IM2
Diamond Member
- Mar 11, 2015
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Kilmar Garcia went from a mistake to an MS-13 child trafficker. And some people are stupid enough to believe it. Garcia was given protected status in 2019. Biden was not the President when that happened.
Emails provided to Congress by a whistleblower and 15-year veteran of the Justice Department reveal that administration officials went to striking lengths to prop up the claim that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a “leader” of the MS-13 gang—even as President Trump was coming under intense pressure to return him from El Salvador after wrongfully deporting him.
The emails—which The New Republic obtained in advance of their scheduled release Thursday—deepen our understanding of the adminisration’s extraordinary mishandling of Abrego Garcia’s case. They show in fresh detail how officials sought to create the impression that Abrego Garcia was a dangerous criminal before having any evidence to back up the claim, which has since proven to be unsupported.
The emails were provided to Congress by Erez Reuveni, a 15-year veteran of the Justice Department who was fired this spring after expressing doubts in court about the rendition of Abrego Garcia to CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious megaprison. Abrego Garcia—who had been living in Maryland under a form of protected status granted by an immigration judge in 2019—was deported on March 15 due to an admitted “error.”
For instance, one key exchange occurred on March 31, when the government was submitting a brief in litigation over Abrego Garcia’s fate. Up to this point, the emails show, ICE had declared Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, and officials were scrambling to pin down the basis for that determination.
In the March 31 exchange, James Percival, senior counselor to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, was debating with other top officials—at DHS, DOJ, and State—what could be said to the court about Abrego Garcia. One of those officials was Reuveni.
“Can we say the following?” Percival asked, then listed several things he’d like the administration to say about Abrego Garcia, one being: “This guy is a leader of MS-13.”
“If we can get a declaration to that effect, yes,” Reuveni answered. This meant the assertion could not be made without a facts-and-evidence-based declaration from ICE on Abrego Garcia’s status.
In other words, top DHS officials apparently were pushing to characterize Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 “leader” before any evidence of this had appeared. And Reuveni expressly warned against doing this absent such evidence.
Subsequently in that chain, an ICE official (whose name is redacted) answered Percival’s question about whether it’s OK to call Abrego Garcia an MS-13 “leader.”
“I have not found anything indicating ‘leader,’ but I’ll keep looking,” the ICE official wrote, meaning that the hunt for such evidence would continue.
It never materialized.
newrepublic.com
Whistleblower Emails Expose Fresh Trump Abuses in Abrego Garcia Case
Newly released communications show the lengths the Trump administration went to in order to label Kilmar Abrego Garcia an MS-13 leader.
Emails provided to Congress by a whistleblower and 15-year veteran of the Justice Department reveal that administration officials went to striking lengths to prop up the claim that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a “leader” of the MS-13 gang—even as President Trump was coming under intense pressure to return him from El Salvador after wrongfully deporting him.
The emails—which The New Republic obtained in advance of their scheduled release Thursday—deepen our understanding of the adminisration’s extraordinary mishandling of Abrego Garcia’s case. They show in fresh detail how officials sought to create the impression that Abrego Garcia was a dangerous criminal before having any evidence to back up the claim, which has since proven to be unsupported.
The emails were provided to Congress by Erez Reuveni, a 15-year veteran of the Justice Department who was fired this spring after expressing doubts in court about the rendition of Abrego Garcia to CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious megaprison. Abrego Garcia—who had been living in Maryland under a form of protected status granted by an immigration judge in 2019—was deported on March 15 due to an admitted “error.”
For instance, one key exchange occurred on March 31, when the government was submitting a brief in litigation over Abrego Garcia’s fate. Up to this point, the emails show, ICE had declared Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, and officials were scrambling to pin down the basis for that determination.
In the March 31 exchange, James Percival, senior counselor to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, was debating with other top officials—at DHS, DOJ, and State—what could be said to the court about Abrego Garcia. One of those officials was Reuveni.
“Can we say the following?” Percival asked, then listed several things he’d like the administration to say about Abrego Garcia, one being: “This guy is a leader of MS-13.”
“If we can get a declaration to that effect, yes,” Reuveni answered. This meant the assertion could not be made without a facts-and-evidence-based declaration from ICE on Abrego Garcia’s status.
In other words, top DHS officials apparently were pushing to characterize Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 “leader” before any evidence of this had appeared. And Reuveni expressly warned against doing this absent such evidence.
Subsequently in that chain, an ICE official (whose name is redacted) answered Percival’s question about whether it’s OK to call Abrego Garcia an MS-13 “leader.”
“I have not found anything indicating ‘leader,’ but I’ll keep looking,” the ICE official wrote, meaning that the hunt for such evidence would continue.
It never materialized.
Whistleblower Emails Expose Fresh Trump Abuses in Abrego Garcia Case
Newly released communications show the lengths the Trump administration went to in order to label Kilmar Abrego Garcia an MS-13 leader.
newrepublic.com
