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Programming note: We've run into some issues that have derailed work on the Saturday posting. So, we've got the breaking news from late Friday below, and we'll have to do both questions AND letters tomorrow.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia Is Back in the U.S.
For multiple months, the Trump administration has said that once it sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador, the matter was out of its hands, and the government had no power to bring him back, even if he was not afforded due process rights. The various courts involved have taken a dim view of that claim and—whaddya know?—it turns out to be untrue. Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States on Friday night.
The obvious question here is: Why now? The proximate answer is that on May 21, the administration secured an indictment of Abrego Garcia, courtesy of a federal grand jury that met in secret in Nashville. He will be tried on two counts: (1) transporting undocumented immigrants and (2) conspiring to transport undocumented immigrants. These charges are based on a traffic stop from 2022, when Abrego Garcia was pulled over while driving a van that was transporting nine Latino men who did not have identification with them.
Since we don't know the evidence (other than what is laid out in the indictment) and since we are hardly experts on immigration law, we really don't know how strong the government's case is. On one hand, the indictment makes it seem as if Abrego Garcia is basically a modern-day Bonnie AND Clyde, engaging in a wide-ranging and reckless crime spree that unfolded across numerous states. And, obviously, the government's evidence was enough to secure the indictment.
On the other hand, from our admittedly non-expert point of view, it all feels a little thin to us. We would imagine that, if these charges are going to stick, the government would have to prove that not only were the men in the truck undocumented, but that Abrego Garcia was aware of that, and was somehow facilitating their lawbreaking. Convincing a jury of this, beyond a reasonable doubt, seems like a steep hill to climb, especially if the information in the indictment is all that the government has to work with. Readers can click on the link above, and read the evidence for themselves (see pages 7-8), but the argument seems to rely a LOT on circumstantial evidence.
For example, the vehicle that Abrego Garcia was driving had an extra bank of seats installed in the back, in what would normally be the cargo area. This is presented as a major clue that he was in the human trafficking business. And sure, it could be that. But you know who else modifies their SUV in this way? People with large families. People who have a side hustle doing UberXXL. People who drive the carpool vehicle for their co-workers. People who have a business running scenic tours (for example, in L.A., there must be a dozen companies or more taking tourists around to look at "star homes"). Most of the things in the indictment, if not all of them, seem like they should be easy for defense counsel to poke holes in.
We are also skeptical because the administration really, really needs to prosecute this man, and really, really would like to win. The total non-observance of his due process rights is an abomination and a scandal, and will remain so even if he's convicted of a crime. Full stop. However, the political reality is that if he's a convicted felon, the lack of due process will be much less salient than if he's an innocent man. So, the White House's incentives are very clear here, and yet, the best they could come up with is turning a traffic stop into a national crisis? And it took them 2 months to even come up with that? It just carries more than a faint odor of desperation, from where we sit. There's already been a judge assigned to the case; it's Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. He's Black and an Obama appointee, so you can pretty much already write the "truths" that Donald Trump will send out if Abrego Garcia is exonerated.
Going back to the question of "Why now?" it also can't be a coincidence that things were heating up in the court of Judge Paula Xinis, who has been overseeing this matter, and that she appeared to be getting very close to bringing down the hammer on the administration and its lawyers. We also wonder if Trump is beginning to run into a Saturday Night Massacre kind of issue, wherein he's having trouble finding lawyers willing to go into court and defy judges and/or make bad-faith arguments. After all, Trump's law license and his freedom are not on the line... but theirs are.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, and the Trump administration is also incentivized to drag this out as long as is possible, first to grab as many "we're fighting the good fight against the brown hordes" headlines as is possible, and second to put off a potential adverse result for as long as they can. So, it could be a while before we learn how this little drama is going to end. Meanwhile, it was just a couple of weeks ago that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem looked a Senate panel right in the eye and declared: "There is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be in the United States again." Always remember how you can tell that a member of the Trump administration is lying: Their lips are moving. (Z)
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