No, Mr. Reuveni, I expect you to lie.
Maybe I just missed it in my younger days, but lying through your teeth (under oath) during Senate hearings did not seem like as prevalent a phenomenon decades ago, especially for Supreme Court nominees and prospective cabinet officials. Where not plainly lying, Donald Trump nominees from Bill Barr to Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi have raised prevarication to an art form.
Trump officials will lie and prevaricate or face consequences. ABC News:
The Justice Department has placed on indefinite paid leave the attorney who argued on behalf of the government on Friday in a lawsuit brought by a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador in error, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Sources said Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation, was told by officials at the DOJ that he was being placed on leave over a “failure to zealously advocate” for the government’s interests.
“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Saturday. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”
Judge Paula Xinis of the US District Court in Maryland On Friday asked to Reuveni to explain why the goverment that mistakenly sent Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran maximum security prison could not return him.
At one point in the hearing, Reuveni was asked by Xinis under what authority law enforcement officers seized Abrego Garcia.
“Your honor, my answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating, and I’m also frustrated that I have no answers for you on a lot of these questions,” Reuveni said.
Wrong answer. Xinis ordered the government on Friday to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. no later than 11:59 p.m. on April 7. The government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit:
“The United States does not have control over Abrego Garcia. Or the sovereign nation of El Salvador. Nevertheless, the court’s injunction commands that Defendants accomplish, somehow, Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States in give or take one business day. That order is indefensible,” Justice Department lawyers wrote. The appeal argues at length that the government has no power to return Abrego García because he is in the custody of the Salvadoran government, though the Trump administration says it is paying El Salvador about $6 million for the detention of deportees.
Under George W. Bush’s extraordinary rendition regime, whisking away innocents to places like a Salvadoran gulag became known as “Outsourcing Torture.”
Bondi placed Reuveni on indefinite paid leave for not lying in court. Until the heat dies down, of course. Then he’ll likely be fired for telling the truth to a federal judge.
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