The Trump administration is so worried about judicial scrutiny over its deportation flights to El Salvador that officials are thinking about misusing the “state secrets privilege.”
NOTUS reports that Todd Blanche, the number two person at the Justice Department and Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, revealed as much in a court filing Friday. Specifically, he said that he had “direct involvement in ongoing Cabinet-level discussions regarding invocation of the state-secrets privilege.”
The fact that invoking the privilege is under consideration in the White House suggests that what actually happened is damning for the administration, and a negative ruling could seriously blunt Trump’s immigration powers. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is trying to find out exactly when the flights from the U.S. to the Central American country took off and whether officials were aware of a court order blocking the deportations at the time.
Since Boasberg’s court order on Saturday, he has been vilified by Trump, Elon Musk, and several other right-wing personalities, all of whom have made threats against him and called for his impeachment. New reports have also revealed that many of the immigrants rounded up and placed on the flight were not violent criminals or gang members, as administration officials claim. Many deportees simply had distinctive tattoos.
In addition to attacks on Boasberg’s credibility, the administration has also made the bizarre argument that the judge’s oral order carries less weight than a written one, and begun attempts to get the judge removed from the case by an appellate court. The threats to Boasberg even prompted Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to issue a rare statement of condemnation.
Trump has pulled out the rarely-cited Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify the flights, which were only possible thanks to Secretary of State Marco Rubio cutting a deal with the country’s autocratic president, Nayib Bukele, to send them to facilities accused of engaging in torture. If the administration tries the state secrets privilege next, it will only deepen the ongoing constitutional crisis.
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