No Biggie, But the Obama Administration Lied to a Federal Judge and May Now Be Sanctioned

Lot of that going round.

I've never seen a useful explanation of the chain of events here, so I'm going to guess: I think the judge wanted to know from the Obama Administration if any action on the illegal executive orders was going to be taken, short term, before the judge even had a chance to consider the issue.

I believe Judge Hanen wanted to know this because he wanted to know if he had to order a temporary restraining order against Obama, blocking him from taking action before the merits of the case could be heard. (In such cases, an emergency hearing is had and a mini-presentation of the case is held, so that the judge can decide if the case seems likely to win on the merits.)

I believe the Obama Administration told the judge: Nah bro, there's no need for an emergency restraining order, we're not going to do anything on immigration for a while. So Chillax, Bro! You have all the time in the world to consider this case at leisure!

But then Obama actually issued work documents to 108,000+ illegal immigrants even while Hanen was hearing the case.

Thus, Obama issued documents to 108,000 illegals before Hanen had the chance to estop them. They told Hanen to not worry about issuing an emergency injunction before a decision on the case, and then, during that period where Hanen thought no action was being taken, they rushed out documents to 108,000 illegals.

And then they didn't tell Hanen about that until three weeks later.

And also: Obama is now claiming those 108,000 illegals are already "grandfathered" in and the judge cannot take the documents away, even though those documents were issued in defiance of his (ultimate) order.

Hanen is pissed, and he says he feels like "a fool" for having taken the lying Obama at his word.

A federal judge sharply scolded a Justice Department attorney at a hearing on President Obama's immigration executive actions, suggesting that the administration misled him on a key part of the program -- and that he fell for it, "like an idiot." The testy court hearing was held Thursday in Texas by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen. The judge suggested he could order sanctions against the administration if he finds they indeed misrepresented the facts. At issue is whether the DOJ misled the judge into believing that a plank of the Obama program -- giving deportation reprieves to thousands of young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children -- would not go forward before he made a ruling on a request to halt it. In fact, federal officials had given more than 108,000 people three-year reprieves before that date and granted them work permits under the program. ... Hanen chided Justice Department attorney Kathleen Hartnett for telling him at a January hearing before the injunction was issued that nothing would be happening with regard to one key part of Obama's actions, an expansion of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, until Feb. 18. "Like an idiot I believed that," Hanen said.

And I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear this, but the Department of Justice is protecting Hillary from having to reveal her allegedly "private" emails.

The Justice Department is defending former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from a motion to subpoena her private emails under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). "Such action is unnecessary and inappropriate under FOIA," DOJ officials wrote in a legal briefing filed Thursday. Officials were responding to a case launched by Larry Klayman, the founder of the conservative watchdog group Freedom Watch. ... The Justice Department describes Klayman�s call for a subpoena as "speculation" in its brief. "Plaintiff provides no basis, beyond sheer speculation, to believe that former Secretary Clinton withheld any work-related emails from those provided to the Department of State," the agency says.



Riiiight.

But in the meantime, Trey Gowdy has sent a letter to Hillary asking her to turn over her Mystery Servers to a neutral third-party in order to ascertain if official documents have been deleted.

Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, has sent a letter to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's attorney requesting that she turn over her private email server to the State Department's Inspector General or to another neutral third party. "The Committee must have objective assurances it, and by extension the House of Representatives as a whole, has received all relevant information requested and necessary for a thorough investigation into what happened before, during and after the attacks in Benghazi, Libya," he wrote in the letter. "More broadly, the equities in these emails extend beyond this Committee. The House of Representatives and the American people are entitled to a complete accounting of the Secretary's official record during her time as Secretary of State." The letter asks her to respond by April 4. "Should Secretary Clinton continue to maintain that the server and its contents are hers alone, I will inform the Speaker of the House of Representatives so that he can use the full powers of the House to take the necessary steps to protect the best interests of the American people," he added.

Quotes From the Hearing Before Judge Hanen: @gabrielmalor earlier clipped some brutal bits from the hearing where Hanon quizzed our lying government about all of its lies.