Judge Brutally Outsmarts Trump in Major Case
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What is the world we live in? But thank God that just Judge Holmes has decided to put Mr. Abrego Garcia in federal detention in Tennessee and keep him there, stash him there, if you will, until at least the 16th of July when Judge Crenshaw, the district court judge, holds a hearing. Have you ever heard of such a thing? But this is what happens when federal judges don't believe a word that the Trump administration and its Department of Justice say, especially about immigration.

When you have reporting out there that whistleblowers have said that the number three in the Department of Justice instructed their lawyers to lie to federal judges, not tell them the truth about people that are in immigration detention and the like. And since Judge Holmes, the magistrate judge in the Abrego Garcia case, wants to protect him from being deported in the middle of the night before her boss, her district court judge Crenshaw, has an opportunity in the 16th to hold a hearing, she's stashing him away.

And and frankly, the Trump administration, maybe to protect him from them, has decided they're not going to oppose keeping him in jail on the federal detention side of the criminal side until the 16th of February. They might they probably think they can't even control their own immigration police. I'm Michael Popak.

Fired up on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. Let's talk about Armando Abrego Garcia. And again, I want to make it clear. I'm not his defense lawyer. I'm not defending Armando Abrego Garcia. I know the facts that have been alleged. I've seen the weakness of the evidence, but I'm not here to defend him. This isn't about Abrego Garcia per se. It's about the rule of law. It's about due process. It's about notice. It's about constitutional rights.

So when I say Obrego Garcia, that's just a proxy. It is a human being, but that's just a proxy for a concept that I am defending. And so is obviously Magistrate Judge Holmes. Judge Zinnes orders his return from El Salvador because he was illegally deported and removed there by Donald Trump and the Department of Justice and Homeland Security. The Supreme Court supports her, votes 9-0 that he must be returned. Two months later, they manufacture up an indictment

for human smuggling in Tennessee from a traffic stop three years ago. And then they finally return him. He's been in federal detention ever since under the U.S. Marshals. Judge Holmes makes a ruling last week. She has no grounds on the criminal side of the equation to keep him in federal detention through his trial on human smuggling because he's not a flight risk. There's no children involved. And he is not going to tamper with witnesses. At least she didn't find them.

And she orders his release, understanding that he is subject to immigration removal procedures. And now you have the Trump administration talking out of both sides of their mouth.

speaking with forked tongue, as we like to say. On one side, they say, we're going to deport him and remove him immediately as soon as he's released from criminal detention. On the other side of their mouth, they say, no, he's going to stand trial in Tennessee first before we deport him. And the lawyers for Obrego Garcia run into the judge, Judge Holmes, the magistrate judge, and say, what are we supposed to do? Is he going to be removed immediately?

and sent away from federal jurisdiction or not. And Judge Crenshaw, your boss, the district court judge, the Article III judge, he says he wants him around. He wants Abrego around until the 16th of June, and he has time to rule on where he should go. And the magistrate judge said, I want a briefing. She got briefing. And in the briefing for the Trump administration, I don't think they trust themselves. They said, we're okay with him staying in detention through the 16th of July.

until Judge Crenshaw has a chance to rule. Are we starting to see the Trump administration roll back a little bit, walk it back a little bit because of the revelations that Department of Justice senior leadership told lawyers to lie to federal judges while they have Emil Bove's confirmation hanging in the balance?

Who knows? But the magistrate judge took the bull by the horns and said, OK, I don't see opposition from the Trump side. Of course, Gabriel Garcia wants him there. And so we have this bizarro world where an inmate

demands to be kept in prison, kept in detention to protect him from the government that's trying to deport him away from federal detention and federal jurisdiction. And that's the fear that Trump will do another, oopsie, it was a mistake. Oh, I should have had a V8. He went to a detention center and now he's in fill in the blank. He's in South Sudan. And Holmes doesn't want that to happen as a magistrate judge. She needs to protect and preserve jurisdictional power of the federal court.

But have you ever heard of a prisoner? It's not a movie. A prisoner begging to stay in federal detention and a judge accommodating it. And even the prosecutors going, yeah, yeah, we probably can't keep track of them anyway. We've screwed up enough. So she signed that order about as quick as possible. Let me read to you from the actual order. We had a motion to delay the issuance of an order of release. And in it, they outlined for the court that, um,

He should have a short delay until July 16th or beyond. Here's what the motion to delay says. The irony of this request is not lost on anyone. After illegally removing Mr. Obrego to El Salvador, the government retrieved him, brought him to this district, Tennessee, and indicted him on baseless charges. Mr. Obrego has spent the last two weeks contesting this

In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further. And yet the government, a government that has at all levels told the American people that it is bringing Abrego back home to face American justice, apparently has little interest in actually bringing this case to trial. Instead, it has chosen to bring Abrego back only to convict him in the court of public opinion.

The government has done so while allowing a cooperator with two felony convictions and five prior deportations to be released. That's the cooperating witness against the Brego. And the judge took a look at everything. And here's her order.

As noted by the she says this on page one, as noted by the district judge, the question of whether the government has made the proper showing to trigger the statutory authority to detain Kilmer Abrego Garcia is axiomatic is important because it is axiomatic that an individual has a strong interest in liberty. She then points out that.

Based on purported conflicting statements by the government, specifically that it intends to deport him and it intends to try him in the United States before deportation, the court has considered on page three, she says, the basis for the motion, which is that perceived conflict, and noting that...

Um, Abrego seeks the due process to which he is constitutionally and statutorily entitled, namely whether the government can make the necessary showing under the bail reform act for the detention, uh, uh, pending trial. Uh, and since she recognizes on page four that the relief sought keeps staying in jail, the jail, the jail wanting to stay in jail is not being opposed by the government. She will grant it.

She wants him separated from the general population in the prison. She wants him to have regular. She's ordering these are conditions of him being sent and kept in detention that he be allowed free access and reasonable opportunity for private consultation with his lawyers and that the federal marshals make sure he appears for the July 16th hearing in front of Judge Crenshaw. Extraordinary.

But we cover it right here on Midas Touch and on Legal AF. So until my next report, which will be a follow-up on the Obrego Garcia case, I am Michael Popock. You are on Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network.

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