I wanted to alert you of something we’re on today. Among other things, it’s the kind of off-the-beaten-path reporting your membership dollars pay for. We sent David Kurtz to Nashville today for a hearing in the Abrego Garcia case. Since we’re a number of ICE murders and false imprisonments down the line at this point, remember that the Justice Department conceded that Abrego Garcia had been erroneously included among those sent last spring to the bespoke dungeon facility in El Salvador. He was brought back to the U.S. only after he was hit with a new indictment. His lawyers have argued to the judge in the case that the charges should be dismissed because this is a case of vindictive prosecution. Normally this is an extremely high bar for the defense to clear. But in this case, the judge replied by saying that he’s inclined to think that the defense is right. Today’s hearing was scheduled to give the government the opportunity to prove that the defense and (mostly) the judge are wrong.
What makes us interested in this case is not simply Abrego Garcia’s fate. As we know, Trump is quite big on vindictive prosecutions at the moment. But the Comey and James indictments have been dismissed on what are essentially technical reasons. So this is the first chance in Trump II where we’re going to see this issue litigated. It’s a really important hearing. After the hearing David Kurtz and John Light are going to do a live discussion you can tune into to find out what we learned. Check back here soon for details on how you can join. (A text story will follow, of course, too.)
