Trump administration live updates: Acting AG Tom Blanche grilled on president’s ‘unconscionable’ $1.8B ‘slush fund’

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin fielded several questions about the conditions and protests at Delaney Hall, a controversial ICE detention center where detainees are reportedly on hunger strike over allegedly inhumane conditions, spoiled food and lack of access to legal counsel.

But Mullin said recent health inspections “didn’t find one single violation.”

Just before he testified, however, New Jersey’s Health Department sued GEO Group, the private prison contractor that runs the facility, for “immediate” entry to investigate the jail.

Inspectors initially tried to enter Delaney Hall on May 27 but were barred from “full access” to the facility, according to a civil complaint filed on Tuesday. They were barred from the jail’s medical unit, toilets, shower facilities and sleeping areas, and were “unable to ascertain” whether GEO Group and ICE are “taking sufficient precautions to mitigate the serious and unchecked risk of communicable diseases to both detainees at Delaney Hall and New Jersey’s public at large.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro criticized President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which she called “unconscionable.”

She made the remarks as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared before a House Appropriations subcommittee.

“It can be used to pay out violent criminals who assaulted police officers and ransacked the Capitol on January 6. … These are the people who were arrested, they were tried, convicted, and then pardoned by the administration, and now he wants to raid the Treasury to pay them,” she said.

The plan sparked pushback from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, with critics labeling it a “slush fund” for his supporters. Trump tabled the plan after a judge temporarily blocked his administration from “taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation” of the fund in a ruling released Friday.

Lots to unpack in that exchange over Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wrongful removal case has been a flashpoint in the legal chaos around the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.

Mullin says he is not aware of Abrego Garcia’s long-running legal battle in his attempt to deport himself to Costa Rica, which has agreed to take him.

The secretary said: “Great, if he’s willing to do that we’d be happy to send him.”

But the Trump administration — while also trying to prosecute him in a separate criminal case — has been trying for months to deport him to Liberia.

Mullin’s statement is likely to be brought up by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in court filings.

A federal judge is currently blocking ICE from re-deporting or detaining him, noting earlier this year that the government has made “one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success.”

In a memo issued in March, ICE’s then-acting director Todd Lyons argued that sending him to Costa Rica would be “prejudicial to the United States.”

Last month, the judge overseeing his criminal case dismissed the indictment against him after Abrego Garcia argued he was being unlawfully targeted as part of a smear campaign after he won he wrongful deportation case.

“Objective evidence” has shown that federal prosecutors only brought charges against Abrego Garcia after he won his lawsuit challenging his arrest and removal. A decision to re-open a previously closed investigation against Abrego Garcia — coupled with public statements from administration officials including Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that tied the case to Abrego Garcia’s lawsuit — “taints the investigation with a vindictive motive,” the judge wrote.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee.

Sen. Gary Peters pressed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin over what he called the “unprecedented politicization of disaster assistance.”

“There are reports that President Trump has approved nearly 90 percent of disaster requests from red states, but only 23 percent from blue states, even when the request met the FEMA-established threshold for federal assistance,” Peters said.

He went on to ask Mullin if he believes it’s right for a president to “approve disaster aid based on whether a state voted for him instead of the amount of damage that actually occurred in the state.”

“Senator Peters, that’s not my experience with the president. As I said, we’ve had 37 states approved for public assistance disaster underneath President Trump,” Mullin replied.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said most DHS agents are “not going to bother you” unless “you’re breaking the law.”

“Has it been your experience that most cops, most Border Patrol officers, most ICE agents will leave you alone unless you do illegal stuff?” Sen. John Kennedy asked.

“That is absolutely correct, and they love doing their job. They don’t do it for the money, they do it because they’re called to do it. … There’s always a few bad apples, but for the most part, those officers, unless you’re breaking the law, they’re not going to bother you,” Mullin replied.

Sen. Patty Murray accused Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin of floating “outrageous proposals” and said he has yet to “take back the reins from Stephen Miller.”

“You plan to withdraw CBP officers from airports in cities that don’t roll over for Trump. That is insane. It is not only dangerous, it would also spell economic crisis for blue and red states,” she said.

In his opening statement, Sen. Chris Murphy brought up how judges across the country have accused DHS of repeatedly failing to follow court orders, including at least 96 violations in just one district in Minnesota.

Federal courts are swimming in cases alleging unlawful arrests and detentions filed by immigrants swept up in the Trump administration’s mass deportation dragnet.

Judges have ruled roughly 10,000 times that ICE officers had illegally arrested people without giving them the chance to prove they could safely remain in their communities while their immigration cases played out.

In the Minnesota example, ICE released the man at the center of case, but District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz unleashed his frustrations and listed 96 court orders from 74 different cases that the agency allegedly failed to follow, a count that he said was “almost certainly substantially understated.”

The fact that he can come up with a list of 96 ignored orders “should give pause to anyone — no matter his or her political beliefs — who cares about the rule of law,” he wrote.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin hit out at Sen. Chris Murphy, who claimed his agency has been “run so far off the rails.”

“We’re doing the job that Congress gave us the authority to do, and our men and women out there every single day are enforcing laws. If you don’t like the laws, you can change them. We’re not picking and choosing which laws we enforce, we’re simply enforcing the law,” Mullin said.

“When you throw out reckless terms and you start referring to our agents as being dangerous, unconstitutional and lawless, that’s why our agents’ death threats are up by 8,000 percent,” he added.

During today’s Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Sen. Chris Murphy said the Department of Homeland Security has been “run so far off the rails.”

“The reason why Democrats and Republicans were not able to find agreement on the underlying DHS appropriations bill is because never before in the history of our nation has a federal agency been run so far off the rails as the Department of Homeland Security,” Murphy said.

“Every day this agency is breaking the law at scale and wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. DHS does not implement the law any longer. It makes up the law,” he added.