Your Department of Justice on Trump
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, posted a lengthy Bluesky thread worth your perusal. He highlights finding behind the preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and others over their use of excessive force and riot control weapons during their “Operation Midway Blitz.” Find the 233 page ruling here.
Before anyone gets their hopes up that Gregory Bovino, the Chief Border Patrol Agent of CBP’s El Centro Sector, and his CBP/ICE thugs are brought to heel, they appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That panel put the injunction on hold Wednesday while under review. The appeals panel finds the Ellis ruling overbroad and promises a quick appeals process, but cautions “do not overread today’s order” (WBEZ):
“In no uncertain terms,” the panel wrote, “the district court’s order enjoins an expansive range of defendants, including the President of the United States, the entire Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, and anyone acting in concert with them.
“The practical effect is to enjoin all law enforcement officers within the executive branch,” it said.
But the Ellis assessment of Bovino and his underlings is particularly harsh. My sense in reading her comments is that she feels CBP holds the judicial branch in contempt. Their testimony in incident after incident of excessive force is not credible. Often, its is directly contradicted by body worn camera (BWC) footage Ellis reviewed.
Body cam footage, for example, seems to disprove DHS allegations that protesters were ramming their vehicles “every day during the operation.” In fact, it suggests that agents slammed on their brakes “in an attempt to force accidents that agents could then use as justifications for deploying force.” (You’ve probably seen stories.)
Judge Ellis writes, “While Defendants may argue that the Court identifies only minor inconsistencies, every minor inconsistency adds up, and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe almost anything that Defendants represent.”
In one footnote, Ellis adds, “The Court also notes that, in at least one instance, an agent asked ChatGPT to compile a narrative for a report based off of a brief sentence about an encounter and several images.” This “further undermines their credibility and may explain the inaccuracy of these reports when viewed in light of the BWC footage.”
As for Bovino himself, Ellis finds he “appeared evasive over the three days of his deposition, either providing ‘cute’ responses to Plaintiffs’ counsel’s questions or outright lying.”
This is your Department of Justice on Trump.
UPDATE: Speaking of untrustworthy
The federal government claims that the day after it was sued for allegedly abusing detainees at an ICE detention center, a “system crash” deleted nearly two weeks of surveillance footage from inside the facility.
People detained at ICE’s Broadview Detention Center in suburban Chicago sued the government on October 30; according to their lawyers and the government, nearly two weeks of footage that could show how they were treated was lost in a “system crash” that happened on October 31.
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