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CNN anchor Pamela Brown shut down a Republican congressman who accused her of “false reporting” about the Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of an illegally deported Maryland man, calling him out for trying to “create a moment” that would get him plaudits from the White House.
“Let me finish my sentence!” Brown shouted at one point.
A federal judge blasted the Trump administration on Tuesday for doing “nothing to comply” with her orders to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia home after, by their own admission, mistakenly sending him to a notorious El Salvador megaprison. Despite the Supreme Court ruling last week that the administration must effectuate his release and sending the case back to the lower court, both the White House and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele are refusing to commit to bringing Abrego Garcia home.
Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis, who initially ruled against the administration, told Justice Department lawyers on Tuesday that they should “cancel vacations” and “other appointments” for the next two weeks to allow Abrego Garcia’s legal team an opportunity to depose Trump officials on their refusal to return the Maryland father. Meanwhile, the administration has argued publicly that Abrego Garcia was deported without any legal proceedings because he’s a “designated terrorist” and “MS-13 gang member” involved in “human trafficking,” accusations they have not made in court.
Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) attempted to defend the deportation of Abrego Garcia while simultaneously insisting that Abrego Garcia actually had received “due process” because he had appeared before an immigration judge six years ago.
“In this case, I think it’s been very clear. There has been a process. You can say it’s not due process, but actually he has appealed his deportation. He lost that appeal. He was going to be deported. Whether he should have gone to El Salvador or not is really the one question,” McCormick declared after Brown asked him if he felt the executive branch was overstepping its authority by ignoring court orders.
“It also begs the question when anybody says that they request asylum because their life is threatened, and they have this due process,” he continued. “The question is, how are you going to deport them to that country of origin? If he belongs to a, let‘s say it‘s MS-13 or whatever, there‘s a rival gang that doesn‘t like him. Are we going to have this hold up our deportation of criminal elements here in the United States? But when it comes to the due process, he did have due process and he appealed it, and he still lost that. And he was deported, perhaps to El Salvador by mistake.”
It appears that McCormick was referring to Abrego Garcia being detained by ICE in 2019 after he was arrested for loitering outside a Home Depot while looking for work. While he was initially scheduled for deportation for entering the country illegally back in 2011, a federal judge eventually granted him a withholding of removal after Abrego Garcia said he faced persecution and threats of violence if he was returned to El Salvador. Since then, he had made regular check-ins with ICE until he was picked up last month and shipped to the infamous CECO megaprison.
“He didn’t have due process most recently,” Brown noted, prompting McCormick to fire back: “What do you consider due process?!”
After the CNN anchor explained that Abrego Garcia never got a chance to stand before a judge after he was recently taken off the street and quickly sent off to El Salvador, the MAGA congressman asserted that he had “twice” had due process because of his 2019 appearances in an immigration court.
“Are we supposed to blindly trust the government when it alleges gang ties without providing the evidence to back it up again?” Brown eventually asked, leading McCormick to then say that Abrego Garcia was merely deported because “he’s here illegally” and that the “MS-13 issue is another issue.”
After the two went back and forth over their interpretation of the case, with Brown repeatedly noting that what the administration is saying publicly about Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang affiliation isn’t being repeated in court, the anchor finally lost her patience.
“No, it did not. It did not. That’s false reporting. You know that’s false!” McCormick yelled when Brown tried to point out that the Supreme Court agreed with the lower court’s ruling.
“Let me finish my sentence, congressman,” the host snapped back. “I understand you’re trying to create a moment right now to try to get pick-up, and that’s self-serving. That’s not serving our viewers.”
“I think we know who is trying to create the moment here. We know that,” the Georgia lawmaker sneered.
“No, what I am laying out here are facts. The Supreme Court, in a four-page opinion, agreed with the lower court judge that it should, the administration should ‘facilitate his return,’” she replied.
“That’s not facts, by the way,” McCormick retorted. “Just so you know, that’s not facts.”
Following the heated exchange, Brown ended the interview by attempting to get McCormick’s opinion on the president’s repeated suggestion that American citizens could soon be shipped to the El Salvador prison system for unspecified crimes, calling them “homegrown” criminals. The GOP congressman, however, claimed he wasn’t aware of Trump’s comments.
“I didn’t hear what he said specifically,” he claimed. “I’m not sure what the context is, so I’m not gonna comment on what the context of that comment was because I don’t think the president would be inferring that he’s gonna break the constitutionality of due process for citizens of the United States. I think that’s absurd.”
