"Like the judge, the states thought nothing was happening. Like an idiot, I believed that."
That was the angry blast by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen against the Department of Justice whom he accused of misleading him on President Obama's executive order on immigration. In contrast to normal federal court proceedings, it was quite an emotional confrontation. That plus the fact that the executive order has been big news for months you would figure it would have been covered in the MSM. Well, for the most part you would be wrong. With the notable exceptions of the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Fox News, and a few other sources the reporting on this has been almost non-existent. No coverage from the alphabet networks and most of the major newspapers. Here is what happened last Thursday in that federal courtroom in Texas as reported by the Los Angeles Times:
A federal judge threatened Thursday to sanction the Justice Department if he finds that government lawyers misled him about the rollout of President Obama’s plan to shield up to 5 million people from deportation.
U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, visibly annoyed, confronted a U.S. deputy assistant attorney general over previous government assurances on the timing of the program.
...Hanen’s barbed comments left little doubt that he sympathized with lawyers for the 26 states, who said they suffered “irreparable harm” when federal officials granted more than 100,000 applications for deferred action after Obama announced the program Nov. 20. He said government lawyers had assured him that “nothing was happening” regarding the applications.
...Hanen said Justice Department lawyers had assured him at a previous hearing that the administration had not begun implementing the deferred-action plan, designed to protect qualified immigrants from deportation for three years.
“Like the judge, the states thought nothing was happening,” Hanen said with exasperation. “Like an idiot, I believed that.”
Deputy Asst. U.S. Atty. Gen. Kathleen R. Hartnett told the judge: “I would like to apologize for any confusion.” She added moments later: “We had no intent to withhold any of this material from the court.”
Hartnett said lawyers immediately notified the court when they realized “we may have inadvertently caused confusion.” Hanen corrected her, asking, “So you waited three weeks to tell me you were doing it?”
...When Hanen asked Hartnett whether American taxpayers would ultimately pay for any sanctions imposed on the Justice Department, she offered a noncommittal response.
“Answer my question,” the judge demanded.
“Ultimately, yes,” Hartnett responded.
Hanen asked Hartnett bluntly whether Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson or other senior officials could be trusted on the immigration plan.
“I can trust what Secretary Johnson says … what President Obama says?” the judge asked.
“Yes, your honor, of course,” Hartnett replied.
Fireworks galore yet from most of the MSM...the sounds of snoring. And speaking of snoring, among those conveniently snoring on this issue was Josh Gerstein of Politico whose blog describes itself as "on the courts, Transparency and more." So what gives, Josh? Despite a post on Tuesday about how the federal government is denying that it "dawdled" in response to an injunction issued by Judge Hanen, the only coverage by Gerstein to Thursday's much more significant courtroom fireworks is snoring. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Exit question: Will we need to disturb the permanent vacation of Gerstein's Politico colleague, Mike Elk, in order to enlist him to rouse Josh from his deep sleep on this matter?
