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During an on-camera Oval Office meeting wit Salvadoran President Nayib #Bukele, whom the #Trump administration has paid to imprison immigrants deported from the #UnitedStates it claims without evidence are gang members, President Donald Trump deferred to Attorney General #PamBondi, who said the decision was Bukele’s.

“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us,” Bondi told reporters.

“That’s not up to us. If they want to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane,” #PamBondi continued. #Bukele, for his part, called #KilmarAbregoGarcia a “terrorist,” saying to a reporter who asked if he would return him, “I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States.” He added, “The question is preposterous.”

The bad faith of this exchange is obvious.

#Bukele has the power to free #KilmarAbregoGarcia & send him back to the #US on an American plane without “smuggling” anyone or anything. But neither side wants that outcome, & so they are both pretending that it’s the other’s responsibility. It’s a game both sides are in on.

…This rhetorical game the #Trump admin is playing, where it pretends it lacks the power to ask for #KilmarAbregoGarcia to be returned while #Bukele pretends he doesn’t have the power to return him, is an expression of obvious contempt for #SCOTUS—& for the rule of #law. The admin is maintaining that it has the power to send armed agents of the state to grab someone off the street & then, without a shred of #DueProcess, deport them to a Gulag in a foreign country & leave them there forever.

#Trump is already contemplating the possibility of deporting #citizens. Aside from numerous public statements to that effect, Trump told #Bukele, in an exchange posted on Bukele’s X feed, “Homegrowns are next. The homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places.” Loud laughter filled the Oval Office.

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a statement joined by Justices Elena Kagan & Ketanji Brown Jackson accompanying #SCOTUS’ order last week, which was issued with no public dissents, “The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport & incarcerate any person, including US citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.” More broadly, this matter is no longer just about deportations or undocumented immigrants.

The #Trump admin’s defiance of a #SCOTUS order is a new step into presidential lawlessness, in that it suggests that the admin will not abide by any court orders it does not feel like complying with.

To state the obvious, if the evidence against these men were ironclad, the Trump admin would not need to violate the #Constitution to put them in prison.

…More significantly, if the #Trump admin can defy court orders with impunity, & #Congress is unwilling to act, there is no reason for it to respect the constitutional rights of American citizens either. The Roberts Court will now have to decide whether to side with the #Constitution or with a #lawless president asserting the power to disappear people at will. This is not a power that any person, much less an American president, is meant to have.

@Nonilex The next few days are going to be extremely enlightening.