I just don’t understand why this is getting dragged out. They blatantly ignored the judge’s order to release Kilmar Obrego Garcia. Arrest the government attorneys & Pam Bondi for abusing the court of law. This is crazy & exactly what F47 has done all these years.
The damn buck needs to stop at the court. One court. Not where they go court shopping until they get what they want. Once we have a real democratic government again, we will need to make some serious changes.
And when the appeals court says the contempt finding was not supported by the record? Now you’ve lost two weeks *and* made it impossible to make a contempt ruling stick in the future.
It's absolutely ridiculous that the judge is letting this be dragged out. It's almost like she is doing anything to cover her ass while a man's life is in serious danger.
I think a contempt charge is going to be a make or break moment for how well the judiciary even can hold this administration to account, so if all of this delay is so she can cross every t, dot every i, and be able to say that she gave them every possible chance, I can understand it. I don't think
Grateful to you @annabower.bsky.social !! Is it correct to say the judge wants testimony that clearly shows DOJ has done little to comply with the SCOTUS ruling so that she can pursue a contempt finding? I will listen to your discussion. The legal nuance is tricky for a layman like me.
Thank you. Is there a way to tell which affiants she was talking about? There were different ones on different filings so far. But as soon as I said that maybe I'm thinking of another case, there's too much going on.
It's frustrating to watch the wheels of justice turn at such slow speed (and I realize this is actually very speedy, but still, an innocent man is wrongfully locked up, if he is even alive), while the regime drags its feet. Press conference = a joke.
She can make her final ruling and hold them in contempt. What she is doing is making sure a full paper trail is hundred percent on record for her final ruling.
I am disappointed that the depos are limited to the affiants. Affiants repeatedly relied on their understandings of others. The decision makers, rather than decision repeaters, should be deposed.
@rparloff.bsky.social and I are on our way to a public library to discuss the hearing on our YouTube livestream. We’ll start as soon as we’re able to do so.
Having heard the post-hearing analysis from the library, kudos for an excellent job. And having fleshed out the proceedings so soon after the hearing means you are fast and furious! Gonna continue my support for Lawfare.
Stevey, this is ONLY a summons for trump admin officials to discuss why they’re not following a court order. As mentioned earlier, I have 0 faith this does anything to bring back Abrego Garcia. You’re convinced this is one more step towards justice. Still not at “on my hands and knees” stage…
It also gives Mr Garcia another two weeks in misery as your judicial system waits…there’s the “this is how it works” argument you’ll respond with (I’m sure in a obnoxious boastful manner) but therein lies my entire issue…this system is not prepared for the assault currently being waged against it
The fact that the judge is even giving a moment's worry about the bogus "foreign policy" statement issued by Bondi is ludicrous. There are multiple men held off-shore without due process in direct violation of the USA Constitution and creating a life and death situation that gets worse by the day.
I really appreciate all your work. I am confused though how it's within the Executive's authority to contract/offshore US immigration detainees to a foreign slave labor camp outside of US jurisdiction - and that's constitutional nor violates any number of US statutes and international accords?
She has said things to that effect like (paraphrasing a bit) “while we are doing this, the irreparable harm continues” and at today’s hearing specifically “if the discovery is dragged longer than 2 weeks that facet by itself will be considered by the court”
I'm no lawyer but if I'm reading what has been posted, I think she is getting the information on the record so she can say that in order to make her ruling.
It's the clear implications of her actions and tone. She doesn't need to justify it. SCOTUS ruled it should be facilitated and it's her job to see good faith facilitation has been made.
The Trump DOJ were successful in slow rolling this whole thing by avoiding direct responses to the judge. Daily updates over the weekend turned into 2 weeks of depositions.
Bet Republican regime has zero intentions of bringing him back - they will delay as long as possible. & then they will prob say nanananana- we ain’t doing it! Impossible
The courts keep letting them get away with whatever they want.
I am afraid our foreign prison is actually a death camp. Abrego has been tortured or killed. If the former, they dont want him testifying. If the latter...they don't want that public until they've established sending "native borns" as a norm.
Abrego Garcia will not be returned. This administration can’t allow it.
Think of what he could testify about. The details of his removal and detention
and who else is there.
This court should make this case open to at least auditory media because the significance of this case is NOT lost on the country. Even more and more mainstream media covering this...
It's not up to the president of El Salvador, or of ANY foreign country, to decide the fate of someone in America LEGALLY PROTECTED from removal BY American law.
If an American citizen had been unlawfully rendered to a foreign concentration camp during any other administration, we would have sent the Rapid Deployment Force ten minutes ago and already El Salvador would be negotiating a cease fire.
Just saying...
So the 3 quesions Judge Xinis demanded answers to never arrived; daily status reports were a joke with no new info & we have a 2 WEEKS 'delay' to try to agree how to define the word "facilitate."
TYPICAL Trump tactics succeed again as Mr Garcia remains in danger.
Well, we know they’re not going to be in compliance with discovery. They’ll omit important information/emails/texts and affiants will lie under oath. Hopefully we get to toss a few people in prison over this.
Anna, I presume in discovery they will try to not produce documents (like the T&C of agreement with El Salvador) /answer questions by invoking state secrets privilege. How will that play out in terms of delays & success vs failure?
Civil contempt is meant to force compliance. Daily fines and/or jail until complies with judge.
Civil contempt is not pardonable by President.
Only criminal contempt (a fixed punishment- example 1k + 1 Night in jail for refusing to obey or cursing or whatever.
Normally it would bog things down but she’s laying out an expedited review process. When she said “if everyone is acting in good faith, it’ll get done in 2 weeks. If not…” she’s saying you have 2 weeks to fully comply or I’ll presume the worst and hold you to that presumption.
Right, it’ll establish grounds for contempt if they stonewall, I think it’s pretty clear that “state secrets” is not grounds for noncompliance in this case
So the man who shouldn’t even be there and had a protective order NOT to be sent there, is already there over a month and nothing will happen before 4/23 now. This is such bullshit.
Thank you for covering this important case. In my view, Judge Xinis has acted extremely patiently, considering the Supreme Court's order, despite the gaslighting by the likes of Stephen Miller.
I grew up hearing the stories from my dad about why it's an exceptionally poor idea to piss of judges.
While I'm as upset as most everyone else regarding the unavoidable pace of legal action, I will take the smallest of pleasures in hearing of professionals' righteous fury.
I don't disagree. I cling to the hope that our next system of justice will be better designed.
(To be abundantly clear, I see no reasonably likely way this doesn't end in violence - save for capitulation. As such, I'm preparing myself and snatching small joys as I can.)
Well so far it seems the constabulary is doing the whole “but it was just following orders” bullshit, so maybe they won’t question the orders of a judge they are supposed to carry out. Especially if they have some sort of moral fiber left in them at all.
Because our legal system has always been a clusterfuck of prejudiced knots — and this administration absolutely hates missing an opportunity to exploit a loophole.
Basically, since the Courts are kind of one of our last remaining defenses, they need to dot every i and cross every t twice —
While I understand what you are saying and it is true, watertight didn't help us with Jack Smith's 1/6. The more time goes on, the more oppositional DOJ will get. One thing after another.
That’s part of the design. It is intended to keep us off balance and anxious. Just one day at a time and keep perspective as much as possible. This sucks is right.
1) the law needs serious reform. too much room for people to evade what the issue is.
2) the judge doesn't understand what this is about. It's not about the mechanics of DOJ showing its work. This is about confronting Trump over his lawlessness. Xinis isn't willing to do that.
She's ordered depositions from the four lawless Trumpists, mostly high-ranking, who submitted the daily non-reports. That is confrontation with the beast.
And the pilots and the company they flew for need to be outed. Just doing your job doesn’t cut it, didn’t in Nuremberg, should not now. Everyone one involved, I mean everyone, do not get to walk away with zero consequences.
Let them prove it. They facilitated and provided transportation of people against their will. This is clear because they were in chains. Just playing dumb is no defense.
I know what company it is. And they had to have seen all of the chained up men. They didn’t wonder? I think they knew, and the company is making big $$$.
Judge is a chicken. The administration clearly stated their position in public today. They lied about SCOTUS ruling. Judge should order halt to all transfers to El Salvador until this matter is resolved given bad faith of the government. They are likely to send more innocents.
Does anyone have a running tally on how much it's costing taxpayers for the government to kick and stomp its feet over having to fix a mistake they already admitted to making?
Just get the guy out of prison already. America doesn't have that kind of pull with El freaking Salvador?!
It seems the crucial issue of getting Mr. Garcia back has been side-stepped and the issue of whether to hold someone in the federal government in contempt is the focus now. Has Mr. Garcia been, effectively, abandoned to his ugly fate?
I’m glad my father is not around to see this. He voted for Trump in 2016 and died before things really hit the fan. As a JAG attorney, an expert in the Law of Warfare, and a compassionate Conservative this clusterfuck would have killed him all over again.
He was a good and wise man who did stellar work for the JAG Corps, including several accomplishments at a high level of secrecy (Vietnam era) that we his children will never know the details of. He was taken in by the FAUX outrage machine, which made his 2 year cancer battle all the more painful.
I kind of hope they do that. Then the whole country will finally, once and for all, see where the Trump Admin stands. Right now, there is a legit argument to be made that are simply delaying this via legal tactics as opposed to outright defying a court order.
He will have an “accident”. To think otherwise is to give humane actions to this administration which they do not have or care about. Florida Fats will make sure he is murdered.
Oh yeah I just mean as a matter of convenience - it's better for them to keep him alive until *after* the court case is resoved. I'm certainly not putting murder past them.
The rumor is that he’s already dead, or so badly abused that they don’t dare bring him over. MD’s Senators Chris Van Hollen is going to El Salvador in hopes to meet with him.
Oh I for sure don't think they ever plan to bring him home, but *if* they've thought ahead enough being able to produce him alive and (relatively) intact would probably be useful for the optics - again, at least until the case is resolved, at which point no matter the ruling he's not coming home.
I agree sadly, bc this is not US anymore, this is Trump and co. Legality and norms and decency do not matter. They will kill him out of spite if they think they will lose.
I genuinely don’t think he’s alive, and I’d imagine they might not even have a body. I’d bet there’s a crematorium inside that prison complex somewhere.
It would be simple to facilitate a video call. But all we have is a paper saying he’s “alive and well.” I don’t buy it at all.
Thank you so much for this, Anna. As bizzaro-world this whole sequence has gone you undertaking this thread in real time has given some of us a little bit of reprieve from our constant feeling of dread and unmitigated depression. Thank you so very much.
DOJ has wiggled out since this began:
The 3 questions Judge Xinis demanded answers to never arrived; daily status rpts were a joke with no new info & we have a 2 WEEKS delay to try to agree how to define the word "facilitate."
TYPICAL Trump tactics succeed again as Mr Garcia remains in danger.
I’m aware. But they stepped in at a point they usually wouldn’t. And had they not, the order to bring Abrego Garcia home by April 7th would have stood and they would have been in contempt much more quickly.
They also changed the judges language allowing a huge loophole.
My feelings are opposite on this. Had they not made a ruling, Trump could stick with the narrative that he'll wait for a SCOTUS ruling. So we'd be further behind right now imo. The faster SCOTUS ruled, the faster we got to see Trump defy their order.
That’s not how the law works. Had they not interfered, the lower court judge’s ruling would have stood and the regime would have had to return him on April 7th. Declining a case is also a ruling.
If SCOTUS was required to write their decisions in plain English, Kilmer would be home already.
Plain English version: Bring him to Maryland tomorrow and leave him the fuck alone! And, bring all the rest back to the U.S. tomorrow and provide due process!
Same. I think about them several times a day, every day. It makes me sick that this is happening in our country. I’m hoping that we can somehow get help for them & this case is a very important step. We can’t let this issue get buried in the media - we have to keep up the pressure.
Trump on Fox News today: "I call them homegrown criminals… The ones that grew up and something went wrong and they hit people over the head with a baseball bat and push people into subways… We are looking into it and we want to do it. I would love to do it."
My my- He’s talking about himself- as a kid - he threw rocks at a neighbor’s infant & smacked his second grade teacher. He always projects.
His parents knew there was something wrong with him but they & their money protected him - nor the GOP protect him.
He certainly seems to be fixated on the baseball bat and the subway thing, which are an odd choice of crimes to use as examples. Unless they've actually happened lately?
Use this time to prepare. Can you hide if needed? Can you flee quickly? Are there ways you can give yourself escape time. What aid networks do you have? What civil actions can you take?
Channel your fear. Accept your impermanence, be ingenious in identifying ways you can slow them. Act bravely.
Two weeks is a really long time for him and his family however, I feel like the judge is trying to expedite this very quickly and is over the games they are playing.
Thank you for this. As for the ruling, that's lightning quick for a court case, but an eternity for poor Kilmer. It's too bad she didn't tell them to bring him back pending litigation.
Comments
Unfortunately it seems to work enough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzYKDnpztyI
MSM probably isn't covering this in any depth.
It's frustrating to watch the wheels of justice turn at such slow speed (and I realize this is actually very speedy, but still, an innocent man is wrongfully locked up, if he is even alive), while the regime drags its feet. Press conference = a joke.
Powered by @skywriter.blue
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abrego-garcia-and-ms-13--what-do-we-know
For those who want to cross reference with @rparloff.bsky.social's thread, it's available on X here: https://x.com/rparloff/status/1912217820458545478
>> President can pardon criminal contempt in a federal court
they are just going to drag this out weeks
until judge finally melts down, puts someone in contempt
President will pardon that day if not hour
and THEN we're beyond constitutional crisis
Join us ⬇️ 👇
https://www.youtube.com/live/TWEHwgAWQGw?si=MaVKYKUsPtzz64Yp
Granting expedited discovery: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.79.0.pdf
Letter re filing discovery motions: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.80.0.pdf
Sadly, loud mouth trolls eg @belvins.bsky.social, disparaged Xinis, based on their own ignorance.
Xinis opinion/order
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.79.0.pdf
https://bsky.app/profile/annabower.bsky.social/post/3lmkjbnwp3c2j
https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3lmuzddfuzk2t
Also to that effect she stressed “in good faith” several times and specifically mentioned that as part of SCOTUS order.
So Xinis understands what’s at stake, but unfortunately she has limited powers.
Discovery was honestly current best option. Let’s see the contract, let’s see who ordered what, let’s see the internal deliberations.
The courts keep letting them get away with whatever they want.
Think of what he could testify about. The details of his removal and detention
and who else is there.
Please @unroll.skywriter.blue
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Couldn’t the U.S. use its Extradition Treaty with El Salvador to request the return of Abrego Garcia?
https://www.oas.org/ext/Portals/33/Files/TreatiesB/USA_biltreat_elsal_eng_1.pdf
Just keep going and going.
Thank you.
Just saying...
Let us hope nothing happen there.
TYPICAL Trump tactics succeed again as Mr Garcia remains in danger.
I
N
G
O.
Civil contempt is not pardonable by President.
Only criminal contempt (a fixed punishment- example 1k + 1 Night in jail for refusing to obey or cursing or whatever.
https://bsky.app/profile/loudlong.bsky.social/post/3lmkwm4eoas2w
While I'm as upset as most everyone else regarding the unavoidable pace of legal action, I will take the smallest of pleasures in hearing of professionals' righteous fury.
(To be abundantly clear, I see no reasonably likely way this doesn't end in violence - save for capitulation. As such, I'm preparing myself and snatching small joys as I can.)
But who knows.
Basically, since the Courts are kind of one of our last remaining defenses, they need to dot every i and cross every t twice —
It really sucks having 0 idea what will happen.
I mean, we know what they'll do but like ... how, when, where, etc?
Anywho. Just gotta keep on.
2) the judge doesn't understand what this is about. It's not about the mechanics of DOJ showing its work. This is about confronting Trump over his lawlessness. Xinis isn't willing to do that.
She prevented doj from rearguing the law and proceeded with discovery for contempt of her order as approved by SCOTUS
Their ridiculous claim SCOTUS didn't mean facilitate when they clearly did
Wasn't even given one second of concern
See my profile page.
Here's an example of a boycott/strike that actually worked. Citizens of the U.S. need this encouragement.
How smart do you have to be to stay home and not buy anything?
See my profile page.
They've disappeared him and 235 others to these horrific death camps.
All migrants in fear of being deported should immediately go to the Embassy of any democratic country and seek humanitarian grounds.
Just get the guy out of prison already. America doesn't have that kind of pull with
This case is now about the next guy.
It would be simple to facilitate a video call. But all we have is a paper saying he’s “alive and well.” I don’t buy it at all.
His father feels he was kidnapped by ICE 💔😞
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/15/merwil-gutierrez-venezuelan-teen-deported-el-salvador
The 3 questions Judge Xinis demanded answers to never arrived; daily status rpts were a joke with no new info & we have a 2 WEEKS delay to try to agree how to define the word "facilitate."
TYPICAL Trump tactics succeed again as Mr Garcia remains in danger.
That man could have and should have been home by now.
They also changed the judges language allowing a huge loophole.
The US is operating a death camp, and they are almost ready to start with the "homegrowns" with no trial needed.
Plain English version: Bring him to Maryland tomorrow and leave him the fuck alone! And, bring all the rest back to the U.S. tomorrow and provide due process!
Chilling.
His parents knew there was something wrong with him but they & their money protected him - nor the GOP protect him.
Not
Nor
We are all a whim away from being taken to a concentration camp.
Channel your fear. Accept your impermanence, be ingenious in identifying ways you can slow them. Act bravely.
“ fight,fight,fight” Trump
None of us are safe.
Just an amazing job. Thank you so much, @annabower.bsky.social .👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
#DueProcessMatters
#RESIST🇺🇸
Thankfully, you’re not the judge and your thoughts are irrelevant.
👍