Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino And Trump Admin Ripped By Judge For Lying About Chicago Protests

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino just can’t seem to stay out of the hot seat in federal court. While Bovino boasts about the more than 3,000 arrests that have been made since the start of “Operation Midway Blitz” — the immigration crackdown in Chicago that has largely proven to be more of a series of human rights violations than it has an agenda to save the city from “criminal illegal aliens,” like the Trump administration claims — Judge Sara L. Ellis of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois keeps holding his feet to the fire over his and his agents’ use of tear gas around schools and residential areas, along with other alleged use-of-force abuses and their failure to wear bodycams.

On Thursday, the good judge got on Bovino’s case again, this time, calling him a liar who is fabricating stories about Border Patrol being under siege, necessitating his use of force against protesters.

Whaaaaaah? A member of the Trump administration lying to justify abuses of power? Say it ain’t so.

From CNN:

One of the incidents in question was a confrontation between federal agents and protestors, where Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official charged with the immigration crackdown in Chicago deployed tear gas.

Judge Ellis found that Bovino wasn’t hit in the head with a rock prior to deploying tear gas despite claims from the Department of Homeland Security justifying the use of force. “Defendant Bovino admitted that he lied,” she said.

“Video evidence ultimately disproved this,” said Ellis, who is presiding over a case concerning the heavy-handed tactics used by federal agents in Chicago. Bovino, who sat for an hours-long deposition, said he was hit after the tear gas was thrown, Ellis said. The top Border Patrol official has started wearing his body-camera, according to attorneys for the government, after revealing in court last month that he did not have one.

During Thursday’s hearing, Ellis slammed the Trump administration, saying that the government’s portrayal of Chicago “is untrue.”

“I find the defendant’s evidence simply not credible,” Ellis said. “I watched the defendants’ videos,” she continued. “This, and hours and hours and hours of bodycam video and video from helicopters was the best they could provide. ”

Ellis hasn’t revealed anything mind-blowing here, of course. Much like in Portland, Washington, D.C., and big cities in California — places President Donald Trump and his minions have described as warzones, ignoring all crime data that says otherwise — the Trump administration keeps claiming immigration agents are being terrorized by rioters, but it can never seem to provide visual evidence of it. It’s almost as if fact-based evidence is simply not in the MAGA-fied government’s wheelhouse.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration knows it can just keep appealing the decisions from federal judges who oppose authoritarianism.

For example, last month,  we reported that Judge Ellis had gotten so fed up with Bovino and his department violating her previous order limiting their use of tear gas and other decidedly brutal tactics during anti-ICE and Border Patrol protests that she ordered him to appear at the federal courthouse at the end of every weekday to personally provide her with a report on the day’s arrests and incidents. But days later, an appeals court blocked that order, ruling in favor of the  U.S. Department of Justice, which, along with the DHS, appears to be quite dedicated to fighting for its right to ignore the civil rights of any and everyone else, whether they are a citizen, a documented or an undocumented immigrant.

So, the issue here is two-fold: the federal government gets to violate people’s rights almost with impunity, because when federal courts tell it to stop, it just finds another federal court that will let it continue, and there just doesn’t seem to be any real penalty for the lies officials keep telling to justify abuses of power — even, apparently, when they’re caught lying on the stand.

Federal judges like Ellis are all that stands between us and a full-blown dictatorship, it seems. It’s a sad state of affairs, but if the blue wave on Tuesday tells us anything, it’s that hope is far from lost.

Let’s keep up the fight, good people.

SEE ALSO:

Judge Rips Border Patrol Commander Over Tear Gas Use

Court Blocks Judge’s Order Against Border Patrol Commander

Federal Judge Questions Trump Officials About ICE Agents In Chicago Using Tear Gas And Not Wearing Bodycams