Note From Elie 06/13: The Kilmar Abrego Garcia Case: Prosecution as Political Cover

Hi, this is Scott Galloway, NYU professor, bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, and the host of the Property Markets podcast. The markets are moving. Faster than ever, from big tech earnings and IPO drama to interest rate shocks and CEO power plays. To keep up, we're giving you more. Now, every day of the week, that's right, Monday through Friday, Prop G Markets breaks down market-moving news, helping you build financial literacy and security.

Don't miss it. Subscribe to Prof G Markets wherever you get your podcasts. Again, that's Prof G Markets.

Hey everyone, Ellie here wishing you a happy Friday, Friday the 13th. More importantly though, let's hope in a good harbinger, it's graduation day for a lot of... Parents out there, a lot of kids out there, myself included. My second child, my daughter, graduates high school today, later today. A lot of us are having these moments. They're wonderful. They're more, I guess, more emotional than you think.

I'm not the first one to say this. I've heard several others say graduation is almost really about the parent more than the kid. I mean, the kid's the one who gets the attention and deserves it and gets to go up and get the diploma. But man, it's an accomplishment day for parents too. So all you other parents out there.

there. If you have kids graduating high school or college or law school or any kind of grad school, even kindergarten, man, there's nothing better than those kindergarten graduations. We had them. Congratulations to you as well. Okay. into more controversial areas, although I suspect a lot of our listeners are going to agree with what I have to say in this week's...

podcast, opposite of the trigger warning. Again, one of my favorite listeners suggested sometimes I need to issue a trigger warning. I don't think this will be that. In any event, I hope you have a good week. Always love to hear your thoughts, questions, comments, letters at cafe.com. you

There is nothing at all remarkable about the Justice Department's indictment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on its face. If not for the politically electrified name on the defendant's side of the V, nobody beyond the name parties would have much noticed or cared.

But the indictment itself, misleadingly proffered by the administration as vindication on a roiling public controversy, exposes a Justice Department that has become hopelessly politicized under President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Abrego Garcia, you'll surely recall, was improperly departed in March by the Trump administration. Immigration officials sent him to El Salvador, despite the existence of a 2019 judicial order that specifically prohibited his deportation to.

El Salvador. In a fleeting moment of candor, DOJ attorneys initially acknowledged that the removal was, quote, an administrative error. Yet the government refused to fix its own mistake, and the case quickly became a firestorm, an emblem to the left of Trump's haphazard lawless deportation efforts and to the right of the president satisfying his campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration. even if sloppily executed.

Weeks after Abrego Garcia's wrongful deportation, the Supreme Court unanimously instructed the administration to, quote, facilitate his return to the United States, where he would likely face a renewed effort by the government to deport him to some other country. but through which he could exercise basic due process rights. In response, the Trump administration pled impotence and engaged in a pedantic campaign to find the meekest possible interpretation of the word facilitate.

While the El Salvadorian president smirked that he couldn't possibly smuggle a terrorist into the United States, it seemed we'd reached a stalemate. Abrego Garcia's supporters clamored for his return. The administration edged unnervingly close to defiance of the Supreme. court and Abrego Garcia himself remained locked up indefinitely in El Salvador. But suddenly, the indictment has given the administration a convenient off-ramp. Oh, we'll bring him back, all right, to face criminal charges.

The same federal government, by the way, that had maintained it was powerless to secure Abrego Garcia's return from a foreign ally suddenly had him on a plane back to the United States with the filing of a single court document. Wonders never cease. The indictment itself.

charges that Abrego Garcia was part of a large scale conspiracy over nearly a decade to transport thousands of undocumented aliens from Texas to Maryland and other parts of the United States. He'd allegedly drive six to 10 people per trip at times using cars that had been.

unsafely reconfigured with extra seating. According to the indictment, passengers traveled without luggage. Some were children who rode on floorboards. And Abrego Garcia and his co-conspirators typically would take away their passengers' cell phones until they reached the final destination. The indictment also mentions, in passing, but not really, that Abrego Garcia allegedly was associated with the MS-13 gang.

that he at times transported guns and drugs and that he, quote, abused female passengers. Prosecutors further claim in other court documents and public announcements that he, quote, solicited nude photographs and videos of a minor, end quote, and that he. played a role, some undefined role, in the murder of a rival gang member's mother. Despite these sensational allegations, the actual charges against Abrego Garcia are exceedingly simple. Unlawful transportation of illegal aliens.

The government must prove merely that Abrego Garcia knew he was transporting people who were in the United States illegally and that he took them across a state line. That's it. And despite its overheated public fanfare, the Justice Department has chosen not to file charges relating to firearms, narcotics, assault, child pornography, or murder.

There's a tell in the overkill here. Now, it is common for prosecutors to include in indictments or other court filings damaging information about a defendant that goes beyond the core elements of the charged crimes. I did it often while I was a prosecutor with the Southern District.

District of New York, and there's nothing inherently wrong with the practice. Those details can paint a fuller picture of the charged crimes, then a bare recitation of the statutory elements, and they can persuade a judge to deny a bail application. But there's a good faith limit, and it's wildly.

Excessive to casually drop uncharged allegations of child pornography and murder into what is at bottom a dry case of interstate transportation of illegal migrants. Abrego Garcia has a court appearance, by the way, later today. see if the government intends to add charges to the indictment, but I would not bet on it. If there were any question about DOJ's true motivation, Bondi answered it when she took to the podium

to announce the Abrego Garcia indictment. A case like this ordinarily would barely merit a written press release from a local U.S. attorney's office and certainly not a press conference, never mind an in-person announcement by the attorney general herself. for the national media. Bondi stood behind that podium flanked by her top DOJ lieutenants and yelled into the mic and watch the clip. She does yell the whole time for one reason, politics.

She used the occasion as a victory lap for the Trump administration where none was due and to casually reinforce for the national TV cameras allegations of child pornography and murder in a case that charges neither offense. Ben Schrader, the head of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tennessee, which is prosecuting the case, resigned.

in protest. In his farewell message, the 15-year Justice Department veteran pointedly invoked a mantra commonly embraced by non-political DOJ career prosecutors. You've heard me say this before, folks. This is what Ben Schrader said. Do the right thing in the right way.

for the right reasons. Well, we've seen the opposite here. Ordinarily, prosecution leads to deportation. Prosecutors identify an illegal alien who's committed an additional crime. They charge him, they imprison him, and then they remove him from the country. But here... deportation and the politics around immigration enforcement is driving the prosecution.

Despite its post hoc sanitization efforts, the fact is the Justice Department did not remove Abrego Garcia in March because they knew he was a criminal. They barely knew who he was at all. They hadn't even sufficiently reviewed his immigration file to find the order prohibiting his deportation to El Salvador. Rather, the Justice Department has indicted Abrego Garcia now because of the political tempest over his botched deportation.

Consider this. What if the government had properly removed Abrego Garcia back in March to, let's say, Mexico, which would have been permissible? He'd have had no serious basis to challenge his deportation. Nobody would have known his name. And there's no chance DOJ would have indicted him and then brought him back.

to the United States to be prosecuted. But because the administration got caught in a screw up and then chose to flip off the Supreme Court rather than to faithfully comply with its directive, they created a political mess. The indictment became the easy way to mop it up. The most consequential issue here is not whether Abrego Garcia is guilty as charged. He very likely is. And it'll be up to him if he chooses to plead guilty or a jury to make that determination. The far more important point.

is that however this case comes out, the Justice Department of Trump and Bondi has betrayed its own core principles by using the power of criminal prosecution for overtly political ends. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay safe and stay informed. you