Kilmar Abrego Garcia plays offense: Lawyers demand quick contempt for feds
In a motion released shortly before their client's detention hearing in Nashville, Garcia's lawyers sought civil contempt for feds: It's faster than criminal, they note.
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From Boston to Washington, D.C., federal judges have flirted with the possibility of holding Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for flouting court orders, but Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are trying a different approach.
In a court filing released on Thursday, Garcia’s civil attorneys filed a sanctions motion that could force officials to pay thousands of dollars a day in penalties until they comply with orders to disclose their efforts to send their client back to the United States — before Garcia’s indictment was unsealed.
“Must be exposed for all to see”
A federal judge could impose this penalty without the hurdles of criminal contempt proceedings.
“Civil contempt, unlike criminal contempt, does not trigger ‘the procedural protections of notice and a hearing,’” Garcia’s lawyers wrote in a footnote of a 33-page motion.
A redacted version of the document became public on the eve of Garcia’s upcoming detention hearing in Nashville, Tenn. at 10 a.m. Central Time on Friday.
It shows how, with their client now facing serious criminal accusations, Garcia’s legal team hasn’t backed down — and is even playing offense.
“For nine weeks, the government defied this Court’s order, affirmed by a unanimous Supreme Court, to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States following his illegal removal to El Salvador,” the motion begins. “For nearly eight of those weeks, the Government likewise flouted this Court’s order to produce expedited discovery concerning what, if anything, it was doing to comply.”
Trump’s Justice Department argues that Garcia’s habeas corpus case is now moot now that he has been returned to the United States, but his attorneys say that the need for the information is far from moot.
“The lengths the government has gone to resist discovery relating to these core questions raises a strong inference that the government is trying to hide its conduct from the scrutiny of this court, the plaintiffs, and the public,” the motion says. “What the government improperly seeks to hide must be exposed for all to see.”
“What he has been denied for several months”
Prosecutors have accused Garcia of participating in a yearslong conspiracy to smuggle thousands of undocumented immigrants across the country as a member of MS-13, allegations and an affiliation that he denies.
His federal public defenders wrote that they seek an opportunity to clear their client’s name.
“With no legal process whatsoever, the United States government illegally detained and deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia and shipped him to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador, one of the most violent, inhumane prisons in the world. The government now asks this Court to detain him further,” they wrote in a motion seeking his release pending trial. “As the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has held, the government’s treatment of Mr. Abrego Garcia ‘should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.’”
They added later: “Mr. Abrego Garcia asks the court for what he has been denied the past several months – due process.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ordered the government to disclose any witnesses and evidence that may be deployed against Garcia before the hearing. The identities of those potential witnesses were not made public before press time.
Look out for All Rise News’ special coverage of Abrego Garcia’s detention hearing, including a Q&A for paid subscribers, a courtroom dispatch, and interviews following the proceedings.
Here’s why one subscriber supports our work.
Its so doubtful that they have anything on this guy. He was in a sweep that relied on tattoos and not much else. If they have the evidence, then show us. Meanwhile, I thought that the rest of the group had been classified as a class and all were to be returned for Habeas. Are they mentioning the rest of them at all?
I’m excited to hear you’ll be covering this live! Thank you, Adam. I count on you and All Rise News to keep me truthfully informed. So important during this time of fast news.