MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Judge Boasberg's ruling stems in part from what critics say are the administration's attempts to evade court orders and requests for information. We called Elliot Williams to talk about this. He was a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department in the Obama administration. Good morning, Mr. Williams. Thanks for joining us once again.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Hi, Michel. How are you?
MARTIN: Good. So the term evade appears, I think, five times in Judge Boasberg's 46-page ruling. I'm not a lawyer. Can you help me interpret that? Is that the same as defying the court, or is it a step below that?
WILLIAMS: Oh, I think he's saying - or at least accusing them of defying the court and giving them an opportunity to either clean up their act or face some consequences. I think in his word choice, he's getting at the standard for contempt, Michel, and that's that he gave them a clear and reasonably specific order, that they defied or violated that order, and that the violation was willful. And so because of the accusation of evading, yes, he is saying that they disobeyed his order.
Now, again, he - they have an opportunity to do what's called cure that possibility of contempt. But he is certainly - by saying that there's probable cause to find that they did - that it's more likely than not that they did - he is absolutely suggesting that they did.
MARTIN: Now, he was not the only federal judge to admonish the administration's lawyers this week. The judge in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. She said she would not tolerate gamesmanship. Is she saying essentially the same thing, that the administration's defying the court?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, not as explicitly, but she's certainly getting there. And I think it's more telling that she asked them for daily updates as to efforts they had taken to get Mr. Kilmar Abrego back to the United States. That's the judicial equivalent, quite frankly, of calling someone to the principal's office, making them on, you know, an alarmingly regular basis provide her updates as to their actions. And so, yes, she is also quite frustrated with the government's action. No lawyer wants to be in a position of having, you know, a judge saying that they're evading or disobeying their orders and having to provide these very technical updates as to what they're doing. So I - perhaps there's a contempt proceeding coming in that case as well. We'll just have to wait and see.
MARTIN: It seems - again, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems the administration is arguing that it just has a different interpretation of what the order is and what the law is, which is, I presume, what the courts are for, which is to resolve these differences of interpretation, right?
WILLIAMS: Right.
MARTIN: But couldn't the Supreme Court, particularly in the case of Abrego Garcia, have cleared this up when they addressed the lower court's order regarding his return? They said - she said that the administration had to facilitate and effectuate the return. The court said that the use of that wording, the intended scope of the term effectuate in the district court's order is, however, unclear and may exceed the district court's ruling. Couldn't they have decided that? Couldn't they have decided what that means?
WILLIAMS: Yeah. They could have more aggressively ruled or stayed out of it altogether. Judge Boasberg's original opinion used the - pardon me. Judge Xinis' opinion had used the language facilitate and effectuate. And, you know, Justice Sotomayor, in her statement agreeing with the court's decision, said we should've just stayed out of this and left the government to actually facilitate this individual's - being brought back to the United States.
Now, to be clear, Michel, these questions on basic terms in the English language happen at the Supreme Court or federal appeals court level all the time. Words are complicated. They've existed for hundreds of years, and sometimes the Supreme Court leaves it to courts to figure them out. The issue, I think, isn't the vagueness. It's the conduct or at least alleged conduct by the government and this idea that these judges are not happy with what they're getting, whether it be the demeanor or conduct or timeliness or lack of responsiveness from the government. I think that's what they're responding to here. But parties - both the government, even I as a prosecutor - do their best to push the bounds of what the law and what the judge - you know, the runway that they have. And that's perfectly fine. That's what litigation is. It's the possibility of disobeying judges that's really the problem here.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, we have just about a minute left. As I said, I - you know, the administration, I believe, is arguing that they have good-faith disagreements with these - their interpretation. At some point, how does this get resolved? Is this ultimately all going to go to the Supreme Court?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think it - yeah. No, I think it has to end up back at the Supreme Court, only on account of, one, the vagueness of some of the questions, two, you know, the magnitude of the decision. And - you know, and when I say get back at the Supreme Court, it may end up getting kicked up to the Supreme Court, which doesn't have to take it and which would leave the last decision that's made there as the one that governs the day. But it has to go back to the Supreme Court. But I - you know, something Judge Boasberg notes in his opinion - it's not just the conduct. It's the things like the social media posts. He goes after Senator - Secretary of State Marco Rubio for oopsie, too late, you know, or retweeting that message. And so, yes, it - we haven't seen the end of this case.
MARTIN: He thinks that shows contempt.
WILLIAMS: It does.
MARTIN: All right. That's Elliot Williams. He's a former deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department during the Obama administration. He's also a CNN analyst. Mr. Williams, thank you.
WILLIAMS: Thanks a lot. Take care. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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