Transcription
Remember when Christy Gnome this past week ran away from the congressional hearing where she was being grilled about her unlawful behavior? Well, that happened in Congress.
But now a federal judge is saying, "I'm not buying what you're selling, Christine, when you've tried to assert attorney client privilege and executive privilege and all of these things to avoid providing a declaration about why you violated a court order saying do not send these 100 plus individuals to that concentration camp in El Salvador several months ago."
So, Judge Boseberg, Washington DC federal court, he made a very important order recently saying, "Christine and Trump regime officials who are involved. Submit declarations about what happened and I'll assess if we need to have live testimony or if the behavior by you is contemptuous. If there if there is a finding of contempt, we may not need a live hearing. may not need to show up as a witness. Christine Gnome and others who were involved, but just submit a declaration because the judge previously got the DOJ to admit that it was Christine who made the decision um to violate the court order effectively. But the judge said, "I want to hear more." and Christine Gnome and Emil Bove who's now a third circuit court of appeals judge who was working at the DOJ at the time that these deportations or these sending these individuals to El Salvador um took place. They all basically said, "Judge, we are basically gagged. We are asserting a privilege, attorney client privilege. We're asserting exe any privilege imaginable work product. we are not going to submit declarations."
So, Judge Booseberg isn't backing off his planned contempt hearings next week. And he says, you know, your claim of attorney client privilege or work product privilege, I don't buy it because there's also something called a crime fraud exception. You may have engaged in crimes. That's why this is a criminal contempt proceeding. And if you violated court orders or said, "F the judges. Let's not follow what the courts are saying." That could indeed be criminal.
So, here's what Judge Boseberg wrote on December 8th, 2025. "This court ordered that live witness testimony would be warranted in its inquiry into whether a contempt referral is appropriate. The government now moves for reconsideration, asking the court not to conduct such a hearing or alternatively to greatly restrict the testimony. The court denies the government's motion."
In other words, the court denies what the DOJ has filed on behalf of all those people I mentioned like um them like all those people. She goes on to say, "Christine and the others to begin this inquiry is not some academic exercise. Approximately 137 men were spirited out of this country without a hearing and placed in a high-security prison in El Salvador where many suffered abuse and possible torture despite the court's order that they should not be disembarked. The question the court must now answer is whether this occurred via contempt type conduct by government officials."
Um, it goes on to say that um how you know that uh apparently there were discussions that are being asserted as attorney client privilege. But in any event, to the extent that future contempt was being considered, the crime fraud exception visiates any privilege. So, the court will be mindful of attorney client privilege, but also mindful of the crime fraud exception to asserting attorney client privilege. Basically, show up. I want to see these witnesses here live.
So, Christino may be running away from Congress, but as of now, she'd have to show up potentially. Emil Bo, all these people show up and tell us what the hell did you do?
So, Attorney General Pam Bondi responds today. "The Justice Department filed a new mandamus petition in the DC circuit to stop Judge James Booseberg's lawless judicial activism and defend Trump's agenda. His latest order threatens attorney client privilege and the separation of powers underpinning our government. All because the administration dared to remove Venezuelan trendwa terrorists from this country. This radical, retaliatory, unconstitutional campaign against the Trump administration will not stand."
And then the Department of Justice apparently thinks that while Jed Boseberg, a Yale grad, top of his class, top a judge, top lawyer, that that was that they attacked that guy, the Department of Justice, though thinks that this is the right way to deal with judges. Franklin is helping write the next chapter of America. You can too. We're looking for patriotic legal professionals to serve as deportation judges. Your work will have generational consequences. Franklin becomes a deportation judge.
So on the one hand, you have in Judge Boseberg. He sat in the as the top chair of like the FISA court. He's like the chief judge in DC. The guy's viewed as like a moderate top jurist in America. But on the other hand, what they're looking for is uh Franklin becomes a deportation judge, which by the way is theft of the intellectual property of Franklin, a uh Canadian cartoon character. And this is what our justice department is spending their time doing.
Right now, I want to bring in Harry Litman from the Talking Feds YouTube channel and the Talking Feds podcast. So, here we are, Harry. In the same day, the Department of Justice is attacking Judge Booseberg for the audacity of wanting to hold a hearing about why his orders were violated and that the DOJ is asserting attorney client privilege. Their view of a judge is someone who responds to a Franklin theft of IP and that that's who they want judges to be. You can't make this stuff up, >> right?
No, you need you need those wigs to be a real judge. Look, several things uh going uh on here. The first Pam Bondi trying to get we they're back now on the claim that uh uh Abrego Garcia and others are real terrorists here. That is not the point. The Supreme Court has made it clear you can't send people out without some notice and opportunity to be here. That's a basic foundation of constitutional law that she's simply ignoring here. That's point one.
Point two, all this privilege assertion which was absolutely to be expected. It's the most their submission completely threadbare just says privilege. That's not how it works as you well know from your uh practicing uh days and now you want to assert lawyer client privilege. Okay, we need a log. We need to know what conversation how is it for legal consultation and the rest. That's that's even before you think about is it visiated because of the crime fraud exception which would really really you know hand it to them. Same thing with executive privilege which is a limited privilege and we're talking about a crime here and this maybe being the only evidence of it.
Third, Boseberg we've talked about this several times and you know he it would have been easy for him to drop this way back when. And they've used every excuse in the book, including state secrets, uh including, "Oh, it's all up to uh Buchelli in um El Salvador, including oh, just let it go, judge. He's not doing it." And and not out of vanity. He represents the DC district bench, and all of them were completely mistreated and exploited by the Trump administration. They spent three years doing all these cases with marauders in front of them. every single there's not a single aqu quiddle among them and then Trump uh comes in and just lets it go.
Fourth and most important Ben I think um they have filed this mandamus action that's all they have left really and that's a very very hard you know if they get a fantastic Trump panel and that panel is willing to totally reach you know but mandamus is not a remedy you can you just go forward with the hearing then if you have a problem you take it from there but who's the star witness on Monday Ruveni he is the lawyer who was in in the room with Boe and others and then he was fired for the great sin of answering candidly to the court when they said was was Garcia in fact fired even though there was an order not to send him yes what that's his duty of cander Bondi fires him for not being loyal to Donald Trump and he's become a whistleblower and he's got the receipts big time about bo and others so if They try to just, you know, not show up and he has Ruveni and there's someone else who's now a for the guy who was actually there on March 15th when uh Booseberg says, "What's going on?" What are your clients saying? He was like, "I don't know." Um Boseberg will have more than enough for a finding of contempt. And if they if they don't uh offer try to resist especially unlawfully uh having Gnome testify maybe even Bo then my best guess is Boseberg shies away from that but but others with injustice he can go ahead and absolutely legitimately um enter contempt based on what he has maybe even with an adverse inference from the people who don't testify. So it really is somewhat selfdefeating. If they don't want to make their defense, the people who are out there will make the showing of criminal contempt. And I think Ruveni is going to be an absolutely explosive witness. >> Couldn't agree more with you, Harry. And then there's just a conversation that we should have briefly though about who Judge Booseberg is >> versus.
Not enough for the DOJ to fully pervert and destroy itself with Pam Bondi and all of these grifters and unqualified people who have destroyed a proud institution. They now want to use any power they have over immigration judges and other to use a a intellectual property theft photo which they keep using to like have this Franklin character, this Canadian cartoon character engaging in like war crimes and now like and they find this like behavior funny but like and it isn't and it's disturbing. We're talking about judges at a high level here. And you know, you were a top federal prosecutor. You were United States attorney who was actually who did it the who did it the right way and you were a top prosecutor um and main justice, Harry. So when you see just this this overall behavior, it's like what are they doing?
>> And they have a clown show, but they somehow hope that people won't see it. But yeah, just for starters, right? Who's watching late night TV who doesn't have a job and sees that uh this Franklin I know that's good I'll I'll help the future with deportation but I just want to underscore what you said about Boseberg nobody I mean nobody of any legal knowledge or sophistication in DC would get within uh a mile of their ridiculous caricature Boseberg is a judge's judge he was moreover a 15-year veteran of DOJ, a former uh prosecutor. We we often mention he's Brett uh Kavanaaugh's law school roommate at Yale and just a steady, prudent, thoughtful uh guy. And they must realize by now they are not going to get him off this. And for for several months. One reason it's it's grown a little old is that the DC circuit had a case that was freezing him for several months, but they decided it in a way that then gave him the green light to go forward. And he's not going to relent. And you know, even if to to people in the outside seems like gold news, the value to history to of that finding that within a couple months of, you know, coming right out of the box on his immigration initiative, they were willing to say, "F you." I'm quoting uh you to we may have to say, "F you" to the courts. And those planes are landing. meaning we're going to know we I don't care for per a mil boi what a uh what the judge said man oh man that finding and it holds up that's just a really important historical document as well as I think playing into a larger narrative that I really feel is happening over the last few weeks you can see it uh you know just most recently in the Paula Zenis uh decision involving ao Garcia now uh real loss of credibility and courts increasingly emboldened to say, "You guys are lying to me and I don't listen to you anymore." Which is stunning uh to hear from federal judges about the Department of Justice.
>> Yeah. You know, they did it incrementally and then all at once, but it's not a coincidence, right? And you and I have been covering this every step of the way. And perhaps it was frustrating to our audience to say, can they just get there already? But they tried to these federal judges uh to create basically a a pristine record of all of the attempts they tried to give this Trump regime the ability to be like, "Okay, we're normal. We're, you know," but like it was after, "All right, you want to submit a declaration? You want to provide evidence here? You want to show me this? Maybe you provide that. Okay, you're saying this, let's do another hearing on it. Come back and show me this. And after lies and witnesses, you and I would always cover this. They'd bring in witnesses who had no clue what the case was. They go on a Google Meets the night before the hearing and they'd be told what to say in a declaration. The judges just have just feel very comfortable now. All right, we spent six months, seven months building this record and now you're seeing all these judges forcefully assert themselves. There you have it, Harry Litman. Subscribe to his YouTube channel, Talking Feds on YouTube, Talking Feds Podcast, and Talking Feds Substack. Just search Talking Feds. Thanks, Harry.
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