JUST IN: Unsealed filing in Trump Florida case says there were two rounds of classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago *after* the FBI search. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Judge HOWELL also found last year that prosecutors provided sufficient evidence that Trump sought to hide classified documents from prosceutors. It was part of her ruling granting crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
This entire opinion from Judge Howell assessing the evidence prosecutors presented on Trump's "willful retention" of classified docs and efforts to obstruct the probe is extraordinary.
She described Nauta as "dissembling" in his FBI interview as well.
For example, Howell can't fathom how Trump missed the four classified docs in his own bedroom that his lawyer found in December 2022. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
NEW: Attorney found four classified documents in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago bedroom in December 2022 — four months after the FBI search, newly unsealed court documents shows.
MORE: A witness connected to Trump’s Save America PAC scanned and stored documents from the box containing those materials on a laptop provided by the PAC, per Howell’s opinion. politico.com/news/2024/05/2…
NOTABLE: Howell’s opinion was actually unsealed because Trump’s lawyers appended it to their claim of prosecutorial misconduct — citing this footnote in which Howell quotes a procedural text. politico.com/news/2024/05/2…
JUST IN: Chief Judge Boasberg has *denied* Walt Nauta’s request to transfer some grand jury materials from DC to Florida, says Nauta failed to make specific case.
Some people do Friday Zillow. We do Friday habeas. Here are some cases of people who have been detained by ICE and ordered released by judges who said the detention was illegal. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Mexican man with no criminal history and six US citizen kids.
BREAKING: The Trump administraiton has committed a mass violation of ICE detainees' constitutional rights in MN, effectively blocking their acess to attorneys in the Whipple building, a judge ruled tonight.
NEW: A federal judge excoriated the Trump administration for claiming it lacked the resources to give ICE detainees constitutionally required access to lawyers — despite surging law enforcement to detain them in the first place.
The rebuke came as the administration also dropped criminal charges against two men it claimed had attacked an ICE officer, who fired a gun in the fracas. “Newly discovered evidence” conflicted with the original headline-grabbing account, DOJ said. politico.com/news/2026/02/1…
NEW: Federal judges are increasingly furious at what they see as a pattern / playbook of defiance by the Trump administration to court orders in immigration cases — in Minnesota and around the country.
1) WHISKING DETAINEES TO OTHER STATES: ICE has made a practice of pinballing people from where they're arrested to facilities in Texas, New Mexico or elsewhere, and sometimes more than once. It can complicate or defeate challenges to their detention.
2) BLOWING OFF DEADLINES: When detainees sue for release, the administration is increasingly blowing off court-ordered deadlines to response. It's become almost routine and has led judges to order release in some cases. politico.com/news/2026/02/1…
Two men were recently charged with assaulting an immigration officer in MN with a snow shovel and broom, which led to a shooting ICE claims was defensive. The case made national headlines.
The men moved in court earlier in this week to prevent ICE from deporting witnesses who they say can rebut the charges. Their trial judge, Paul Magnuson, agreed.
However...
One of the witnesses, a 19-year-old woman who appears to be the partner of one of the defendants, was apparently picked up by ICE the same day as the incident and transported first to Texas and then to New Mexico.
Today, a judge in New Mexico noted demanded details about the woman's detention, noting that MN offered her a U visa for witnesses to a criminal investigation and that she's being held under mandatory detention policies that most judges – including Judge Strickland – have ruled unlawful.
UPDATE: Judge Strickland in New Mexico has now further enjoined DHS from relocating or deporting the witness.
MEANWHILE: Judges in Minnesota continue rejecting the administration's efforts to lock up ICE's targets en masse. This man has been in the US since 1988 and says he's been approved for a green card.
What may be most notable, however, is the increasingly lengthy list of requirements in the judge's order — each responsive to recent violations or transgressions by the administation, such as releasing MN residents in Texas with no way to get home to withholding their possessions
In another release order, Judge BARTLE — a George W. Bush appointee in Pennsylvania — vented today that ICE "continues to act contrary to law, to spend taxpayer money needlessly, and to waste the scarce resources of the judiciary." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
NEW: A rupture between DOJ and ICE has emerged in Minnesota, where overwhelmed prosecutors keep dropping the ball — and saying ICE won't return their messages.
The crisis has had real-world consequences for migrants illegally detained.
MORE: Julie Le — the DOJ attorney who vented about the chaos in court — has been reassigned. politico.com/news/2026/02/0…
Le's cases are the tip of the iceberg. In recent weeks, an overwhelmed DOJ has dropped the ball in dozens of cases, missing deadlines, botching filings, violating orders.