Frustration boiled over in a federal courtroom halfway through last week’s deposition of U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, where a government lawyer said he felt “sandbagged” and the lawyers questioning Bovino complained of a “substantial amount of obstruction.”
And it wasn’t just the lawyers. The contentious session ended with U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis reminding a Justice Department lawyer he should at least show respect for the office she holds after he kept interrupting her.
“It’s not that I expect you to respect me as a person,” she told him. “Frankly, I don’t care what you think about me as a person at all.”
A transcript of the unannounced Thursday court hearing reveals that questions were posed to Bovino about the claim that a purported member of the Latin Kings street gang placed a bounty on his head, as well as about Bovino’s communications with deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Still, plaintiffs’ lawyers complained to Ellis that Bovino had “been instructed on dozens of occasions not to answer questions,” and that about 35% of the first 2½ hours of the five-hour deposition was consumed by lawyers arguing over the proper form of the questions.
Justice Department lawyer Sarmad Khojasteh called that characterization “grossly false.” But after watching the lawyers interact in her courtroom, Ellis said “I suspect more time has been spent on the record with lawyers talking than Mr. Bovino talking.”
Ellis is presiding over a lawsuit about the feds’ treatment of protesters and journalists during the Trump administration’s deportation campaign known as “Operation Midway Blitz.” The lawsuit was brought by media organizations, including the Chicago Headline Club, Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists at the Chicago Sun-Times.
She’s the same judge who sought to have Bovino check in with her every weeknight over seven days, but the federal appeals court in Chicago ruled that would infringe on the separation of powers.
Meanwhile, the judge also allowed plaintiffs in the case to question Bovino under oath and behind closed doors. The deposition was Thursday at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
It’s unclear how the deposition ended, or whether a transcript will be made public. But the transcript of Thursday’s hearing offers some clues about its direction.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Steven Art told the judge that Bovino was asked “whether his instructions to agents or his actions here” in Chicago “have been animated in any way by the bounties that he understands have been placed on him by the Latin Kings.”
“He was instructed not to answer the question,” Art said.
Federal prosecutors in Chicago have charged Juan Espinoza Martinez with putting a $10,000 bounty on Bovino’s head. But Martinez’s lawyer insists his client is not a member of any street gang and that prosecutors “can’t come anywhere near sustaining their burden” to prove him guilty.
Art also explained that lawyers planned to ask Bovino “about instructions that he is seen giving agents on body camera footage from Los Angeles about how to use force in a public setting with civilians and protesters.”
“We think it is critical in this case for us to show what instruction and training defendant Bovino has given the officers who are present in Los Angeles and now are present in Chicago about how they should use force in response to civilians,” Art said.
But Khojasteh insisted that such questions should be “tethered” to specific allegations in the lawsuit.
“We haven’t shut down these lines of questioning and said, ‘you’re not allowed to ask about the Mexican cartels; you’re not allowed to ask about conversations you had with Secretary Noem,’ ” Khojasteh said. “What we’ve said is, ‘tether those lines of questions to the specific incidents.’ ”
Ellis wound up telling the group, “they’re allowed to ask [Bovino] what the basis is for his justification of the use of force.”
“That includes if he has a belief that he’s being threatened by Mexican cartels and they have a bounty on his head and that is a factor that weighs into his decision on what the appropriate force is to use in a particular context and what — how to assess a threat in a crowd that gathers,” Ellis said.
The judge said Bovino could be asked “what he is telling agents and officers is the appropriate use of force out in the field.” She also said, “Questions about communications with [Stephen] Miller may be perfectly within bounds if they talked about, ‘this is how I want this operation to go.’ ”
“If Mr. Miller said that to Mr. Bovino and that was in Mr. Bovino’s mind as to justify the force being used, they can ask about that,” Ellis said.
And, she said, “They can ask about his conversations with Secretary Noem that relate to how they are enforcing the immigration laws here and the force being used.”
Khojasteh complained to the judge that “I feel sandbagged right now” because he hadn’t prepared Bovino for questions about body-worn camera footage from Los Angeles.
“I haven’t prepared him on everything that they’re … the stuff that they were asking about,” Khojasteh said. He added that, “I had a limited period of time with someone senior in the administration, sat down with them, and did the best prep I could do.”
But Ellis also began to lose her patience with Khojasteh, complaining that he’d interrupted her multiple times during Thursday’s hearing.
“It’s not that I expect you to respect me as a person, because, frankly, I don’t care what you think about me as a person at all,” Ellis said. “It’s that you respect the office.”
“Of course I respect you, your honor,” Khojasteh said.
Neither the reporter nor editors who worked on this story — including some represented by the Newspaper Guild — have been involved in the lawsuit described in this article.