Donald Trump's Justice Department lawyers are reportedly facing potential contempt charges, at the same time as they are offering a "contemptuous response" to a judge.
The Supreme Court recently issued a tepid ruling in a case involving a wrongly deported man, and Trump's Department of Justice has been using the language in that order to justify its failure to so far return the removed individual.
On Saturday, the attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, asked the judge to level contempt charges for not being transparent in the purported attempts to retrieve him.
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Legal expert Roger Parloff reported, "His attys ask her to order govt to produce the terms of any agreement to use CECOT for US deportees & to provide witnesses from DHS, DoJ, & State for Tuesday’s hearing to discuss what steps they’ve taken to secure his release."
"Minutes before" that filing, according to Parloff, Trump's DOJ filed a "contemptuous" reply.
On that reply, Politico's Kyle Cheney reported, "Trump administration attests that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is alive and secure but is under the 'sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.'"
According to the DOJ filing, Abrego Garcia "is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador."
Minutes before the govt filed its latest contemptuous response in Abrego Garcia—asserting only that he was being held at CECOT under El Salvador’s “sovereign, domestic authority"—his attys asked Judge Xinis to order discovery & start contempt proceedings. Proposed order:
1/3 pic.twitter.com/mtLGMw8WuS
— Roger Parloff (@rparloff) April 12, 2025