The White House is doubling down on justifying its extra-judicial actions around Abrego Garcia by trying to incriminate him in the court of public opinion. But the government still can't pluck people off an American street and send them to a concentration camp without due process. Plus, Judge Boasberg is not letting Stephen Miller off the hook for defying his order to turn the Salvadoran-bound planes around. And while the administration tries to stir up outrage about one immigrant's marital problems, they admiringly describe the evil, blood-thirsty Vladimir Putin as a good guy. Ben Wittes joins Tim Miller. show notes CNBC on Chris Krebs leaving his company after being targeted by Trump Boasberg's probable cause finding to hold the goverment in criminal contempt Tim's 2019 Bulwark piece that he referenced Support Lawfare
Who is Kilmar Abrego-Garcia and why is his case significant?
became a serious government player in election protection, in a bunch of other stuff. And Chris Krebs is one of several reasons for that. He did remarkable work. And so this isn't a situation in which some minor player is being oppressed publicly.
for saying something about, this is somebody who made a real contribution and who is being oppressed, and the word is not too strong, because of that contribution and because He had the temerity to say that the elections that he helped secure were in fact secure. And so I don't want to lose in this that, you know, there were a lot of people who in the first Trump administration who said,
okay, it's important that people like me be in because otherwise crazy people are going to be in. And as a general matter, I was not all that sympathetic to those claims. And I think a lot of people kidded themselves about how essential they were. Chris is not one of those people. Chris made a real contribution in the first Trump administration. And one of the reasons that we had a
quite pristine election in 2020 was Chris Krebs. The second is about the oppression. The Constitution has a very specific provision barring what are called bills of attainder. You can't legislatively declare Ben Wittes or Tim Miller a criminal. You don't get to pass a bill that says you're a traitor. You actually have to indict them under law that exists and prove it.
The British Parliament used to declare, write a bill of attainder and then execute people on the basis of it. This is a bill of attainder. It's actually an executive order of attainder. It's slightly different, but it's the same thing. It's I, the president, point at you and say you're a traitor, and it is morally outrageous, it's legally outrageous, and it works anyway.
And the reason it works anyway is is because if you're a cybersecurity consultant, who wants to do business with somebody who's that controversial?
Yeah.
You know, so Chris will prevail in whatever the fight involves, right? If he sues and challenges it, he'll win, just as the law firms have won, right, who've challenged it. But note that a lot of the law firms fold instead of litigating, even though they know they can win. And why is that? Because it's bad for business to be on the wrong side of the president.
So we have this challenge, then we really have to think about it, which is how do we incentivize people to do the right thing when they're legally right, when they're morally right, even though it's bad for business. And so hats off to Chris Krebs. He's doing the right thing. And we should all figure out ways to
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