from the fake-it-til-you-break-it dept
But laugh we will! Trump is throwing billions at ICE, hoping a whole bunch of money will finally allow it to arrest 3,000 migrants per day and deport over 1,000,000 Mexican-looking people a year.
On top of that, Trump has sent thousands of military troops (a subject
of ongoing litigation) to the Los Angeles area, apparently hoping to
quell the current dissent being offered up by a state Trump thinks is a Communist paradise in need of liberation.
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He just keeps losing, even though most of his recent losses won’t
actually bear his name. His federal agencies can’t meet arrest quotas
and definitely can’t justify the mobilization of the military —
not when there’s nothing happening in Los Angeles that can’t be handled
by local law enforcement.
ICE continues to act like a rogue agency.
And the DHS encourages this behavior by constantly touting the massive
increase in assaults on ICE officers, albeit only by highlighting
percentages, rather than the actual number of assaults, which shows a
700% increase in assault on ICE officers is actually only about 70 more total “assaults” compared to the same six months last year.
“Assault” doesn’t mean the same thing to cops as it means to
citizens, and it means even less to ICE and its massive (non-literal)
army of supporting federal law enforcement officers.
But it’s not fooling federal grand juries, which have, so far,
refused to give the administration everything it wants when it presents
assault cases to jury members. The DOJ has racked up a string of losses
while targeting ICE protesters in Los Angeles, which is even more
embarrassing than DOJ prosecutors simply being unable to ring up ham
sandwiches/protesters on federal charges.
It’s even worse than simply failing to convince a grand jury to do
the thing grand juries do best: hand out indictments following a
one-sided presentation. Law enforcement officers try to apply the “trial
tax” during criminal trials by reminding people accused of crimes
(people most judges and juries believe are guilty, despite the
constitutionally-backed standard of “innocent until proven guilty”) that
it’s their word (accused criminals) again the cop’s (an unimpeachable
force of good).
Well, in grand jury presentations, it’s the government’s word against
no one’s. This is a non-adversarial process that allows the government
to make unchallenged accusations and present unchallenged evidence. But
even with the scale tipped heavily in the government’s favor, the DOJ
still losing most of the cases it bringing to grand juries in
California.
Thirty-eight cases have been brought against ICE protesters and other people ICE officers have encountered. So far, the DOJ has only secured seven
federal indictments. In some cases, felony charges have been reduced to
misdemeanors, taking these cases out of the DOJ’s hands. In other
cases, grand jury members have refused to buy the DOJ’s overwrought
bullshit, returning “no bill” declarations that have forced federal
prosecutors to drop cases.
The most ironic aspect of the DOJ’s ham sandwich failures
is this: the people undercutting their cases are people directly
employed by federal law enforcement agencies.
The DHS’s own subsequent reports, however, reveal multiple
factual discrepancies in the narrative initially presented by officers
and prosecutors. While the complaint suggested Cerna-Camacho, Ramos
Brito and Mojica attacked agents in protest of the sisters’ arrest,
records show the women were arrested in a separate incident – which
occurred after the men were detained.
Border patrol agent Eduardo Mejorado, a key witness considered a
victim of the assaults, appeared to initially give inaccurate testimony
about the order of events. He “clarified” the timeline when questioned, a
DHS special agent wrote in a report three days after charges were
filed. A supervisor on the scene also documented the correct chronology
in a later report and “apologized” for errors, saying, “Due to the chaos
of the events that day, some events may have been miscommunicated.”
Yep, when an officer “clarifies” that errors were made and some
“miscommunication” may have occurred, you can safely assume officers
lied because they thought they would get away with it, especially when
having to do nothing more than say some shit in front of grand jurors.
When the grand jury rebuffed the government’s advances, half-assed
apologies were made.
- But a half-ass apology for misleading grand jurors
won’t put the gild back on the lily nor the lipstick back on the pig (so
to speak…).
- Nor will it make the targeted ham sandwiches any more
worthy of criminal charges, which means the DOJ is losing most
frequently in the place it desperately needs to be winning the most: the
Democratic Republic of California that has been constantly (and
deceivingly) portrayed as the host of a city under so much siege that
it’s time to call in the Marines.
And it’s only a matter of time before this DHS agent is fired. After
all, they admitted actual recordings directly contradicted the sworn
statements made by federal officers, even if the affidavits couched it
in language meant to persuade jurors the government was still in the
right, even if its assault claims were lies:
The DHS special agent also noted that defense lawyers had
presented video they said was “in direct contrast to the facts” laid
out in the initial complaint. The footage, seen by the
Guardian, appeared to show an agent pushing Ramos-Brito, not the other
way around, before he was taken to the ground along with Mojica, who was
also not seen in the footage shoving or assaulting agents.
The agent acknowledged the officer’s shoving and said the
subsequent “fight” was “hard to decipher”. The agent also claimed
Ramos-Brito’s behavior before he was pushed included “pre-assault
indicators”, such as “clenching fists” and “getting in [the agent’s]
face”.
Take a look at that last line: that’s the attempt to salvage obvious
lies with even more lies, or at the very least, an extremely slanted
take on events captured on camera. When the flagrant bullshit fails in
court, the government immediately pretends what was declared “obvious”
in initial assertions is actually so nuanced no court (or grand jury)
should rule against officers’ extremely subjective (and extremely
self-serving) portrayals of confrontations anyone’s capable of seeing
with their own eyes. “Your eyes are lying,” says the government.
- California grand jurors aren’t falling for this, especially after law enforcement officers at all levels have spent every year since the inception of their offices
undermining the trust placed in them by the public, when not being
undermined by facts that directly contradict their false assertions.
- Cases continue to be rejected by federal grand juries. The
government, however, continues to claim it’s always right, even when
it’s demonstrably wrong.
- A spokesperson for US Attorney (and “ardent
Trump supporter”) Bill Essayli (last heard berating lower-level prosecutors
for being unable to spin blatant lies into indictment gold) claims
journalistic reports on the DOJ’s failures are nothing more than the
printing of “factual inaccuracies and anonymous gossip.”
Well, I don’t have anything to say about the alleged “gossip,” but I do have to agree with the DOJ spokesperson: this reporting contains plenty
of “factual inaccuracies.” Unfortunately for Bill Essayli and everyone
applying pressure from above, the “factual inaccuracies” all belong to
the DOJ, DHS, and every federal officer offering up lies during grand
jury proceedings.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, bullshit, dhs, doj, ice, martial law, mass deportation, trump administration
