'Give me a break': Florida judge rips Trump team's demand for 'do-overs'

President Donald Trump gestures to emphasize an issue at a press conference held at the Lotte Palace Hotel in the Villard Room. Asset id 1190031697

President Donald Trump’s DOJ is racking up not only bad decisions, but slapdowns this week.

Judges across the nation have been tearing their hair out over the Department of Justice’s childish behavior and freshmen-grade antics, and now Politico Senior Affairs Reporter Kyle Cheney is adding US District Judge Kyle Dudek, representing the middle district of Florida, to that list.

Immigrant petitioner Dmitrii Iastrebov is a noncitizen currently sitting in immigration detention, but the judge accuses Trump’s federal attorneys are juggling what should be a simple case like amateurs.

Dudek recently ordered the Government to provide Lastrebov with an individualized bond hearing under U.S. law. Even Trump’s government admitted he was entitled to such relief

“What happened next borders on the surreal,” complained the judge. “Five days later, an immigration judge refused to hold the ordered hearing, claiming Lastrebov was not covered by [law] and thus ineligible for bond.”

Instead of defending this court’s mandate, the government’s counsel “acquiesced in that refusal and waived any administrative appeal,” said the judge.

“[But] now, faced with a renewed habeas petition,” the judge snapped that “the Government casually announces that its previous concession ‘was in error,’” and it asked the court to reverse itself and hold that Lastrebov “is instead subject to mandatory detention” under the same law Dudek cited in the first place.

This, according to Judge Dudek, was the last straw.

“The Government was right the first time,” Dudek raged. “And its request for a do-over here is not just legally unsupportable, it is a masterclass in litigation cynicism. A federal court is not a testing lab where the Executive branch can pilot a concession to get a case closed, stand by silently while its own administrative process flouts the resulting mandate, and then stroll back in demanding a clean slate. Give me a break.”

Dudek insists he had already made himself clear on Lastrebov’s legal entitlement to a bond hearing — an explanation that “should not have required a sequel,” the judge said.

Then — possibly in a spite of fury — Dudek ordered Lastrebov immediately released “because the Government has shown that it cannot follow this Court’s explicit directions and offers zero assurance that it will comply with the statutory process it previously championed.”

President Donald Trump’s DOJ is hemorrhaging experienced attorneys, after his move to politicize the federal body, and snafus, foul-ups and legal gaffes appear to be increasingly par for the course in Trump’s second term.

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