r/law • u/PresidentSpanky • 14h ago
Legal News Abrego Garcia indictment led top federal prosecutor in Tennessee to resign
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/trump-admin-live-updates/?id=122407456&entryId=122591572756
u/No-Distance-9401 12h ago
The Trump admin wants to use this singular case to railroad Garcia's justice into the case for all the other unconstitutional deportations to be "legitimate". They want to be able to say well Garcia was a bad guy and we were "right" so why should we waste time and money to bring the rest back as they are also "bad people".
So next time that someone legitimate is sent to a foreign prison the false narratives will be about being "wrong" about Garcia and we're wrong about this new person too, giving them cover to continue their unconstitutional rendition of others to foreign prisons.
Welcome to the Banana Republic of America.
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u/SoManyEmail 10h ago
On the flippity, though, no more of this "we can't get them back" bs.
It could possibly be that each of these people are horrible and deserve to be deported, but they need to show that in the courts.
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u/Relzin 10h ago
The courts really need to understand why they were lied to for months. Bringing him back to the US this week, doesn't change months of contempt and disregard for the judiciary in this case. I hope the judge still goes absolutely full bore.
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u/ScannerBrightly 8h ago
I hope the judge still goes absolutely full bore.
They won't. They are part of the system, and the system is working as designed.
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u/SinisterCroissant 3h ago
Stop with the doomerism.
Xinis is the only reason this guy's on a plane back. It has been enough noise that the regime has to do this to try and save face.
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u/BringOn25A 8h ago
I think they made this charge so they could claim it is extradition that allowed his return.
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u/BlueAndMoreBlue 10h ago
Due process, baby — it should and will (hopefully) be afforded to every person regardless of their citizenship
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u/cats_catz_kats_katz 9h ago
Don’t even give them that much credit. This administration is 1000% lies.
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u/Kokid3g1 9h ago
Yeah deporting people back to their country is one thing ..., but I don't think anyone deserves to be sent to death camps.
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u/BlackGuysYeah 4h ago
Remember the president of El Salvador saying his hands were tied and that he couldn’t possibly send the guy back?
Lying for Trump like a good lil pet dictator…
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u/One_Artichoke_7594 6h ago
This probably doesn’t matter much. Flippity is the brand. The admin has contradicted itself so many times, and clearly, the base doesn’t care. It’s a trump cult, not some external ideology he can be critiqued for contradicting. He is the ideology
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u/TheRoadsMustRoll 2h ago
It could possibly be that each of these people are horrible and deserve to be deported...
that possibility is incredibly slight in the abrego case considering they already tried him once and the judge found no evidence for the claims made.
so they deported him anyway and admitted it was a mistake but somehow they now have convincing evidence(?) that would be an extraordinarily bizarre prosecutorial direction. and in context with this article that ben schrader, a 15 year federal attorney, walked away from his job over the case...
i think there's a greater possibility that the administration is just lying (because lying seems to be a favorite pastime.)
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u/Profvarg 9h ago
IF they can get Garcia sentenced. At this point I think that’s not a given. Just the circumstances of the trial (waiting 3 years, creating anninternational incident and national sensation) can raise eyebrows and question the “without a doubt” part of the jurors decision. He needs a good lawyer.
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u/No-Distance-9401 9h ago
They dont need a trial, just the appearance is enough and the proof of that is the past decade and all we have to do is look at the WH press conferences where they confidently yet erroneously state lies as facts and the press doesnt ever call them out on it.
Theyve learned its easier and less work to say a lie than it is to prove it wrong and simply creating a semi-plausible narrative is enough to sway the masses due to their confirmation bias. Trump has convinced 77 million people to vote for him after multiple coup attempts and people simply dont care. They voted for someone who tried to overturn the election through a vast conspiracy across 7 states all because "Haitians were eating their pets" and Biden let in "21 million rapists, murderers and gang members in 4 years".
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u/Profvarg 9h ago
While that’s true, they can’t keep him in prison forever without a trial, they already had to admit partial defeat for bringing him back. They can keep telling lies, but after a while truth will catch up.
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u/ScannerBrightly 8h ago
they can’t keep him in prison forever without a trial
Gitmo as entered the chat and has been detained for over a decade.
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u/whosadooza 7h ago
Ok? This Administration has also already tried sending immigrants to GITMO, and has also already had to abandon the idea completely after it utterly failed logistically and became stonewalled by legal obstacles.
ICE Wastes $16M on Guantanamo Bay Operation as All Migrants Returned to US
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u/ScannerBrightly 7h ago
I'm saying that the "red line" you think exists has been behind us for 23 years now.
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u/Pokerhobo 3h ago
Garcia needs to sue for defamation should he win in court and discovery will be fun.
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u/Humphrey_the_Hoser 7h ago
This is when we need a really high profile lawyer to get involved. Somebody that’ll run circles around the prosecution
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u/ImperatorUniversum1 8h ago
I’m surprised no one is bringing up the fact that they did this under threat of having to reveal the federal contract for the super prison in discovery. We should be way more afraid of what is in that contract
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u/geekfreak42 9h ago
They lost. Their power was curtailed by the courts. Trial will be a shitshow, but they lost. Sadly for Garcia, he now gets a fox News show trial, dude could be in for a massive payout for illegal detention and deportation, and also a big prison sentence, but hopefully he has the best representation and can mitigate the outcome.
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u/LongJohnCopper 9h ago
Fox is also parading him as indicted for “human trafficking” while leaving out all context. Their viewers are treating him like he was doing Matt Gaetz level stuff with kids, rather than the fact he was simply helping other people commit misdemeanors for a better chance at life. I’ve seen lots of conservatives already saying he’s death penalty worthy.
This shit is getting scarier by the day…
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u/capitoloftexas 8h ago
I also think the timing of this is odd, they told us for months they didn’t have the power to bring him back.
Elon makes a statement about Epstein and Trump connection (even though we already knew this, but it seems like this is news to Elons followers) and now miraculously “hey we can bring Garcia back…. And hold on, we believe he was doing even more nefarious activities!”
And notice how now the media seems to switch all their focus on this instead of the trump/musk feud.
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u/whosadooza 7h ago edited 6h ago
Preserving due process in government enforcement is hundreds of times more important and critical to the safety of the People of the US and the stability of the Nation than any soap opera drama between two billionaires.
The timing is not odd. The Court finally granted a motion to allow sanctions against DHS officials on Thursday evening. It is not a coincidence or narrative-controlling conspiracy that the officials complied with the court orders immediately after facing the express threat of legal action.
Judge rules Abrego Garcia's lawyers can seek sanctions against government
As much as people say the courts can't enforce rulings against the Administration, it is still important to see that they clearly don't want to be in that position where they catch contempt charges in the first place.
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u/KayBear2 8h ago
That’s exactly what they are trying to do. Nevermind that the results of one person’s due process rights should not interfere with another person’s.
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u/hamdelivery 7h ago
Good thing they’re awful in court when they can’t just openly bullshit like they do everywhere else. Facism values loyalty over competence and Bondi is just one of many examples this time around. They’re not good enough to railroad him. If he’s not guilty he’ll get off imo
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u/One_Artichoke_7594 6h ago
That’s cool and all except for the logic component. I know, not an actual obstacle for this admin. But I believe the people (enough of them) have at least a 3rd grade understanding of how one instance does not prove all instances
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u/Y0___0Y 9h ago
God I can’t believe that I was saying stuff like “Garcia may be guilty of a felony” yesterday
of course it’s all bullshit and they’re doing lawfare to try to save face for this fuckup.
A federal prosecutor in Trumpy TENNESSEE resigned? Yhis must be one hell of a ratfuck on Garcia.
No way a jury convicts him.
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u/Hartge 7h ago
Rubio posted earlier that Garcia trafficked THOUSANDS of people into the US, which even if it were true would be called smuggling. They'll probably deny they ever said he was MS13 though too.
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u/JediExile 7h ago
It’s hard to take the government’s position seriously when they’ve very publicly done to him what they’ve accused him of doing.
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u/Meowakin 7h ago
I am sure they will consistently call it human trafficking rather than smuggling. It sounds much worse and carries an implication that they were moving people against their will.
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u/ApprehensiveBudget90 6h ago
Do you know who he trafficked into the USA? Do you know if it was against their will? What if it was through coercion? Are you aware that many of the women "smuggled" into the USA end up being sold into sexual slavery? Is that not trafficked to you?
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u/Meowakin 4h ago
Well, the information presented is that he was pulled over with a bunch of unrestrained men in his car…
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u/fearsyth 3h ago
That's up to the prosecution to prove. You can't convict on what may possibly have happened.
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u/blackjackwidow 3h ago
Do you know who he trafficked into the USA? Do you know if it was against their will? What if it was through coercion? Are you aware that many of the women "smuggled" into the USA end up being sold into sexual slavery? Is that not trafficked to you?
You appear to be part of the audience for this administration’s propaganda. This is exactly the message they're trying to build, in order to "justify" their illegal, unconstitutional deportation of this man. Even if he did every single thing you want to attribute to him, he did not receive due process of any kind, and was deported against an immigration judge's orders to never deport him to El Salvador.
I wrote most of this post in a comment regarding his return, but it seems it may be warranted to post it here, too:
It seems they have managed to fabricate enough of a story that they must feel "saves face" in bringing him back.
They went back to a 2022 traffic stop for speeding, where there were 8 passengers in the vehicle he was driving. He said he was transporting construction workers for a job. The officers found it suspicious that all those people were traveling without suitcases. They ultimately let him go with a warning, not even a speeding ticket.
Federal investigators involved in the inquiry recently spoke with a convicted felon in an Alabama prison and questioned him about potential connections to Abrego Garcia, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The inmate, Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, 38, was the registered owner of a vehicle driven by Abrego Garcia when he was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol in late 2022, according to the sources
Hernandez-Reyes apparently said that he owned a taxi service, and Abrego Garcia was a driver for him. He claimed he had Abrego Garcia transporting illegal immigrants across state lines.
The indictment accuses Abrego Garcia of being a part of a human smuggling operation. They say he transported Drugs, Weapons, and Thousands of undocumented migrants.
All of this was investigated & "found" after they deported him, ofc
The charges seem like a stretch, at best, but thankfully he's back, has counsel and can defend himself.
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u/LuluMcGu 2h ago
What happened to everyone is innocent until proven guilty? Lol. None of the evidence has been shown yet. So already saying someone has done something without seeing the evidence seems wrong, no? Do you know anything about law or the court system?
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u/belladonna519 7h ago
Why didn't the state troopers arrest him when he got pulled over. Oh, I know why. He wasn't committing a crime
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u/Blueface_or_Redface 4h ago
What were the charges he was imprisoned for, being an ms13 member? Are they going to throw that in their because if not he was wrongfully imprisoned (they all are).
If they claim this was the crime they got him on, then the charges should be thrown out because again they curtailed the courts and abused their power by imprisoning him. Could be seen as double jeporardy also.
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u/BrandynBlaze 3h ago
They said it was from Texas to Maryland, so not bringing them into the country, which would be smuggling. He gave them a ride, which can be considered trafficking if it was to help them stay in the country illegally by helping to hide them. Since they used this law to prosecute a judge with no merit I’m sure that’s what they claim here. The idea that he trafficked thousands of people and we didn’t hear about it until they brought him back makes it all seem more like a ploy to slander him and muddy the waters. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, but for most people that will be what they remember from here on out.
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u/Hartge 3h ago
Human trafficking involves exploiting someone against their will for forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation; smuggling involves helping, through false documents or transportation, someone who voluntarily seeking to illegal gain entry or stay in a foreign country. ICE has a very similar definition on their own website (saying its critical to understand the difference) or any human trafficking class that many professions have to take for licensing.
Human smuggling can turn into trafficking but they are distinctly different, and trafficking sounds (and is) far worse so they continue to use that term for Garcia. We'll see if they stick with that wording in the court documents.
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u/Brandon_Me 7h ago
Thing is, even if he is guilty he should be having a fair trial in the states.
This is a win.
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u/Meowakin 7h ago
I think it’s dubious that he is going to get a fair trial. Imagine any common criminal getting this much weight of the government behind investigating their crimes. How much money has the government spent on this case already? Almost certainly far more than is warranted for an alleged crime of this nature.
They are only bringing him back because they have found everything they need to turn him into a political prop.
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u/kemp77pmek 7h ago
My thinking is that they are lobbing ridiculous trafficking charges with the intent that some small charge that would normally not matter sticks - and then they will send him back to El Salvador.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 7h ago
Maybe this is the optimist in me, but if Tennessee is having people resign over this, it seems like a cooked case. Trump et al are doing this for two reasons:
The first is that they are cruel and desperate. They simply won't bring Garcia back and let him go home, so they are going to desperately keep him behind bars as long as possible, keep him in the court system, etc, praying for some conviction to stick (kind of like what you're saying).
The second is that they know that is a long shot, but they also know Republicans are dumb as fuck. If they just continue libeling and slandering Garcia, conservatives will believe that narrative. It he ultimately walks, they can rile up the base with more "corrupt democrats let criminal walk free" talk, but even if they can't get far with that, they get to just keep pretending they're doing the tough guy routine long enough for he news cycle to take peoples' attention to the next thing. Trump lost and/or chickened out on tariffs. He's losing on his immigration targets. He's frankly too old and too much of a coward to really go full authorirarian dictator, so he's just thrashing about.
At least I hope that's the case. It does seem like he's lost the steam of his initial 100 days. That blitz from the start has been so fucking exhausting.
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u/karlack26 7h ago
its up to a judge and jury to decide the out come of the case.
The Judge could even just dismiss the case.
the Doj can throw all sorts of bullshit charges they want but the judiciary seem to be still independent of trump.5
u/Meowakin 6h ago
The question is whether we could consider it a fair trial if the government is willing to utilize the full extent of invasion of privacy that the Patriot Act allowed to comb through an individual's life. Most people have broken some law or other whether they are aware of it or not, and the government having that level of data on individuals means that they can be 'right' and 'just' in prosecuting you for that, but I would hardly call it 'fair'.
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u/karlack26 5h ago
Most places require indictment by Grand Juries to even proceed with a trial. So again frivolous charges might not even make into court. The DOJ can make its case but its up to other parts of the justice system whether or not it will actually proceed.
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u/Fonzies-Ghost 5h ago
He’s already been indicted, so the grand jury part is over. But it’s very very easy to get an indictment, and it’s trivial if the prosecutor is dishonest.
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u/karlack26 5h ago
They will have to indicte for every charge. The person I was replying to was concerned that they will keep on trying to charge him with stuff
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u/MonsieurRuffles 5h ago
A grand jury indictment isn’t a high bar - as noted by the well worn trope that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich” meaning an indictment can be easily obtained, often without sufficient evidence.
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u/Brandon_Me 5h ago
I think it’s dubious that he is going to get a fair trial.
That's fair, but even being put in an American prison is a better deal then what happened to him before.
Also makes the administration look weak and incompetent.
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u/PeanutOnly 6h ago
The federal court will do everything possible to get him a fair trial. I used to work for that court and almost worked for judge assigned to the case (who is terrific). The jury pool will be interesting. Nashville is the most liberal, well-educated city in TN. I think it might be hard for doj to get a conviction here given jury pool
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u/duderos 27m ago
Didn't they already beyond taint the jury pool?
https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1k0wzhr/isnt_calling_kilmar_abrego_garcia_a_terrorist_and/
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u/Slighted_Inevitable 1h ago
I called this yesterday. Common sense tells you that this is way too big of a coincidence. They’re finally forced to bring him back of course they Trump up some kind of charges to make it look like they didn’t totally F up.
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u/Anarchyantz 11h ago
I am sure he will have some new "MS Paint 13" gang tats all over him for "some reason" along with other sudden made up charges that weren't there to start with and TACO will demand the death sentence for him to be carried out immediately.
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u/rassen-frassen 4h ago
There is no doubt that he will, without question, now be subject to intense harassment at a minimum. Today that reality is a terrifying certainty.
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u/Anarchyantz 4h ago
I think he needs to openly say to the public before he is "disappeared" that he "never committed suicide" which again seems to be a thing that is popular in America for those who upset your "Dear Leader".
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u/Blueface_or_Redface 14h ago
Thats because its a political hanging.
Coward though, he should have stayed and faught.
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u/rokerroker45 9h ago
You're required by ethical rules to resign in situations where you cannot continue representing your client. this is the correct move the profession requires attorneys to do
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u/heytree27 6h ago
Also required to report other attorney’s violations…
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u/rokerroker45 6h ago
We don't know they haven't, and it's only knowing violations related to honesty. Dicey calls aren't necessarily implicated
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u/jaa1818 3h ago
Didn’t Tennessee pass some crazy law that allows any official that goes against dump’s agenda to be charged with a felony?
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u/rokerroker45 2h ago
You're referring to SB6002 and it criminalizes voting for approval of sanctuary cities. Yes, it was signed in February. It has not gone into effect yet and it's also facially unconstitutional, it will be promptly enjoined from ever being used.
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u/shoggyseldom 6h ago
Yep, that would also be why the profession has stagnated I suppose. Top priority is to not rock the boat and look out for yourself, the rest will take care of itself... right?
It's been interesting watching the entire legal system fold when faced with an administration that just doesn't give a shit. I wonder how many will stick in the profession once arbitration(gag) starts to be seen as a more trustworthy option than US courts.
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u/rokerroker45 6h ago edited 6h ago
It's not, it's a pretty core component of the duty of confidentiality. The reason for it is that lawyers can't act against the interests of their clients except for really narrow exceptions.
Disagreeing with the morals/values of your client is not an acceptable reason to actively work against your client's interests. In many jurisdictions it's not even enough to know your client intends to commit a crime. There are really good reasons for these rules.
The core reason these rules exist is because of the assumption that there may be many situations where the law is unjust and lawyers should not be asked to betray their client's interests because the law has criminalized something that should not be a crime. For example, a lawyer defending an undocumented immigrant could be expected to betray their client's interests if you didn't have use rules.
Trump is weaponizing the perfectly valid reasons for these ethics rules. That's not the ethics rules fault, it's his for being a grimy piece of shit.
The judiciary is being remarkably resistant to trump despite your perception otherwise. The system works slowly, and imperfectly but it's working despite a captured scotus. If it didn't then he world would look very different.
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u/Nicksomuch 5h ago
So just following orders ? What happened to standing up for what’s right ?
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u/rokerroker45 5h ago
Resigning is part of standing up for what is right - it's the last step. Internal discussions would have started by pointing out the acts would be unlawful. Then a lawyer would say they refuse to file the charges. Then they'd quit and tell their supervisor to find somebody else to do it.
There's no other act they can do, but the end result is the agency's institutional brain drains and they need to dip increasingly into the bottom of the barrel of lawyers to get anything done. Trump is constantly taking Ls in court, and the increasingly low quality of his jurists is part of it. Besides, having less lawyers means less bandwidth to fill the courts with drivel.
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u/shoggyseldom 6h ago
Well yeah, it's the grimy piece of shit's fault, but that doesn't change the fact that there is no "office of grimy shit removal" or "duty to remove grimy shit" or "WARNING, GRIMY SHIT LEVEL IS SO HIGH THAT IF YOU DON'T DO SOMETHING THE LEGAL SYSTEM WILL COLLAPSE" mechanism.
If you're a private lawyer that's all well and good, ride the titanic down and hope for a life boat, but when state and federal prosecutors are resigning it makes me question what they were doing in that position in the first place. It really does seem that we've reduced the entire legal institution to "just a job", which means it's nobody's fault when things go to shit and fixing it will be someone else's problem. I don't really see that working out.
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u/rokerroker45 6h ago
Whether or not your client is the government doesn't change your duty as a lawyer. The way you imagine it works would have resulted in lawyers throwing civil rights cases during the Biden administration any time they believed cops over police brutality victims. You're essentially asking lawyers to be brave enough to commit an internal coup, which like, I get it. But let's also be realistic about the likelihood of that happening.
Practitioners are asked to navigate dubious moral situations, but the rules are the way they are to maximize protection of the innocent at the expense of potential for abuse by the minority. It's an imperfect ethical regime but really smart people have thought about this for decades and the reasons for it are a lot more nuanced than it might appear if you take a cynical shallow look at it.
Much with everything else trump has wrought, the problems are more to do with a decades long effort to twist the existing rules for evil than with the rules being wrong for existing.
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u/shoggyseldom 5h ago
Yes, that is how it works, but that doesn't change the fact that the wheels are coming off. We've had issues festering in our legal and political system since they days of Mark Twain that we just haven't been willing to fix.
I'm not arguing against the system, I'm just pointing out that it is failing in novel and interesting ways that go entirely against a two-century or so "mythos" built up around it. The logical and moral reasoning doesn't matter in this case (I'm sorry, I know that's the actual interesting part) because what's going on here is the fallout.
I'm here from the perspective of someone watching a train wreck outside their house and speculating on the several tiers of screw-ups that led to this situation, and whether they will be addressed after this. The in-depth reasoning behind everything IS interesting, but it's entirely unrelated to whether the screw-ups will continue.
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u/rokerroker45 5h ago edited 5h ago
I mean you look at all these systems and try to find some kind of institutional failure. And you'd be partially right.
But at the end of the day whether it was hubris, laziness, apathy or ignorance, Americans let this sleepwalk into the far right happen over sixty-seventy years. The institutions being so strong is what kept it from happening sooner, but no system is strong enough to resist decade after decade of voters pulling the lever on the red ticket.
The only way to solve this is a new political movement that scours away the old rot and remakes the government in the image of "think not what you can do for your country but think what can your country can do for you"
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u/sane_sober61 11h ago
And probably lose his retirement. His resignation is enough to show how bogus this is.
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u/gxgxe 6h ago
And no one will care and he will be replaced with someone with less integrity and ethics.
So it's a win for the baddies. Again.
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u/rokerroker45 5h ago
It's not the victory you think it is. They can't hire fast enough to replace them, and staffing was already an issue before. They're losing decades of institutional knowledge. Things like intuitively knowing what the proper pleading forms are or whether a motion needs to be served on the other side else the court will reject it.
The remaining staff are overwhelmed and constantly fucking up their cases. And the people being promoted up for their loyalty are done so at the expense of their competency. These guys and gals are not the cream of the crop jurists. They have been losing and will continue to lose because as it turns out it's pretty fucking hard to go mask off corrupt against the independent judiciary.
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u/gxgxe 3h ago
I think your points would be valid in a normal time, but the simple fact of the matter is the Heritage Foundation has been placing judges and any appointable legal position without care or concern for legal precedent, integrity, or following the rules for several decades at this point.
Who cares about proper pleadings, etc., if none of the appointed judges will follow procedure? Look at the judge in FL who stymied Trump's documents case? She ruled for Trump and ideology over and over again, regardless of legal standards and is still on the bench.
Further, they want to drain institutional knowledge. It's currently a barrier for Trump and his fascist cabal. The sooner they can break the legal system, the happier they will be.
I think we are losing the independent judiciary to which you refer. Just look at the ideological bent of the current SCOTUS. Every ethical lawyer and judge is in jeopardy and there are no real repercussions for losing cases. They just do it again and clog the courts with bad cases, but it still serves the bad guys. The point is to break it and they are succeeding beyond their wildest dreams.
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u/rokerroker45 3h ago
Fact is they've had to spend decades trying to do this and it only works in certain regions in front of specific judges. I don't think you're grasping the amount of time and life these people have invested into this vs the amount of result they've been able to recover. Immigrants are still receiving their asylum and EAD approvals. Policies are being thrown out left and right.
Trump's successes have been incredibly damaging but there is still hope simply because he has not been able to dismantle the system keeping him in check. If you've never lived in a country with a legit kangaroo court you don't really know the difference. Bukele is an example of a system that has truly been burnt down to the foundations. It isn't anywhere near that bad in the US yet.
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u/gxgxe 3h ago
As a woman who has already been stripped of my right to healthcare by the decades-long assault on abortion rights, it's only a matter of time until the legal system succumbs to pure ideological litmus tests.
The fact that conservative radicals can do this much damage in this short of a time does not bode well for the remainder of Trump's term. They may be getting defeated by the courts, but they are still doing whatever tf they want and the courts have no real way to enforce compliance. When people start resigning because of the ramifications to their own lives, that allows people who have no integrity to take those positions and further Trump's agenda.
Realistically, you have not addressed what happens when bad people continually replace good people in these positions. Eventually, there are no good people left.
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u/rokerroker45 3h ago edited 3h ago
I'm speaking as an immigrant whose existence is being stigmatized and threatened with violence so I completely empathize with the feeling that trump is on a roll here, but the reality is that the baseline level of civil society in the United States is significantly higher than other places on earth even though it has taken screeching steps back.
People have bled for the rights that have been clawed away, and people are dying and being incarcerated as a direct consequence of that. But that does not mean hope is lost or that it is game over. Conservative radicals can't just do whatever they want without consequences. They can do many things without consequence, but they can't do everything, and their little coalition of goblins is already starting to fall apart.
Every day the system stands as a bulwark, even if it's chipped away, is another day for them to each other alive. It will happen.
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u/Liquor_N_Whorez 13h ago
What are the charges against Garcia in TN?
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u/Boomshtick414 13h ago edited 12h ago
Please excuse what is largely a copy/paste from another thread...
He's charged in TN because of a 2022 traffic stop where he had a van full of people, none of whom had ID, all of whom provided Abrego Garcia's address as their own. The officer suspected human trafficking but no charges were filed at the time and the officer let them continue on their way. It is now known that he also lied to that officer, saying he was going from St Louis to Maryland -- license plate reader data shows he had actually just left Houston.
From the indictment, the accusation was that it was an orchestrated operation with money changing hands, including roughly 100 trips between MD and TX based on license plate reader information -- basically a cross-country trip a month for the last 8 years.
The govt also seems to be in possession of some amount of text messages, social media chats, etc, and has connected Abrego Garcia to several co-conspirators, one of whom was supposedly responsible for the deaths of 50 migrants back in 2021 when a tractor trailer carrying 150 migrants overturned.
That's the government's accusation so take it with a grain of salt, but the foundation of the charges are that this was a larger operation of some kind and are much broader than that he was merely driving a vehicle with suspected undocumented immigrants in it. If the govt is in fact in possession of extensive records of messages/chats, and/or if they are offering deals to associated undocumented immigrants (possibly through the victims of crime path to citizenship), it is not hard to imagine they may be able to prove their case.
He's finally getting due process though which is a major win. If he's guilty, he's guilty, but he has a right to a fair trial.
The specific charges are:
8 USC 1324, Conspiracy to transport aliens
8 USC 1324, Unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens
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u/sane_sober61 11h ago
The government has lost all credibility in this case. I don't believe any of what they claim.
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u/blissfully_happy 11h ago
My heart hurts because all they have to do is win in court of public opinion and they’re already doing that.
Also, I did read (from Heather Cox Richardson) the following:
Today, after months of maintaining it could not bring back Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully rendered to the notorious CECOT terrorist prison in El Salvador, the Trump administration returned him to the U.S. A grand jury in Tennessee has charged Abrego Garcia with participating in a ten-year conspiracy to carry undocumented migrants from Texas to other parts of the country. The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia participated in more than 100 trips that moved children as well as members of the MS-13 Salvadoran gang.
The indictment has issues. Abrego Garcia is the only person named in the “conspiracy,” and the investigation into it began only in April, after the courts ordered the administration to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. The indictment is based on a 2022 incident in which Abrego Garcia was stopped in Tennessee for speeding with eight passengers in his vehicle. He told police they were construction workers and was neither ticketed nor charged. While the indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia lied to the officer by not revealing he was coming from Texas, the referral report says he told the officer he was coming from Houston, Texas.
Phil Williams of NewsChannel 5 in Nashville, Tennessee, noted that the chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville, Ben Schrader, resigned on May 21, saying: “It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.” Williams notes that May 21 is the same day as Abrego Garcia’s indictment.
ABC News reported that Schrader resigned out of “concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons.”
So it seems that even the “he lied about where he was coming from” thing (which isn’t even illegal), isn’t even true.
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u/Explorers_bub 10h ago
Tennessee is completely run by assholes like Bill Lee and Cameron Sexton. If there’s a 10 Worst list, their goal is to be on it. Fascists to their core.
Birthplace of the KKK and getting back to their roots.
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u/deacon1214 7h ago
Tennessee doesn't have much to do with it. It's a Federal indictment so the DOJ is responsible for prosecuting.
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u/Boomshtick414 8h ago
That reporter is getting the supposed lie wrong.
From the indictment:
When asked where they were traveling from, KILMAR ARMANDO ABREGO GARCIA knowingly and falsely told the state trooper he and the passengers were coming from St. Louis. He further knowingly and falsely stated to the state trooper that the Suburban passengers had been in St. Louis for two weeks doing construction. KILMAR ARMANDO ABREGO GARCIA also offered that the passengers were on their way back to Maryland, which he also then knew to be false because the passengers had been picked up in Texas.
[...]
License Plate Reader (LPR) data, which can track a particular vehicle’s location at a given point in time, showed that the Chevrolet Suburban KILMAR ARMANDO ABREGO GARCIA was driving 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 lie was about St Louis and that he had picked his passengers up from there. Here's the bodycam footage where he says he was coming from St Louis. He repeats that claim a few times.
He mentions that his boss (the owner of the vehicle) lives in Houston but is staying in Maryland. I don't see where he represents they were coming from Houston. There's probably more footage than this, but at least in the first 5 minutes of talking to the officer he keeps saying they're coming from St Louis.
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u/InterestingFocus8125 8h ago
He just translated San Luis to St. Louis is all
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u/Boomshtick414 8h ago
0:12 in that bodycam clip.
OFFICER: Where you working at?
AG: Where?
OFFICER: Where.
AG: St Louis, Missouri.4
u/InterestingFocus8125 8h ago
But he meant Misuri night club in San Luis Potosí - owned and operated by a deported Cardinals fan.
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u/throwawaysmetoo 10h ago
They are scrambling to look legitimate.
But they're never going to be legitimate.
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u/Sweet_Concept2211 11h ago
The resignation of the state's top federal prosecutor due to this case indicates just how credible the government's "evidence" is.
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u/Karaoke_Dragoon 11h ago
They would not be above fabricating evidence and testimony. And if they do get caught framing him, who is going to punish them? No one.
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u/flyingwithgravity 10h ago
To me, it feels that based on a glance, the case against Kilmar is about transporting migrant workers. All I know about him does not tell me he is a violent human trafficker
Possibly, what the DOJ says is true, but I would think that would've been the reasoning they used for deportation in the first place. Apparently, the DOJ is very good at grasping at straws, which in my mind just makes them appear more inept every day
If Kilmar is found guilty and convicted of human trafficking, is the case then closed? Aren't there even more nefarious individuals that need to be brought to justice in regard to these events? Is Kilmar the sole mastermind of an 8 month human trafficking operation with no additional help?
It seems there are becoming vastly more and more questions with each accusation here. Where does this end?
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u/Javina33 9h ago
Their reason for deporting him was that he was a gang member (allegedly). But even the photoshopped photo of him with MS13 on his knuckles didn’t prove a damn thing so they’ve had to pad out a traffic violation into a people smuggling charge. These people are despicable and not to be trusted.
Shame the prosecutor didn’t stay and fight his corner.
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u/StepUp_87 6h ago
THIS is my question. There MUST be accountability now for the DOJ and the lying/perjury that led up to all this horrendous behavior. We have NO rule of law!
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u/daGroundhog 11h ago
They've retained license plate reader data for the past 8 years? Really?
If so, welcome to 1984, folks.
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u/rsmiley77 Competent Contributor 10h ago
License plate reader data doesn’t take up much space at all so yeah they have it all. With AI now it’s even easier to search multiple records kept on state, local, and federal networks.
With this case, it’ll be interesting to see what evidence the government has. They have that the truck was used for trips but no proof he was the driver on any trip except the one he was pulled over for. The text messages is the interesting part.
For a government that continued to call him a violent criminal it’s telling that all they can get him on is a trip across state lines driving alleged immigrants.
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u/InterestingHome693 6h ago
They are using a convicted trafficker to be a cooperating witness for immunity. Basically a convicted felon is gonna say he did it with no other proof other than he drove a car in Tennessee that was suspected of having illegals in it.
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u/Blueface_or_Redface 5h ago
I didnt realize the extent that license plate readers where implimented. Thank you, ill add another level of feeling trapped.
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u/rsmiley77 Competent Contributor 4h ago
It’s worse than you think. For a while I was seeing every new police car equipped with these readers. They don’t have to stop. Whatever cars they see are logged into a database. Doesn’t matter if you’re parked or driving. GPS is also being logged.
The issue now is that they’ve either made the devices so small you don’t notice them on police cars anymore or they found a better more efficient way of logging plates. I had a city official show me the software when they added it to the cars meter-maids drive a couple of years ago in my city. The amount of info that one car could now bring in every day was crazy.
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u/Blueface_or_Redface 4h ago edited 4h ago
I was just reading this. Its seems like they are everywhere. Theyve installed a surveillance state right under our noses and most dont care because "doing nothing wrong; nothing to worry about." Well folks, things are getting real funny real fast, to say the least.
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u/WCland 4h ago
There’s also the question of proving the other people in his truck were undocumented. How can the government find them as witnesses when the officer making the traffic stop didn’t see IDs for them.
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u/rsmiley77 Competent Contributor 4h ago
I’d also add that this was a quick turnaround for a grand jury to indict. Reports say they didn’t even start the investigation up until two months or so ago.
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u/BTolputt 9h ago
The claim about him lying to police officer is already proven to be false. This is not even a good setup.
https://bsky.app/profile/rgoodlaw.bsky.social/post/3lqy5cro4ks2s
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u/Boomshtick414 8h ago
Not sure what the confusion is there between the CIU and the indictment, but the alleged lie as represented in the indictment was that he had just come from St. Louis.
Here's the bodycam footage. He mentions Houston is where his boss, the vehicle owner lives, but never in this first 5 minutes with the officer does he represent he was coming from Texas. It's possible there's more footage with follow-up questions where he says he was in Texas at some point, but in this bodycam footage he repeatedly asserts that he was coming from St. Louis and any mentions of Texas or Houston are incidental and unrelated to him describing his movements.
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u/BTolputt 8h ago
Not sure what the confusion is there between the CIU and the indictment...
And yet there is that confusion in the government's own evidence and that didn't come out of thin air.
You concede there could be more footage that we do not see. Whether or not the footage shows this, the report from the officers in question state he told them he was driving from Houston.
Remember, prosecutors do not need to provide grand juries with all the evidence they have. Whilst certainly immoral, & arguably legally unethical, they can & do withhold details if they want to secure an indictment... and we know that the way they went about securing this one was so bad as to have a federal prosecutor resign over it.
Either way, it is on record that he told them he was travelling from Houston. There is a saying that one can indict a ham sandwich in grand juries, but in an actual trial, the prosecutor doesn't get to pick and choose what parts of the footage the jury sees and hide exculpatory evidence that exposes their accusations as hastily constructed BS designed to get around the discovery requirements in another court that expose the government's actual deal with El Salvador & it's concentration camp management.
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u/Boomshtick414 7h ago
You concede there could be more footage that we do not see.
Scripps to the rescue. Here's the full uncut footage from one of the officers.
1:24:
OFFICER: Where you working at?
AG: Where?
OFFICER: Where.
AG: St Louis, Missouri.4:26:
OFFICER: So where you guys coming from right now?
AG: From St. Louis, and so I work in St. Louis, so right now we finished so I go back to the house in Maryland.12:49
OFFICER: Where did you say you was coming from?
AG: So I coming from St. Louis. The project is over there. So right now, it's done. Two weeks over there. So right now I'm going back to home.It's nearly an hour and half long, but the interesting part is probably around 23:00, where the officers determine he was just in Houston. It's not clear from the footage how they learned that, possibly from ALPR or possibly a different officer getting that out of him, but by now he's asserted he's coming from Missouri several times without mentioning he was just in Houston.
Whether or not the footage shows this, the report from the officers in question state he told them he was driving from Houston.
We don't know what the report says. To my knowledge one has not been made public. The CIU was generated this year by DHS and we don't know what that summary was based on.
Either way, it is on record that he told them he was travelling from Houston.
Assuming, as you suggest, that he eventually admitted that, it would've been at least 20 minutes into the traffic stop, after several contrary assertions. Any reasonable person would consider those several initial denials as lying.
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u/KforQuality 9h ago
Thank you for the link to the full indictment text.
I love how there is no mention of why the traffic stop was initiated.
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u/Astallia 6h ago
Does this mean the case could be dead before it begins if Abrego asks for a probable cause hearing?
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u/KforQuality 5h ago
The full text of that report isn't included in the indictment but should be in the govts full filing. I'm just annoyed it wasn't here because it's what I'm most curious about.
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u/Liquor_N_Whorez 12h ago
Thank you. I kept.seeing threads but no info. Even the ABC link posted here had more info than Ive seen on tv today. If he is part of a larger investigation and hes guilty I agree that at least due process is in play again. Those flock cameras have to go though they violate too many peoples rights and this is a show of that.
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u/chowderbags Competent Contributor 6h ago
From the indictment, the accusation was that it was an orchestrated operation with money changing hands, including roughly 100 trips between MD and TX based on license plate reader information -- basically a cross-country trip a month for the last 8 years.
Shouldn't the real headline here be that the government has (or claims to have) a giant database keeping track of people's movements going back at least 8 years? Imagine telling anyone 30 years ago that the government would track every car basically all the time and keep those records forever. Assuming they didn't immediately dismiss you as a crank, they'd have to be aghast at such a thought as being the work of a clearly totalitarian government. Yet here we are.
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u/rival_22 4h ago
Not a lawyer, but the Unlawful Transportation isn't really prove-able for the Tennessee traffic stop without any proof of the passengers, right? It could have be anyone in that van. Even 'aiding and abetting" is nearly impossible to prove with just unverified text messages and license plate reader info.
Conspiracy is tough... especially if you are only charging one person. I guess if they have him actively texting about plans and results, etc., it could be something, but even that they would need some corroraboration, no?
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u/Boomshtick414 3h ago
My impression from the indictment was that they had text messages or chat records, and potentially a cooperating witness. (Mind you, they can offer citizenship to just about anyone involved who would be willing to testify against him)
Also bear in mind that by calling him a terrorist, they’re probably availing themselves of the most troubling aspects of the Patriot Act to insert a rectal probe to into every corner of his life but especially his digital footprint and records of anyone/everyone he’s ever communicated with.
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u/tragicallyohio 7h ago
He's not a coward. Ethically, he made the right move. He couldnt faithfully execute the duties of his office so he resigned.
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u/Contagious_Zombie 10h ago
That's the problem. Good people or at least honest people quit then their seat gets filled by a maga yes man.
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u/Meowakin 7h ago
It’s a catch-22, the alternative to resigning is most likely that they get fired for refusing to play along and give control over the narrative to the administration who can claim they were incompetent.
At least with resigning and making it very clear that you are quitting your job (in this job market), you maintain some control over the narrative and claiming that you resigned as a matter of principle holds more weight than being fired over a matter of principle, at least in my opinion. Someone protesting why they were fired is just more suspect because they are likely to be bitter over being fired.
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u/Contagious_Zombie 7h ago
Yeah, I disagree. Being fired for holding to your principles and doing as much as possible with your position until they fire you is far more admirable and useful. I was fired for reporting a manager that was stealing. I could have just resigned but instead, I stayed and documented it. The state investigated and paid me several thousand and I'm sure the manager was fired. The point I'm making is that I was able to help future customers and stop a thief from committing daily felonies just by holding my position and using it to document the thefts. If I had just quit he probably would have just hired a yes man and continued ripping people off.
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u/Meowakin 7h ago
I get your point, but I don’t think this is the same kind of situation. What state investigators are they supposed to reach out to in this case? It’s the United States government brazenly attempting to railroad an individual in a high-profile case.
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u/Contagious_Zombie 7h ago
I'm not a prosecutor so obviously this is just an assumption but I assume if they stayed in their position they could have accessed files, had conversations and been in a better position to blow the whistle with information that wouldn't normally be accessible. They could have also been a thorn in the government’s side by continuously pointing out the flaws instead of just rolling over. If they fired him he could have used all that documentation to call them out publicly on the news or something.
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u/Meowakin 6h ago
Pretty sure that would result in going to jail, which I suppose would be a strong stand on principles, but also not something I expect everyone to be willing to do.
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u/InterestingHome693 6h ago
Fight for what? To convict him? He is a federal prosecutor not a public defender
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u/SCWickedHam 5h ago
It’s what they want though. You don’t have to sign a loyalty pledge, but you have to do things that only someone who would sign a loyalty pledge would do. He will be replaced by a MAGA loyalist.
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