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June 9, 2025 • 33 mins
Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been brought back to the US. I break down what it means.
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States. Remember
Chris van Holland, the US Senator from Maryland who flew
down at taxpayer expense to go visit an illegal alien,
not an American citizen, sat down with him in this,

(00:20):
you know, somewhat the equivalent of a supermax had margaritas together.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Says it's a victory for the Constitution. It should not
have taken this long. I mean, as you indicated, the
Trump administration dragged its feet for a very long time,
ignored a nine to zero order from the Supreme Court.
But it's important that Abrego Garcia now come home and
have his due process rights upheld.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
In a court of law.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
You know, I've said repeatedly, repeatedly, this is not about
the man Abrego Garcia. This is about his constitutional rights
and really the rights of all of us. That if
President Trump and his administration can trample the rights of
one person, the rights of all.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Of us are at risks. So they didn't want.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
To do it, they said, he never sent back but
back in the United States again. But I think because
of the pressure from the courts and from others, they
realize that not following the Constitution at least in this instance,
was the wrong path. I don't know if this is
going to.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Be Now, we know from past discussions that with respect
to his immigration status, he has received due process on
at least two occasions that I can verify, and is
subject to a deportation order. You cannot be subject to

(01:50):
a deportation order by an administrative law judge or an
immigration law judge without having received due process. So Van
Holn is just lying, which I know comes as a
shock to you over at MSNBC. And of course MSNBC
does not have the cajones to actually do any follow

(02:11):
on because to ask questions would not fit the narraty.
So for three months now, the father of the Maryland
father starts saying, the father of Maryland. He's become this
celebrity for the Trump resistance. The removal order that I

(02:33):
referenced was signed in twenty nineteen. Does quick math, Oh, yeah,
that's six years ago. So he's been subjected to a
deportation order, a removal order for six freaking years. So

(02:55):
they finally arrested him on March twelve, sent him back
to his home country of Elsa, where he was jailed
and the removal order prohibited his deportation back to El Salvador,
allegedly based on threats that he would face if he
returned home. Now, since then, all these activists, including members

(03:17):
of Congress, news organizations, the Cabal, social media influencers, have
all portrayed Garcia as just a father dad swept up
in Trump's fascist, communist disregard for the constitution. Vanity Fair,

(03:39):
The New York Times, The Atlantic Magazine, Newsweek, MSNBC, CNN,
they all just incessantly covered this. Yahoo and probably you
know the reason I played van Holland, because Van Holland
the I think he's a senior Democrat senator from Maryland.

(04:00):
He's a Democrat from Maryland. Probably was the most prolific
and the most public defender of Garcia by traveling to
Al Salvador to meet with his so called constituent and
then commiserate over cocktails. Now, Garcia's case is also subject
of ongoing litigation before a federal district judge, PAULA. Zenas,

(04:27):
who joins doz of other lower court judges who are
actively sabotaging the President's immigration agenda, and this particular judges
truly sympathetic handling of the case included demands that the
Trump administration returned Garcia in order that you know, I
will give that Holland credit. The Supreme Court clarified back

(04:49):
in April. So last week the Attorney General announced Garcia's
return to the States, but she did more than that.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
An important case of Brego Garcia has landed in the
United States to face justice. On May twenty first, a
grand jury, And.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
I want to emphasize a grand jury. Now, I know
you can get a grand jury to indict ahem Sandwich,
but nonetheless I think they did the right thing here.
Let's take the evidence of the grand jury. Let's just
give it to them, and let's see if they return
an indictment or not. And lo and behold, guess what
they did. They returned an indictment.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
An important case of Brego Garcia has landed in the
United States to face justice. On May twenty first, a
grand jury in the Middle District of Tennessee returned to
sealed indictment charging a Brigo Garcia with alien smuggling, alien smuggling,
conspiracy to commit aliens.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Smuggling, conspiracy commit smuggling.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
In violation of Title eight USC. Thirteen twenty four. We
want to thank President Buchuela for agreeing to return Abrego
Garcia to the United States. Our government presented El Salvador
with an arrest warrant, and they agreed to return him
to our country. We're grateful to President Buchlea for agreeing

(06:17):
to return him to our country to face these very
serious charges. This is what American justice looks like. Upon
completion of the sentence, we anticipate he will be returned
to his home country of El Salvador.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
I disagree with the attorney journal about that. Give him
his trial, give him the criminal due process, because I
remember we're talking about two categories of due process. Yes,
when you are in this country legally or illegally, tourist, student,

(06:54):
I don't give a rats ask what you're here. If
you commit a crime, you're entitled to all all the
vestiges of due process that anybody else is. You have
a right to a trial, you have a right to
confront your witnesses. You have a right to an attorney
if one can, if you can't afford one will be
appointed for you. Everybody gets those rights. That is criminal

(07:16):
procedural and criminal substance e due process. He will now
get that. But in terms of everybody screaming about how
he hasn't had due process, he's already had due process
in terms of his status as an illegal alien, which
is why there is a pending twenty nineteen removal order

(07:37):
that says, once you find this guy, or if you
actually go looking for the guy, which obviously the Trump
the first Trump administration did not do, and the Biden
administration refused to do. If they had found him, they
could have you know, Biden could have deported him. And
if Biden had deported him, do you think there would
have been any screaming about due process, No, because they

(08:01):
would have reported you. Of course, Alejandro Mayhorkis never would
have done it, but if he had ever been pushed
on it, he could have said, oh yeah, well there's
a deportation order from twenty nineteen, and that's why we're
deporting him. So remember he's already everyone screams about due process,
he already had due process in terms of his immigration status,

(08:23):
and he was subject to removal, subject to deportation. Now
he's been indicted on criminal matters and he wially get
to due process for that. The part I disagree with
the Attorney General about is this once he's received this
due process. If and I emphasize truly, if if he
is convicted, don't send him to prison, send him back

(08:47):
to El Salvador where he's already going to be held
in prison. Why should I pay for it? Why should
you pay for it? He gets convicted of smuggling, Okay,
you got your due process, you were found guilty. You're
going back to El Salvador. And by the way, if
he is not found guilty, if he is acquitted of
these federal charges, the deportation orders still exists and they

(09:12):
can still deport him because the removal order has not
been suspended, it has not been overruled. It is still there.
Now his lawyers may be appealing it. I don't know.
I can't find any evidence of that. The deportation order,
in my opinion, seems to be final. So working with
six unindicted so far anyway, unindicted co conspirators from El Salvador,

(09:37):
Garcia transported other illegals, firearms and drugs from Texas to
Maryland and other parts of the country. One of Garcia's
co conspirators was, you know, we get upset about Lincoln
Riley or what was the I'm so sorry I forget
the name of the person in Colorado who was killed

(09:59):
by an ill legal alien. We get all upset about that,
but you realize that one of his co conspirators, Garcia's
co conspirators was involved in a crash in Mexico that
resulted in the death of fifty illegal aliens headed for
this country. You can find the indictment online if you
want to read it. Now. There are some people that

(10:21):
are talking about how the chief of the Criminal Division
in the US Attorney's Office for the District Middle District
of Tennessee resigned once the indictment came down. There may be,
but I had not found it, at least as of
late last night, any indication that he resigned for any

(10:42):
other reason that he's going to practice law. In his statement,
he said, it has been an incredible privilege to serve
as a prosecutor within the Department of Justice, where the
only job description I've ever known is to do the
right thing and the right way for the right reason.
I wish all of my colleagues at the US Attorney's

(11:02):
Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as
they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.
That's a pretty innocuous resignation. And I will tell you
that when new administrations come in, it is not unusual
at all for not only the US attorneys to resign
and or be fired, but for their chiefs of their

(11:25):
divisions to resign also and move on and start a
lucrative practice, or go into a lucrative practice doing criminal
defense or other work somewhere in a white shoe law firm.
It's not unusual. Let's go back to Garcia for a moment.
The charges against him cite a twenty twenty two police

(11:45):
stop in Tennessee where the charges Obviously, that's where the
charges are filed. It shows Garcia driving a vehicle occupied
by a bunch of people. The cops discussed the possibility
that he was a human smuggler. Now I'm going to
play the entire footage of this. This is from November thirtieth,

(12:07):
twenty twenty two. It's the body cam of one of
the troopers that pulled him over. All right, you're a
bunch of people here. Don't see one horse? Yes, the notices.
Immediately the trooper does, oh, you got a lot of
people in here, don't you.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
Buck to work?

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Gotcha? Where where are you working at? Where? Samuis Missouri? Yes, sir, gotcha? Okay,
I'm front from Maryland. Okay. The ring that I stopped
you was working in Saint Louis. But we're going back
to Maryland. Okay. So clearly transporting has been established by

(12:55):
his own admission. Now, whether it's transporting or not, that
remains to be seen. But I think the troopers have
probable cause at this very moment to believe that he
is engaged in smuggling. So you've been in Saint Louis
where you've been working, and now you're transporting, and you're

(13:17):
traveling interstate commerce. You're going through Tennessee on your own.
You're on your way back to Maryland, which is not unusual.
But you're going all the way back to Maryland. What
jobs were you doing in Tennise in Saint Louis? And
then why are you going all the way back to Maryland?
And where are you gonna go from Maryland? It's seventy
five down through here? Yeah, this is sixty five through here.

(13:38):
I know, I get seventy going seventy Yeah, they lemontright now,
the seventy see sixty five sixty five. I can see it.
So you got all, you young, I see the order.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
The Lewis is the limit.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
I see the anywhere.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
Jobs. Now he's digging around for papers. You can't fact
spot there's this treasure. Yeah, your driver's sauces, your registration,
and your preff insurance. Typical, stop, I need your driver's license,

(14:20):
registration and insurance. Listen to his explanation about his driver's license.
Oh okay, sure. The problem with my license right now
is a spirit rights is suspended.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
Expended because I'm a part my permanent employment, so.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Like good years experience, so I need to so right now,
I'm I'm waiting the paper for me ration before I
got to the NBA.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
So you're not driving that time? Was myself. The whole

(15:21):
time this video is playing, There's a passenger on the
front seat with her seat belt on. Looks to be
a middle aged woman. She never bats her eyes. She's
staring straight forward, as if frozen in time. She's clearly fearful.
I just kept hoping as I watched the video that

(15:44):
she would glance up at the trooper and just do
a like a wink or a you know a Morse
code with your eyes like you know, I'm a prisoner
of war. Do something to indicate help us. But she didn't.
And I'm sure that she was told if she would,
if she ever did anything like that, that both she

(16:08):
and her family would end up dead somewhere. We are you?

Speaker 4 (16:12):
Are you even married?

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Marylyn? Yeah? Wilome, Whose vehicle is? Whose car is? My brother?
Where's your boss?

Speaker 4 (16:27):
My my brother? Now in stay in Maryland? But we
leave from.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Houston. Have you got the plat for insurance?

Speaker 4 (16:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:41):
I don't know where it's port my boy? Let you more.
I thought you, I thought you want to be Mary.

(17:04):
The next project to do with the next project you meet?

Speaker 4 (17:07):
The pause, I'm going everybody going to nice per Yeah?
Next pye, okay, yeah, what.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Do y'all do? What kind of work is its construction? Now?

Speaker 4 (17:18):
You know what him from moderation ry?

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Does anybody else have a driver's as? Nobody mean?

Speaker 2 (17:31):
So?

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Could you find your insurance?

Speaker 4 (17:35):
Keep gonna tell insurance.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Troopers? Taking his light and looking in the back of
the van, checking everybody. He knows exactly what's going on.
He knows, he sack what's going on.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
I think the American taxpayers are so fed up with
this stuff. Like Garcia, he should just be deported, throw
away the key, leave him to l Salvador, let them
handle it. But no, we have to cave to the cabal,
cave to the left wingers. Just like Musk. He found
all this trillions and broadways and abuse, and it's all

(18:23):
going down the tubes. Nothing's gonna change. We're still good
as been trillions. I'm not happy with Trump on that
one either.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
This text message kind of sums up the reason we
can't have nice things in the country. Forty seven Rights Michael,
a well educated, well educated friend in Boulder, just told
me that Los Angeles was peaceful demonstrations before Trump got
involved and caused the escalation. He had no knowledge of

(18:54):
burning cars or looted shops and implied that was all
made up. It's kind of hard to know what to
do when a fifty year old citizen believes that. It's
kind of interesting because I've been watching the two TV
monitors in front of me, and while Fox News obviously
has been covering it, surprisingly CNN's been covering it. Los

(19:19):
Angeles here's the chiron right now. LA County official situation
has calmed down after quote probably one of the most
volatile nights in the city. Close quote. And they continue
to show freeways shut down, cars burning buildings on fire.
Rioters there they are with their stupid damn you know,

(19:42):
Mexican flags shutting down freeways. One hundreds is not thousands
of people marching. There's the LA riot squad trying to
keep people off, get people off the freeways, highways. Uh,
there's smoke there they are. Oh there, they are throwing things.

(20:07):
I tell your friend, you know what, turn on CNN.
You don't believe Fox, You don't believe. He doesn't believe you,
tell him to watch CNN. Police there. Police declare downtown
La an unlawful assembly area. So CNN seems to have

(20:27):
recognized that, oh h LA is going down. The crapper
we ut to cover it. Yeah, I want to talk
for a moment about this. I got my ballot in
the mail. This is a hyper local issue which I
generally don't talk about in this program, but a lot
of you have asked me about it, and I'm going

(20:50):
to tell you where I fall on the issue, and
you probably will disagree with me, but that's you can
try to convince me. Otherwise, it's about the home rule
issue in Douglas County that if you live in Douglas County,
you're now getting your ballots for it's about whether or
not to form a home rule Charter Commission and elect

(21:11):
the members to this commission in this June twenty fourth
special election, and then if it passes or if the
members get elected in this one, I mean, as I
recall a ballot, it first asks you if you're in
favor of home rule or not, and then you have
us at large members and then depending on what district

(21:34):
you're in, then you have members to vote to serve
on this commission to draft the charter for this Home
Rule Commission, and if approved, Douglas County would become a
home rule county, shifting away from a statutory county governed
by state law to one with a charter that allows
somewhat more local control over certain governance matters, but not everything. Well,

(21:58):
here are the pros. Home rule allows the county to
tailor policies to local needs on forty seven topics forty
seven different issues under Colorado law. Generally speaking, it's debt, taxes, parks,
open space, land use, and the structure of your government.

(22:19):
Now The current commissioners in Douglas County argue that it
will allow Douglas County to address local challenges more effectively,
free from state imposed restrictions, and help preserve the county's
identity as a safe, prosperous community. Sounds like a bunch
of bull crap, right, Well, I think it kind of
is now. They claim examples include setting local public safety

(22:42):
rules like gun rules, which I would love if that
were true, But I don't think they can reorganizing departments. Well,
sometimes reorganization is good, sometimes it's not. I'm kind of
ambivalent about that. They haven't made the case for me that, oh,
we need to reorganize all these departments in Douglas County,

(23:05):
and of course defining election processes like they did in
Pitkin County. We have two home rule counties in Colorado
right now, Pittkin and Weld. They also argue that it
will stop state overreach. So the two existing commissioners, George
Steel and Abe B. Laydon, they are out there claiming

(23:25):
that home rule would help Douglas County resist state policies
perceive as misaligned with local conservative values like taxes, immigration,
and gun regulations. Well, there's not a lot you can
do about immigration you don't have. I mean, Colorado is
a sanctuary state. You cannot change that no matter what

(23:46):
you do. And insofar as cooperating with ICE, if the
local constitutionally elected sheriff wants to cooperate with finds, he
can do that. He doesn't need state mission to do that.
He's a constitutionally elected office holder. So if if Sheriff

(24:09):
Reams wants to go along with sanctuary state status, he
can do that. But he's chosen not to. Gun regulations,
There's not a lot you can do in gun regulations.
Taxation maybe on the margins, not much. So all of
this kind of started back during COVID when the commissioners

(24:30):
wanted autonomy from all the state mandates because they wanted
to chart their own course. Well, I agreed with them
at the time. I think they should have just done it,
but they chose not to. Now they could redefine county
government structure. They could adjust commissioner roles, the election processes,

(24:52):
they get imposed term limits, they could get rid of
term limits. They can do anything about that, all claiming
that would better reflect community priority these and share dreams.
I meant weekly sheriff weekly. He supports home rule because
he suggested commandate policies like placing school resource officers in
every school, enhancing public safety. I'm not sure, Sheriff, that

(25:17):
you couldn't do that if you wanted to. Right now,
that's an allocation of resources that is up to you
and the county commissioners. Now, if voters approved the commission,
this elected twenty one member Home Rule Charter Commission will
draft the charter with public input. There'll be three mandated
public meetings, so there's some minimous county resident involvement. It

(25:41):
includes two voter checkpoints June in November, so it does
give residents of Douglas County ultimate control over whether home
rule is adopted or not. As I said, Weld and
Pitking Counties are the only other home rule counties in Colorado, excluding,
of course, city county entities like the city in County
of Denver City and County of Broomfield. They've used home

(26:02):
rule to consolidate government functions and tailor their policies. Weld
expanded their commission streamlines and departments, which supporters claim improved efficiency.
I can't quantify that or not. Now, the cons against
home rule, it doesn't allow counties to opt out of

(26:22):
state laws on state wide matters such as immigration, gun control,
or minimum wages. That's contrary to what the commissioners are claiming.
There's a Colorado Supreme Court ruling against Weld County that
confirmed that home rule counties must comply with state law. So,
no matter what they keep claiming, you still have to

(26:44):
comply to state law. And the Supreme Court, in a
unanimous decision ruled on that in Weld County where they
were trying to do their own redistricting, and they said, no,
you can't do that. So it seems to me we've
had some misrepresentation about home rule capabilities, claiming that it

(27:05):
would allow actions like arresting illegal aliens without state law violations,
or ignoring state firearm laws, which are I think legally untenable.
And there is some concern that home rule could lead
to a lot of litigation against state policies, which would
be a waste of taxpayer money, because we already know
from a unanimous Colorado Supreme Court decision up in Well

(27:26):
County that you can't just go do redistricting without following
state mandated statutes. And of course there's a and I
don't really agree with this, but there was a lawsuit
that claimed that trying to put together this home rule
charter process violated Colorado's open meetings law. I'm not really

(27:49):
sure it did now. I think one legitimate criticisms they
do have is that town halls have been criticized for
being limited to one hour with limited and some residents
are getting frustrated about that and are now claiming that
there's a secret of power grab going on, which kind
of seems to be going on. But let me get

(28:11):
to something that really does bug me. The pro Home Rule,
Yes On Local Control campaign has raised one hundred and
ten thousand dollars to support the home rule initiative. But
it came from just five donors, three out of county

(28:34):
builders and developers, and the spouse of Commissioner George Steele. Hm.
That's kind of interesting. Oh there was one other too.
There was Sean Tanner, who I actually know, who is
on one of the water commissions, and I think his
supportive of diverting water from somewhere I forget into Douglas County,

(28:59):
so he probably has a interest. Now. In contrast the opposition,
a group called Stop the Power Grab remember I mentioned
there were some protests going on at the old Douglas
original Douglas County Courthouse in Kastle Rock the other day
when I got a haircut. Well, apparently it was to
stop the power grab. Now, interestingly, they've only raised thirty

(29:22):
thousand dollars versus one hundred and ten thousand dollars, but
more than two hundred people, two hundred county residents have
supported to stop the power grab movement. So critics question
whether home rule serves residents or serves the agenda of

(29:42):
these three existing current county commissioners, especially since it was
initiated by the board rather than citizens, which is what
was done in Well and Pitkin Counties. And I just
find that I don't know that this is necessary. Douglas
County is already the healthy, of the safest, in the

(30:03):
most prosperous county in Colorado. So if that's working right now,
was this change due? There was a survey done in
twenty twenty three that showed seventy nine percent of seven
hundred and sixty respondents prioritized more independence from state controls,

(30:24):
which I would have been one of those that said, yes,
I would love to have more independence from state controls.
But I don't think one that that reflects informed support
for home rule, because I think the concept is complex,
it's poorly understood, and I don't think people understand that
within those forty seven categories, there's really not a lot

(30:44):
that you can do. The charger's content is unknown ntil
it's drafted, so it creates uncertainty about its impact. For example,
it could ultra elected positions to appointments or change commission
or powers, which might not alone with align with voter intent.
In other counties, like Simon County, voters rejected home rule

(31:07):
charters because of the dissatisfaction with the draft, highlighting the
same risk that we would have in Douglas County of
a poorly drafted charter failing in November. So we would
go through all of this for not It seems to
me we're going about it back assward. Let's see a
proposed charter. Let's see the proposed charter, rather than should

(31:29):
we vote to do this and then have a commission
to draft a charter and then vote again. I just
there are limited practical benefits. You got costs and risks,
You got transparent transparency and trust issues, and I think
we have sufficient current governance. Now, I may not like
the three commissioners in Douglas County, I may not like

(31:52):
everything that they do, but I can vote them out.
So if you're interested in home rule, you might think
more closely about finding a more transparent a lineway over time,
a transparent citizen initiative process that has extensive public input,

(32:12):
which is exactly what Well and Pipkin County did, and
which is what Summit County tried to do and got rejected.
So right now I'm a no vote. I have no
problem with home rule cities, none, whatsoever. That's commonplace. It's
a long standing practice. But I would encourage you if
you have you really need to think about the forty

(32:35):
seven areas that a home ruled county can govern themselves under.
But you have to read it very closely, because in
the broad terms, you think, oh, this really sounds good.
For example, local legislation power to enact ordinances and regulations
on matters of local concern land you zoning, local licensing.

(32:58):
But the statue spells out specifically how far you can
and cannot go. And that statute is Title thirty, Section
thirty five, starting at section two one thirtysh thirty fivesh
two oh one. If you want to read it yourself,
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