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“For weeks, Defendants have sought refuge behind vague and
unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield
to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this Court’s
orders,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis wrote an the order
Tuesday. “Defendants have known, at least since last week, that
this Court requires specific legal and factual showings to
support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely
on boilerplate assertions. That ends now.”
She gave the administration until 6 p.m. Wednesday to provide
those details.
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration nearly
two weeks ago to facilitate Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return to the
U.S. from a notorious Salvadoran prison, rejecting the White
House’s claim that it couldn’t retrieve him after mistakenly
deporting him.
Trump administration officials have pushed back, arguing that it
is up to El Salvador — though the president of El Salvador has
also said he lacks the power to return Abrego Garcia. The
administration has also argued that information about any steps
it has taken or could take to return Abrego Garcia is protected
by attorney-client privilege laws, state secret laws, general
“government privilege” or other secrecy rules.
But Xinis said those claims, without any facts to back them up,
reflected a “willful and bad faith refusal to comply with
discovery obligations.”
It's not the first time the Trump administration has faced a
scathing order from a federal judge over its approach to
deportation cases.
A three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
scolded the administration last week, saying its claim that it
can't do anything to free Abrego Garcia “should be shocking.”
That ruling came one day after a federal judge in Washington,
D.C., found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in
criminal contempt of court for violating his orders to turn
around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador in a different
legal case.
Democrats and legal scholars say President Donald Trump is
provoking a constitutional crisis in part by ignoring court
rulings, while the White House has said it's the judges who are
the problem.
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