A lawyer for Donald Trump’s Justice Department recently argued in court that sometimes the president just says stuff — and it doesn’t matter if what Trump says is or isn’t accurate, because his comments aren’t necessarily reflective of the government’s position on a given matter.
During an April 30 court hearing related to the government’s unlawful imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, Judge Paula Xinis asked attorneys representing the Trump administration why they were saying they had no ability to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. when Trump had publicly acknowledged he “could” compel the man’s return if he wanted to. Elsewhere, she noted, Trump said he was leaving the matter up to his lawyers.
Jonathan Guynn, a Justice Department attorney, responded: “President Trump is a master messenger in many ways, but he also doesn’t speak with precision about things sometimes. And I think that this might be one of those situations where perhaps his comments were based on what he was recalling may have been the state of play previously.”
Xinis was not convinced. “Isn’t it basic, isn’t it black letter law that the Executive Branch must speak with one voice?” she asked.
“Right now, the administration is not speaking with one voice, and I’m not here to credit one versus the other,” she added. “If I can’t get that one voice — and you don’t give me details […] I don’t know what to do with that.
Later on, Guynn said, “I can’t even necessarily comment on some of the statements that President Trump has made.”
Rolling Stone obtained a copy of the court reporter’s transcript of the hearing, which was heavily redacted. It was only made available over a month after the hearing took place — and after the Trump administration did, in fact, manage to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States, as the Supreme Court had unanimously ordered officials to do.
Top Trump officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, had previously claimed this was impossible, because Abrego Garcia was under the sole custody of the Salvadoran government — which the Trump administration is paying to imprison migrants.
In order to save face, the government has now charged Abrego Garcia with human smuggling in Tennessee. The case, according to legal commentator Mark Joseph Stern, is “highly suspect.”
Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers demanded that the Judge Xinis sanction the Trump administration over their “vocal and sustained and flagrant” defiance of “judicial orders,” noting that it’s been “accompanied by misrepresentations, stonewalling, and even questioning of this court’s authority.”
“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. What the government improperly seeks to hide must be exposed for all to see,” they added.
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