The Justice Department may have been caught lying in court – and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche could be on the hook for it, legal experts say.
There has been an ongoing court case involving Kilmar Ábrego García, who was was sent to the El Salvador prison CECOT against another judge's ruling.
That case has exposed the Justice Department for possible wrongdoing.
Speaking on a Saturday podcast, MSW Media's Allison Gill and "All Rise News" reporter Adam Klasfeld walked through the new documents uploaded to the docket for the Ábrego case.
"There's been some stuff going on under seal," explained Gill. "Ex parte hearings, things that have been redacted. Stuff that's under seal."
She said that it seems to be related to a finding by U.S. District Court Judge Waverly Crenshaw that there was evidence of "vindictive prosecution." Gill said that it appears that the quick prosecutions of Ábrego may have been a deliberate attempt to stop a case before another judge could uncover possible wrongdoing in that case.
In June, Blanche appeared on Fox News where he said that they began investigating Ábrego after a Maryland court judge demanded the man be returned. What Blanche said indicated there was a likelihood of vindictiveness. Gill said that what was missing, however, were the documents that could prove that Blanche made the decision to prosecute.
For months, Gill said she and Klasfeld have discussed the DOJ's claimed that prosecution of Ábrego had nothing to do with Blanche or an effort to shut down document discovery from the DOJ. The department has consistently said that the decision to go after Ábrego rested only with U.S. Attorney Robert E. McGuire, of the Middle District of Tennessee.
The new documents, revealed late Friday night, "finally pried loose some evidence showing Todd Blanche's involvement in prosecuting Mr. Ábrego."
The filing that was released begins: "For months, the government has insisted that this is not a vindictive prosecution because Acting U.S. Attorney Robert McGuire alone made the decision to charge Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia after he challenged his unlawful deportation to El Salvador. Six lawyers for the government — including the Associate Attorney General of the United States Stanley Woodward and Acting U.S. Attorney McGuire — signed a brief averring that 'undisputed evidence shows that there is no link between the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and the decision to prosecute.'"
It continues: "The government has repeatedly claimed — sometimes under penalty of perjury — that the buck stopped with Mr. McGuire. That claim, it turns out, was false. It remains unknown where the buck actually stopped — the Deputy Attorney General? The Attorney General? The White House? We may never know. But what we do know, from documents the defense and the Court had to pry out of the government’s hands, is that the government deceived the Court, the defense, and the public about Mr. McGuire’s purported status as the sole decision maker. Put bluntly, numerous government lawyers chose to mislead this Court in order to try to save this unjust prosecution."
"We now know: it was Mr. Blanche and his office, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General," the lawyers write.
Gill called it indicative of a lot of other cases under the purview of the DOJ and "implicates them in some bad stuff that result in the dismissal of these charges or the dismissal of other charges."
"For them to say, 'we don't know where the buck stops, but what we do know is Todd Blanch had a hand in it,'" Gill continued. The revelation could result in court sanctions.
She noted that even with the redactions in the documents it becomes clear that Blanche told the lower-level prosecutors what to do.
"It is, I think, definitive proof that this administration is vindictively and selectively prosecuting him. To punish him, to get discoveryto stop," Gill continued.
Klasfeld brought the conversation back around to the entire probe into vindictive and selective prosecution coming from Blanche's interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox.
Klasfeld also noted that Blanche has tried to quash any efforts to have him testify in the case, claiming that there is no link between Blanche and U.S. Attorney McGuire.
"The only thing the Court found missing from the record was evidence 'tying [Mr. Blanche’s statements] to actual decision makers.' (Id. at 8). Not anymore. Previously, the Court rightly wondered who placed this case on Mr. McGuire’s desk and what their motivations were. (Dkt. 185 at 2). We now know: it was Mr. Blanche and his office, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, or 'ODAG.'"
"So, they say it, flat out," Klasfeld noted. "Apparently, the messages are so damning that they say one, that's why they're no longer credible, and two, they're changing their story. They said there was no link. Now they're saying this was 'unremarkable oversight.'"
Ábrego has already won his civil case, and if he wins on the vindictive prosecution, the other cases are gone.