Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., on Sunday accused President Donald Trump of sending the U.S. into a constitutional crisis, saying members of the Trump administration “are very much flouting the courts as we speak.”
Asked directly on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” whether the U.S. is currently in a constitutional crisis, Van Hollen said, “Yes, we are.”
The senator’s remarks come days after he returned from a trip to El Salvador where he met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump administration admitted was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month.
Abrego Garcia has become the center of a weekslong legal and political battle, with the government multiple times contending in court that Abrego Garcia is now in the custody of El Salvador and there’s nothing it can do to bring him back.
That is the argument members of the Trump administration are making in court filings and in public statements, also alleging that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have insisted that he was never convicted of any crimes.
Meanwhile, Democrats like Van Hollen are citing due process concerns, arguing Abrego Garcia did not have a chance to dispute his deportation before he was removed to El Salvador.
So far, courts are siding with Democrats and Abrego Garcia’s legal team, with an appeals court on Thursday rejecting a bid by the Trump administration to block an order that directed the government to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Trump administration was trying to claim “a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process.”
That decision came days after the Supreme Court, in an unsigned decision, ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from the Salvadoran prison and his return to the U.S.
“Donald Trump and his administration need to put up or shut up in court,” Van Hollen told moderator Kristen Welker on Sunday, accusing members of the administration of “litigating this through social media.”
The Maryland senator cited a judge’s comments about the lack of evidence of Abrego Garcia’s ties to the MS-13 gang, saying, “If you have evidence, take it to the court. That’s where we litigate these things, and otherwise just shut up on social media.”
In a separate interview Sunday on CNN, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., also accused the Trump administration of defying court orders by not bringing Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.
She called on judges to hold the administration in contempt of court.
“A court can actually appoint a prosecutor on their own, an outside prosecutor, because they have the power to hold people in contempt,” Klobuchar said.
She also accused Trump and his administration officials of being “even more cynical than just flaunting the law.”
“They have picked out this case and this man because it’s about a subject that they want to keep in the news, so it’s even more cynical than just flaunting the law. They’re doing it because they want to distract people from the fact that our economy is in a tailspin thanks to them,” the Minnesota senator said.
Later on “Meet the Press,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., acknowledged that the Trump administration’s decision to deport Abrego Garcia was a “screw-up,” but added that there’s not much the president can do now.
“I understand why the administration is bowed up and said, ‘We won’t admit it’s a mistake,’ because if they do, they’ll have their throats torn out,” Kennedy told Welker.
The Louisiana senator also disagreed with Van Hollen’s assertion that the Trump administration is ignoring court orders.
“I don’t believe that President Trump will defy a federal judge’s order. If he does, I’ll call him out on it,” Kennedy told Welker, adding, “I love the rule of law. I love it like the devil loves sin. I think if we start not following federal judicial orders, we undermine the system entirely.”
Kennedy maintained that Abrego Garcia did have due process and added that he wasn’t sure what the courts could force Trump to do now to bring him back.
“What does he expect Trump to do?” Kennedy asked, referring to 4th Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III.
“I mean, [Trump] brought [Salvadoran president Nayib] Bukele to America. President Bukele sat in the Oval Office in front of God and country and said, ‘I’m not sending this guy back.’ So, I don’t know what Judge Wilkinson expects Trump to do,” Kennedy said.
Van Hollen, who joined “Meet the Press” before Kennedy, maintained that Abrego Garcia had no due process before he was deported, arguing that it would be a slippery slope to allow the Trump administration to deny due process to Abrego Garcia.
“This is not about one man. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights for everybody,” Van Hollen said.
Asked about what he and other Democrats could do to bring Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador, Van Hollen said that he intends to keep pressure on Bukele, citing comments Attorney General Pam Bondi made last week, where she said it was in Bukele’s power to release Abrego Garcia, not in the U.S.’ power.
“If [Bukele] wanted to send him back, we would give him a plane ride back,” Bondi told reporters.
“Just open the prison, let him walk out,” Van Hollen said he told Bukele while in El Salvador. “And then Attorney General Bondi, she said, ‘We’ll send a plane.’ So there are also pressures we can put on the government of El Salvador.”
Van Hollen also floated the notion of using congressional power to deny the Trump administration the funding it needs to send detainees to El Salvador.
“The Trump administration is going to pay the government of El Salvador … to take these prisoners, including the illegally abducted Abrego Garcia,” Van Hollen told Welker.
“I can tell you when they make that request to the Congress, and because those monies have to be appropriated, I don’t think American taxpayers are going to want to spend one penny going to El Salvador to continue to hold somebody illegally and in violation of the United States Constitution,” the senator added.
Nnamdi Egwuonwu contributed.
