A federal judge expressed fury on Wednesday that Attorney General Pam Bondi had gone on social media and released arrest pictures of protesters charged with assaulting federal agents.
According to The New York Times, “In a Minneapolis federal court where 16 protesters were charged on Wednesday with assaulting immigration agents, Judge Dulce J. Foster said she was ‘deeply disturbed’ that Attorney General Pam Bondi had published photographs of some of the defendants on social media. Judge Foster said images of people who are presumed innocent should not be shared. ‘This conduct is not something that the court condones,’ she said.”
While mug shots are often disclosed to the public in state arrests, federal arrests have much stricter rules around the disclosure of that material, under the logic that the Justice Department should not go out of its way to inflict greater reputational harm on people who have not been convicted of a crime.
Per the report, further courtroom tension unfolded as the hypocrisy was pointed out for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are being given freedom by the administration to mask up and completely conceal their identity, even from lawful observers.
“In court on Wednesday, prosecutors asked Judge Foster to order the defendants not to contact the federal agents whom they are accused of assaulting. The judge refused, because prosecutors have not revealed the identity of those agents,” said the report. “Lisa Lopez, a lawyer who represents several of the defendants, said Ms. Bondi’s post was ‘very dangerous.’ Sharing the photographs, she said, could bring harm to her clients. ‘They don’t get the same courtesy,’ Ms. Lopez said, ‘as masked agents.’”
All of this came as a number of other legal battles are playing out in Minnesota over the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. Another judge on Wednesday ordered Trump officials to stop their scheme of disappearing thousands of lawful refugees from Minnesota to Texas for interrogation, while in yet another case this week, a judge threatened acting ICE director Todd Lyons with contempt of court.
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