Chief Judge Loses Patience with Trump at Court Hearing
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And it influences things that happen inside the courtroom, especially when it involves Donald Trump and his administration, such as Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security Director and Secretary. Both of their comments made in the last week or two ended up in Jeb Boasberg's courtroom recently. And Donald Trump's been on a losing streak the last about a week.

in a series of federal courts about his depraved immigration policy. And all of them are looking to revelations and confessions made by Trump during his interviews, which have completely undermined his lawsuits. And I'm going to cover it all right here. Connect the dots on Midas Touch. I'm Michael Popak, co-founder of Legal AF. Let me dive right into it.

Jeb Boasberg is handling a case that is related adjacent to the Abrego Garcia case.

His case has to do with other Venezuelans not named Abrego Garcia who were whisked away in the middle of the night in a surreptitious operation to take them to a gulag in El Salvador summarily without any due process. And now we know in a series of Supreme Court decisions that that was all illegal and unconstitutional.

Now, against that backdrop, we've got Jeb Boasberg, who even though the Supreme Court took away the main case about him ordering a series of airplanes to return to the United States that had been sent there.

The Supreme Court ruling that those issues were better handled individually by judges in the jurisdictions in which these people last resided by writ of habeas corpus petition. That didn't mean that Chief Judge Boesberg in D.C., who was on, he's also the judge, as you may recall, who found probable cause to believe that Donald Trump and his administration were in criminal contempt.

That part of the case was sort of taken away from him. What he's trying to figure out now is now that the American Civil Liberties Union and a law firm that used to represent until about two weeks ago, the Trump administration as its ethics counsel, joining together to file things in the courtroom with Judge Boasberg. And the argument there is the other 250 people who were rotting in that El Salvador seat caught gulag. They have due process rights.

They have Fifth Amendment rights. They have habeas corpus petition rights that can't be used or exercised while they're in El Salvador. So he's trying to figure out whether he has jurisdiction to order things related to that El Salvadoran prison. The question of control, who controls these prisoners, came up in his courtroom. It's come up in the other places, too.

The other federal courts. But control is interesting because the American Civil Liberties Union is now arguing, rightly so, that the U.S. and El Salvador have at least joint control over that El Salvadoran prison. And if you have control, then you have the ability to bring somebody back.

and have them return. And that's what Boasberg is struggling with. Now, in a hearing early this week, sorry, in front of Boasberg, a new lawyer for the Department of Justice, they trotted out, got their head handed to them by the judge. The judge pointed to statements made by Trump and Kristi Noem particularly, and then questioned whether they were telling the truth or not. In other words, he called out Trump and Noem and said they weren't telling the truth. He said, let me...

Let me get this straight as we're trying to figure out who has control over El Salvador. He said, I watched along with the rest of America, the interviews that were on, you know, Kristen Welker, NBC and Terry Moran on ABC about Donald Trump being able to pick up the phone and get Abrego Garcia back. And why isn't that relevant to control? Was he telling the truth?

The lawyer said, well, we're conflating how Donald Trump sees his outsized influence around the world with actual legal control. And then the judge said, so he wasn't telling the truth, Donald Trump. Well, I don't want to parse that statement. Well, you're there, Mr. Department of Justice attorney, to do exactly that when a federal judge asks you to.

He then said, OK, what about, well, in fact, let me show you the two clips the judge was referring to, almost calling it by name. Again, I had said every time Donald Trump says something out loud in these interviews, it's going to be used in the courtrooms. The lawyers are going to bring it to the judge's attention and the judges are going to bring it to the party's attention. Let's play the back-to-back clips. Kristen Welker first.

And then Terry Moran saying the phone's on the desk. Why don't you pick it up and use it? Let's play both back to back. Obviously, you've had a back and forth with the Supreme Court in a nine to zero decision. The Supreme Court directed your administration to facilitate the return. You've talked about this in the past of Kilmar Brego Garcia from a president in El Salvador whose deportation your administration called an administrative error.

You said in a recent interview you could bring him back, but you won't. Are you defying the Supreme Court? No, I'm relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who's very capable, doing a great job, because I'm not involved in the legality or the illegality. I have lawyers to do that, and that's why I have experience.

a great DOJ. We have a great one. We had a very corrupt one before. Now we have a great one. And they're not viewing the decision the way you said it. They don't view it that way at all. They think it's a totally different decision. Well, you say you have the power to bring him back, though. Your attorney general says, quote, that's up to El Salvador. Just to put a fine point on this. Do you have the power to bring Abrego Garcia back as the Supreme Court? Well, I have the power to ask for

him to come back if I'm instructed by the attorney general that it's legal to do so. But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador. He's a very capable man. Well, you know, and your attorney general has said it

The issue is with that word facilitate. Will you seek clarification from the Supreme Court? Do you need to go back to the Supreme Court? We may do that. I was asking about that. We may do that. There are some people that say, bring them back, put them in trial, and you get them out right away. Let me ask about one man and one court order.

Kilmer Abrego Garcia. He's the Salvadoran man who crossed into this country illegally, but who is under a protective order that he not be sent back to El Salvador. Your government sent him back to El Salvador and acknowledged in court that was a mistake. And now the Supreme Court has upheld an order that you must return him to facilitate his return to the United States. What are you doing to comply? Well, the lawyer that said it was a mistake was here a long time, was not appointed by us.

- I should not have said that, should not have said that. And just so you understand, the person that you're talking about, you know, you're making this person sound, this is a MS-13 gang member, a tough cookie, been in lots of skirmishes, beat the hell out of his wife, and the wife was petrified to even talk about him, okay?

This is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from Maryland. I'm not saying he's a good guy. It's about the rule of law. The order from the Supreme Court stands, sir. He came into our country illegally. You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk. I could. You could pick it up, and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, send him back right now. And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that. But the court has ordered you to facilitate that.

So that came up in the courtroom.

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That's H-I-M-S dot com slash legal AF for your personalized ED treatment options. HIMS dot com slash legal AF. And the lawyer for the Department of Justice had no better response when he said, let's go back to control again. And didn't Christy Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, in standing in front of that actual jail in El Salvador called SECOT,

Didn't she say that it was part of the toolbox of America? This was a tool in the toolbox. America's use of this El Salvador in prison, doesn't that imply control? And in fact, let me play the clip. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people. The judge says, you heard her.

Tool in a toolbox. Well, the political, the nuances are lost sometimes on politicians about it doesn't really mean legal control. So she wasn't telling the truth. Well, I wouldn't say that. I'm not going to parse every statement. You are there, sir, to parse every statement or whatever else the judge tells you to do. So while the judge is trying to figure this out and is having difficulty, he finally put up his hands. He said, OK.

I'm not getting straight answers in this courtroom. The judge is already getting fed up with the Trump administration, having already found them in a likelihood of criminal contempt. He said, starting now, you're going to be submitting to me by next week for the world to see.

written statements under oath about the relationship between America and El Salvador, the payment structure, the contract, the agreement, whatever it is that allowed America to take people, other human beings without due process, and dump them into a jail. I want to see all of that information and those documents. He said, for instance, we've heard that there was a $6 million payment made for this. And the lawyers tried to tap dance around that. Oh, well, that was really a grant. Follow this story.

convoluted argument. That was really a grant that went to the El Salvador and they could use it for whatever they wanted while they're housing. But it's not directly for the housing of these prisoners. See how convoluted? And they did this on purpose to try to cover their tracks, you know, how they wired the money. But now the judge is like, OK, by next week, I want it under oath.

Because what he's trying to do at this moment is not trying to find out whether the Trump administration is in contempt again. He's trying to confirm whether he has jurisdiction. That's a very important part of what judges do. At the outset, a party, there's two things a judge has to check the box on right away in a lawsuit, federal or state. One, do the parties before me have a live case or controversy because the parties also have standing evidence?

to sue, to present their claims. They're not asking me for an advisory opinion. They have real injury and they're the right party to bring that case into court. Standing is first. And at the same time, does the court have jurisdiction? Are we in the right courtroom? Are we in the right courthouse? Are we in the right court between state and federal? Do I have jurisdiction? And are these the right parties with a live case or controversy in front of me? Check, check, check, right? I guess it's three things there.

Once that's determined, so that's what the judge is struggling with now. Do I have jurisdiction? Can I order something to happen here? And so the ACLU said, yes, there's badges of all of this control over that prison in the hands of the US. I mean, does anybody really believe Donald Trump just backed other human beings into a prison, paid $6 million and didn't get a receipt? I mean, seriously. So

We're going to continue to follow what Boasberg does. The other backdrop here is the losing streak that the Trump administration has been on in the last 72 hours. You have four separate federal judges who have all declared one way or the other that Donald Trump illegally triggered the Alien Enemies Act. He said it was a predatory incursion of armed combatants as a proxy war with Venezuela. None of that is true.

And the judges now, including two Trump-appointed judges, right? We have Sweeney. We have Judge Sweeney. We have Judge Rodriguez. We have Judge Hellerstein and a fourth judge. They all ruled in four different courtrooms, four different states, almost identically, that what we're watching with the Tren de Aragua narcotics gang is not a war, right?

But it's just migration. They got into the country and they committed crimes. That's not Alien Enemies Act warlike predatory incursion that needs to be repelled by a president. So that's four judges now. And then they're all going to get appealed to their various appellate courts above them. The Second Circuit, the Fifth Circuit, Colorado is the, I want to say the Sixth Circuit,

And so those circuits then up on an emergency application altogether, probably to the United States Supreme Court. So you got that losing streak going on. At the same time, you got the losing streak of the federal judges who have ruled against Donald Trump's deportation of graduate students because they say they're Hamas sympathizers and while they're exercising their First Amendment right.

and then trying to get them away from more moderate and liberal courts by sending them two and three states in a night to get them as far away from those courts as possible. And the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has said, bring these people back to Vermont and away from Louisiana. See, Donald Trump wants to put him in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals because he thinks that's a winning hand for him. And federal judges are seeing it and saying, bring them back to New York and Vermont.

So we're going to continue to follow this, but there's no other way. Donald Trump is pressing a losing hand, both with the American people, who in voting polls say unequivocally that Donald Trump is a disaster on immigration, that they don't appreciate or like what he's doing, especially in defiance of courts. And his attack on the United States Supreme Court is not working. And now you know what he's going to do. He's going to go after Pope Leo.

You know, he already, I'm sure, sees Leo as an enemy. All of Donald Trump's proxies like Laura Loomer and all the rest are saying, oh, he's a Marxist. He's a leftist. He's just like Francis. I mean, Laura Loomer is not even Catholic to be commenting. This is who the conclave picked. Donald Trump impacts elections. Donald Trump impacts elections, even of the papal variety.

Does anybody think that that wasn't a message sent back to America and to Donald Trump during the Trump era? They picked a guy, Leo, who when he was Cardinal and Bishop, Prevost, was very public about going after Donald Trump appropriately and MAGA about their, I almost said unholy, their depraved stance on immigration, on migrants, their attack on people, their lack of gun control. Prevost

constantly retweeted, re-commented on his social media in things that were against MAGA primary policy. So of course MAGA is upset with Leo, who is seen as the immoral leader of the world and a perfect foil in a time of Trump for Trump. Trump impacts elections. And so you've got his depraved immigration policy. He's now going to turn and try to attack Pope Leo,

pissing off not just Catholics, all those that believe in fair-minded people and people of God one way or the other. So, Boasberg's got his hands full. I think he's going to ultimately rule that he's got jurisdiction.

and he's going to keep the case, which is about getting 250 other people out of El Salvador back to the United States for their proper due process. Not to release them on the streets, just to give them notice and a hearing before a judge, before they are deported or removed again. And then this issue of whether that

El Salvador is an appropriate place for them. That's for other cases that have been brought through the pipeline. That we're covering here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Just formed a new sub stack, Legal AF sub stack. Got all these great cases and postings there and a great commentary and analysis and videos you can't find anywhere else. And of course, Legal AF, the YouTube channel, Legal AF MTN. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popock.

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