Remember the cries of "Bush Lied" during the previous administration — even though he didn't? Or the obsession over the 16 words relating to Saddam Hussein's attempt to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, which George W. Bush's opponents tried to pretend were false but were really true? Good times.
In federal court in February, the Obama administration seriously "misrepresented" the degree of its adoption of the President's executive actions relating to illegal immigrants issued late last year. The establishment press has largely treated the matter as a minor bump in the road. Hardly.
On February 16, federal judge Andrew Hanen, responding to a lawsuit filed by 26 states, enjoined the administration from taking any steps to implement Obama's executive actions. The administration's lawyers essentially told Judge Hanen: "That's okay, we haven't done anything yet anyway." That simply wasn't true.
That mid-February injunction was supposed to prevent the government from implementing two programs it had supposedly hoped to begin on February 18, namely Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), as well as others in the pipeline which were planned for later.
But in early March, the Justice Department told Judge Hanen that the government had in fact previously begun to implement part of the DACA expansion, "and had issued more than 100,000 new three-year DACA renewals."
Judge Hanen was furious. As a result, DOJ attorneys are scrambling, with close White House backup, to prevent permanent damage to the administration's agenda and to their own careers.
In early April, as reported by Lana Shadwick at Breitbart.com (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Judge Andrew Hanen has issued a scathing written rebuke directed at government lawyers and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for their misrepresentations made in the case filed against President Obama’s executive amnesty plan. He has ordered the Government to produce related documents by April 21st. He also warned the government against destroying any of this evidence.
"... despite the Government’s multiple assurances that no action would be taken prior to February 18, 2015, in reality, between November 24, 2014, and February 16, 2015, the DHS granted approximately 100,000 applications pursuant to the revised DACA, the terms of which were established in the 2014 DHS Directive that is the subject of this suit.”
The judge wrote “the Court is extremely troubled by the multiple representations made by the Government’s counsel―both in writing and orally―that no action would be taken pursuant to the 2014 DHS Directive until February 18, 2015.”
... “Whether by ignorance, omission, purposeful misdirection, or because they were misled by their clients, the attorneys for the Government misrepresented the facts.”
... The Court cited specific rules governing lawyers’ conduct regarding making misrepresentations, half-truths, omissions, and failing to correct misstatements. He said that while the Government’s misconduct could be used to strike the Government’s pleadings, he would refrain to do so ...
The government got an extension to April 30 to respond. The establishment press has mostly failed to cover that response or the related fallout, which is sadly not surprising.
As Shadwick reported on Saturday, the plaintiffs believe that the administration's "trust us, there's nothing to worry about here" pleading is completely unsatisfactory:
TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: DOJ BRAZENLY DISREGARDED JUDGE’S ORDER IN EXECUTIVE AMNESTY CASE
The Texas Attorney General has accused Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers of committing a “brazen disregard for a legal order” in the case filed against President Obama’s executive amnesty plan.
... Attorney General Ken Paxton stated:
"In its most recent filing, not only does the Obama Administration deny the coalition of 26 suing states the opportunity to review documents about how the DOJ misrepresented the early implementation of its executive amnesty program, it also suggests that the judge himself should not review those documents. Regardless, we will continue to fight for the rule of law by asking the district court to carefully review the administration’s withheld documents and hold the DOJ accountable so they provide reliable information about this case, both to the court and to the states."
What drew such a sharp response? As Stephen Dinan at the Washington Time reported on Sunday, it was the DOJ's attempt to essentially invoke executive privilege to claim that no one can be allowed to look at anything important:
The Justice Department checked with the White House before informing a federal judge that it was already carrying out part of President Obama’s immigration amnesty, administration attorneys revealed in documents filed in court late last week as they tried to head off a judicial spanking.
The attorneys turned over the communications with the White House to Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who is hearing the major case challenging Mr. Obama’s 2014 deportation amnesty, but the lawyers pleaded with the court not to look at the documents on grounds that it would intrude on the president’s powers.
Still, the revelation that the White House was looped in suggests officials knew the seriousness of the error in not informing Judge Hanen earlier that the Homeland Security Department was already carrying out part of Mr. Obama’s amnesty by granting three-year work permits to illegal immigrants who qualified under the 2012 policy.
“The Department of Justice and the White House counsel’s office sometimes confer regarding civil litigation that impacts high-priority policy initiatives of the administration,” the attorneys said in a 34-page brief filed Friday that repeatedly apologized for misleading the court, while insisting it wasn’t intentional.
In documents filed with the court, the attorneys said more than 1,500 Homeland Security employees knew the three-year part of the amnesty was in effect as of November.
The Justice Department attorneys are trying to avoid a reprimand from Judge Hanen, who has expressed surprise that the administration was carrying out any part of the amnesty, despite telling him in both filings and during a hearing that the amnesty program wouldn’t begin until February.
... Texas has asked for limited discovery in the case to try to figure out how seriously it should treat the government’s behavior. Judge Hanen now has those documents and will have to decide what to make public.
It must be nice. All you have to do to keep everything sealed relating to something over 1,500 other people knew about is to exchange a few emails with the White House. What a crock.
The establishment press is mostly ignoring the administration's attempt to hide behind supposedly privileged DOJ-White House communications to keep detailed information about how its lawyers lied to the court away from the plaintiffs' and the public's eyes.
A search at the Associated Press's national site on Hanen's last name returns nothing. A search at the wire service's "Big Story" site returns nothing more recent than April 17. The New York Times? April 18 (ironically, a Reuters item about the administration's attempt to overturn Hanen's ruling in a federal appeals which completely hid the administration's "misrepresentations"; the Associated Press had a similarly uninformative story the previous day).
More broadly, a search at Google News on the judge's full name (for the past week; sorted by date) returned only 14 items. Three of them are administration-supportive pieces at the Politico, one is at the Wall Street Journal, and another is at Bloomberg News. The rest are from center-right and Hispanic language outlets.
There isn't a chance in Hades that the press would be ignoring such a secretive power-asserting gambit solely in the name of covering up blatant dishonesty if attempted by a Republican or conservative administration.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
