Frustrated judge demands more justification for Trump DOJ’s claim of state secrets in Abrego Garcia case

The federal judge overseeing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared extremely frustrated Friday by the Trump administration’s efforts to thwart a search for answers on what officials are doing to facilitate his return from El Salvador.

The federal judge overseeing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared extremely frustrated Friday by the Trump administration’s efforts to thwart a search for answers on what officials are doing to facilitate his return from El Salvador. The lengthy hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, unfolded a month after US District Judge Paula Xinis allowed for expedited fact-finding to help determine what officials are doing to comply with her directive that the government work to bring Abrego Garcia back to the US. But since then, repeated stonewalling from the Justice Department and officials in the administration have complicated those efforts. Part of that resistance has been the invocation of several privileges, including state secrets, to avoid turning over written discovery and to keep officials from answering under oath questions from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys. But Xinis appeared highly skeptical that a declaration from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that apparently explained why the state secrets claim was being made was sufficient enough to support the invocation. “Where I am right now is this affidavit is sufficiently unclear,” Xinis told a DOJ attorney at one point. “This is basically ‘take my word for it.’ And I’m not saying at the end of the day you won’t be able to make the privilege. What I’m saying is there’s not enough there there.” “I’m asking – really, in good faith – for the Executive Branch to do a little more to show its work for why the privilege works,” the judge said.