Kilmar Abrego Garcia Back In USA (Yay!) To Face Bullsh*t 'Smuggling' Charges (Oh No!)
We can't see how they'll stick! (Yay!) But they may yet deport him to fucking Rwanda. (Oh No!)
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the Trump administration admits it mistakenly sent to El Salvador’s torture prison without any sort of due process in March, was returned to the USA yesterday so the administration could accuse him of being part of a multi-year human smuggling operation in which he supposedly made more than 100 trips to move “thousands” of undocumented immigrants, including MS-13 gang members — you gotta have them in your story! — all over the US.
Abrego Garcia made his first court appearance last night in the Middle District of Tennessee, where the 10-page indictment against him was filed, and will be arraigned in a hearing set for June 15. We’re going to be very careful here and suggest that there is just the slightest possibility that the government simply pulled the case against him out of Stephen Miller’s ass, and that the case will never reach trial.
In fact, almost as soon as the news of Abrego Garcia’s return broke, we also learned that Ben Schrader, the career federal prosecutor who led that Tennessee district’s criminal division, resigned two weeks ago, when the indictment was filed. ABC News reports that “Schrader's resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons,” according to sources who’d been briefed on why he quit.
The indictment paints a picture of Abrego Garcia as a very busy criminal mastermind who was constantly shipping undocumented immigrants — oh, and also guns! And drugs! And criminal money! — all over the USA. But with one exception, which we’ll get to, everything in it is based on testimony from six alleged co-conspirators, and we all know that criminals never ever simply say what the government wants in order to get favorable treatment. And of course, until last night, Abrego Garcia never previously had any criminal history in the US or in his home country, El Salvador.
Hey, are people even talking about Trump’s slapfight with Elon Musk anymore? Just wondering.
Guess Getting Someone Out Of El Salvador Isn’t Impossible After All
The administration has for weeks now ignored the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling that it had to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return so he could challenge his detention. Every top official from Donald Trump on down said instead that Abrego Garcia would never ever return to the US, because he was in prison in El Salvador and no longer America’s problem. It was simply impossible! Courts? They don’t have any power over Great Leader and his holy quest to rid the USA of immigrants. He’s never stepping foot on US soil again, at least not until yesterday when it turned out to be quite possible after all.
In a bizarre press appearance Friday evening, Attorney General Pam Bondi detailed the two counts in the federal indictment against Abrego Garcia, saying that for nearly 10 years he and his supposed coconspirators had arranged for migrants to come from Central America and Mexico, then picked them up in Texas and moved them all over the US. How he managed to get married, have kids, and hold down a job in Maryland while doing all that is a mystery that may only come out at trial, or never. None of his alleged co-conspirators are charged in the indictment, either. Hmmmmm.
Also, the Washington Post points out that for at least “several months in 2019,” during the time he was allegedly smuggling migrants all over the country, Abrego Garcia was “being held in immigration detention successfully fighting efforts to deport him.” What a real multi-tasker!
Start With One Real Thing And Collect Evidence/Make Shit Up From There
As we say, the indictment contains one claim, with evidence, that isn’t solely based on the supposed coconspirators’ testimony. But even that claim is far from airtight.
The entire case is woven around that 2022 traffic stop in which Abrego Garcia was pulled over by Tennessee Highway Patrol, who gave him a warning to update his expired driver’s license and let him go. A really cynical person might even say the case started with those bare facts and worked backwards to create a narrative.
We already knew from body cam footage that the other troopers suspected maybe they’d come upon a case of migrant smuggling because the nine men in the Chevy Suburban said they were traveling from a construction job in St. Louis, but had no luggage or tools with them. But the cops didn’t follow up on that at the time.
According to the indictment, though, the new investigation — launched after Abrego Garcia was flown to Forever Prison in March and everyone including the Supreme Court noticed — says that license plate reader data showed that the Suburban
had not been near St. Louis in the past twelve months and, in fact, had been in the Houston, Texas area within the week leading up to the traffic stop on November 30, 2022.
The indictment claims that Abrego Garcia “knowingly and falsely stated to the state trooper that the Suburban passengers had been in St. Louis for two weeks,” and was therefore a criminal lying liar, because he knew darn well the truck had been in Texas and didn’t tell the troopers. CASE CLOSED!!
But oops, DHS’s own earlier report on the traffic stop says that Abrego Garcia stated to the state troopers that “he was driving ‘three days ago’ (11/27/2022) from Houston, TX to Temple Hills, MD (via St Louis, MO) to bring in people to perform construction work.” So he very definitely didn’t say that he and the men had only been in St. Louis for two weeks. (Hat tip to NYU law prof and Just Security editor Ryan Goodman for pointing that out)
Funny how that little detail isn’t in the indictment, which implies that the truck’s presence in Texas meant he couldn’t possibly have come from St. Louis. We don’t know anything about the license plate reader technology, like whether it’s so omnipresent that no vehicle could pass through St. Louis without detection, but that seems like one of those “absence of evidence it not evidence of absence” things. The earlier DHS document would no doubt be key to Abrego Garcia’s defense if the case ever comes to trial, but as we say, that seems unlikely.
And Now For Some Completely Different Character Assassination
On top of the actual charges against him, Bondi used the presser to say that his supposed co-conspirators also accused him of other horrible things that aren’t in the indictment but which make him look even more depraved and dangerous, and rightwing media and MAGA chuds are now parroting those accusations as if they were already proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Supposedly, the “co-conspirators” accused him of involvement in a murder of a rival gang member’s mother in El Salvador, as well as “abusing” women he and his gang were smuggling, and even soliciting nude photos of minors. After all, his supporters have said that Abrego Garcia is a loving father and husband, so he has to be portrayed as the very worst scum, even if the accusations never make it into a charging document. How can you libs support this horrible horrible man whose (alleged) abuse of women was so (allegedly) relentless that even his (alleged) coconspirators had to (allegedly) tell him to tone it down?
No need to formally charge any of that and risk contempt of court, because this is not a legal case, it’s propaganda aimed at slapping away any challenges against Trump’s deportation regime and its indifference to due process.
This Is Not Really About The Criminal Charges
As the New York Times points out (gift link), while the formal charges are very serious, they
[have] no bearing on the issues that have sat at the heart of the case since his summary expulsion in March.
Those were whether Mr. Abrego Garcia had received due process when he was plucked off the streets without a warrant and expelled days later to a prison in El Salvador, in what even Trump officials have repeatedly admitted was an error. And, moreover, whether administration officials should be held in contempt for repeatedly stonewalling a judge’s effort to get to the bottom of their actions.
Instead, the administration has concocted a story that may or may not be true, which may or may not make it to trial, but which is so shocking that it will tar Abrego Garcia forever as a monster.
It’s classic overkill in the Roy Cohn tradition that’s guided Trump forever: You libs want due process for Kilmar Abrego Garcia? Here it is, in a tidal wave, fuckers. It almost doesn’t matter whether the charges hold up: He’s back in the US, which may moot the case over his initial removal, and now he has to fight a whole new set of claims. Our guess? The case will fall apart, but the charges are serious enough that they may convince an immigration court to deport Abrego Garcia, if not to El Salvador, then to any third country that will take him. Rwanda maybe.
But at least that fight will be in the courts, in the US, with due process — even any possible deportation that follows. The courts have finally started to catch up with the fuckery, and we’ll just have to see how well that works, separate from the public opinion war Trump and Bondi have launched.
[ABC News / Indictment in US v. Garcia / WaPo / Ryan Goodman on Bluesky / DHS / NYT
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"In fact, almost as soon as the news of Abrego Garcia’s return broke, we also learned that Ben Schrader, the career federal prosecutor who led that Tennessee district’s criminal division, resigned two weeks ago, when the indictment was filed. ABC News reports that “Schrader's resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons,” according to sources who’d been briefed on why he quit."
This is some Soviet shit, a precursor to disappearing someone for good. This needs to be a five - no- a ten-alarm fire for Americans. Americans need to ignore Kilmar Abrego Garcia's skin color and ethnicity just for a moment and think about this. Someone has been unconstitutionally renditioned and then brought back for a show trial with surely trumped up charges, and is potentially going to then be disappeared to an unaccountable black site.
If you are talking about "government tyranny," there it is right there.
Unless the "government tyranny" was really that the U.S. Government protected the rights of minorities you don't like and even gave them political efficacy.
"We don’t know anything about the license plate reader technology..."
I do. I received two toll citations for crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. I was nowhere near the Golden Gate Bridge on either of those dates.
Nor do I have a car.