"John Roberts is no Earl Warren," is a quote I heard today on NPR. No he is not. He needs to grow a spine and stand up to Trump, ignoring Alito and Thomas. Point #1.
Point #2, Congress needs to get off their collective asses, remember their oaths, and stop sniveling and groveling to Trump. He should have been impeached months ago, but there's been nothing but crickets.
Point #3. If the economy barrels towards recession or worse, which it is, Congress and the Judiciary need to remember their role as guard rails.
I know, it is all optimistic drivel. What a bunch of cowards. Even Charles Koch has had enough. Maybe he should join forces with AOC and Bernie at some of their rallies.
I'm going to ask you guys to do some research on your own, sorry. I live in Vermont and we've got ugly stuff going on- two ICE abductions. Kind of suspect my Indivisible group will be on this one. I know I will be. And I suggest you expand your reading so you are catching some of this stuff yourself. Sorry about that.
It looks to me as if you're making an assertion with no proof, a statement that's contrary to all reporting that I've seen, and I look at at least a dozen sources every day. Then telling us to do our own research....seems like a cop-out. From what I've seen about how these threads work, if you make a smug, chiding response to someone else's comment, it's up to you to provide a basis. Otherwise, it sounds as if you're just being contrary for its own sake.
I explained above that there were some ugly things going on right then in VT, and I needed to deal with them. You may have heard about them by now: 2 people in one day grabbed by guys in black and taken away. I couldn't take the time, but I didn't want to leave it hanging. So I suggested that those asking do some research for themselves on what's going on in Congress- the info is out there.
I do not owe you my time for free. I post a lot, and if you have been here a while, you would know that generally I go into detail, and if someone asks a question, I try to answer. The fact that you will take the time to dump on me, but not the time to do a little research on your own says a lot about you.
I am chiding you now, becaise frankly, you deserve it, but no, I wasn't before- I was just anxious to find out more about the two additional people our own government just kidnapped, one of whom was taken as he was doing his final interview before taking his oath to become a citizen, to share with my Indivisible group so we could plan some action. If you hadn't jumped to conclusions and made judgements about me I would have been happy to explain, or at least point you at some into. No reason to now. It sounds like you were just looking for somebody to dis. Do you know what an ad hominim argument is? Look that up, please, because that's what you just did.
BTW, what do YOU actually do to create an accepting atmosphere for people? How long have you been here that you didn't recognize me as a regular commentator? Most of all, I hope you actually are involved in doing somthing to head off the kind of thing that drew me away earlier today.
Jay's substack is one of the places I come to share, and most of the time it is warm and welcoming here. Think about that, please. I sure could have used some of that today.
"Do you know what an ad hominim argument is? Look that up, please,..."
Who's dissing who here? How smug and superior, to suggest that I need to look up, "ad hominem."
As for jumping to conclusions, all I could do was interpret your exact original words, which I did. If you make a statement with no supporting evidence, then....you've presented no proof. In my original question, I merely politely asked for some, under the assumption that you must have heard something I hadn't.
My second comment referred to your chiding of Christina, the tone of which implied that she is ignorant. Same tone you've just taken with me.
Your longevity on this site is irrelevant in terms of politeness and courtesy. As well, the crisis which you mention is disturbing in the extreme, and I'm likewise appalled at more people being snatched. Nevertheless, it doesn't excuse your lack of civility and your implication that those who question are clueless
6 million is such a paltry sum; I think his release could easily be worth 20 million in 10 year treasury bonds. It's all monopoly money to these guys; they have the treasury department, the Federal Reserve, printing presses at their disposal. They'd be wise to pay a little and make the story go away. That's what Murdoch or Bloomberg might do...
I would say on point #2 that the Republicans in Congress are very happy with everything that is going on. Behind closed doors they may carp a bit but that is worthless.
First, it’s way past time for people to be leaving Judge Xinis’s courtroom in handcuffs.
Second, it’s way past time for the wealthier members of our political observer class to start openly saying that Trump is explicitly defying the Supreme Court. Instead, they continue to turn off their journalistic ability to make common sense interpretations of events when Donald Trump is involved, and at no other time.
Third, you can tell me that Roberts is doing something other than crafting decisions in just such a way as to continue to claim Trump isn’t defying them, but until he actually does something here I won’t believe it.
Amen. Enough already of the legal bullshit and bad-faith gamesmanship. Time for a bunch of lawyers and high-ranking régime officials to go to jail.
In the 9-0 decision the other day, SCOTUS clearly left a path for the orange criminal to follow whereby the régime could deflect, deny, delay, prevaricate, further abuse the legal system, and put up a pretense of complying while in fact continuing to do whatever it pleased. The decision gave the impression of Roberts straining to come up with something that looked like a curb against unconstrained police-state tactics while nimbly avoiding a head-on collision with the régime, the inevitable inference being that Roberts feared the court would not survive it.
But no, that wasn't good enough for the orange criminal. As Jay's excellent analysis above clearly shows, the orange criminal has now explicitly told the feckless and cowering Roberts and SCOTUS to, in Charlie Sykes's words, fuck _all_ the way off.
The régime did not pass GO and went straight to open defiance of the courts; SCOTUS offered a way around the rules but lost the game anyway; Roberts further trashed his already stinking reputation and legacy. Budding tyrant 1, rule of law 0.
"Nice court system ya got there, guys (oh yeah, and you gals too). Sure would be a shame if something happened to it."
Read a commentary by Norm Eisen in The Contrarian a couple days ago that declared that the SCOTUS ruling on Garcia is at least a glass-half-full situation. I had to re-read it to make sure I understood him. WHAT? Roberts [deliberately] left loopholes in that ruling big enough for the orange blob to drive a garbage truck through. It's not a win for justice in any possible interpretation. It's simply a well-crafted, "Do whatever you want, Donny," pronouncement.
This may not be helpful, but I am beyond angry at the DOJ’s arrogance toward Judge Xinis. The next DOJ atty who shows up before her on Tuesday with nothing to say should be 1) Held in contempt, and 2) jailed. And the next DOJ atty, and the next one… till Bondi gets the point. Enough of this BS. 🤬
Sadly, that attorney is just the messenger, whose options are to show up with no information, or resign his/her job. That's a tough assignment. I don't think every member of the justice department is a scofflaw; most were there long before the Orange One and his entourage arrived on the scene. It's hard to lose your job, sell your home, uproot your entire life and career because a deadbeat crowd moved onto Capital Hill in January. Like all organized crime syndicates, it's the folks at the top who need to take a fall more then the foot-soldiers.
I completely agree. Yet when will one of those top players enter a courthouse, never mind a courtroom?? The judge needs to use the power invested in the position on the attorneys in the courtroom.
So... WTF do we DO?! This poor man - and many others unfairly deported - could DIE! As in - DEAD! GONE! TORTURED TO DEATH. What do we do? Shine a bat signal?
I agree. But I believe they can’t produce him is because he is dead! Talk to him? No, FaceTime no., he is dead and I think a Trump and Stephen Miller know that! Plus Vance and Johnson! They sent all those men to be tortured and killed in a prison like Auchwich
Funny how the Tate Brothers--actual criminals charged with human trafficking, rape, and sexploitation--were easily repatriated back to the US from a Romanian prison without any whining from Voldemort.
Since Trump has revealed his desire to impeach judges who rule against him and was told by Chief Justice Roberts that that is improper, perhaps if he doesn't like a ruling he could simply have the judge or justice arrested and sent off to El Salvador without so much as a 'by your leave' to say nothing of due process. I hope SCOTUS understands they are not out of bounds for this insane autocrat.
It's hard to play Monopoly when you're breaking all the rules. After all, that's what they're playing, right? SCOTUS. has it's hands full trying to write rulings with just enough wiggle room to legitimize the executive branch's version of dancing the limbo, or is it playing "Twister"?
How much power is the Supreme Court willing to cede to Tangerine Palpatine? He is a traitor to his vow to protect and uphold the Constitution and should be IMPEACHED AND REMOVED FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY!!!!
You make us laugh (Saturday) you make us cry (Sunday) and you inform us with in-depth yet accessible legal analysis like today. You are truly a wizard. I'm staying tuned.
The white house gang is gaming the courts as Trump has always done. The diversionary tactics of tariffs, erasing people from Social Security rolls etc. is designed to distract & cause chaos on every front.
The courts are not geared to address these kinds of attacks. They are not preemptive and move too slowly when an issue is presented. AND when the Majority of the Supreme Court Issues an opinion one might conclude that the majority members are complicit in the duplicity.
The federal courts are utterly dependent upon "good faith" and "presumption of regularity" when plaintiffs and defendants argue cases, and really have great difficulty in dealing with massive intransigence and outright double-dealing as we are witnessing here from tRump's DOJ, the Solicitor General, and anybody else tRump sends before the bar. The only remedy is "contempt of court", but when administration witnesses claim "I haven't been given that information", then what? Who can be actually named"in contempt"?
The tRump crowd are playing on a different field here, and one that the courts haven't found their footing as yet, and lacking UNAMBIGUOUS guidance and/or orders from Scotus — that is, firm FAFO decisions against this contemptuous lawlessness — these tactics will persist, and with varying degrees of success, book it.
A judge can "hold in contempt" the lawyer arguing the case if he does not obey the court's orders. With the first one in contempt, that would mean that the following lawyers wouldn't want to appear in the court to suffer the same outcome.
Seems to me the end point of that process would be to call the USAtty General herself into court to explain why her underlings won't follow court rules. If she doesn't have a good enuf answer, jail her. She's not above the law.
I don't expect that to happen but it might be appropriate at this point.
"I don't expect that to happen but it might be appropriate at this point."
And therein lies the rub, as NOBODY expects such a scenario as you've proposed, b/c NOBODY expects *compliance*, which is the key here. tRump/DOJ doesn't expect it, a frustrated district court judge increasingly doesn't expect it, and it's ultimately down to Scotus to DEMAND compliance, or....yes, or WHAT? That's for the Supremes to provide the tools for *enforcement*, and if need be to force a "constitutional crisis", as it's coming unavoidably from this or several more open cases...how can it be otherwise?
To your first paragraph, Regina, um....except that Roberts is just rolling over for the Donvict. The ass-kissing six are allowing themselves to be gamed. Therefore, IMO, the end of your second paragraph describes what's really going on.
That was exactly my first thought. The stone walling by the governments attorneys are suspicious. I really hope that Roberts & Co. come down hard on the DOJ, administration attorneys. They are clearly stalling for a reason.
Yes! Dead. Then today Trump refused FEMA aid to Washington State for all their floods. He doesn’t like blue states so he punishes them with no aid. He and Stephen Miller are evil!
I suggest we load them into the next SpaceX rocket and wait for it to explode. A lot cheaper than having tax payers footing the bill for their incarceration.
Jay, this is the best assessment I've seen of the judge's original decision, the Supreme Court's response (it was almost cute), and the Trump administrations strategy of avoidance that I've seen yet. Most of the analysts, even ones I admire, got caught up in trying to parse the SC's redefinition of the word "effectuate". It means to MAKE HAPPEN, period. Not just to remove obstacles, but to actually make happen the orders given by the court. This isn't hair-splitting. It is an attempt at judicial obstruction. So many analysts got bogged down trying to make the SC opinion about that word make sense that they obscured the fact that Trump is flat out breaking the law and apparently has no intention of even attempting to correct their error and the accompanying illegal acts. It's not that these people didn't recognize the wrong that happened. They just went down the wrong path with it, and ended up missing the point. I am surprised. This is the kind of thinking we all complained about when it came from the mainstream media.
Since the Court hard-right majority has already determined — in so many words — that "the law" is what the Executive says it is, especially if it at all concerns "foreign policy", the time-wasting and motion-filing will continue up to the point when the DOJ and El Salvador will announce that Mr Abrego Garcià was found "unconscious in his cell and could not be revived". This solves the repatriation AND constitutional questions in one fell swoop, though at the expense of the aggrieved party's life.
This is a totally amoral and cynical administration, one that is capable of any and all acts of depravity, as we've seen already, and to sacrifice a single human being in order to get its way is certainly not beyond this gangster regime, IMHO.
Jay, thank you. Your columns are so very helpful. I wonder if you know the answer to a question I've been asking: What about legal representation for all the others who've been disappeared to CECOT? I realize that the Abrego Garcia case is unique, but we also know that no one should have been sent there without due process and that the vast majority have no criminal record or gang affiliation. Is anyone representing them as a class? Or is it up to each man's family to get legal representation if they're able?
You hit on an important point. ACLU is on it, as are other organizations who work on these kinds of cases. Abrego Garcia's case is not unique. One of the problems is that there ARE so many, and there aren't enough lawyers or resources. There are both class and individual cases. I believe that one of the class cases is based on all people who have been deported without due process. Abrego's case may serve as a standard if we can win it, but it's clear Trump is going to fight it tooth and nail, with people around him who are willing to twist legal doctrine in knots to do it. I live in a northern border state, and one of the things that upsets a lot of people here is that people (mostly some shade of brown or obviously"ethnic") disappear on a regular basis. We are certain that ICE is involved, but there are no records. How do you get help for someone when you can't find them? Or even know who exactly picked them up?
in late March, a young Turkish woman, Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts Univ in Mass was grabbed as she came out of the building she lived in by a gang (I know no other word) of men dressed in black, wearing masks and toques, with no id. They handcuffed her and forcibly shoved her, screaming, into an SUV. There were witnesses who were intimidated, and the entire event was captured in full by a security camera over the building entrance. She was taken first to a holding facility in Mass, then transferred to a facility in Louisiana, with no reason given for her detention. She has a valid student visa and had 10 months to go to finish her degree.
There is currently a court order to DHS to return her to Vermont, where I beleive she has connections, but I don't know if that has been "actuated" or not. I suspect (nor am I alone) that had their not been such a clear video, she might have simply disappeared, into that mysterious legal maw that has a tendency to lose people. Here are two stories with videos:
My own country scares me. I had plans to travel overseas to visit friends, but I am visible in the way activists are, and I speak up. I don't trust my fair skin or my age will protect me. If they can take people like Abrego and Ozturk, who among us is safe?
The universe works in weird ways sometimes. On Hands-Off day, at an event I helped organize, my sign had gone wandering, and someone handed me theirs. It read, on one side, "You could be next", and on the other, "I could be next". I believe those words. We are living in the beginnings of a police state. That makes it even more important for people like me to be visible and vocal.
Thank you, Annie. To clarify my statement about Abrego Garcia's case being unique: from what I've been reading, it is unique in that a non-deportation order was in place for him. That doesn't make any of the other cases less horrific or important, but as I understand it, it's why his case moved swiftly to a higher (and then the highest) court.
None of them received due process for the deportation.
I'm of course well aware of the kidnapping of Rumeysa Ozturk. I agree that the existence of video has helped publicize her case, but of course many others have been similarly disappeared, and we're not hearing about all of them.
I will never understand why lawyers never understand that Trump has no use for the courts after all of the shit they've put him through SINCE THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION. And that they refuse to believe that the courts HAVE BEEN NEUTERED by an administration that simply DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT WHAT ANY COURT SAYS.
The Nazis are going to do what Nazis do whenever the Nazis want to do it, and they don't give a flying fuck what anyone says. We are NOT going to "Legal Remedy" our way out of this cesspool. We are not going to legislate these people away.
"John Roberts is no Earl Warren," is a quote I heard today on NPR. No he is not. He needs to grow a spine and stand up to Trump, ignoring Alito and Thomas. Point #1.
Point #2, Congress needs to get off their collective asses, remember their oaths, and stop sniveling and groveling to Trump. He should have been impeached months ago, but there's been nothing but crickets.
Point #3. If the economy barrels towards recession or worse, which it is, Congress and the Judiciary need to remember their role as guard rails.
I know, it is all optimistic drivel. What a bunch of cowards. Even Charles Koch has had enough. Maybe he should join forces with AOC and Bernie at some of their rallies.
I don't think congressional Republicans are cowards. I believe they support what Trump is doing and want him to become a dictator
There is more going on in Congress than you seem aware of, Christina. .
Really? Like what?
Please educate us, Annie. I'd love to hear good news that I haven’t yet come across.
I'm going to ask you guys to do some research on your own, sorry. I live in Vermont and we've got ugly stuff going on- two ICE abductions. Kind of suspect my Indivisible group will be on this one. I know I will be. And I suggest you expand your reading so you are catching some of this stuff yourself. Sorry about that.
It looks to me as if you're making an assertion with no proof, a statement that's contrary to all reporting that I've seen, and I look at at least a dozen sources every day. Then telling us to do our own research....seems like a cop-out. From what I've seen about how these threads work, if you make a smug, chiding response to someone else's comment, it's up to you to provide a basis. Otherwise, it sounds as if you're just being contrary for its own sake.
I explained above that there were some ugly things going on right then in VT, and I needed to deal with them. You may have heard about them by now: 2 people in one day grabbed by guys in black and taken away. I couldn't take the time, but I didn't want to leave it hanging. So I suggested that those asking do some research for themselves on what's going on in Congress- the info is out there.
I do not owe you my time for free. I post a lot, and if you have been here a while, you would know that generally I go into detail, and if someone asks a question, I try to answer. The fact that you will take the time to dump on me, but not the time to do a little research on your own says a lot about you.
I am chiding you now, becaise frankly, you deserve it, but no, I wasn't before- I was just anxious to find out more about the two additional people our own government just kidnapped, one of whom was taken as he was doing his final interview before taking his oath to become a citizen, to share with my Indivisible group so we could plan some action. If you hadn't jumped to conclusions and made judgements about me I would have been happy to explain, or at least point you at some into. No reason to now. It sounds like you were just looking for somebody to dis. Do you know what an ad hominim argument is? Look that up, please, because that's what you just did.
BTW, what do YOU actually do to create an accepting atmosphere for people? How long have you been here that you didn't recognize me as a regular commentator? Most of all, I hope you actually are involved in doing somthing to head off the kind of thing that drew me away earlier today.
Jay's substack is one of the places I come to share, and most of the time it is warm and welcoming here. Think about that, please. I sure could have used some of that today.
"Do you know what an ad hominim argument is? Look that up, please,..."
Who's dissing who here? How smug and superior, to suggest that I need to look up, "ad hominem."
As for jumping to conclusions, all I could do was interpret your exact original words, which I did. If you make a statement with no supporting evidence, then....you've presented no proof. In my original question, I merely politely asked for some, under the assumption that you must have heard something I hadn't.
My second comment referred to your chiding of Christina, the tone of which implied that she is ignorant. Same tone you've just taken with me.
Your longevity on this site is irrelevant in terms of politeness and courtesy. As well, the crisis which you mention is disturbing in the extreme, and I'm likewise appalled at more people being snatched. Nevertheless, it doesn't excuse your lack of civility and your implication that those who question are clueless
Excellent non-response. Thank you for not even providing a breadcrumb. 😡
Try reading the rest of Jay's column and you'll find out why I left that hanging. Going to bed now.
6 million is such a paltry sum; I think his release could easily be worth 20 million in 10 year treasury bonds. It's all monopoly money to these guys; they have the treasury department, the Federal Reserve, printing presses at their disposal. They'd be wise to pay a little and make the story go away. That's what Murdoch or Bloomberg might do...
I would say on point #2 that the Republicans in Congress are very happy with everything that is going on. Behind closed doors they may carp a bit but that is worthless.
First, it’s way past time for people to be leaving Judge Xinis’s courtroom in handcuffs.
Second, it’s way past time for the wealthier members of our political observer class to start openly saying that Trump is explicitly defying the Supreme Court. Instead, they continue to turn off their journalistic ability to make common sense interpretations of events when Donald Trump is involved, and at no other time.
Third, you can tell me that Roberts is doing something other than crafting decisions in just such a way as to continue to claim Trump isn’t defying them, but until he actually does something here I won’t believe it.
Amen. Enough already of the legal bullshit and bad-faith gamesmanship. Time for a bunch of lawyers and high-ranking régime officials to go to jail.
In the 9-0 decision the other day, SCOTUS clearly left a path for the orange criminal to follow whereby the régime could deflect, deny, delay, prevaricate, further abuse the legal system, and put up a pretense of complying while in fact continuing to do whatever it pleased. The decision gave the impression of Roberts straining to come up with something that looked like a curb against unconstrained police-state tactics while nimbly avoiding a head-on collision with the régime, the inevitable inference being that Roberts feared the court would not survive it.
But no, that wasn't good enough for the orange criminal. As Jay's excellent analysis above clearly shows, the orange criminal has now explicitly told the feckless and cowering Roberts and SCOTUS to, in Charlie Sykes's words, fuck _all_ the way off.
The régime did not pass GO and went straight to open defiance of the courts; SCOTUS offered a way around the rules but lost the game anyway; Roberts further trashed his already stinking reputation and legacy. Budding tyrant 1, rule of law 0.
"Nice court system ya got there, guys (oh yeah, and you gals too). Sure would be a shame if something happened to it."
Your last paragraph, Rick: THIS!!
Read a commentary by Norm Eisen in The Contrarian a couple days ago that declared that the SCOTUS ruling on Garcia is at least a glass-half-full situation. I had to re-read it to make sure I understood him. WHAT? Roberts [deliberately] left loopholes in that ruling big enough for the orange blob to drive a garbage truck through. It's not a win for justice in any possible interpretation. It's simply a well-crafted, "Do whatever you want, Donny," pronouncement.
“You can ignore us; just don’t say you are. Please?”
EXACTLY!
This may not be helpful, but I am beyond angry at the DOJ’s arrogance toward Judge Xinis. The next DOJ atty who shows up before her on Tuesday with nothing to say should be 1) Held in contempt, and 2) jailed. And the next DOJ atty, and the next one… till Bondi gets the point. Enough of this BS. 🤬
Sadly, that attorney is just the messenger, whose options are to show up with no information, or resign his/her job. That's a tough assignment. I don't think every member of the justice department is a scofflaw; most were there long before the Orange One and his entourage arrived on the scene. It's hard to lose your job, sell your home, uproot your entire life and career because a deadbeat crowd moved onto Capital Hill in January. Like all organized crime syndicates, it's the folks at the top who need to take a fall more then the foot-soldiers.
I completely agree. Yet when will one of those top players enter a courthouse, never mind a courtroom?? The judge needs to use the power invested in the position on the attorneys in the courtroom.
Judge can subpoena a top player to testify. If the testimony is not satisfactory, hold them in civil contempt (TFG could pardon criminal contempt).
And woe to the poor DOJ attorney who publicly states that they have no answers. Bondi fires them for not faithfully upholding the trump regime.
So... WTF do we DO?! This poor man - and many others unfairly deported - could DIE! As in - DEAD! GONE! TORTURED TO DEATH. What do we do? Shine a bat signal?
I agree. But I believe they can’t produce him is because he is dead! Talk to him? No, FaceTime no., he is dead and I think a Trump and Stephen Miller know that! Plus Vance and Johnson! They sent all those men to be tortured and killed in a prison like Auchwich
The Government, in its response to the court, did attest that Mr. Abrego Garcia is alive.
Would not be the first time someone from the trump administration has lied.
Funny how the Tate Brothers--actual criminals charged with human trafficking, rape, and sexploitation--were easily repatriated back to the US from a Romanian prison without any whining from Voldemort.
Since Trump has revealed his desire to impeach judges who rule against him and was told by Chief Justice Roberts that that is improper, perhaps if he doesn't like a ruling he could simply have the judge or justice arrested and sent off to El Salvador without so much as a 'by your leave' to say nothing of due process. I hope SCOTUS understands they are not out of bounds for this insane autocrat.
I personally would love to see that! Wake these idiots up.
It's hard to play Monopoly when you're breaking all the rules. After all, that's what they're playing, right? SCOTUS. has it's hands full trying to write rulings with just enough wiggle room to legitimize the executive branch's version of dancing the limbo, or is it playing "Twister"?
🎯🎯🎯
How much power is the Supreme Court willing to cede to Tangerine Palpatine? He is a traitor to his vow to protect and uphold the Constitution and should be IMPEACHED AND REMOVED FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY!!!!
I hope Judge Xinis has competent security
And I think she's sketching out her contempt orders tonight for tomorrow. If just ONE person goes to jail for this mess, everything will change.
You make us laugh (Saturday) you make us cry (Sunday) and you inform us with in-depth yet accessible legal analysis like today. You are truly a wizard. I'm staying tuned.
The white house gang is gaming the courts as Trump has always done. The diversionary tactics of tariffs, erasing people from Social Security rolls etc. is designed to distract & cause chaos on every front.
The courts are not geared to address these kinds of attacks. They are not preemptive and move too slowly when an issue is presented. AND when the Majority of the Supreme Court Issues an opinion one might conclude that the majority members are complicit in the duplicity.
The federal courts are utterly dependent upon "good faith" and "presumption of regularity" when plaintiffs and defendants argue cases, and really have great difficulty in dealing with massive intransigence and outright double-dealing as we are witnessing here from tRump's DOJ, the Solicitor General, and anybody else tRump sends before the bar. The only remedy is "contempt of court", but when administration witnesses claim "I haven't been given that information", then what? Who can be actually named"in contempt"?
The tRump crowd are playing on a different field here, and one that the courts haven't found their footing as yet, and lacking UNAMBIGUOUS guidance and/or orders from Scotus — that is, firm FAFO decisions against this contemptuous lawlessness — these tactics will persist, and with varying degrees of success, book it.
A judge can "hold in contempt" the lawyer arguing the case if he does not obey the court's orders. With the first one in contempt, that would mean that the following lawyers wouldn't want to appear in the court to suffer the same outcome.
Seems to me the end point of that process would be to call the USAtty General herself into court to explain why her underlings won't follow court rules. If she doesn't have a good enuf answer, jail her. She's not above the law.
I don't expect that to happen but it might be appropriate at this point.
"I don't expect that to happen but it might be appropriate at this point."
And therein lies the rub, as NOBODY expects such a scenario as you've proposed, b/c NOBODY expects *compliance*, which is the key here. tRump/DOJ doesn't expect it, a frustrated district court judge increasingly doesn't expect it, and it's ultimately down to Scotus to DEMAND compliance, or....yes, or WHAT? That's for the Supremes to provide the tools for *enforcement*, and if need be to force a "constitutional crisis", as it's coming unavoidably from this or several more open cases...how can it be otherwise?
Agree 100%, Dirk!
To your first paragraph, Regina, um....except that Roberts is just rolling over for the Donvict. The ass-kissing six are allowing themselves to be gamed. Therefore, IMO, the end of your second paragraph describes what's really going on.
Thanks Denise i respect your thoughts.
Back at you, Regina.
everything the govt is doing points to the impression that the man is missing or, more likely, dead, unfortunately...
That was exactly my first thought. The stone walling by the governments attorneys are suspicious. I really hope that Roberts & Co. come down hard on the DOJ, administration attorneys. They are clearly stalling for a reason.
Yes! Dead. Then today Trump refused FEMA aid to Washington State for all their floods. He doesn’t like blue states so he punishes them with no aid. He and Stephen Miller are evil!
That is my belief as well.
Likely dead
I can't even read this stuff, let alone think about it...itt makes me physically ill!!! IMPEACH the sh&theads and deport them.
I suggest we load them into the next SpaceX rocket and wait for it to explode. A lot cheaper than having tax payers footing the bill for their incarceration.
Impeach Trump, Vance, Stephen Miller and Johnson. They know they sent those men to be tortured and killed die and be tortured. How horrible!
Jay, this is the best assessment I've seen of the judge's original decision, the Supreme Court's response (it was almost cute), and the Trump administrations strategy of avoidance that I've seen yet. Most of the analysts, even ones I admire, got caught up in trying to parse the SC's redefinition of the word "effectuate". It means to MAKE HAPPEN, period. Not just to remove obstacles, but to actually make happen the orders given by the court. This isn't hair-splitting. It is an attempt at judicial obstruction. So many analysts got bogged down trying to make the SC opinion about that word make sense that they obscured the fact that Trump is flat out breaking the law and apparently has no intention of even attempting to correct their error and the accompanying illegal acts. It's not that these people didn't recognize the wrong that happened. They just went down the wrong path with it, and ended up missing the point. I am surprised. This is the kind of thinking we all complained about when it came from the mainstream media.
We can't afford this.
Since the Court hard-right majority has already determined — in so many words — that "the law" is what the Executive says it is, especially if it at all concerns "foreign policy", the time-wasting and motion-filing will continue up to the point when the DOJ and El Salvador will announce that Mr Abrego Garcià was found "unconscious in his cell and could not be revived". This solves the repatriation AND constitutional questions in one fell swoop, though at the expense of the aggrieved party's life.
This is a totally amoral and cynical administration, one that is capable of any and all acts of depravity, as we've seen already, and to sacrifice a single human being in order to get its way is certainly not beyond this gangster regime, IMHO.
Jay, thank you. Your columns are so very helpful. I wonder if you know the answer to a question I've been asking: What about legal representation for all the others who've been disappeared to CECOT? I realize that the Abrego Garcia case is unique, but we also know that no one should have been sent there without due process and that the vast majority have no criminal record or gang affiliation. Is anyone representing them as a class? Or is it up to each man's family to get legal representation if they're able?
You hit on an important point. ACLU is on it, as are other organizations who work on these kinds of cases. Abrego Garcia's case is not unique. One of the problems is that there ARE so many, and there aren't enough lawyers or resources. There are both class and individual cases. I believe that one of the class cases is based on all people who have been deported without due process. Abrego's case may serve as a standard if we can win it, but it's clear Trump is going to fight it tooth and nail, with people around him who are willing to twist legal doctrine in knots to do it. I live in a northern border state, and one of the things that upsets a lot of people here is that people (mostly some shade of brown or obviously"ethnic") disappear on a regular basis. We are certain that ICE is involved, but there are no records. How do you get help for someone when you can't find them? Or even know who exactly picked them up?
in late March, a young Turkish woman, Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts Univ in Mass was grabbed as she came out of the building she lived in by a gang (I know no other word) of men dressed in black, wearing masks and toques, with no id. They handcuffed her and forcibly shoved her, screaming, into an SUV. There were witnesses who were intimidated, and the entire event was captured in full by a security camera over the building entrance. She was taken first to a holding facility in Mass, then transferred to a facility in Louisiana, with no reason given for her detention. She has a valid student visa and had 10 months to go to finish her degree.
There is currently a court order to DHS to return her to Vermont, where I beleive she has connections, but I don't know if that has been "actuated" or not. I suspect (nor am I alone) that had their not been such a clear video, she might have simply disappeared, into that mysterious legal maw that has a tendency to lose people. Here are two stories with videos:
https://apnews.com/article/tufts-student-detained-massachusetts-immigration-6c3978da98a8d0f39ab311e092ffd892
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/29/us/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-university-arrest-saturday/index.html
My own country scares me. I had plans to travel overseas to visit friends, but I am visible in the way activists are, and I speak up. I don't trust my fair skin or my age will protect me. If they can take people like Abrego and Ozturk, who among us is safe?
The universe works in weird ways sometimes. On Hands-Off day, at an event I helped organize, my sign had gone wandering, and someone handed me theirs. It read, on one side, "You could be next", and on the other, "I could be next". I believe those words. We are living in the beginnings of a police state. That makes it even more important for people like me to be visible and vocal.
Thank you, Annie. To clarify my statement about Abrego Garcia's case being unique: from what I've been reading, it is unique in that a non-deportation order was in place for him. That doesn't make any of the other cases less horrific or important, but as I understand it, it's why his case moved swiftly to a higher (and then the highest) court.
None of them received due process for the deportation.
I'm of course well aware of the kidnapping of Rumeysa Ozturk. I agree that the existence of video has helped publicize her case, but of course many others have been similarly disappeared, and we're not hearing about all of them.
I will never understand why lawyers never understand that Trump has no use for the courts after all of the shit they've put him through SINCE THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION. And that they refuse to believe that the courts HAVE BEEN NEUTERED by an administration that simply DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT WHAT ANY COURT SAYS.
The Nazis are going to do what Nazis do whenever the Nazis want to do it, and they don't give a flying fuck what anyone says. We are NOT going to "Legal Remedy" our way out of this cesspool. We are not going to legislate these people away.