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Chuck Grassley Complicit in Sending Dozens of Innocent Men to a Concentration Camp

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As I laid out the other day, Chuck Grassley made a bunch of transparent excuses so he could cover up how Emil Bove gave advice to DHS that resulted in them defying an order from Judge James Boasberg.

It’s not me saying it. It is senior DOJ official Yaakov Roth saying it.

On March 16, he told Erez Reuveni and others that Bove was the one who — falsely — told DHS they could deplane flights that Boasberg had ordered be turned around without violating the court’s order.

On March 14, Bove said you might have to tell a judge “fuck you” to ensure Stephen Miller could use the Alien Enemies Act to deport people with no oversight. On March 15, Bove provided affirmatively false information to DHS, resulting in them defying Boasberg’s order — and with their actions, stranding hundreds of men, some completely innocent, in a brutal concentration camp in El Salvador.

Grassley must have recognized his arguments were transparent bullshit. Because in today’s hearing on Bove’s nominate, Grassley broke parliamentary rules to prevent Cory Booker, the home Senator on this nomination, from arguing against it.

 

As Sheldon Whitehouse notes, there are two parliamentary arguments that Bove’s nomination was not properly advanced. First, that Grassley blew off Booker’s point of order, then that there was a quorum to vote through the nomination.

HuffPo has more.

Chuck Grassley broke the rules to try to rush through Emil Bove’s lifetime appointment before — as Whitehouse noted — his conduct is investigated as criminal contempt.

He is protecting a guy who unloaded dozens of innocent men into a concentration camp. Worse, he is breaking the rules to promote Emil Bove to a lifetime appointment to reward him for stranding innocent men in a concentration camp.

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Old Man Chuck Grassley Got Snookered by Emil Bove’s Contemptuous Dodge

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Senate Judiciary Democrats asked Chuck Grassley to hold a hearing with whistleblower Erez Reuveni to learn about Emil Bove’s contempt in the face of orders Judge James Boasberg gave DOJ on March 15. In a letter that carefully dodges smoking gun proof that Emil Bove did command others to blow off Boasberg’s order, Grassley refused.

I’m going to assume that Chuck Grassley is just really old and so vulnerable to being duped by someone devious like Bove. Otherwise, of course, we’d have to conclude he’s complicit in a clear attempt to deport innocent men to a concentration camp at all costs.

Grassley’s three main rebuttals of Reuveni’s allegations are:

  • DOJ has gotten appellate relief on at least some of the misconduct Reuveni reported
  • Emil Bove made the comment about telling a judge “fuck you” before Boasberg issued any orders
  • Bove testified under oath that he did not order any DOJ lawyers to blow off Boasberg’s order

Grassley pretends that the files handed over by Reuveni include “almost none” that “include, reference, or even cite” Bove.

Almost none of the additional documents you published include, reference, or even cite Mr. Bove.

Almost none is not none, as I’ll show below.

Grassley further claims that most of the files reflect “litigation strategy about the scope of court orders.”

Most of the communications merely reflect Administration attorneys internally debating or discussing litigation strategy and the scope of court orders. Debate about the scope of court orders is fundamentally inconsistent with an intention to ignore them. Moreover, many of the legal positions discussed in the documents were ultimately advanced in federal court as the formal position of the United States, and the Administration has received at least some appellate relief in each of the cases described.

With regards to the JGG lawsuit to which the “fuck you” comment is pertinent, that relief consists of two Trump appointees stalling a contempt motion for months, as both TPM and NYT pointed out today. Here’s how TPM’s David Kurtz described it.

The DC appeals court — a three-judge panel composed of Trump appointees Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao and Obama appointee Cornelia Pillard (who opposed the move) — placed an administrative stay on Boasberg’s contempt proceedings way back on April 18. What is usually supposed to be a short-term pause in the case has now dragged on for nearly three months.

In that time, former DOJ career lawyer Erez Reuveni has revealed bombshell internal DOJ emails and texts. Those documents show that Bove, in his role as principal associate deputy attorney general, gave the green light for continuing with the March 15 removals of Venezuelan nationals to CECOT in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act in spite of Boasberg’s order blocking the deportations and directing the planes carrying the detainees to turn around. (For his part, Bove denies violating any court orders, and the Justice Department has made the preposterous argument that Boasberg’s written order didn’t include the direction to turn the planes around and that trumped his oral demand that they do so.)

In slow-rolling the contempt inquiry, the DC appeals court hasn’t just enabled Bove (who has engaged in other egregious conduct at DOJ). It has hung Boasberg out to dry, done nothing to staunch the Trump administration’s blatant defiance of court orders in other cases, and has left the judicial branch more exposed to a rogue executive determined to expand his power at the expense of the judiciary.

The relief Grassley is relying on is, in fact, partisan stonewalling.

That matters, because he is replicating a corrupt dodge that Bove — and DOJ itself — are both adopting.

That corrupt dodge starts, first of all, with his claim that Reuveni’s “fuck you” allegation — corroborated in four sets of texts exchanged with colleagues during the weekend in question — came before any judge had issued orders.

The gravamen of the allegations is that Mr. Bove directed Justice Department attorneys to ignore court orders, but (1) the meeting with Mr. Bove occurred before there was any litigation or court order to follow;

That’s true: Bove made the “fuck you” comment at a meeting on March 14. Boasberg issued the order not to unload any planes with Alien Enemies Act detainees on the evening of March 15.

Grassley makes much of the fact that August Flentje told DOJ HR that Bove told the lawyers to avoid an order prohibiting the AEA flights at all costs.

In an April 8th letter addressed to the Justice Department’s Human Resources Division, August Flentje—Mr. Reuveni’s former supervisor—stated: “The Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General [Bove] advised our team that we must avoid a court order halting an upcoming operation to implement the Act at all costs.”1 This statement was made under penalty of perjury months before Mr. Reuveni made the claims in his whistleblower disclosure, and directly contradicts his assertions. Mr. Bove’s comments to subordinate Justice Department litigators— made in advance of anticipated litigation—advising them to avoid a court order that would negatively impact a mission is inconsistent with instructions to ignore a court order, and entirely consistent with Mr. Bove’s sworn testimony.

But again, that was March 14.

They didn’t avoid an order prohibiting the operation. Drew Ensign tried his damndest to mislead Boasberg about flights in the air, but Boasberg nevertheless issued the order.

Boasberg specifically ordered DOJ to turn the planes around, not to deplane the planes.

So, Mr. Ensign, the first point is that I — that you shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, but those people need to be returned to the United States. However that’s accomplished, whether turning around a plane or not embarking anyone on the plane or those people covered by this on the plane, I leave to you. But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.

Boasberg did give the order that Emil Bove was so inexplicably desperate to avoid.

And that’s where Grassley gets either cute or duped. He quotes Bove stating, under oath, “I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order” (with equivocal comments, not under oath, from Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi).

At his hearing, under oath, Mr. Bove firmly stated, “I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order.” The Deputy Attorney General issued a statement confirming that he also attended the meeting, and “at no time did anyone suggest a court order should not be followed.” In another statement, the Attorney General unequivocally said that “no one was ever asked to defy a court order.”

All very nifty, Senator, except when you consider the smoking gun that does name Bove by his title, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General.

Yaakov Roth, a top Civil Division lawyer documented in an email to Reuveni and others that PADAG (Bove) “advised DHS last night that the deplaning of the flights that had departed US airspace prior [sic] the court’s minute order was permissible under the law and the court’s order.”

Only it wasn’t.

Boasberg specifically ordered DOJ to inform its clients to turn the flights around, not to deplane the planes.

And then Bove instructed DHS — not DOJ lawyers, but DHS personnel, possibly including lawyers — something different.

Bove instructed DHS they could do something impermissible under the order Boasberg gave. And that’s the core of the contempt for which Boasberg found probable cause that two Trump appointees have bottled up at DC Circuit.

By mid-Sunday morning, the picture of what had happened the previous night came into clearer focus. It appeared that the Government had transferred members of the Plaintiff class into El Salvador’s custody hours after this Court’s injunction prohibited their deportation under the Proclamation. Worse, boasts by Defendants intimated that they had defied the Court’s Order deliberately and gleefully. The Secretary of State, for instance, retweeted a post in which, above a news headline noting this Court’s Order to return the flights to the United States, the President of El Salvador wrote: “Oopsie . . . Too late 😂😂.” Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele), X (Mar. 16, 2025, 7:46 a.m. EDT), https://perma.cc/Y384-4TDW, https://perma.cc/6VTW-5KRD (ellipses in original)

Bove may not have lied — this is not proof he told DOJ lawyers to fuck off a Boasberg order. But he did tell DHS to fuck off a Boasberg order.

Which is it, Senator Grassley: Are you old and confused? Or complicit?

Because Erez Reuveni supplied you the smoking gun proving that Bove blew off Boasberg’s order.

Grassley does one other dishonest thing in his letter. He makes much of the fact that Todd Blanche, not Bove himself, fired Reuveni.

The whistleblower also claims his termination was the result of his efforts to ensure agency compliance with court orders. The documents Mr. Reuveni produced, however, reveal that the ultimate termination decision was made and signed by Deputy Attorney General Blanche—not Mr. Bove.

Another of the “almost none” documents that Reuveni turned over showed that Bove was gunning for Reuveni just before he was ousted.

Days before Blanche put Reuveni on leave, April 1, Flentje texted Reuveni about “a nastygram from Emil Bove” conveyed by Roth, the same guy who sent the smoking gun email.

On April 5, a few hours after Todd Blanche did put Reuveni on paid leave, Flentje confirmed that at the meeting on March 15, he “told our host we would not violate a court order.”

That is, in response to Reuveni being placed on leave, Flentje confirmed there was a “through line” from questions about whether or not DOJ would follow an order to Reuveni’s suspension (and subsequent firing).

For Grassley, “almost none” is two too many to sustain his case, because the smoking gun documenting who defied an order after Bove proclaimed he might tell a judge “fuck you” is right there with Bove’s title on it.

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“Fuck You:” Todd Blanche Continues to Flopsweat over Emil Bove’s Contempt

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Among the flood of new developments (two sets of communications from Erez Reuveni corroborating his whistleblower complaint: one, two) and developments (DOJ’s continued obfuscation regarding the fate of Kilmar Abrego Garcia) detailing DOJ’s abuse of detentions, there are several details that put Todd Blanche in the thick of unlawful efforts to deport men with tattoos.

Fuck You Fuck You Fuck You

The communications Reuveni shared with the Senate Judiciary Committee that were released yesterday confirm that Reuveni has at least two witnesses with whom he discussed the “fuck you” comment Reuveni has attributed to Bove, which Bove, at his confirmation hearing, claimed he couldn’t recall but which he did not deny

For example, Reuveni produced texts between him and an unnamed colleague discussing Drew Ensign’s claimed ignorance of deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act at an emergency hearing before James Boasberg. Reuveni describes that they were “About to enter the find out phase following fuck around.”

Another set of texts reportedly shows August Flentje texting Reuveni an hour before the planes to El Salvador would land, quipping, “guess its time to find out on the “fuck you,” which Reuveni claims is proof that Flentje heard the “fuck you” comment.

Later that day, Reuveni texted his colleague saying, “Guess we are going to say fuck you to the court,” to which the colleague responds, “Well, Pamela Jo Bondi is.”

Another text exhange, from three days later, again with Flentje, shows one of them suggesting they just submit “an emoji of a middle finger as our filing” asking for a stay of his order. “a picayune middle finger.”

So Reuveni has brought the goods showing that he and his colleagues not just heard the “fuck you” comment, but continued to discuss it for several days.

Emil Bove in the thick of things

Reuveni also substantiated his claims about Emil Bove’s role in all this, notably in a substantive text exchange from the day when Todd Blanche first put Reuveni on paid leave. Days earlier, Flentje had texted Reuveni about “a nastygram from Emil Bove.”

On April 5, a few hours after Todd Blanche put Reuveni on paid leave, Flentje confirmed that at the meeting on March 15, he “told our host we would not violate a court order.”

Reuveni glossed that text this way:

The exchange demonstrates that Flentje was at the March 14 meeting during which Bove said the government might have to say “fuck you” to courts and that Flentje sees a connection between that meeting and Mr. Reuveni’s placement on administrative leave.

But the smoking gun putting aspiring Circuit Court Judge Emil Bove at the center of a decision to blow off Judge James Boasberg’s order is this email in which a top Civil Division political appointee, Yaakov Roth (the same guy who would pass on nastygrams from Bove weeks later), confirmed that he had “been told by ODAG that the principal associate deputy attorney general” — PDAAG, meaning Bove — “advised DHS last night that the deplaning of the flights that had departed US airspace prior to the court’s minute order was permissible under the law.”

Reuveni described this email in his complaint, but here he has produced it.

Emil Bove gave the order to defy Boasberg’s order.

Notably, this email is unlike all others in the communications he turned over. It appears to be a paper copy. There are definitely questions about when and how Reuveni obtained all the other communications (remember that Flentje was put on leave for a while but not fired). Of some interest, Reuveni’s texts with Flentje are in a different format — perhaps a different app — than the ones he sent to other colleagues. But this communication, in which a very senior DOJ official names Bove as the guy who ordered DHS to unload the planes, was captured in paper, not digital, form.

So Reuveni appears to have substantially corroborated his claims, even if he had to resort, in one case, to a paper copy of an email to do so.

Todd Blanche’s flopsweat

That matters not just for Emil Bove’s bid to be a Circuit Court Judge (which sadly will likely still win the support of the GOP anyway), but also for Todd Blanche’s credibility.

Todd Blanche doesn’t tweet all that much, but each time Reuveni has made his case, Blanche has taken to Xitter to squeal loudly.

The day NYT first published Reuveni’s whistleblower complaint, Blanche labeled the formal whistleblower complaint as a leak to the press violating ethical guidelines. Then he claimed that “not a single individual” except Reuveni “agrees with the statements cavalierly printed” by the NYT, which I noted at the time suggested that Blanche had already tested these cover stories.

Well, that’s interesting, because Reuveni has now presented proof that Flentje and one other colleague at least used to believe it.

Yesterday, in the wake of the release of these communications, Blanche (and Pam Bondi) took to wailing on Xitter again, accusing Reuveni — even after he produced that paper email proof that Emil Bove ordered DHS to unload the planes — of falsehoods, even while accusing Reuveni of being fired not for refusing an illegal order, but for “breaching his ethical duties.”

Blanche keeps claiming there was no order to defy, even after Reuveni presented corroboration — even in the face of efforts to avoid putting anything in writing — that everyone at DOJ knew there was.

Which is why I find two other details of interest. As noted above, Blanche tried to deny that Bove suggested they would tell courts “fuck you” by claiming he had been at the March 14 meeting where, Reuveni alleges, Bove envisioned telling courts “fuck you.”

I was at the meeting described in the article and at no time did anyone suggest a court order should not be followed.

In his complaint, Reuveni did not include Blanche in the list of people who were at the meeting.

On Friday March 14 , 2025, Mr. Reuveni received notice ofhis promotion toActing Deputy Director ofthe Office of Immigration Litigation. That same day, following news reports that the President intended to sign a presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), Mr. Reuveni was summoned to a meeting by Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) of OIL, Drew Ensign. At the meeting were Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General (PADAG) Emil Bove, Counselor to the Deputy Attorney General James McHenry, Associate Deputy Attorney General (ADAG) Paul Perkins, DAAG Ensign, Acting Director for OIL and Mr. Reuveni’s direct supervisor, August Flentje, and other OIL attorneys.

Now, Reuveni’s original whistleblower complaint is almost entirely unredacted. The three exceptions — redacted because they might disclose materials that remain covered by a duty of confidentiality — are in a paragraph describing that March 14 meeting.

At the meeting Bove indicated to those in attendance that the AEA proclamation would soon be signed and that one or more planes containing individuals subject to the AEA would be taking off over the weekend – meaning Saturday, March 15 and Sunday, March 16. Bove did not provide further details and [half line redacted]19 Bove indicated [half line redacted]20 and stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what.

Bove then made a remark concerning the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated. Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts “fuck you” and ignore any such court order. Mr. Reuveni perceived that others in the room looked stunned, and he observed awkward, nervous glances among people in the room. Silence overtook the room. Mr. Reuveni and others were quickly ushered out of the room. Notwithstanding Bove’s directive, Mr. Reuveni left the meeting understanding that DOJ would tell DHS to follow all court orders.21

19 This clause is redacted because it is not clear that an exception to the lawyer’s duty of confidentiality applies here.

20 This clause is redacted because it is not clear that an exception to the lawyer’s duty of confidentiality applies here.

21 Mr.Reuveni left the meeting with this impression because [redacted]. This clause is redacted because it is not clear that an exception to the lawyer’s duty of confidentiality applies here. [my emphasis]

Reuveni and his attorneys view a lot of material that might qualify as attorney-client or deliberative privileged as exempted for some reason. But not these two passages and one footnote, the former of which seemingly relate to the reason why Bove said the planes had to take off. Bove insisted that the planes had to take off and said something that remains privileged, and then he said they might have to tell the courts, “fuck you.”

Perhaps any privilege covering those would fall under a different privilege?

Which is interesting because, in an interview with Devlin Barrett published yesterday, Reuveni clarified something about Blanche’s claim to have been at the meeting: According to Reuveni, Blanche came into the meeting, whispered something to Bove, then left, only after which did Bove start threatening to tell judges to fuck off.

The No. 2 official at the Justice Department, Todd Blanche, has denied Mr. Reuveni’s account, asserting he was at the same meeting and never heard Mr. Bove suggest the department disregard court orders.

“The claims about Department of Justice leadership are utterly false,” Mr. Blanche has said.

Mr. Reuveni disputed Mr. Blanche’s account. The deputy attorney general, he said, briefly entered the conference room during the March 14 meeting, but only to speak privately with Mr. Bove. Mr. Blanche then left and did not participate in the meeting, Mr. Reuveni said.

Only after the one-on-one discussion between Mr. Bove and Mr. Blanche did Mr. Bove use an expletive to suggest the Justice Department might choose to ignore court orders, Mr. Reuveni said.

Blanche’s brief entry into that meeting seems to exactly coincide with those two still-privileged redactions.

Blanche doesn’t tweet much.

What he does spend a great deal of his time doing — which is appropriate, I guess, for Trump’s lead defense attorney — is try to cover up this entire corrupt scheme. First he launched a witch hunt into the sources debunking Trump’s false claims behind the Alien Enemies Act invocation, then Pam Bondi reversed the media guidelines in an effort to assist that fight.

One of the very first public things Todd Blanche did as DAG was to launch a witch hunt into NYT’s source debunking Trump’s claims in the Alien Enemies Act. Then, when Pam Bondi reversed the media protections put into place by Merrick Garland, she cited that story as well. The seniormost officials at DOJ are using the Department to hunt down evidence of their own complicity in human rights violations. And Blanche’s intemperate response to Reuveni’s allegations looks to be more of the same.

This whole scheme — in which DOJ cooperated with Nayib Bukele so Bukele could make damning witnesses unavailable to prosecutors in the US, so DOJ could plop a bunch of mostly-innocent Venezuelans in a concentration camp as bait that Trump could attempt to use to free prisoners in Venezuela (which raises questions about those detainees in Venezuela), which Stephen Miller could use to spin false claims that migrants are terrorists — is bullshit.

All of it.

All of it is wildly corrupt on its face, but there is something about the scheme that is even more dangerous for Trump and the various men who have served as his defense attorneys.

And Trump’s defense attorney turned DAG keeps piping up to discredit himself, emphasize his flopsweat, and invite further revelations from the guy he fired in hopes all this would go away.

Update, July 13: Corrected the number of redactions in Reuveni’s complaint.

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Judge Stringer Bell: Emil Bove Confirms Erez Reuveni’s Allegation that He Tried to Avoid Paper Trails

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Emil Bove presented the appearance of a calm collected guy in his confirmation hearing. And Republicans made especially clear they intend to push through Donald Trump’s defense attorney to be Donald Trump’s Circuit Court Judge in New Jersey, where Trump owns a property implicated in one case Bove defended him on.

For much of the hearing, Bove dodged questions successfully, claiming at times he couldn’t answer because something he did at DOJ was not public, claiming at other times that discussing things that are political — like who won the 2020 election!! — would violate the Judicial Canon.

But at the end, Adam Schiff cornered him. Schiff asked whether he said the “fuck you” comment reported in the Erez Reuveni allegation (which Todd Blanche denied happened).

Bove responded that he could not recall (just as he could not recall how many Jan6 prosecutors he had fired or how many Jan6 criminals had been pardoned). But he didn’t deny he said it. “I certainly emphasized the importance of the upcoming operation.”

Schiff asked that the Committee get the notes of that meeting.

Then Schiff turned to Danielle Sassoon’s allegations about Bove’s demand for a quid pro quo for Eric Adams.

Schiff: Let me ask about notes from another meeting which you’re contesting here, and that is the meeting over the decision to dismiss the case — the corruption case — in New York against the Mayor of New York.According to Ms. Sassoon, the US Attorney at the time, during the meeting with Adams’ attorneys, where, she described, um, Adams’ attorneys repeatedly what amounted to a quid pro quo, that you admonished one of the lawyers in the room to stop taking notes. Is that true?

Bove: I don’t believe I instructed that attorney to stop taking notes. I did remark on the fact that he was taking extensive notes. Yes.

Schiff: Why did it concern you that he was taking notes of the meeting?

Bove: Because at that point of the meeting, we were discussing who was responsible for media leaks and I was making the point that only prosecutors had created an extensive record that could support detailed leaks.

Schiff: And you were concerned, were you, that information about this, this, potential quid pro quo might become public? Was that the concern?

Bove: I’ve explained that there was no quid pro quo.

Schiff; Will you provide the notes of that meeting, which you, according to the US Attorney, instructed be collected a the end of the meeting?

Bove: I think a member of my staff may have given that instruction outside my presence. And I defer to the Committee and the Executive Branch on records requests and how they should be handled.

Pam Bondi had, by that point, joined Todd Blanche in overseeing the confirmation hearing for their hatchet man. So Schiff asked that the Committee (Ashley Moody was in the chair) request Bondi and Blanche to make those notes available.

Moody refused.

So Bove dodged that moment, sort of.

But in doing so, Bove confirmed something more substantive from the Reuveni complaint.

Reuveni describes that on March 29, as he was struggling to communicate the scope of an injunction to DHS in the DVD case (the one SCOTUS ruled on Monday), he was affirmatively instructed to stop putting guidance into writing.

Separately, Mr. Reuveni contacted Ensign by phone, who informed him that the head of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations had been given “verbal” notice of the injunction, but again, no written guidance had been disseminated to the agency. Sometime after this call, during the mid-to-late afternoon, Ensign informed Mr. Reuveni by phone that it would be advisable to stop sending emails with many recipients, including Percival, concerning the injunction compliance guidance.41

[snip]

Thereafter, Mr. Reuveni spoke twice with Ensign on the phone between approximately 11:00 a.m. and noon, during which time Ensign told Mr. Reuveni that “leadership” had concluded and directed that no injunction compliance guidance would be issued. Ensign also again told Mr. Reuveni that he should no longer contact DHS asking about guidance.42 Mr. Reuveni informed Ensign that plaintiffs’ counsel had notified OIL attorneys that their class member clients were being or had been prepared for removal, and without further information this appeared to be a violation ofthe injunction. Ensign made comments to the effect that he agreed with Mr. Reuveni, acknowledged the decisions were not ideal and would make it harder to win cases, and stated that he was not a decision maker in these circumstances.

41 The Department ofJustice’s implementation ofrestrictions on communications may be in violation of 5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(13).

42 The Department ofJustice’s implementation ofrestrictions on communications may be in violation of 5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(13). [my emphasis]

Two days later, he got the same instruction, this time explicitly on Bove’s orders.

On April 1, Mr. Reuveni was again told to stop asking questions. Mr. Reuveni received phone call from Acting AAG Roth in which Roth relayed that Bove was very unhappy that Mr. Reuveni had contacted counsel at various agencies to ascertain whether DOJ had violated court order Roth conveyed that Mr. Reuveni should stop emailing agency counsel on the matter to instead communicate by phone only where possible.46 Mr. Reuveni understood this instruction to be based on leadership’s aim to avoid generating written material subject to disclosure through FOIA.

46 The Department of Justice’s implementation of restrictions on communications may be in violation of 5 U.S.C. 2302 b 13). [my emphasis]

The same thing happened on following days in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case: He was specifically asked to stop putting things  — most notably, his questions about whether there was any basis for claims that KAG had ties to MS-13 — in writing.

DOJ leadership never did. Instead, on several occasions on April 2 and 3 through both phone calls and email, Mr. Reuveni was directed by McHenry, through Roth and Ensign, to cease making requests of DHS and DOS, to stop asking for facts supporting any possible defense ofthe case, that no “asks” of El Salvador of any sort should be made, and to rest on threshold jurisdictional arguments at the hearing.48

48 The Department ofJustice’s implementation ofrestrictions on communications may be in violation of 5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(13).

This refusal to send out an order about an injunction is also how DOJ dealt with the first injunctions on the attacks on law firms.

Sure: Absent the paper trail being in the hands of the Committee, Bove claims not to remember any of this.

But he confirmed something consistent with Reuveni’s complaint.

He doesn’t like paper trails of his criminal conspiracies.

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DOJ’s Past Lies Continue to Backfire

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A lifetime ago in the history of Stephen Miller’s dragnet (that is, Monday) I contemplated writing a post on how Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes’ opinion — finding that DOJ was not entitled even to a hearing at which to argue in favor of detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia pre-trial. but even if they were, that argument would fail — might influence his lawsuit in Maryland.

I got distracted with other things.

And now, it’ll be a dramatically different post.  A bunch of things have happened in the interim, including:

  • SCOTUS wrote an unfathomable order that got Trump’s DOJ off the hook for blowing off a District Court order by, instead, permitting Miller to deport migrants to slavery and torture (read Steve Vladeck for more)
  • NYT published a story about a complaint Erez Reuveni submitted to DOJ Inspector General, alleging (in part) that, at a meeting about what to do in the face of an at-that-point-hypothetical order not to deport planeloads of migrants based on an Alien Enemies Act declaration, Emil Bove said “D.O.J. would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such order”
  • Deputy Attorney General and sometime Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche went on a rant on Xitter, claiming newsworthy journalism (implicating him in alleged grave ethical violations) should not be “tolerated”

As it is, there are two key details from Holmes’ opinion that may have resonance both in KAG’s criminal case and the lawsuit.

Barbara Holmes: Is that your final answer?

She begins her opinion by noting that KAG is accused of human smuggling, not human trafficking.

To be clear, the offenses of which Abrego is charged are human smuggling, not human trafficking. Although “smuggling” and “trafficking” were sometimes used interchangeably during the detention hearing, there is a distinct difference between the two under the law. They are not transposable. According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) Policy Manual:

Federal law distinguishes between the crimes of human smuggling and human trafficking. Trafficking is a crime committed against a person regardless of the person’s immigration status or the crossing of a transnational border, while smuggling is a crime committed against a country’s immigration laws and involves the willful movement of a person across a country’s border.

A person may voluntarily consent to be smuggled. In contrast, an act of trafficking must involve both a particular means, such as the use of force, fraud, or coercion, and a particular purpose, such as subjection to involuntary servitude or a commercial sex act.

USCIS POLICY MANUAL, Difference Between Trafficking and Smuggling, Vol. 3, Pt. B, Ch. 2, § B.7, https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-3-part-b-chapter-2. The Cornerstone Report,7 a quarterly bulletin highlighting key issues related to investigations by ICE Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), also explains the difference between human trafficking and human smuggling:

Human trafficking and human smuggling are often confused. The two crimes are very different and it is critical to understand the difference between the two.

Human trafficking involves exploiting men, women, or children for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.

Human smuggling involves the provision of a service—typically, transportation or fraudulent documents—to an individual who voluntarily seeks to gain illegal entry into a foreign country.

The Cornerstone Report, Human Trafficking vs Human Smuggling, Vol. XIII, No. 1, Summer 2017, p.1. As the report states: “Smuggling is transportation-based. Trafficking is exploitation-based.” Id. “These are not interchangeable terms.” Id. [emphasis original]

The distinction matters for a key issue in the opinion, that even if there were minors present in a van KAG drove, that doesn’t necessarily make them victims of the crime.

Nevertheless, Holmes only returns to the issue of trafficking once more in her opinion, when pointing out that if the government had evidence of human trafficking, she hopes that DOJ would charge it.

The Court supposes – or at least hopes – that if children are victimized as part of their undocumented entry into this country, the government would pursue appropriate human trafficking charges against the human traffickers.

She makes a similar aside in her discussion of MS-13. KAG’s alleged gang membership is not charged. The only reason it was pertinent to a detention decision is in how it might substantiate a risk of obstruction. As Holmes laid out, the evidence that KAG actually was a member of MS-13 was weak hearsay.

The government’s evidence that Abrego is a member of MS-13 consists of general statements, all double hearsay, from two cooperating witnesses: the second male cooperator and N.V. Those statements are, however, directly inconsistent with statements by the first cooperator.

[snip]

Contrary to the statements of the second cooperator and NV, the first male cooperator told Special Agent Joseph that, in ten years of acquaintance with Abrego, there were no signs or markings, including tattoos, indicating that Abrego is an MS-13 member. This statement specifically repudiates any outward indicia that Abrego belongs to MS-13, in stark contrast to the non-specific second cooperator’s and N.V.’s feelings that Abrego may belong to MS-13. Given these conflicting statements, the government’s evidence of Abrego’s alleged gang membership is simply insufficient.

But even if KAG were a member of MS-13, that would only be relevant to the detention determination if he were trying to intimidate people because of that gang membership. And the vague allegations don’t get there, she says at the end of that passage.

Here, the government’s evidence of hearsay testimony of a cooperating witness’s general feeling of intimidation without any description of specific language used or actions taken by Abrego is not enough to establish by a preponderance that Abrego poses a serious risk of obstructing justice within the meaning of § 3142(f)(2)(B). 25

25 Given the volume of resources committed to the government’s investigation of Abrego since April 2025, according to Special Agent Joseph, the Court supposes that if timely, more specific, concrete evidence exists of Abrego’s alleged MS-13 gang membership or a consistent pattern of intentional conduct designed to threaten or intimidate specific individuals, the government would have offered that evidence at the detention hearing.

Which elicits a similar footnote as she made regarding trafficking: “If you had evidence of these things that might implicate the detention determination,” she seems to be saying about both trafficking and KAG’s alleged MS-13 membership, “you surely would mention it.”

As noted, those asides did have a role in the opinion (if not as big a one as the page-long discussion about the smuggling/trafficking distinction would seem to suggest).

But they’re important for another reason.

Holmes is basically noting that the government presented no evidence of two claims that top Administration officials, including Trump himself along with Pam Bondi, made repeatedly. The government didn’t share the doctored photo claiming KAG’s knuckles came coded for MS-13. The government presented no evidence that KAG was the threat Pam Bondi claimed he was.

Accumulating evidence about Trump and his top aides lying about KAG

The discrepancy between what the government said publicly and what they actually charged will presumably be the subject of a selective prosecution motion, as well as a slew of other efforts to preserve KAG’s right to a fair trial.

But the disjunct between what top Trump officials said publicly and what they’re willing to say in response to KAG’s lawsuit are a central prong of his motion for discovery sanctions in the lawsuit, which argues that the government is simply not cooperating with his ability to discover what happened regarding his detention. An exhibit, described as “a non-exhaustive list” of the public things that government officials said about KAG, quotes 21 allegations that KAG engaged in human trafficking and 60 claiming he was MS-13. As one example, it cites this screed from Stephen Miller in a press conference on May 1, at least a week after the grand jury already started investigating KAG.

There has been even more evidence that has been made public about [Abrego Garcia’s] violient [sic], repeated threats and assaults against his spouse, someone who had repeated documented human trafficking and human smuggling offenses, somebody that has extensively documented membership in MS-13, a terrorist organization, and of course someone [who] had MS-13 tattooed on his knuckles. This is a person who is a clear and present danger to the safety of the American people and it is a sad reflection on the state of our media and many of the outlets represented in this room that you incessantly try to shill for this MS-13 terrorist.

The filing compares public officials’ refusal to cooperate in discovery, their bogus privilege invocations, and depositions designed to obfuscate with this NY story (included as an exhibit as well), which describes emailed conversations about what to do with KAG that should be subject to the discovery order.

They use the article — for example — to argue that one of the people who did sit for a deposition, DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara, “may have given untruthful testimony.”

More recently, credible press reports suggest that Mazzara—DHS’s Acting General Counsel—may have given untruthful testimony. At the deposition, Mazzara was asked whether he knew by April 12 [redacted]. He ultimately answered: [redacted] ECF No. 129-9 Tr. 76:9–13. When pressed about whether anyone at DHS [redacted] Mazzara claimed he had [redacted] Id. Tr. 155:10–7. According to the New York Times, however, Mazzara “told his colleagues that [DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem . . . had taken steps to seek Mr. Abrego Garcia’s segregation from other inmates, including members of Barrio 18.” See Ex. C. The report cites specific emails from Mazzara on or around March 28 in which he noted, “We’re also trying to keep him where he is.” Id. On March 30, James Percival, another custodian from whom Plaintiffs have received no documents,12 admitted that Abrego Garcia’s removal was “an administrative error,” but added: “(Not that we should say [so] publicly).” Id.

Another heavily redacted passage suggests that, based on how and when he was charged, DOJ lied about what Pam Bondi knew when.

The filing also compares what Noem and Bondi testified to Congress versus what the timeline of the criminal investigation shows actually happened.

That NYT article describes several conversations, involving but not limited to Erez Reuveni, about ways to fix the error of deporting KAG without endangering the deportation of the 200 other men that day. Reuveni was actually trying to mitigate the risk that the KAG case would endanger the larger argument about the Alien Enemies Act; as described, at least, he was trying to protect the decision to send 200 people to torture under the AEA.

As Mr. Reuveni pointed out to the group, the case potentially “jeopardizes many far more important initiatives of the current administration.” If the government fought and lost, it could have legal repercussions, not least of which for the nearly 140 Venezuelans who were sent to the same facility under the authority of a rarely used wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

That was where things stood two weeks ago, when KAG’s lawyers were asking for sanctions because of the secrets DOJ is hiding.

Reuveni ties DOJ’s actions with White House lies

Yesterday — the day before Emil Bove’s confirmation hearing to become a Circuit Court Judge — Reuveni submitted a whistleblower declaration to DOJ’s Inspector General, the Acting Special Counsel (who happens to be Trade Rep Jamieson Greer), and the leaders of House and Senate Judiciary Committees, which NYT was the first to report. As part of the complaint, Reuveni claims the public explanation Todd Blanche gave for why he was put on leave — because he was not zealously advocating for his client — is not the real reason. He says he was fired because he refused to implement commands to ignore court orders.

Since April 2025 it has been widely reported that according to DOJ sources Mr. Reuveni was put on administrative leave by DOJ for allegations offailure to follow directive from his superiors failure to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States and for arguing against Homeland Security and the State Department” when he truthfully represented to the court that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s removal was in error.² These statements by Attorney General Pamela Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche are false and misleading Indeed it has since been reported that prior to the April hearing Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security and Trump appointee James Percival conceded that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s removal was an administrative error (Not that we should say publicly.)

Nevertheless White House officials have publicly disparaged Mr. Reuveni to justify their refusal to comply with the Constitution and with court orders.4 White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller falsely stated, “The only mistake that was made is lawyer put an incorrect line in legal filing,” and labeled Mr. Reuveni “saboteur, a Democrat.” 5 Referring to Mr. Reuveni, President Trump stated, “Well the lawyer that said it was mistake was here long time was not appointed by us—should not have said that should not have said that.”6

He cites more than the quote that Emil Bove said that they might have to tell courts “fuck you.” Reuveni claimed he defied three illegal orders:

  • Trump’s DOJ blew off Judge James Boasberg’s injunction on deporting people under the Alien Enemies Act
  • After Judge Brian Murphy issued a nationwide TRO on deportations without notice to involve a Convention Against Torture challenge, Reuveni was repeatedly admonished for trying to implement that injunction, in writing
  • After correctly saying on April 4 that DOJ made a mistake when they deported KAG, Reuveni repeatedly objected and ultimately refused to sign an appellate brief claiming KAG was a terrorist (based on the MS-13 claim)

Reuveni’s description of the third illegal order describes how Drew Ensign responded when press headlines misrepresented Reuveni’s mere adoption of ICE’s admission that KAG was deported in error. Ensign scolded Reuveni twice, the second time, in response to a prompt from the White House.

A few minutes after the hearing, Mr. Reuveni went from the courtroom to the U.S. Attorney’s office space in the court building. The press had been present at the hearing, and bythe time he was leaving the courtroom, Mr. Reuveni had already received multiple text messages sharing news headlines about his statements to the court. Mr. Reuveni also received an email from Ensign directing Mr. Reuveni to call him, which Mr. Reuveni did. On that call, Ensign asked Mr. Reuveni – for the first time – why Mr. Reuveni had not argued that Mr. Abrego Garcia was a terrorist and that therefore his withholding ofremoval order was invalid. Mr. Reuveni told Ensign words to the effect of, “I understand you’ve seen the headlines, but read the transcript, I did not say the things the headlines say that I said.”

Ensign asked Mr. Reuveni why he did not argue that Mr. Abrego Garcia was a member of a terrorist organization or that being a member of such organization meant Mr. Abrego Garcia’s protection from removal to El Salvador was nullified. Mr. Reuveni told Ensign he did not make those arguments because: 1 ) those were not arguments in the government’s briefs, which Ensign had reviewed; 2) there was no evidence in the record to support the arguments; and 3) the laws governing withholding of removal do not support a theory that declaring someone a member of a terrorist organization retroactively nullifies a grant of withholding relief. Ensign had little reaction but called again a few minutes later asking similar questions and informing Mr. Reuveni that these inquiries were prompted by the White House. Mr. Reuveni again repeated the same concerns he had on the first call. [my emphasis]

Reuveni describes his repeated objections to an appeal claiming that KAG was MS-13 and therefore a terrorist. Hours after he refused to claim he was, Blanche put him on administrative leave.

Flentje told Mr. Reuveni that he should sign the brief, and that he had signed up for the responsibility to do so when he accepted the Deputy position. Mr. Reuveni responded, “I didn’t sign up to lie. ” Ultimately, someone else signed that brief, making arguments contrary to law, which was filed at 1:41 a.m. on April 5.

Less than seven hours later, Mr. Reuveni was placed on administrative leave for alleged “failure to follow a directive from your superiors; failure to zealously advocate on behalf ofthe United States; and engaging in conduct prejudicial to your client.” The letter signed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche placing Mr. Reuveni on administrative leave was leaked to the press and reported that same day.51

Erez Reuveni claims that he was placed on leave (and ultimately fired) because he refused to lie and say there was evidence that KAG was an MS-13 member and therefore a terrorist.

Todd Blanche confesses he was in the thick of it all

The press focus on Reuveni’s complaint has been, justifiably given his confirmation schedule, on Emil Bove. Todd Blanche’s name appears just five times in the complaint, three times in association with a letter to him, the other two for his public claims about why Reuveni was fired. And Blanche’s name doesn’t appear at all in the appendix of public false claims top Trump officials have made about KAG.

But immediately after the NYT published its story, Blanche implicated himself personally, claiming to be at the meeting about the CECOT deportations and declaring taht public reporting of something newsworthy, “should not be tolerated.”

The New York Times article describes falsehoods purportedly made by a disgruntled former employee and then leaked to the press in violation of ethical obligations. The claims about Department of Justice leadership and the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General are utterly false which is likely why the author gave the Department of Justice 15 minutes this morning to respond (they wrote that we did not “immediately respond with a comment”) before releasing this garbage. Note that [1] not a single individual except the disgruntled former employee agrees with the statements cavalierly printed by this purported news outlet. [2] I was at the meeting described in the article and at no time did anyone suggest a court order should not be followed. This is disgusting journalism. Planting a false hit piece the day before a confirmation hearing is something we have come to expect from the media, but it does not mean it should be tolerated.

Blanche’s claim that he was at that meeting conflicts with Reuveni’s; the whistleblower claims Bove was the senior DOJ official present.

That same day, following news reports that the President intended to sign a presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), Mr. Reuveni was summoned to a meeting by Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) of OIL, Drew Ensign. At the meeting were Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General (PADAG) Emil Bove, Counselor to the Deputy Attorney General James McHenry, Associate Deputy Attorney General (ADAG) Paul Perkins, DAAG Ensign, Acting Director for OIL and Mr. Reuveni’s direct supervisor, August Flentje, and other OIL attorneys. [my emphasis]

That said, there’s a logical problem with Blanche’s claim. He clearly claims to have checked the story of the people who were in the meeting, marked with a [1] above. And then claims he was at the meeting, marked with a [2]. Those are the claims of a guy who has manufactured a cover story. Which — in light of the phone traffic documented by Reuveni that responded to his own emails — looks pretty suspect.

Remember: One of the very first public things Todd Blanche did as DAG was to launch a witch hunt into NYT’s source debunking Trump’s claims in the Alien Enemies Act. Then, when Pam Bondi reversed the media protections put into place by Merrick Garland, she cited that story as well. The seniormost officials at DOJ are using the Department to hunt down evidence of their own complicity in human rights violations. And Blanche’s intemperate response to Reuveni’s allegations looks to be more of the same.

It’s different with criminal prosecutions

Sadly, I don’t think the Reuveni allegations will have much impact on the Bove nomination. Right wingers in the Senate are all too happy to sanction Trump’s unprecedented corruption, as their confirmation of Blanche himself (to say nothing of Kash Patel) makes clear. I doubt that will change with Bove.

But it’s different for criminal defendants. By virtue of being criminally charged, rather than just suing for release, KAG can make a claim to need all of the conflicting stories about how top DOJ officials relayed demands and repeated false claims from people like Stephen Miller.

Perhaps that explains DOJ’s purported concern that if KAG is released pretrial, DHS might just deport him.

Nevertheless, a release of the Defendant into ICE custody poses potentially irreparable problems for the prosecution in this case and, therefore, for the public at large whose interests the Government serves. Should this Court not order a stay, and the Defendant is moved to ICE custody and deported from the United States, the prosecution would lose the meaningful opportunity to try its case. This would be irreparable harm to the public. How fast the Defendant could or would be deported remains to be seen. In candor with the Court, such a potential deportation of the Defendant would not be instantaneous. How fast such proceedings could move are difficult to predict. Yet, these immigration proceedings exist as real, potential, substantial and irreparable harm to the United States.

DOJ has made its problems so much worse by refusing to do the right thing with KAG and the CECOT deportees.

And because they’ve charged KAG, that may actually finally backfire.

Update: In the DVD case (the one in which SCOTUS ruled on Monday), plaintiffs are asking to file a surreply describing Reuveni’s allegations.

Just yesterday, a former high-level official with the Department of Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation filed a protected whistleblower claim alleging that in this very case, highlevel Department of Justice officials conspired to violate the district court’s temporary restraining order (TRO). The disclosure describes, in painstaking detail, efforts to feign ambiguity in an unambiguous order, failing to disseminate the fact and terms of the injunction, and purposefully failing to respond to Plaintiffs’ inquiries. See Protected Whistleblower Disclosure of Erez Reuveni Regarding Violation of Laws, Rules & Regulations, Abuse of Authority, and Substantial and Specific Danger to Health and Safety at the Department of Justice at 16-21, https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25982155/file-5344.pdf.1

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Supreme Court Starts Cleaning Up Kristi Noem’s Sloppy Messes

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The Supreme Court intervened in two cases pertaining to Kristi Noem’s March 15 botched deportation effort yesterday.

First, John Roberts paused review of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case. And, shortly thereafter, the entire court ended James Boasberg’s Temporary Restraining Order on deportations under the Alien Enemies Act (captioned as JGG v. Trump), while holding that detainees must have access to habeas review before being deported.

Contrary to what you’re seeing from the Administration (and, frankly, many Trump critics), neither of these rulings settles Trump’s deportation regime, though the JGG opinion extends SCOTUS’ real corruption of rule of law in very ominous fashion (see Steve Vladeck on that, including his observation that just weeks after Trump called to impeach Boasberg, “Roberts has overruled Boasberg, in a move that Trump will view as sweet vindication”).

I’d like to consider them instead as means to help Kristi Noem clean up after her own incompetence. From a legal standpoint, there’s nothing (yet) unusual about the pause in Abrego Garcia’s case. Indeed, the timing of it may undermine the newly confirmed John Sauer’s efforts to win the case, as I’ll lay out below. As such it may interact in interesting way with the JGG opinion.

The JGG opinion intervenes in a TRO (which shouldn’t be reviewable at all) to take the case out of Judge James Boasberg’s hands the day before he was set to hear arguments on a preliminary injunction. That’s what Ketanji Brown Jackson laid out in her dissent: this was a naked intervention to prevent Boasberg from looking more closely.

I write separately to question the majority’s choice to intervene on the eve of the District Court’s preliminary-injunction hearing without scheduling argument or receiving merits briefing. This fly-by-night approach to the work of the Supreme Court is not only misguided. It is also dangerous.

The President of the United States has invoked a centuries-old wartime statute to whisk people away to a notoriously brutal, foreign-run prison. For lovers of liberty, this should be quite concerning. Surely, the question whether such Government action is consistent with our Constitution and laws warrants considerable thought and attention from the Judiciary. That was why the District Court issued a temporary restraining order to prevent immediate harm to the targeted individuals while the court considered the lawfulness of the Government’s conduct. But this Court now sees fit to intervene, hastily dashing off a four-paragraph per curiam opinion discarding the District Court’s order based solely on a new legal pronouncement that, one might have thought, would require significant deliberation.

Jackson notes that, as a result, key parts of this legal dispute will not be fully briefed, as Korematsu was.

At least when the Court went off base in the past, it left a record so posterity could see how it went wrong. See, e.g., Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). With more and more of our most significant rulings taking place in the shadows of our emergency docket, today’s Court leaves less and less of a trace. But make no mistake: We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences. It just seems we are now less willing to face it.

The JGG opinion is silent about what happens to Boasberg’s contempt inquiry. While there are people, such as gay hair stylist Andry José Hernández Romero, whose deportation to El Salvador may have violated Judge Boasberg’s TRO and who — since he’s no longer in US custody — may not be stuck challenging their deportation in South Texas, it’s not clear whether any of the men who’ve been deported will be able to sustain the inquiry.

As for everyone else, the per curium opinion rebukes Trump’s original legal stance, which argued that Trump could declare a war and Marco Rubio could declare a bunch of people to be terrorists based on little more than tattoos and via that process deport them to slavery in El Salvador (though you wouldn’t know that from the Xitter posts of virtually everyone involved).

AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.

For all the rhetoric of the dissents, today’s order and per curiam confirm that the detainees subject to removal orders under the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal. The only question is which court will resolve that challenge. For the reasons set forth, we hold that venue lies in the district of confinement.

So courts, including SCOTUS, might yet find that Trump was totally unjustified in declaring his own little war. Courts, including SCOTUS, might yet rule Trump’s use of the AEA beyond the pale. But the legal review of that decision will take place in the Fifth Circuit, where such an outcome is far less likely than in DC.

Indeed, this decision might will be an effort to outsource the really awful work of sanctioning egregious constitutional violations to the circuit most likely to do so.

This was an entirely tactical decision, in my opinion. A gimmick. An unprecedented intervention in a TRO to prevent Boasberg from issuing a really damaging ruling in DC, yet one that affirmed thin due process along the way.

Meanwhile, consider how Abrego Garcia’s fate might complicate all this. As noted above, Roberts’ intervention, thus far, is not unusual. Indeed, by pausing the decision, Roberts made way for Abrego Garcia to submit a response, which corrected some of the false claims that John Sauer made in his filing, his first after being sworn in as Solicitor General. (Erwin Chemerinsky also submitted an amicus.)

Having held that detainees should have access to habeas before deportation, one would think that would extend to Abrego Garcia, who was not given time to challenge his deportation to El Salvador.

The government’s concession that the AEA detainees should get habeas review provided a place for SCOTUS to backtrack to without directly confronting Trump’s power grab. But consider how AUSA Erez Reuveni’s concessions, his admission that DHS knew there was an order prohibiting Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador, limit SCOTUS’ ability to do the same. That’s one of two key points the Fourth Circuit — a panel of Obama appointee Stephanie Thacker, Clinton appointee Robert King, and Reagan appointee Harvie Wilkinson — made in its opinion, issued at about the same time as Roberts halted the order. Just as the government ultimately conceded that the AEA detainees were entitled to due process, the government conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported to El Salvador.

As the Government readily admits, Abrego Garcia was granted withholding of removal — “It is true that an immigration judge concluded six years ago that Abrego Garcia should not be returned to El Salvador.” Mot. for Stay at 16; see also Cerna Declaration at 53 (“ICE was aware of this grant of withholding of removal at the time [of] AbregoGarcia’s removal from the United States.”).3 And “the Government had available a procedural mechanism under governing regulations to reopen the immigration judge’s prior order, and terminate its withholding protection.” Mot. for Stay at 16–17. But, “the Government did not avail itself of that procedure in this case.” Id.; see Dist. Ct. Op. at 4 (Mr. Reuveni: “There’s no dispute that the order [of removal] could not be used to send Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.” (quoting Hr’g Tr., Apr. 4, 2025, at 25:6–7)); see also Guzman Chavez, 594 U.S. at 531 (explaining that a non-citizen who has been granted withholding of removal may not be removed “to the country designated in the removal order unless the order of withholding is terminated”). Based on those facts, the Government conceded during the district court hearing, “The facts — we concede the facts. This person should — the plaintiff, Abrego Garcia, should not have been removed. That is not in dispute.” S.A. 98 (emphasis supplied).4

3 Consistent with this reality, the Government attorney appearing before the district court at the April 4 hearing candidly admitted that no order of removal is part of the record in this case. Dist. Ct. Op. at 14 (citing Hr’g Tr. Apr. 4, 2025, at 20 (counsel admitting no order of removal is part of the record), and id. at 22 (counsel confirming that “the removal order” from 2019 “cannot be executed” and is not part of the record)).

4 Of note, in response to the candid responses by the Government attorney to the district court’s inquiry, that attorney has been put on administrative leave, ostensibly for lack of “zealous[] advocacy.” Evan Perez, Paula Reid and Katie Bo Lillis, DOJ attorney placed on leave after expressing frustration in court with government over mistakenly deported man, CNN (Apr. 5, 2025, 10:40 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/05/politics/doj-attorney-leave-maryland-father-deportation/index.html; see also Glenn Thrush, Justice Dept. Lawyer Who Criticized Administration in Court Is Put on Leave, New York Times (Apr. 5, 2025, 5:41 PM), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/us/politics/justice-dept-immigration-lawyer-leave.html. But, the duty of zealous representation is tempered by the duty of candor to the court, among other ethical obligations, and the duty to uphold the rule of law, particularly on the part of a Government attorney. United States Department of Justice, Home Page, https://www.justice.gov/ (last visited Apr. 6, 2025) (“Our employees adhere to the highest standards of ethical behavior, mindful that, as public servants, we must work to earn the trust of, and inspire confidence in, the public we serve.”). [links added]

With footnote 4, the Fourth Circuit established that DOJ was attempting to retaliate against Erez Reuveni and his supervisor, August Flentje, because Reuvani told the truth. (See also Reuters, which was the first outlet I saw with the story, and ABC, the first to report that Flentje was placed on leave along with Reuveni.)

I was struck by the retaliation in real time, because in fact Reuveni did what a slew of other attorneys have had to do, confess he didn’t know the answers to obvious questions. But something — perhaps Sauer’s review that earlier fuckups may limit his ability to get relief at SCOTUS — led DOJ to overreact in this case.

That is, by retaliating against Reuveni so egregiously, Pam Bondi’s DOJ (Todd Blanche is reportedly the one who made the order, but it also happened after Sauer may have started reviewing the case), DOJ may have made it more difficult for SCOTUS to engage in similar gimmicks down the road.

The Fourth Circuit also anticipated that DOJ would lie about Abrego Garcia’s request to be returned.

5 To the extent the Government argues that the scope of the district court’s order was improper because Abrego Garcia never asked for an order facilitating his return to the United States, that is incorrect. See S.A. 88 (arguing that the district court has “jurisdiction to order [the Government] to facilitate his return, and what we would like is for the Court to enter that order”); see also S.A. 74–75; 85–87.

Indeed, Sauer did just that.

In opposing a stay of the injunction in the court of appeals, respondents insisted that they did “request[]” the injunction that the district court entered. Resp. C.A. Stay Opp. 9. But contrary to respondents’ characterization, the court did not merely order the United States to “facilitate” Abrego’s return, ibid.; it ordered the United States actually to “effectuate” it, App., infra, 79a. If there were any doubt on that score, the court’s memorandum opinion eliminated it, by reiterating that its injunction “order[s]” that “Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.” Id. at 82a (emphasis added). Again, respondents clearly disclaimed such a request in repeatedly telling the court that it “has no jurisdiction over the Government of El Salvador and cannot force that sovereign nation to release Plaintiff Abrego Garcia from its prison.” Id. at 42a, 44

Ultimately, Sauer may get his proposed solution — that Abrego Garcia gets moved from El Salvador to someplace else. But before that happens, he’ll have to account for the Fourth Circuit ruling that there’s no convincing evidence that Abrego Garcia is the terrorist Kristi Noem claims he is and that DOJ itself laid out cause to return him to the US.

The Supreme Court exhibited a willingness to engage in a gimmick decision to bail Trump out of one fuckup Kristi Noem made the weekend of March 15, to ignore Judge Boasberg’s order and deport a bunch of men with tattoos into slavery. It has not yet bailed Trump out of the other fuckup, including Abrego Garcia on one of those planes. Thus far, Trump has made things worse by retaliating against Reuveni for refusing to lie.

Which just makes SCOTUS’ challenge — to invent a gimmick to bail Trump out — all the more challenging.

Update: Predictably, in his reply, Sauer blames Reuveni for not being told some unspecified sensitive information that might excuse the defiance of a judge’s order.

Respondents (Opp. 10-11) cite statements by the attorney who was formerly representing the government in this case, who told the district court that he “ask[ed] my clients” why they could not return Abrego Garcia and felt that he had not “received * * * an answer that I find satisfactory.” They likewise cite his statements that “the government made a choice here to produce no evidence” and that agencies “understand that the absence of evidence speaks for itself.” Opp. 12 (citing SA120, SA128). Those inappropriate statements did not and do not reflect the position of the United States. Whether a particular line attorney is privy to sensitive information or feels that whoever he spoke with at client agencies gave him sufficient answers to satisfy whatever personal standard he was applying cannot possibly be the yardstick for measuring the propriety of this extraordinary injunction.

Real judges would haul Sauer before them and insist he deliver that sensitive information withheld from the AUSA. Sadly, the Roberts court is well beyond that.

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