Contempt of Court
Mr. Garcia
On Monday, El Salvador’s self-described “cool dictator” President Bukele appeared in a skit in the Oval Office with Donald Trump, where both men pretended they couldn’t undo their own actions in imprisoning Abrego Garcia. Both Trump and Bukele delivered Oscar-worthy performances as they smirked for the cameras, mocking the audacity of a Supreme Court that would restrain a president’s unconstitutional overreach.
Acting pursuant to an agreement between the US and El Salvador, Trump officials arrested Garcia, a father and sheet metal worker, on March 12, 2025, held him without a hearing, and flew him to an El Salvador prison despite a known court order protecting him from deportation. After a DOJ lawyer truthfully admitted the administration’s error in court, Pam Bondi placed the lawyer on permanent leave.
Under Trump’s unprecedented, 8th Amendment-defying arrangement, he paid Bukele $6 million to incarcerate hundreds of people in the notoriously harsh El Salvador prison known as CECOT. Prisoners at CECOT walk in chains, are not allowed visitors or correspondence, sleep 75 to 80 men to a cell, are never allowed outdoors, and, in the words of Bukele’s justice minister, are “never expected to leave” the prison.
The farce
In response to last week’s unanimous Supreme Court order directing Trump “to facilitate” Garcia’s return to the US, Trump said he had ‘no control’ over El Salvador and that it was ‘up to President Bukele to decide’ what to do. For his scripted response, Bukele said there was ‘no way’ he’d send Garcia back to the US, calling the idea “preposterous” because releasing him would be like “smuggling a terrorist into the US.”
Even after the Trump administration published combat plans due to arrogant carelessness, then trashed trade and supply chains with no apparent strategy, this El Salvador farce just one week later was an embarrassment of ignorance and bombast. Trump and Bukele, together, put Garcia into CECOT. Acting like they can’t get him out insults the nation’s intelligence.
Every judge in every courthouse in the US knows full well that all Trump has to do is ask, and Bukele would release Garcia to the custody of US officials within the hour.
Bukele governs El Salvador under draconian ‘States of Exception’
After he was elected president of El Salvador in 2019, Bukele declared a state of emergency in 2022 to “tackle gang crime and sky-high homicide rates.” Bukele’s declaration of emergency extinguished free speech and protest rights, disappeared media critics, and wiped human rights and legal process off the books.
El Salvador today, under the Bukele regime’s continuing state of emergency, arrests and imprisons people on mere suspicion, detaining thousands of people on suspicion alone- no due process, no trial, and no review. According to NPR, a news outlet Trump seeks to silence, Bukele’s state of emergency has led to the imprisonment of 85,000 people, of which only 1,000 have been convicted of a crime.
As of yesterday, Trump’s own State Department, under the Bureau of Consular Affairs, was still cautioning US travelers about El Salvador, advising that, “In March 2022, Bukele declared a “State of Exception” in response to an increase in gang murders:
The State of Exception allows local authorities to arrest anyone they think is involved in gang activity.
It suspends several constitutional rights. This includes the normal protections of criminal procedure, like the right to a speedy or fair trial.
Tens of thousands of people are currently in prison under the State of Exception.
Several U.S. and other foreign citizens have been detained under the State of Exception. They remain in prison and have yet to face trial.”
Given the accurate description of Bukele’s abuses, one wonders whether Marco Rubio is even aware that the warning still appears on the State Department’s website.
Trump shares Bukele’s fondness for Emergency Declarations
Bukele’s ‘States of Exception’ are the legal cover he employs to silence his critics and send people to concentration camps with no legal process. States of Exception were also Hitler’s initial cover for controlling the media, dispatching SS henchmen, and sending millions of innocent people to unthinkable deaths.
Like Bukele, Hitler, and other autocrats throughout history, Trump is also fond of declaring “national emergencies,” which are precursors to states of exceptions. After only three months in office, Trump has already declared six new national emergencies ranging from the “US border emergency” to a “National Energy Emergency,” to a national emergency designating “Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
During his performance with Bukele, Trump referenced a plan to imprison American citizens in El Salvador without legal process, suggesting that Bukele needed to “build five more” enormous gulags similar to CECOT. This was not new: Trump previously said that he “looked forward to watching” Tesla vandals (he called them ‘sick terrorist thugs’) get sent to permanent prison in El Salvador.
To be sure, sending Americans to a foreign dungeon where no press gets in and no un-staged photos get out offends the 8th Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. It is as blatantly unconstitutional as targeting lawyers, employees, and universities for their political views.
Sandwiched among the hearings and sound bites to come, we can look forward to Trump/Vance/Bondi’s next predicate declaration: A “National Emergency to Save America from Terrorists, Enemies Within, and the Fake News Media.”
Bukele shares Trump’s contempt for the rule of law
Both Trump and Elon Musk have been attacking federal judges over decisions impeding Trump’s agenda, which, by extension, could jeopardize Musk’s plans to regulate his own corporate regulators. Before his attempts to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court race failed, Musk tweeted in February that, “The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges… That is what it took to fix El Salvador. Same applies to America.”
Bukele, pleased with the praise, retweeted Musk and added his own hubristic advice on how to ‘fix’ an America that is far less broken than his own poverty-and-crime-stricken El Salvador: “If you don’t impeach the corrupt judges, you CANNOT fix the country.”
It comes as no surprise that a small time dictator from a small, impoverished country would abhor the rule of law. Bukele, like Trump, Netanyahu, Orban and other strongmen Trump admires, can only stay in power if he crushes the law. The surprise is that Trump would choose to take governance advice from the leader of a failed banana republic.
The District Court Judge needs to find Bondi’s team in contempt
At Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Xinis told DOJ attorneys to expect quick discovery on whether the administration’s failure to act to return Garcia amounted to Contempt of Court. Plenty of legal commentators have detailed the myriad ways in which Trump’s legal team has stonewalled federal courts. From the beginning of the Garcia case, the DOJ has filed late, defiant and disrespectful pleadings, ignored direct court orders, and, as to SCOTUS’ 9-0 ruling that Trump’s DOJ must ‘facilitate’ Garcia’s return, pretended not to understand plain English.
I don’t share the widespread legal opinion that the Roberts Court intended to give Trump an off-ramp in the Garcia case by parsing “effectuate” vs. “facilitate.” The intent, direction, and spirit of their unanimous decision was crystal clear; if Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, or Gorsuch wanted to support Trump’s outrageous conduct, they would have dissented. None did.
Instead, as I see it, Trump’s team is teasing out an ambiguity in the order that simply doesn’t exist. While Roberts’ immunity ruling likely encouraged Trump’s lawlessness, I don’t blame the high court for Trump’s illegal deportations; I blame a power drunk and demented president gone rogue, posing a momentous challenge to the Court’s authority.
Judge Xinis has ordered the Trump administration to provide daily updates on steps the government has taken to return Garcia, but as of this writing, Trump’s defiance persists. The next step is for Judge Xinis to require under-oath depositions of DOJ decision-makers, going as high up the ladder as necessary to get answers. Whoever next defiantly withholds the truth from the court, or persists in claiming they “don’t know” what they should, should be held in contempt of court.
As Garcia languishes in an inhumane cell in El Salvador, Trump’s henchmen should be imprisoned while he waits. They should spend as many weeks, months or years behind bars as it takes for Judge Xinis to get the truth. And they should be reminded, Bondi particularly, that Trump’s criminal immunity does not extend to them, and will not protect their law license if they continue to defy the courts.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
EVERY Dem on Capitol Hill should read your last paragraph on live TV every day ’til it happens.
Throw every one of these corrupt evil assholes in jail for their contempt of America, the constitution, and the rule of law.