Trump Caught in Massive Fraud in Court as Abrego Set Free

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2:00Seriously, why aren't Democrats in Washington doing more to stop Trump? I know. Have you heard about Phil Weiser in Colorado though? No, is he different? Yeah, A.G. Weiser sued the Trump administration 65 times. He's beating Trump in court again and again. Things like protecting Obamacare against Trump's illegal tariffs. And he even won against Ticketmaster. So he actually gets results. Exactly. As Governor, Phil will fight for Colorado. Paid for by Phil Weiser for Colorado Registered Agent, and in Noscazy.

2:30Michael Popok:Six different government witnesses failed to tell the truth to Judge Zinnis about Kilmer Abrego Garcia, and the government lied about four different countries they claimed were willing to take Abrego Garcia in their attempts to not only detain him, but remove him to third countries in violation of his due process rights and orders of the court. And in breaking news, federal judge Paul Azinis has granted Abrego Garcia's motion for writ of or petition for writ of habeas corpus to have him removed from ICE detention immediately. And she means immediately based on the Kafkaesque torture scenario that he has been subjected to because of the Department of Justice.

3:17Michael Popok:And she's not pleased that six different government witnesses didn't tell the truth to her. And she says she's going to take it up at a later time. But for right now, she's unlocking the door and letting Kilmer Abrego Garcia out of his nightmare, at least for now. This is a person who was illegally removed to El Salvador and tortured upon arrival, along with 200 other people from Venezuela. But he had an order of non-removal to El Salvador. In fact, there is no order of removal to remove Abrego Garcia from the United States. And that alone is the main reason the judge ruled, if you don't have a removal order from an immigration judge, then your detention to facilitate a removal is in and of itself a due process violation.

4:05Michael Popok:And once the government admitted in her courtroom that there was no removal order, game over. But that doesn't stop the government from sending in a series of lawyers and a series of witnesses who were not prepared on purpose to answer the judge's questions. And when they didn't like that Obrego Garcia said he would go to Costa Rica, he says he will go to Costa Rica today, right now. That's where a lot of people want to go offshore who speak Spanish, who want to remain close to the United States and their family. And to punish him for not pleading guilty to a crime that he says he did not commit, they said, fine, we're going to send you to a series of African countries 3 ,000 miles away.

4:48Michael Popok:And every time they, the judge noted, every time they announced the African country and they kept changing it, Ghana, Uganda, all different ones, every time they announced one, the countries saw it in the paper and said, we didn't agree. We're not accepting a Brego Garcia. And then she noted that the Department of Justice and Homeland Security lied to her and said that Costa Rica no longer was an option, that they no longer wanted Abrego Garcia. Well, when the justice minister in Costa Rica read that, he jumped up and said, we're willing to take him. We are willing to take him. A fact noted by the judge.

5:26Let me read to you from her order, and then I'll get to the memorandum of law.

5:32Michael Popok:Both are posted in Legal AF Substack for paid members. Petitioner Kilmer Armando Abrego Garcia's petition for habeas corpus is granted. He shall be released from ICE custody immediately. Respondents, the Trump administration, shall notify Abrego Garcia's counsel of the exact time and location of where he will be released with enough notice so they can get there and update the court in a filing. And the respondents, the Trump administration, Department of Justice, shall transmit this order and my memorandum of opinion to all relevant officers and agents and employees under their control and in the pending criminal case in Tennessee, including Judge Crenshaw.

6:19Michael Popok:And then come back to me with a briefing schedule because we got more work to do in this case now that I've let him out. The findings that she made, she said, going through all of the Kafkaesque procedural torture that he was subjected to. Donald Trump and Pam Bondi and the border czar and Kristi Noem, all cosplaying, tough guys. He'll never be in America. We'll never bring him back. We'll never see him again, including having the president of El Salvador, the dictator, fascist dictator of El Salvador, come and taunt the family and the Americans about the abuse of due process. And that's why we have judges like this one.

7:08Michael Popok:And then, you know, well, he's going to Eswatini, 3 ,000 miles away. And then Eswatini hears about it and says, we don't want him. And then they say he's going to Liberia. Liberia says, we don't want him. Uganda, we don't want him. And we can't send him to Costa Rica, Judge. She said, why not? They said, oh, Costa Rica doesn't want him. And then Costa Rica leapt up and said, we want him. Lies upon lies upon lies, all cataloged by the judge in her order. this is where they continue to screw up. The court held evidentiary hearings. The first witness she chastises is John Schultz, the deputy assistant director of ice enforcement and removal operations.

8:03Michael Popok:on page nine of the order. He says, contrary to the court's order, Schultz was not prepared at all to discuss Costa Rica's offer to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee. He candidly admitted that he had not even seen Costa Rica's own correspondence on the issue. He said he'd been told nothing about why the respondents had not yet processed to Abrego Garcia and his removal to Costa Rica. Counsel for Abrego Garcia in turn emphasized his client's continued willingness to go to Costa Rica. It's called the holiday credit dip, and it hits millions of people every year, and most don't see it coming. The holidays roll in.

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9:33Michael Popok:That's smartcredit.com slash legal AF smartcredit.com. Individual results may vary and are not guaranteed. This is where they lost the case. Page 11. Indeed, an oral argument. Respondents, counsel, Trump administration acknowledged that the only legitimate ground to hold Abrego Garcia was to effectuate a removal. a removal with an order, and yet there was no order of removal to anywhere.

10:04Here's where the judge really gets upset, talking about yet another witness.

10:10Michael Popok:If you think that guy was bad, how do you like Jonathan Cantu, who is the acting assistant director of the removal division? Here's what he says there. She first says, suddenly, with Cantu's testimony, the government wants to seal the proceedings to keep the prying eyes of the public out, which, of course, she denied. At the hearing on November 20 that she held, she says on page 13, it became evident that once again, respondents, the Trump administration, defied this court's orders. We have another name for that. It's called contempt of court. They simply refused to prepare and produce a witness with knowledge to testify in any meaningful way.

10:57Michael Popok:Cantu candidly admitted he had no prior involvement in Abrego Garcia's case and spent five minutes preparing to testify. Cantu also shared that none of the respondents' attorneys had discussed this court's order with him, so they didn't even prepare him by letting them know what this court had ruled or showed him its contents. Nor did he understand the purpose of his testimony. I've been doing this a long time. It's a bad start for a witness in front of a judge. The judge notes in paragraph, in footnote 12 on page 13, that Cantu is the sixth witness whom the court directed the respondents to prepare for either deposition or in-court testimony concerning this case.

11:37Michael Popok:Each witness, Judge Zinnis observed, ruled, found, was either unprepared or defiant and their refusal to answer questions. The court will consider the entire course of conduct when it reaches the motions pending in Abrego 1. That is a nice way of saying she is going to be starting contempt proceedings against the Trump administration following in the footsteps of Judge Boesberg in District of Columbia, who's already started criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration. She's going to do it too. Here was the back and forth between Abrego Garcia's lawyers and Mr. Cantu. You'll see why the judge is upset.

12:16Michael Popok:They're just going through his sworn declaration prepared, and he swore under penalty of perjury was true and correct. Just asking simple follow-up questions based on words and phrases used in his own affidavit. Counsel. So let's go to paragraph four of his affidavit. Final sentence. Do you see where it says the words certain understandings? I found it. Yes, I do. I see it. What are the certain understandings referenced in that sentence? I don't know. What are the contingencies referenced in the last sentence? I don't know. What are the, quote, interim developments referenced in paragraph five of your declaration that you signed?

13:04Michael Popok:I don't know. and after a long sidebar the judge didn't like the fact that the department of justice lawyer told told the judge see we told you he wouldn't know anything basically conceding that they put on a dummy witness in defiance of the court's order she says in her in her page 14 of her order that jonathan goyne who was questioning canto was said but for the trump said at sidebar i i'll just say, I told you this was exactly what was going to happen regarding the witnesses' ignorance on Costa Rica as a viable country of removal. And so on. So what's going to happen? Trump administration is going to have to take an emergency appeal.

13:49Michael Popok:I'll cover it. If that happens, I'll do that on Legal AF Substack Live up to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, let me give you a little bit of a cheat sheet here for Judge Zinnis. She's very smart. And she's already been affirmed twice by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals concerning her actions in this particular case. Twice. One scared the crap out of the Trump administration in the way that it was written. She was also affirmed 9-0 by the United States Supreme Court in ordering that, confirming her order that the Trump administration had to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from the Seacott prison in El Salvador.

14:32Michael Popok:And yet they still waited three more months and only did that after they indicted him in Tennessee, as if the judge wouldn't notice all of that. So do you want to take on Judge Zinnis? You want to see if she's wrong? She's already 3-0 in appellate courts, including up to the United States Supreme Court in this case. We'll follow it all. You're here on the Midas Dutch Network. I'm Michael Popok. There's ways to watch my work if you enjoy it. I do about 30 to 40 videos a week. I do a big batch here on the Midas Touch Network. I do Legal AF, the podcast, on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time here on this YouTube channel.

15:13Michael Popok:I do a podcast called The Intersection on Tuesday nights, 8 p.m. Eastern time on the Midas Touch Network. And then I'm the founder and curator of Legal AF, the YouTube channel. come over to Legal AF YouTube channel, hit the free subscribe button there as well. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF.

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16:08Seriously, why aren't Democrats in Washington doing more to stop Trump? I know. Have you heard about Phil Weiser in Colorado, though? No. Is he different? Yeah. A.G. Weiser sued the Trump administration 65 times. He's beating Trump in court again and again. Things like protecting Obamacare against Trump's illegal tariffs. And he even won against Ticketmaster. So he actually gets results. Exactly. As Governor, Phil will fight for Colorado. Paid for by Phil Weiser for Colorado Registered Agent and in Noskezi. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets?

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