The Trump Department of Justice faces a new legal deadline after a federal judge warned that its failure to comply with a court order could be treated as an “intentional refusal” to follow the law.
In a sharply worded one-page order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said the Justice Department missed a key deadline to produce a privilege log tied to its claims of the state secrets privilege in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national wrongfully deported to the country in March.
“Evidently missing from the defendants’ filing is the privilege log that this court ordered to be produced,” Xinis wrote in the document posted by Politico's Kyle Cheney. The judge gave the government a Tuesday afternoon deadline to file the log and delivered a warning.
EXCLUSIVE: Breastfeeding mom of US citizen sues Kristi Noem after being grabbed by ICE
“Failure to file the privilege log or otherwise respond will be construed as an intentional refusal to comply with this court’s orders,” according to the order. The dispute bubbled up last week after the Trump administration invoked the state secrets privilege to shield details surrounding Abrego Garcia’s case, according to a report in Politico.
The judge set the next in-person hearing for Friday.
JUST IN: Judge Xinis says the DOJ has failed to file a privilege log regarding invocation of the state secrets privilege in Kilmar Abrego Garcia's case.
She's giving them until 3pm or will construe it as "intentional refusal" to comply.https://t.co/T9xP4U25EX pic.twitter.com/luBEPm8Hjr
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 13, 2025
