Donny ‘WhinyWhonnie’ Trump didn’t have a Merry Christmas. Lumps of coal, not “clean” “beautiful” but the regular kind with that gritty surface coating that’s so hard to clean off coal kept hitting him from every direction. The lack of “Merry” was exposed by that epic Christmas Day outburst of over 150 tweets/posts. As for a Happy New Year it’s not looking good. The same problems like Epstein files, his failure to get Americans to magically believe the economy and their lives are bigly awesomely great in the face of all evidence to the contrary will still be there in 2026. Now, what is arguably his signature Deportation case, the persecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is on the verge of dismissal. Game over.
As you can see in this article from Law and Crime the federal government had set things up for a January trial. Trump keeps going after Garcia and keeps losing. We’ve seen a pattern the past couple of months with other people Trump’s gone after handing him, Pam Bondi and whatever DOJ attorney has to go to court (including “Judge” Janine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney in DC) their asses once in court where a JUDGE runs things and not Trump. However this all started with Garcia.
Trump said he was going to deport massive numbers of ‘illegal immigrants’, that we’d been invaded by some horde and by golly they’d all be gone, starting with the “worst of the worst.” Kilmar Abrego Garcia was selected to be the poster child, but there was a problem. By all accounts he was living a quiet, working class life in a Maryland suburb of DC. Going to work and earning enough to have a home and support a family. It was a single, anonymous source, a Confidential Informant who a govt. agent said told him that Garcia was actually a major player with the notorious MS-13. In freaking New York City!
Despite all the hoopla the govt. never seemed to provide actual evidence of him ever even being hundreds of miles away in New York. Much less on a regular enough basis to be a key figure in MS-13s (which is spread across the country) operations there. The government knew it from the start which is why they whisked him out of the country and BACK to the one country a years old (but stayed) deportation order said he could NOT be deported to – El Salvador. The judge went ballistic and ordered the flight turned around and DHS ignored it.
Right then and there I knew the whole case was bogus. However by that point Team Trump was committed (actually they are so batshit insane they should be committed!) had as I said made him the poster child for them moving heaven and earth to rid our country of the “Worst of the worst.” Garcia got decent legal help and despite vows had to convince El Salvador to send Garcia back. Then they promptly arrested him again. They manufactured a case which I’m sure will turn out to be bogus This one had Garcia not working in the DC suburbs but spending copious amounts of time in Tennessee and personally on the road smuggling people – masterminding and taking active part in human trafficking.
When I read about it I again thought back to how there were neighbors and even employers who could testify if called into court that Garcia was around all the time in his neighborhood, going to work etc. That was always going to be a problem so the govt. decided to try and deport him again. Their logic I’m sure was that with him deported the charges could just sit there – with Team Trump using Garcia as a punching bag but not actually having to PROVE he was guilty of any crimes.
If memory serves there were seven countries in far flung places, many across the Atlantic. Oh and they said Costa Rica, a country where Garcia actually spoke the freaking language was supposedly on the list. (Trump’s problem with that solution is Costa Rica is a pretty nice country that a lot of Americans retire to) The “problem” was that when they asked Costa Rica said no. So Costa Rica called bullshit and did so publicly!
Now, I went into all that because it gets to the heart of why I’m writing. Garcia’s January trial has been cancelled because Garcia’s lawyer has successfully made the case it’s a VINDICTIVE prosecution. That’s the official court ruling and it changes the normal dynamic when it comes to burden of proof. In a criminal trial the burden of proof is to convince every member of the jury of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, in this case the defense convinced a judge this was a vindictive prosecution. The burden has shifted considerably to the government to prove that it’s not!
They still have one, last-ditch effort to keep their prosecution/persecution going. As I said, the trial which was supposed to take place next month has been cancelled. Instead there will be an Evidentiary Hearing. The defense has already successfully made the case this is a vindictive prosecution and therefore the case should be dismissed. Now, the judge is giving the prosecution one last chance to prove the defense wrong, and on two fronts. They have to convince the judge the defense evidence isn’t what the defense claimed and the judge already accepted. They also have to convince the judge that THEY have actual admissible evidence:
Now, the outcome of the case is contingent on whether the government can rebut the presumption in the defense’s favor by producing “objective, on-the-record explanations” for the human smuggling charges, according to the court.
The judge notes the upshot, at length:
Whether the government can produce such evidence is critical, for “[i]f the government fails to present evidence sufficient to rebut the presumption, the presumption stands and the court must find that the prosecutor acted vindictively,” leading to “dismissal of the charges or other appropriate remedies.” However, “[i]f the government produces evidence to rebut the presumption, the defendant must prove that the offered justification is pretextual and that actual vindictiveness has occurred.”
Given how obsessively he tracks the news, and no doubt looking forward to a ‘bigly win’ against Garcia (keep in mind there are human trafficking charges here and the whole Epstein case – Trump is desperate to point the finger elsewhere) now has to face another humiliating defeat. I hope Bondi, who’s going to have to either lie to Trump about their chances being better than they are make her feel like she’s about to be thrown into the wood chipper. That’s where she’s headed at some point. Dismissal of this case might be the last straw for Trump.
I read last week Garcia’s lawyer said justice would be his returning to his life in Maryland. However, Costa Rica is quite open about providing him refuge and residency and Garcia and his family would find that a good enough outcome and just get on with their lives. However before the curtain comes down there will I’m sure be news folks camped out when the family boards a plane for Costa Rica and gets off once they’ve safely arrived. THAT I predict will dominate the news for a day. And Pam Bondi’s career will be over! Given her own role in all this Noem’s should be too but that’s probably too much to hope for. Still…
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Too bad all his other ridiculous crap can’t be challenged to provide evidence. Especially the boats being blown up of the coast of Venezuela and all the other poor souls they are deporting.
The point of blowing up the boats with missiles instead of say riddling them with gunfire (although the guns/cannon on a fighter might sink a boat anyway) is to destroy any evidence of what was on the boat. Maybe just people. Maybe people smuggling something other than drugs but by blowing them to smithereens it all sinks to the bottom of the ocean and we have only Team Trump’s word there were drugs aboard. Lot’s of us would prefer a source that doesn’t LIE as easily as breathing.
Oh, and there IS one piece of evidence the administration if fighting like hell to make sure the public, or even most Congress Critters see: Video of the SECOND strike that killed the two survivors. Technically it probably can’t be ruled a war crime as Trump social media posts and blathering statements to reporters a war make. Only Congress has the power to declare war, or formally authorize the use of force against another country including it’s “soldiers.”
Presidents have since Vietnam and the subsequent War Powers Act which was a sort of compromise to a full declaration of war have engaged in a tug-of-war over how much a President could do without getting a formal authorization for use of force against a country or an entity more or less allowed by a country to engage in war type hostilities against America or an ally.
Trump’s justification rests on at best dubious legal grounds. Just as Baby Bush did seeking and finding a sleazy and fanatical lawyer to craft a bullshit memo “Legally” justifying torture Trump found one to do these airstrikes. Even the ICC would have trouble holding him accountable for war crimes or even in this particular instance. However it IS murder any way you cut it. Now that it’s fully funded (for the first time in its history) the Coast Guard is well capable of a level of interdiction (stopping these boats and arresting anyone on board if smuggling illegal items including drugs are found) that hasn’t existed before.
Not everyone dies when one of the over 90 boats we’ve struck has been blown up by missiles. Some survive for a little bit but are often injured to the point they soon drown. Some survive long enough to be picked up by one of our ships and are returned to where they came from. In THIS case however after a while it was clear the two who survived the initial strike were likely to survive on top of a piece of wreckage for a while. Long enough that a boat could come and rescue them. Or a helicopter.
So, a decision was made (remember, this was the first of these strikes) to target those two with more missiles. To ignore the DOD Manual and the UCMJ and murder them. It might not “technically” be a war crime but under international law it would qualify as a crime against humanity. I really hope such a declaration gets made. Sure, Trump could pardon those who were involved in authorizing and carrying out that strike BUT they could be arrested in any country they travel to that is part of the ICC which is most of the free world. Not the U.S., but many of our allies would arrest and hand these murdering assholes over.