JUDGE ORDERS THAT ACTING ICE DIRECTOR TODD LYONS BE HAULED BEFORE THE COURT, AND WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE WHO THE JUDGE IS!
I apologize that the headline may seem a bit click-baity, I promise it’s not, it’s actually a teaser for those who follow me and have seen this Judge’s name before, *very* recently. In fact, just yesterday.
And he is pissed.
The judiciary is that proverbial sleeping giant, but once you wake that giant up…hooboy, watch out!
In a three-page order (included for Notes from the Front members), the Court *sua sponte* (that’s fancy legal talk for “of it’s own accord”, in other words there was no formally filed request by one of the parties) issued an Order to Show Cause (what we in the biz call an “OSC”) *ORDERING* Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons to appear before the Judge on Friday, to explain (“show cause”) why he should not be held in contempt over the fact that the Judge’s orders regarding the retention and release of certain ICE detainees had not been followed.
For those of you who haven’t yet guessed (or looked at the signature on the screenshot), it’s none other than Judge Schiltz! I told you about Judge Schiltz yesterday when I explained that the administration had attempted to go around CHIEF District Court Judge Schiltz to get the 8th Circuit to issue a Writ of Mandamus or to issue an arrest warrant for journalist Don Lemon. Not only that, but they had *filed their request under seal*, effectively shutting out Judge Schiltz from being able to read the very thing about which he needed to render an opinion!
As he said in one of the two urgent letters which he sent to his 8th District colleagues, late at night from home because the administration had done all this in the evening, “Apparently I am supposed to guess what the petition is about and guess what the mandamus petition says and then respond. I will do so.”
(You can see my article about that, which includes both letters, here: https://annepmitchell.substack.com/p/woot-judge-refuses-to-charge-minnesota )
Certainly after that Judge Schiltz was in *no* mood to put up with this administration’s nonsense.
In that 3-page OSC, which, let’s be clear, is from a *completely different case* having *nothing* to do with the Mandamus request (so the administration has now ticked off the same judge in two different matters) Judge Schiltz says, among other things:
“This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result.”
Well, the Court’s patience has been worn tissue-paper thin.
He *also* says:
“The Court expresses its appreciation to attorney Ana Voss and her colleagues, who have struggled mightily to ensure that respondents comply with court orders despite the fact that respondents have failed to provide them with adequate resources.”
This is very important, even though it’s a footnote in the OSC. Ana Voss is the Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis. What this seemingly insignificant, almost offhand, footnote really says is “This is ALL on the administration, the attorneys representing the administration here on the ground are *trying* to do the right thing, and *trying* to comply with court orders. It’s the ADMINISTRATION who is *causing* you to be unable to comply.”
I can’t wait for Friday’s hearing, it’s gonna be a beatdown.
Notes from the Front members: Judge Schiltz’s awesome, forceful, no-beating-around-the-bush order is in your inbox now.
To preserve original source documents before they can be tampered with (remember the 16 documents that mysteriously disappeared from the Epstein files?), and protect myself from claims of improper republication, and trolls, I don’t publicly share documents I find, I make them available privately to Notes from the Front members. Often these are non-public documents for which I have had to pay out of my own pocket in order to share them with you. Others of them may be public but I find the source originals for you and include explanations and insights based on my decades of law practice and as a law professor, with a side of snark. ;~)
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https://annepmitchell.substack.com/p/judge-orders-that-acting-ice-director
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