This story first appeared at ProPublica and the Texas Tribune. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Racine told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune his office is examining whether immigrants were deceived by trip organizers before boarding buses for Washington, including several hundred who were bused from Texas under instructions from Gov. Greg Abbott and dropped near the official residence of Vice President Kamala Harris. Racine’s office has the authority to bring misdemeanor criminal charges or to file civil fraud cases.
Racine said that in interviews with his investigators, arriving immigrants “have talked persuasively about being misled, with talk about promised services.” He offered no specifics about the inquiry, including whether it is being handled by his office’s criminal or civil divisions. The attorney general’s office declined to answer further questions.
More please.
First, by doing this we can do right by migrants who have been used and deceived by Republican governors and help them become eligible for U Visas.
Second, we turn the ‘rising crime’ narrative around by showing all the crimes Republicans are committing.
Little downside and much upside. Every Attorney or Sheriff who has been on the receiving end of one of these red state migrant busing operations should do the same.
I was about to post the story. All I can say is, LOL @ DeSantis
Next it will be boxcars and showers.
I think the real story here should be:
“Ron DeSantis spent millions in taxpayer money to get special visas for Venezuelan immigrants”
That headline should make his base happy.
Good luck finding evidence that Abbott and DeSantis conspired to deceive any immigrants into getting on board the transport.
Har!
While DeSantis is likely already being tortured by the knowledge that the cost of his very hilarious joke involving sending traumatized refugees to a tiny island just to own the libs is that those people are now even closer to getting to stay in the US forever than they were before his bullshit … it wouldn’t be so bad to see him get it in other ways as well.
Cruelty leads to comeuppance.
Isn’t that the objective of discovery?
“Discovery” doesn’t really occur in a criminal investigation. Subpoenas do, but come on: Do you really think either of them were stupid enough to order anyone to fraudulently induce a bunch of immigrants into a kidnapping scheme?
There was (is) immigrant smuggling involved in their stunts. Start at the bottom for the money chain. The drivers and pilots. Indict them for their participation. The bus and plane companies. Indict them. Seize the buses and planes as part of the criminal act. Licenses to operate. Etc.
If stuffing immigrants in tractor trailers is a crime, so is a bus or plane.
DeSantis, no. He’s cruel but he’s not stupid. He is smart enough to shield himself. But I stand by for any amazement that hubris could be his weakness. I might be convinced that Abbott has similar protection. Of the two-Abbott looks to be the dimmest bulb who surrounds himself with fellow dim bulbs.
Have to wonder how this is going…
https://oag.dc.gov/release/ag-racine-files-lawsuit-hold-january-6
AG Racine Files Lawsuit to Hold January 6 Insurrectionists Accountable & Stand Up for Harmed District Law Enforcement Officers
December 14, 2021
DC’s Civil Lawsuit is the First Filed by a Government Entity Against Proud Boys and Oath Keepers; Seeks Damages Caused by Violent & Deadly Attack
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Attorney General Karl A. Racine today filed a federal lawsuit to hold two violent groups accountable for the role they played in planning and carrying out the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The lawsuit specifically claims the groups, and their leaders and members, caused extensive damage to the District of Columbia, and particularly to the law enforcement officers who risked their lives to defend the Capitol, those in it, the District, and our democracy.
This is apropos of what? Who is talking about a conspiracy between those two?
???
Prosecutors must also provide the defendant copies of materials and evidence that the prosecution intends to use at trial . This process is called discovery, and continues from the time the case begins to the time of trial.
U.S. Attorneys | Discovery | United States Department of Justice.
The testimony of the immigrants is evidence.
Now one might say that is against those who actually got them on the busses/planes, or to steal a line from Godfather II, how well buffered are the governors.
That is how that evidence can be applied to three governors who are out their bragging about the crime I will leave to professional criminal prosecutors.
I hope that DeSantis promises rebuild the hurricane damage in Florida exclusively with white christian nationalists and any immigrant labor.
I’m not sure you need to get DeSantis for conspiracy to make it quite uncomfortable for him. It does sound like this Perla Huerta was being more than misleading in her efforts to get the asylum-seekers on the plane. Prosecute her, and she might want to talk instead of going to prison for DeSantis.
And she might have some email or text from DeSantis saying something like, “Here’s the money. Do whatever it takes to get them on that plane.”
Might not be enough to convict him, but it would look very bad.
No, there wasn’t. These people are all documented asylum-seekers.
I can assure you from close, personal interaction with the man that Abbott is not stupid. Crazily ambitious, but in no way even remotely stupid.
What goes by the moniker of “discovery” in criminal law bears no resemblance to the way it works in civil lawsuits. Criminal law does not allow prosecutors or investigators to file requests for production or interrogatories or whatever to see if there’s any bad evidence on the person targeted. It’s one-way only, requiring the prosecutors to hand over a fairly limited amount of evidence to the criminal defendant. If prosecutors want to see what the defendant has got, they need a search warrant supported by probable cause. And neither Abbott nor DeSantis are stupid enough to have told any witnesses to defraud the immigrants into getting sent to D.C., nor are they stupid enough to have put it it writing.
Nobody, including me. It’s a nod to conspiracy law generally, not a claim that the two of them did it together.