WASHINGTON (CN) - U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis suggested that the Trump administration could be held in contempt of court on Tuesday after the Justice Department still hadn't provided a log of state secrets it wants to keep out of the public eye.
The Barack Obama appointee ordered the White House to fix the deficiency under a tight 30-minute deadline.
"Failure to file the privilege log or otherwise respond will be construed as an intentional refusal to comply with this court's orders," Xinis wrote in an order.
Last week, Xinis ordered the Justice Department to provide the legal and factual basis for invoking the state secrets privilege in an ongoing fight to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The 29-year-old Maryland father has remained imprisoned in El Salvador despite the Supreme Court's order over a month ago calling on the White House to facilitate his return.
President Donald Trump said he could call government officials in El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia. Trump refused to do so, however, because of the government's unproven claims that the Maryland father was a member of MS-13. Trump cited a photoshopped image of Abrego Garcia's knuckles as evidence of his membership.
Abrego Garcia was unlawfully imprisoned in El Salvador's notorious terrorism prison with over a hundred other migrants in March. He has since been moved to a different prison in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager, fearing gang violence, and an immigration judge ruled that he couldn't be sent back to his home country for fear of persecution. The administration admitted in multiple court filings that Abrego Garcia was put on the plane to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, by accident; however, the White House now claims that it never conceded the wrongful deportation.
Xinis has been pushing the Trump administration to provide evidence that it is working on Abrego Garcia's release since the Supreme Court ordered the White House to facilitate his return in April.
It's still unclear if the Justice Department has taken any steps to bring Abrego Garcia home over the last month. Xinis chastised the administration for its lack of progress and scheduled two weeks of discovery to review the government's efforts.
There's little public knowledge of these efforts, in part because the Justice Department invoked the state secrets privilege to file court documents under seal.
Court documents indicated that Xinis held a hearing earlier this month before denying the Trump administration's request for another pause. There is no transcript of the hearing.
Fourteen news organizations asked to intervene in the case to unseal the documents. The news groups said Abrego Garcia's high-profile case called for maximum transparency so that everyone could participate in and serve as a check on the government.
Xinis said that provisional sealing had been used in the early stages of the case to safeguard sensitive information, but now both sides will have to ask for approval before sealing filings. She called on both sides to file a briefing on the state secrets invocation.
By Tuesday, the Justice Department still hadn't filed its privilege log. Xinis gave the White House 30 minutes on Tuesday afternoon to submit the documents. The administration's sealed log came in around 3:25 p.m.
Xinis plans to hold a hearing on Friday to review state secrets questions.
Source: Courthouse News Service
