president’s powers to remove people should be above challenge and unreviewable by definition. Miller appears to want Trump to have the power to declare undocumented immigrants to be terrorists and gang members by fiat; to have the power to absurdly decree them members of a hostile nation’s invading army, again by fiat; and then to have quasi-unlimited power to remove them, unconstrained by any court.

“The judicial process is for Americans,” Miller has said. “Immediate deportation is for illegal aliens.” He appears to want to dispense with due process for migrants entirely—the Constitution be damned.

[...]

The more transparency we have gained into the rot of corruption and bad faith at the core of this whole saga, the worse it has come to look. Trump himself is exposing it all for what it truly is: the stuff of Mad Kings.

  New Republic

And the Republican Congress is backing him.

Trump surrounds himself with craven toadies and believes the sole function of his advisers and cabinet officials should be to crawl on their bellies before King Trump.

Competent officials need to be willing to tell the president when he’s wrong, but Trump doesn’t want to hear anything other than praise and flattery. That leaves him surrounding himself with fools, grifters, conspiracy theorists, and whatever you call the spineless sack of gelatin that is Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

[...]

Past presidents have weathered scandals and improved their administration’s performance by removing problematic appointees and finding better personnel.

[...]

Trump, though, doesn’t really care what his subordinates do as long as they kiss his ass. Bondi understands the brief; Trump thrives on ludicrous, obviously false praise. You can’t go wrong telling him he’s the bestest president ever. You can’t go wrong telling him he should be Pope, even if it pointlessly offends Catholics across the globe. The only way you can go wrong is by standing up to him or failing to lick his cheap shoes as assiduously as your rivals.

[...]

If the incompetence of the minions merely contributed to Trump’s ongoing polling freefall, we could all just step back and cheer it on. Unfortunately, the incompetence of the minions, like the incompetence of the boss, can have real and potentially nightmarish effects.

[...]

Trump has set up his administration as a haven for the biggest liars, frauds, marks, and ghouls on the planet.

  Public Notice