Cross-posted from “A Federal Judge Is on the Brink of Criminally Prosecuting Trump Officials for Contempt” by @[email protected] in [email protected]
In a thundering opinion on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg announced that he had found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for defiance of his orders. It is “obvious,” Boasberg wrote, that government officials “deliberately flouted” his commands by deporting Venezuelan migrants to a Salvadoran prison on March 15 under President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. And now they must answer for their unlawful conduct. “The Constitution,” he declared, “does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders—especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it.”
Sounds like that’s where it’s heading:
We need to protect that judge.
There’s a very good chance he’ll accidentally fall out of a 10th storey window
I think this is likely to be the hangup. Everything with this administration is so chaotic and ad-hoc that it might be hard to pin it on a single person or group. If they don’t have beyond-reasonable-doubt certainty that the person they’re holding in contempt is responsible, it’ll probably just get overturned, weakening the bigger Trump v Courts battle.
Sounds like a RICO case then.
I’m not sure you can easily turn contempt of court into a criminal conspiracy charge.
Money was exchanged for
humanshuman resources, in illegal activity.You’re probably not wrong, but hopefully there’s at least a paper trail the judge can work his way up.
If any paper trail exists, the government will deny it exists, while concurrently setting fire to it and any other evidence they might have left.
-“Who was responsible for XYZ?”
- “I don’t recall.”
Pretty much this is what I’m worried about. Hopefully the government record keeping laws are robust enough that they can eke out a real answer about responsibility by threatening additional charges over failure to document those.
assuming they weren’t sent via self-destructing Signal messages, which itself is a violation of records law
I’m pretty sure they are using a private network for email exchanges.
Maybe we can get copies of their messages from Russia then.
Ok, then I am holding YOU in contempt!
This is the way.
Soooo, citizens can be shipped off to El Salvador eh?
Annnnnd then Trump Pardons them
You still need to do it. And then add in some unpardonable civil contempt.
Then you roll over like a bitch while everybody else does what they can to help, but keep quiet next time.