A newly revealed transcript of a courtroom deposition in Chicago shows MAGA officials picking fights over immigration enforcement — and an exasperated judge accusing Trump’s Border Patrol chief, Greg Bovino of constantly dodging questions and making false statements, reported the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday.
This comes after U.S. District Judge Sarah Ellis issued a blistering opinion last week based on this hearing, accusing Bovino of “outright lying” as part of a lawsuit brought to stop the Trump administration’s federal raids in Chicago.
The tension began almost immediately, according to the report, as Justice Department attorney Sarmad Khojasteh accused plaintiffs’ attorney Locke Bowman he was being disrespectful by not shaking Bovino’s hand.
“What followed was nearly seven hours of terse and sometimes evasive answers from Bovino, punctuated by an occasional longer explanation about the allegedly violent mobs attacking and threatening immigration agents,” said the report. “The questioning was almost constantly interrupted by bickering between the attorneys, mostly instigated by Khojasteh, who at one point called Bowman a ‘petulant old man.’” At the same time, Bowman slammed Khojasteh for showboating, snapping, “You don’t need to give speeches.”
One of the most damning moments of the deposition, the report continued, came when Bovino was challenged on his claim that he threw tear gas canisters at the crowd because one of the protesters hit him in the head with a white rock.
After further questioning, Bovino admitted he was “mistaken,” saying, “The white rock was thrown at me, but that was after I deployed less lethal means in chemical munitions. I was mixed up with several other objects in a very chaotic environment. And I confused that white rock with other objects that were thrown at me.”
After Bowman showed an image of the protesters and asked if this was the “violent mob” he had talked about seeing before throwing the canisters, he said, “Well, this is, you know, I, can’t tell exactly what’s happening from, from a picture. This is, this, this, this picture here that you’ve given me is — this is a snapshot in time.”
All of this comes as Trump dukes out another series of legal battles over whether he can deploy the National Guard to Chicago to back up the immigration agents. A New York Times report on Tuesday reveals the DOJ’s filing to the Supreme Court to be full of errors and false claims about the protesters.
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