Wednesday, April 16

I can’t stop thinking about Kilmer Abrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to a notoriously dangerous prison in El Salvador. I don’t know García personally, but we live in the same Maryland county, a couple towns over, and needless to say his saga has rocked our community. Neighbors have organized rallies and demonstrations to show support while his attorneys try to figure out how to bring him home — something that President Donald Trump has made very clear this week he doesn’t want to happen.

In this week’s Eye On The Right, I explain why this moment in the Trump administration could be a defining one for the rule of law. Also in this week’s newsletter: a look into Trump’s latest executive orders that seek to punish former allies who called out election lies.

As always, thanks for reading. 

— Matt Cohen, Senior Reporter

The Sad, Cruel Saga of Kilmer Abrego García

On March 12, Kilmer Abrego García, a sheet metal apprentice in Maryland, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported to a notorious hard labor prison in El Salvador. Abrego García is a legal U.S. resident, who’s never committed a crime, and was living in the U.S. with his wife, five-year-old child and two step-children — all of whom are U.S. citizens. The Trump administration later admitted it made an “administrative error” by deporting Abrego García to El Salvador.

Multiple courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous order — ruled that the Trump administration must bring Abrego García back to the country. And yet, in a display of unhinged cruelty and utter callousness — not to mention a dangerous threat to the rule of law — the government refuses to bring Abrego García home.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice blew a deadline to provide a federal judge with a plan to “facilitate” Abrego García’s return. The judge ordered the DOJ to update the court daily on its plans to bring him home.

On Sunday, the DOJ responded that the SCOTUS order doesn’t require them to engage El Salvador in bringing Abrego García back, just that he’s allowed back in the U.S. should the country decide to release him.

On Monday, El Salvador’s self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” president Nayib Bukele met with Trump at the White House. When asked point blank by a reporter if he would send Abrego García back to the U.S., Bukele responded: “Of course I’m not going to do it.”

There are no two sides to this story. There are no loopholes that Trump is using to keep Abrego García in El Salvador. This isn’t a difference of opinion between the courts and the Trump administration. It is, pure and simple, a total disregard for the rule of law and a flex of authoritarianism. And whatever happens in this saga could be a defining moment in the Trump administration: The president and his administration disappeared a lawful U.S. resident, admitted that it was a mistake, and are now refusing multiple court orders to bring him back. How will history remember this moment?

Trump’s supporters are, of course, spinning their usual webs of disinformation to justify Abrego García’s deportation. On TruthSocial, right-wing media and influencers are painting him as an MS-13 gang member who was living in the country illegally — the DOJ has provided zero evidence for either claim. 

Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to bring him home. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) requested a meeting with Bukele and said that he plans to travel to El Salvador by midweek if Abrego García isn’t home by then.

“Kilmar Armando Abrego García never should have been abducted and illegally deported, and the courts have made clear: the Administration must bring him home, now,” Van Hollen said.

With the Trump administration defying the courts and refusing to return an innocent man they wrongly deported, there aren’t a lot of options on the table — at least unless the Supreme Court decides to take further action to ensure its order is followed. But at the very least, a coalition of Democrats accompanying Van Hollen to El Salvador and refusing to leave until Abrego García is with them is one way to fight back against Trump. 

Trump’s Latest Executive Orders Seek To Punish Former Allies Who Called Out Election Lies

In Trump’s ongoing efforts to punish his political enemies, the president last week ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top officials to investigate Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor — two of his first-term officials who publicly refuted his baseless claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and criticized his chaotic administration from within.

In two executive orders, Trump stripped Krebs, Taylor and people or companies associated with them of their security clearances as well.

At this point, a new Trump order targeting a political enemy shouldn’t come as a surprise, but these orders hit a bit different, considering the roles that these two former officials played: allies of Trump in his first term who dared to push back against his tyranny. 

Krebs served as the first director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — the agency established under Trump in his first term to safeguard the country against cybersecurity threats.

“Every day, America’s adversaries are testing our cyber defenses. They attempt to gain access to our critical infrastructure, exploit our great companies, and undermine our entire way of life,” Trump said at the time of CISA’s launch. “This vital legislation will establish a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security to lead the federal government’s civilian response to these cyber threats against our nation.”

Krebs, who led the agency in its previous incarnation — a DHS program called the National Protection and Programs Directorate — was approved by Trump to continue his work. But in the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump and his acolytes spread disinformation about a rigged election and mass voter fraud. Krebs pushed back on Trump’s false claims, creating a page on CISA’s website to debunk election disinformation, which drew the ire of Trump and his MAGA contingent.

On Nov. 17, 2020, Krebs tweeted about Trump’s election fraud claims. “ICYMI: On allegations that election systems were manipulated, 59 election security experts all agree, ‘in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent,’” he wrote.

Trump fired him that day, writing on Twitter that “the recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud — including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, ‘glitches’ in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.”

After that, Krebs became a major enemy in the Trump world. Trump’s campaign attorney, Joseph diGenova, even went on Newsmax to say that Krebs “should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.” (Krebs later sued diGenova, the Trump campaign and Newsmax for defamation. A few months later, diGenova issued a full apology for his comments about Krebs)

In his order against Krebs, Trump said he was targeting the former public servant for saying the 2020 election was not rigged. “Abusive conduct of this sort both violates the First Amendment and erodes trust in Government, thus undermining the strength of our democracy itself,” Trump’s order reads.

Krebs was a key witness during Congress’ investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. In his testimony before the Jan. 6 Select Committee, Krebs said Republican officials “lied to the American people about the security of the 2020 election.”