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- [00:01]
Benjamin Wittes
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- [00:32]
Unknown Speaker 1
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- [01:38]
Roger Parloff
She wants discovery because she thinks, she rightly thinks, that the government has not complied with her request for information about what it is that they've done, what potential steps they will do, and you know, what his custodial status is.
- [01:54]
Benjamin Wittes
It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Benjamin Wittes with lawfare senior editors Roger Parloff and Anna Bauer.
- [02:05]
Anna Bauer
The real problem, of course, I say, you know she's going to eventually lower the boom. We don't know if there is a boom. When the contemnors are high executive officials doing what the president wants and you have a Congress that won't do anything, you know, maybe there is no remedy here.
- [02:26]
Benjamin Wittes
On April 15, Judge Paula Sinis held a hearing in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. In the immediate aftermath of the hearing, I sat down with Roger and Anna, who had attended it, to debrief on what happened. Hey, folks, just a quick update on a few matters that happened after we recorded this. First, Judge Sinis issued an order clarifying that she did not use the word facilitate in the highly limited sense that the government interpreted the phrase, but meant something broader. Number two. The following day, which is to say April 16, the government noticed an appeal in the matter. Matter seeking to take her April 10 order up the appellate ladder. Anna and Roger have just emerged from the hearing before Judge Sinis. And I want to start with breaking news from Roger's feed, Twitter feed, which is that we now know how to pronounce the judge's name. So, Roger, what did you learn and how did you learn it?
- [03:49]
Anna Bauer
I spoke to a clerk in the court, and she sounded authoritative, and she said, it's pronounced C Knees.
- [04:01]
Benjamin Wittes
So you heard it here first, people. This is news you can only get on lawfare Live. Everything you've heard everywhere else is wrong. The judge's name is Paula Sinis. And just think your eyes and your knees. All right, we're done. All right, let's start with just an overview of what happened. The judge walks in and seems to know exactly where she's going. Does that seem right to you?
- [04:35]
Anna Bauer
I think that's right. She was much more calm than I expected. Very deliberative. I mean, like, Boasberg was calm also, but he was seething. You could tell. You could not tell that she was seething, although she probably was. She was much more controlled. It was pretty obvious she's already got an order, 9, 10 written that she's going to release this evening, ordering discovery. But she just controlled. Asked the plaintiffs, you have a motion pending. Do you want to speak first? The plaintiff's lawyer, who was not Sandoval Moshenburg, who is off this week, but Reena Gandhi from the same firm. And she actually only mentioned the request for discovery. She didn't even mention the request for a show cause order, which would commence contempt proceedings. And then the judge obviously thought, yes, that was the wavelength she was on. Do you want to take it from here?
- [05:51]
Roger Parloff
Yeah. I mean, look. She turned to Drew Ensign on this point. He attempted to make the argument that there's a pure matter, a pure question of law here. The government, in many of its filings and its response to the plaintiff's motion, has suggested that there is this debate over what facilitate actually means, because that's the term that the judge ultimately amended her order that the government has to facilitate the return or release from custody in El Salvador of Abrego Garcia. So Ensign raised this question of whether discovery is even needed because they think that there's this question of law. There are questions about whether or not the judge has authority to, you know, compel them to request from El Salvador, El Salvador, a foreign sovereign that they release this guy. The judge, of course, responded that, but I haven't even gotten there. I haven't compelled you to request anything. You know, we're just looking at what steps have you taken? And is that sufficient to show that you've complied with my order? Roger, am I missing anything there in terms of the general gist of Ensign's arguments?
- [07:16]
Anna Bauer
No, I think that's right. I wasn't quite clear when she said we weren't there yet. I think we'll have to look at the transcript. Whether she said, I haven't ordered them to release him, we aren't there yet. I don't know. Maybe you're right that it was. I haven't even ordered you to request that they released.
- [07:38]
Roger Parloff
So that's how I heard it. Again, we'll have to check the transcript. But I heard it as her saying, we're not there yet. The plaintiffs have construed this order in that way. But it's not that I have told you that you have to do this. And then at one point she even mentioned the fact that. And this has been because in the government's view, that all they have to really do is just say, oh, well, if he shows up at a port of entry, then we'll take him into U.S. custody. And today in a status update, they said, and if he does that, then we'll remove him to a third country, or we will withhold his final order of removal, or we'll remove his final order of removal that prohibited him from being removed to El Salvador and then re deport him to El Salvador. But I think that in the judge's view, that's not sufficient. And there's this debate about whether they have showed sufficient evidence of complying. That all goes to the facilitate question. At one point she said, I'm not saying you've got to have planes on the ground, but I am saying I know that the government has done this in the past. This is not a problem that's uncommon in terms of getting people back who have been mistakenly or wrongly removed. So there was kind of this back and forth between the judge and between Ensign about not only are there outstanding legal questions, but it seems like this looming question that at some point the government is going to try to force her hand of answering the question of what exactly does facilitate mean? And in my, again, Roger, correct me if you got a different, if you heard something different, but I think the judge was saying, you know, we're not at the point of me saying, you have to ask this, but I think the Supreme Court was pretty clear in saying, you know, there are some steps that you've got to take and you've. You've got to try to. And she read from the order several times that was issued by the Supreme Court. And so again, we're not quite at the stage yet where the judge is, as much as the government wants, ready to clarify what facilitate means and she wants discovery because she rightly thinks that the government has not complied with her request for information about what it is that they've done, what potential steps they will do, and what his custodial status is.
- [10:20]
Anna Bauer
She was clear. She's rejecting the idea that facilitate only means removing domestic obstacles. She's clear on that. And so she understands they're going to make that argument. She rejects it. She thinks it's absolutely clear. And she kept asking the questions I put to you were the questions the Supreme Court said you needed to try to answer, which were, what steps have you taken? And they haven't answered that.
- [10:50]
Benjamin Wittes
Right. And so their position is facilitate is constitutional only to the extent that it requires them to do nothing more than remove domestic barriers, although they complicate their case because they then say, and if he shows up at a domestic port of entry, we'll deport him again so that they. They've removed. They say they've removed domestic barriers, only then to reimpose. That seems to be their position. Her position means. Is no, it clearly means more than that. And there's a lot of room between merely removing domestic barriers and anything that would come in the way of what the Supreme Court says, come anywhere near what the Supreme Court says, the limits of the district court's authority. And so she kind of instructs the plaintiffs, okay, keep your discovery within that space. And I will referee balls and strikes. Is that a fair summary of where she came down? And I'm just working off of the two of your reporting, so.
- [12:05]
Anna Bauer
And just to add one thing to what you were saying about this domestic. Removing domestic obstacle, she also brought up that one of the things Bukele said yesterday was, I can't smuggle him into your country. And she said, well, it doesn't sound like you're removing domestic obstacles, does it? So, you know, tell me what you've done, and so on. But otherwise, I mean, what you said is right.
- [12:34]
Roger Parloff
Yeah, I think that's right. And we did also get some more information from her about, you know, we're still waiting for a written order, as Roger mentioned, it seems like this written order is probably more or less written. But she ultimately where she came down on in terms of all, you know, the government saying, we think that there's no need for discovery right. Now, not only because what we've submitted is sufficient in terms of these affidavits, but also because we think there are still outstanding questions of law. She said, no, no, no. I think we need to go for expedited discovery. She was very firm. It's going to happen over the next two weeks. We're going to follow the federal Rules of Civil procedure. There will be interrogatories, there will be depositions. There may be requests for production. And she gave a preview of the timeline that, again, we're waiting for confirmation of this in the written order, but it sounded like, from what I understand, she expects that at the very least, the people who will be deposed will be the people that the government has put forward in its daily the declarations they've put forward in their daily status reports. That includes people like ICE official Robert Serna. It includes the acting general counsel at.
- [13:57]
Benjamin Wittes
Dhs, Joseph Mazara, the State Department official.
- [14:02]
Roger Parloff
State Department official Evan Katz. Thank you, Ben. There may be one more that I'm forgetting, but. So at the very least, those individuals she wants deposed, she expects that those depositions would be completed by April 23. She made it clear that throughout all of this, the government will have every opportunity to do objections and responses and, you know, preserve anything that it may want in terms of any kind of objections or opposition that it has. But she is very firm that she wants it to keep going. She wants it to be speedy and efficient. She even said at one point, and correct me if I'm wrong, Roger, but I think she said at one point, even if the depositions need to take place at the courthouse and she can call balls and strikes, then she will, and she wants, by April 28th, I believe it was, that everything's going to be completed. The plaintiffs will file, file a supplemented filing or briefing on their motion, then there will be a reply, and then they'll go from there. So that's the timeline that she set out today.
- [15:13]
Benjamin Wittes
All right, so I want to ask you a question that's going to sound weird to you guys, but actually responds directly to things that were tweeted and blue skied in response to the specific news that she had ordered this two week expedited discovery. And people responded with sort of irritation and disappointment to that timeline. They want her to rule now. And my reaction was, you know, as somebody who follows a lot of civil litigation, my God, two weeks of. That's a lot. That's a really fast, compressed discovery timeline. My assumption is that the plaintiffs were thrilled with this outcome. I noticed that they didn't object. But do we have any sense of whether, you know, Abrego Garcia's lawyers here were irritated at the slow moving pace of civil litigation and the court system, or were they? This was all they could hope for. Reasonably. And they were excited by it.
- [16:24]
Anna Bauer
They seem to be happy with it. And like I said, the fact that they didn't even bring up contempt in their opening statement meant I think that they figured that we need to go step by step. And it is frustrating. And she said, you know, there will be no vacation days. You know, every day is a business day. Every day that passes is another day of irreparable harm. So she's tough, but she's understanding that she's under very minute scrutiny and she's going to take it step by step, get the facts and then lower the boom.
- [17:02]
Roger Parloff
I mean, also, look, she knows that eventually, like whatever it is that she orders, if she finds that they are not in compliance, it's going to go up to scotus. And we've seen in recent orders from SCOTUS a complete. The way the facts are presented are just for people who spend a lot of time in these hearings at the district court level. A lot of the facts, when it goes up to scotus, are then ultimately portrayed in a light that don't seem to be totally accurate. And I think that the idea here is that you move as fast as you can, and this is very fast for court speed, but you also move at a pace that's going to allow you to get the information that you need to build a record. Look, and I don't think that that's not to say that Judge Zenas or Sinis. Thank you, Roger, for this is the.
- [18:02]
Benjamin Wittes
Kind of breaking news you only get at lawfare.
- [18:06]
Roger Parloff
Right. This feels like the moment that we learn that Emile Bovee is Bovie and not Bove.
- [18:14]
Anna Bauer
We might have broken that, too.
- [18:15]
Roger Parloff
Yeah, I think we broke that too. But look, this isn't to say that Judge Sinis has an outcome in mind yet, but she certainly seems to be very concerned, and rightly so, that there is non compliance and that someone, multiple people are acting in bad faith. And I think that she wants to build a record and have an airtight order that she can write around that record if it is in the end the case that she finds there's noncompliance.
- [18:54]
Unknown Speaker 3
Right.
- [18:54]
Benjamin Wittes
So I think the core issue for everybody who's confused about the timeline here and why it feels slow, and both of you, I'd be curious if you disagree with any of this. But the core of the issue is the following. She knows that she issued an order to facilitate his release. She knows that she posed a certain set of questions about what's been done, about what steps are planned. She knows that he hasn't been released, and she knows that those questions haven't been answered, but she doesn't know whether they're for sure. I mean, you have an instinct that there have been no steps taken, but you actually don't know that for sure. And you also, and you, more than that, you can't prove it. All you can prove is that they've entered nothing in the record to show it. But there could be behind the scenes phone calls, there could be, you know, quiet diplomacy being on. I don't believe that. But it's, it's theoretically possible. And more important, you don't know if, assuming that nothing has happened, you don't know who's responsible for that. Is that President Trump sending down through Stephen Miller, don't bring this guy back, or is that people intuiting what they think he would want and maybe thinking you can ask, but wink? Right. And so who's responsible? You can kind of intuit that there's contemptuous behavior going on, but if you want to hold somebody in contempt, you need to identify who specifically violated what court order and under what circumstance. And this is an attempt, particularly if you're going to hold them in contempt and then order some coercive remedy. You have to figure out exactly who did what to whom. And what she's saying to the plaintiffs here is, don't go crazy, don't stomp on the President's constitutional authority to do foreign policy, but figure out the answer to this question and I'll back you and give you depositions. You got two weeks. Is that fair?
- [21:14]
Anna Bauer
Yeah. And in fact, she gave them four depositions, but said they can apply for two more. So maybe that would be a way, when there's more information, you could go up the line a little bit. She's going to give them 15 interrogatories, up to 15 interrogatories, up to 15 document production requests. So maybe with that, she can begin to get an idea of if there was. Let's keep an open mind. If there was defiance and contempt, who's responsible?
- [21:50]
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- [24:28]
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- [25:53]
Anna Bauer
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- [26:00]
Benjamin Wittes
Eyed and determined enters the husky.
- [26:03]
Anna Bauer
Observe as they go up the mountain.
- [26:05]
Roger Parloff
Guided by pure instinct. They are truly amazing masters of this wilderness.
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Anna Bauer
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- [27:30]
Benjamin Wittes
All right, so let's talk about the government's response. Most of the conversations seem to have been with DREW Ensign.
- [27:38]
Anna Bauer
Is that 8%, I'd say.
- [27:42]
Benjamin Wittes
And his position, as I took it, seemed to be, number one, don't order discovery. Number two, if you do order discovery, let us appeal it first, stay it so that we can have an appeal over whether any discovery is appropriate. She rejects both of those and says, I'm going to issue an order tonight on and number three, he seems to fight her on the premise that they haven't done anything. And his, at least as I read your guys, tweets, the evidence that they'd done anything was really limited to the text of the meeting in the Oval Office yesterday between President Trump and President Bukele. Is that correct?
- [28:40]
Anna Bauer
That's what he was saying.
- [28:43]
Roger Parloff
That. And then also the Mazaro declaration that they filed today, he also pointed to as well, specifically, I believe it was paragraph 9 or paragraph 11. Doesn't matter. The paragraph in which Mazara says something to the effect of, you know, and this was the. They keep dropping these little breadcrumbs of new information usually every day. It's something that's both new but also somehow non responsive to the judge's questions. But. So the one that they dropped today was effectively the same Mazara declaration that they submitted yesterday. But this one had a line that said if he shows up at a port of entry, then we'll either redeport him to a third country or, or to El Salvador again after his withholding of removal is removed. Which again, I mean, look, I'm not an immigration law expert other than paying attention to this case and some other cases we're following, but I don't.
- [29:47]
Benjamin Wittes
Which makes you more the one than most people, actually.
- [29:50]
Roger Parloff
But I, I don't think that it is. They're. They're basically using this same argument. That is a novel argument, as I understand it, that all of a sudden if you are someone who is alleged to be a part of MS.13, which they've classified as a terrorist organization, then that somehow means that you're not able to have a withholding of removal, which is not something that, as far as I'm aware, is consistent with current law.
- [30:25]
Anna Bauer
Well, I don't know if that's law. It could be the law today, but it's not retroactive. You can't, you know, there's a final order that he has withholding of removal. So if you want to go back to him and say. And argue to some judge. Well, Rubio two months ago said that this gang is a terrorist group. So now you need to lift that. It doesn't sound like they plan to go through any legal process. They just plan to just announce, no, it's gone and he's gone.
- [31:00]
Roger Parloff
And that's what, that's what I mean.
- [31:02]
Benjamin Wittes
But I'm hung up on an antecedent question.
- [31:05]
Roger Parloff
Yeah, all right.
- [31:06]
Benjamin Wittes
So the Supreme Court says he's got to be put in the same position that he was before he was arrested. Right. That you've got to whatever facilitate his release means this was wrong, and you've got to endeavor to put him in the same position. And the government comes into court today and they make two arguments. One is that the president in an Oval, in the Oval Office didn't ask for his return and in fact justified or, you know, sat there while the president of El Salvador said he wouldn't smuggle him in, didn't request his return. So he's not, you know, but secondly, that if he showed up, they'd deport him again. Which seems like two arguments that don't amount. Neither of them amount to. We're working to put him in the same position as he was. And I'm curious for either of your sense of why they think that's an argument that will appeal to her, to the 4th Circuit, or to nine justices who said, you got to restore the status quo or at least try to.
- [32:26]
Anna Bauer
I mean, if he's right on the law, if there is, you know, if you came back and you had process and you went before a judge, I don't know if it would be an immigration judge or a federal Article 3 judge, or first the immigration judge and then a federal district judge. But, you know, and you could convince him, okay, the real law is, now he's a terrorist, now he's not entitled to this. We'd like you to strip it of it. I mean, all of that would be consistent with the court's ruling. As I read it, it would be going through a process they could have gone through and didn't. But what they can't do is just, you know, bring him to the border and then, you know, say, poof, the withholding is gone. Send him back. That would not be following the request.
- [33:21]
Roger Parloff
That's how I would. So I also will say, Ben, too, it sounded to me like, I think that what the government has stressed is not so much the fact of Trump not asking for return, although I think the plaintiffs have pointed out that there's no evidence of an ask occurring. But they've pointed to instead in that transcript, the statement of Bukele, which is that, you know, how can I smuggle someone in? And then they pointed to Bondi's statements as well.
- [33:52]
Benjamin Wittes
Right. But, but, but that seems to me to be. I watched that thing live, as I think did you guys like this did not strike me as the US Attempting to facilitate his freedom and return.
- [34:10]
Roger Parloff
Right.
- [34:11]
Benjamin Wittes
It struck me as the president asking his aides, his attorney general, and his creepy rasputin figure to justify, sneeringly justify his declination, to ask for the guy's release, which he did not do. He and then to punt the matter to him, who Bukele then pretends he doesn't understand the question. Bukele, who speaks perfect English, by the way, suddenly thinks, suddenly can't understand he's being asked to smuggle this guy into the United States, a terrorist into the United States. And so if I were the district judge or for that matter Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito and I had ordered them to facilitate his release and return, I would see that Oval Office meeting as them doing the opposite of facilitating his release and return.
- [35:16]
Roger Parloff
Well, look, no, but this I. Okay, look, anyone with eyes and ears who watch that understands what is happening. But I think this goes to your earlier point because, right, you've got in that meeting, you've got on the one hand Trump and Pam Bondi saying that, oh, the US doesn't have the power to interfere with a domestic sovereign who has this guy in custody. We don't have the power to return him. And then you've got, you know, the president of El Salvador saying, but I don't have the power to return him. And so it's a hot potato, right, of like, oh, we don't have three car Monty power. And anyone who's watching this knows what is happening. And the issue though is that what you said earlier, Ben, that like, you know, I think actually if you're Samuel Alito or if you're Clarence Thomas, you're watching that thinking, oh, that's, you know, well, that's your answer. They couldn't facilitate the return because there are ways in a written order, you can cast a certain light on those interactions and of these facts to at least have some kind of plausible if like you know, just blatantly wrong perception or way of construing everything that's happened. And so I think that goes back to your earlier point of that's why it's important to establish a more clear record of what has been done because they have not said, other than that Oval Office meeting, what have they done. And so I think that's what Judge Sinis is trying to do here.
- [37:01]
Anna Bauer
And I think they want to get the contract and if they refuse to produce the contract, I mean, there's already a lot on the record about the contract. You know, Bukele has mentioned that it's, they're there for a year, renewable. You know, the AP says they've seen the contract, the 6 million for a year they continue to send people down their Christi Nome visits. And if they say no, it's a state secret. You know, at some point you don't have to forever litigate that. You can say, oh, I see, they're acting in bad faith. This is idiocy. And they're also going to probably invoke privileges. And that's why she said she's giving them the four people who have already submitted affidavits, because she's going to say, how can it be privileged when you already produced them? They already gave a partial statement. And so she's building a record of this. The real problem, of course, I say she's going to eventually lower the boom. We don't know if there is a boom when the contemners are high executive officials doing what the president wants and you have a Congress that won't do anything. Maybe there is no remedy here. That's the scary thing.
- [38:24]
Roger Parloff
And by the way, I will say one other thing too. All of these people who have provided statements, not Robert Serna maybe, but the other ones to some extent, they're all not really saying they have personal knowledge. They're all kind of saying it was relayed to me or as I understand it. So I think we're going to get this chain where, you know, they might come in for depositions, there might be claims of privilege for at least some of them. The acting general counsel for, for example, Ensign referred to maybe raising some privilege claims there. But even if you get through all that, it is probably going to take us into a second stage, potentially of discovery in which you've then got to go after the people who actually have personal knowledge because they've put forward people who seem to not really know anything.
- [39:20]
Benjamin Wittes
All right, so three questions to wrap up. The first is at what point does this process of investigation, discovery itself become a sufficient pain in the ass that the administration decides, hey, better just to have this guy sent back? Or do they love the pain because it puts them in confrontation with their favorite thing in the world, which is an Obama apartment appointed district court judge who they can threaten and you know, have people introduce impeachment resolutions against. Is this the kind of thing that the process is itself the punishment, or is this the kind of thing that, that they love the process?
- [40:12]
Anna Bauer
This gets a little beyond our bailiwick and into politics. And my sense is that they're very, very happy with the politics of this and that's why they're putting it on tv and they're so I don't think it's painful to them. And I do think they will this 14 day, you know, timeline, I think they'll do everything to derail that. And, you know, Trump's lawyers are very good at stalling. That's why he's president. And so it's going to be very hard to keep this on a 14 day track.
- [40:51]
Roger Parloff
I'm going to be a little bit more blunt than Roger and say they absolutely love this. Stephen Miller is loving it. He's going on TV every day completely misrepresenting Supreme Court opinions that are quite clear and seems to be having the time of his life doing it. And so I don't think that this is seen as a problem. I think that it is seen as part of an effort to, I mean, look, and this is speculation, but I think that it may be seen as an effort to suggest that district court judges and district court orders need not be followed.
- [41:27]
Benjamin Wittes
All right, next question is the government. Do you think I took it that they're going to take an emergency appeal from whatever order she put? She's going to put out an order tonight that says facilitate means more than remove domestic barriers. And by the way, you can throw him out as soon as he shows up again. And I think they're going to try to take an emergency appeal of that. Do you guys agree? And do you think that if they do that that appeal has any legs or will they not be able to get a stay on this?
- [42:08]
Anna Bauer
I thought, I mean, initially he certainly was going in that direction. He said he wanted her to stay at Wild Aocheal. Then he said some things that sounded like, you know, she was saying, do you have a problem with this? And she said, well, we'll work expeditiously. I assume, like you, that they will try to take an appeal. Now, ordinarily, if this were anybody else, I don't think, you know, there's, you can't appeal a discovery order. But he has appealed temporary restraining orders galore with success both. I mean, at least having his issues heard on the merits at the court of appeals level and then even at the Supreme Court level. So it seems like if he cast this as an Article 2 emergency, they're intruding on our Article 2 rights. It may go up. What do you think?
- [43:04]
Roger Parloff
Yeah, I mean, Roger mentioned typically you can't appeal discovery order. But I think, and I'm interested to see how this written order is crafted because the judge did say that she would respond to some of the arguments that Ensign has made. And I think that insofar as the government can construe that as some kind of order on a more substantive question than just a discovery order, then that's what they'll do and try to, you know, appeal. They've been successful in getting things that would not normally be appealable appealed. So we'll see.
- [43:40]
Benjamin Wittes
Yeah, I think they are going to appeal this, but I think it's going to backfire on them, and here's why. Because as long as they just have this bare bones Supreme Court opinion, they can interpret it in this extravagant way and wax indignant from the Oval Office about how the Supreme Court sided with them nine to nothing. And this district judge is, you know, boldly interfering with U.S. foreign policy. The moment you ask the Supreme Court whether that's what they meant, which is what this argument over the word facilitate says, they're going to say at some level, no, that's not what we meant. We meant that there's some reasonable inquiry into what you're doing that she's allowed to do. She's not allowed to, you know, take over the State Department. And so they're going to lose their whole rhetorical style, their whole rhetorical energy comes from this lie that has its origins in the thinness and threadbare quality of the Supreme Court opinion. And by appealing this, they're going to actually deprive themselves of that, at least at the fourth Circuit level. That's my guess. All right, last question. You know, this case has been relentlessly in the news for the last, you know, several weeks. One thing about a discovery period is it tends to be pretty invisible. And if things go as she intends, you're going to have two weeks where this case is just going to vanish because you're going to have closed depositions. There'll be some kind of a protective order probably entered, as you usually do for discovery. So how long do you expect? You know, Roger said you said before that you didn't think this would really be containable to two weeks. Anna said you're going to have to follow the chain and you may need more than four or six depositions. So how long are we going to spend on this discovery question, which will be mostly invisible to the public?
- [45:59]
Anna Bauer
Well, like Anna said, the goal is to have it completed and have this motion, which she delicately, euphemistically calls the motion. Everyone knows it's a contempt motion coming up the 28th, and then they would respond the 30th, and then she would set a hearing. But one thing that we don't know, and maybe we'll find it out tonight when the order comes out, if it hasn't already, is whether the daily useless status reports continue. The administration seems to use them as almost a campaign sort of statement rather than a legal statement. I don't know if those continue, but no, I think you're right. There will be sort of a blackout on the useful stuff for a little while.
- [46:50]
Roger Parloff
One thing I will say, though, is that not in a court of law and in the context of this case, I mean, there are some things going on, on with Senator Chris Van Holland, I believe, has been suggesting that he might go to El Salvador. He's been trying to get a meeting with Bukele. There's some things that may happen because all the while Abrego Garcia is going to be stuck in the gulag in El Salvador while this discovery proceeding is playing out, which is why I think people are very understandably confused and upset about the length of this discovery period, even if it is very quick for the pace of the courts. But there may very well be things, Ben, that we learn through public reporting. It may be possible that the ap, who has obtained these memos and some of these contracts, could publish them. I don't know if that's possible based on whatever deal or arrangement they have with their sources, that kind of thing. There are things that might prevent them from doing so, but there could be public reporting information that we learn in the interim period. That is something to watch for.
- [48:09]
Benjamin Wittes
We are going to leave it there. Greenbelt Bureau Roger Parloff and Anna Bauer thanks for joining us today, folks. I would be remiss if I did not point out to you that right now a generous donor has pledged $15,000 as a match against any contributions made to support the work that Anna and Roger are doing. So if you find this stuff valuable, and I know you do, go to Lawfare's GiveButter support page and let me give you that URL. It is givebutter.com Lawfare Institute. You know, make a contribution. It'll be worth twice what you pledge. That is givebutter.com lawfare institute. So thank you so much and we will see you next time.
- [49:21]
Unknown Speaker 3
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- [49:50]
Benjamin Wittes
And look out for our other podcast.
- [49:52]
Unknown Speaker 3
Offerings, including Rational Security Allies and escalation. Our latest Lawfare Presents podcast series on the war in Ukraine. Check out our written work@lawfaremedia.org the podcast is edited by Jen Patya. Our theme song is from Alibi Music. As always, thank you for listening.
- [50:24]
Unknown Speaker 1
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