Zach Montague
@zjmontague.bsky.social
660 followers 790 following 230 posts
Reporter @ NYT covering federal courts and the legal fights of 2025. Three-season outdoor enthusiast.
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zjmontague.bsky.social
In any event, thanks for reading
Reposted by Zach Montague
thebulwark.com
George was just trying to get to work.

ICE pepper-sprayed him, dragged him from his car, locked him in a detention center, and placed him on suicide watch. He even missed his young daughter’s birthday in the process.

This man is a veteran and American citizen. Don't look away.
thebulwark.com
"They put me on suicide watch and they put me in the cell, I'm naked, in like a hospital dress and just a concrete bed with like a mattress, like a thin mattress and, they leave the light on 24/7."

@timmiller.bsky.social talked to a veteran who ICE wrongly detained and brutalized
Reposted by Zach Montague
heartlandsignal.bsky.social
BREAKING: Masked Border Patrol agents aggressively arrested WGN video producer Debbie Brockman in Lincoln Square Friday morning, supposedly for "obstructing justice." (Video via Josh Thomas on Facebook)

Follow @heartlandsignal for more.
zjmontague.bsky.social
Since headline semantics is a genre here, I’d say there’s a small distinction, and one that unfortunately doesn’t make any commentary on the Clash.

This isn’t our newsroom dictionary, but “clamping down” with federal agents across DC seemed better than “cracking down” on greatly overstated “crime”
zjmontague.bsky.social
After a federal grand jury declined to return an indictment on a single gun charge, federal prosecutors went to a local grand jury with the same charge and tried to use an indictment from there to move the federal case along.

Faruqui calls it an “unprecedented workaround” to keep the case alive.
zjmontague.bsky.social
Tonight: Judge Zia Faruqui rejects attempts by prosecutors to forge ahead after failing to secure an indictment against a man swept up in Trump’s DC law enforcement surge

Earlier today, he similarly expunged the record of a man arrested at Trader Joe’s for fiddling with his backpack.
Judge Rejects ‘Unprecedented’ Indictment Amid Trump’s D.C. Clampdown
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Zach Montague
bradheath.bsky.social
WSJ: President Trump believed his Truth Social post demanding prosecutions of James Comey and other political foes was a private message to his attorney general, and "and was surprised to learn it was public."

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Reposted by Zach Montague
ewong.bsky.social
NEW: While Qatar helps with Gaza talks, it's trying to mediate the US-Venezuela conflict. But Trump is cold on diplomacy. He has put 10,000 troops in the Caribbean and is continuing airstrikes on civilian boats. And Rubio pushes to oust Maduro. Our story: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/u...
Qatar Pushes U.S.-Venezuela Diplomacy as Trump Focuses on Military Action
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Zach Montague
melissagiragrant.com
Incredibly alarming—after the whole ridiculous antifa roundtable at the White House, as Mark was moving with his family to Europe after threats…
Reposted by Zach Montague
esqueer.net
ICE is not only chasing down every random brown person in Chicago, they have a cameraman following them to film this for social media. Cruelty and inhumanity as content.
zjmontague.bsky.social
Goes without saying that in any other context, someone in this position would bend over backwards to prove they rejected or returned the money or resign. But it’s because the Trump admin won’t act that the statute of limitations on a future forfeiture doesn’t mean much.
zjmontague.bsky.social
Experts say forfeiture law generally requires the government to recover the exact same funds (typically the original cash) it doled out.

The IRS could check whether he declared the $50k as income, and Congress could investigate. But a future admin would be hard pressed to reclaim the money.
zjmontague.bsky.social
Pam Bondi yesterday followed the Trump administration’s practice so far of declining to confirm or deny whether Tom Homan ever accepted $50K from undercover agents.

But if he did, it may be bordering on the impossible for a future DOJ to ever get that money back.
Tom Homan Was Said to Have Received $50,000 From Agents. He May Not Have to Return It.
www.nytimes.com
zjmontague.bsky.social
Just in: Planned Parenthood wins summary judgment in its case over new conditions for the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention program. New requirements added in July required grantees to update their curriculum materials to match the administration’s line on gender and scrub some references to safe sex
storage.courtlistener.com
Reposted by Zach Montague
kyledcheney.bsky.social
NEW: A 20-year federal prosecutor, fired abruptly this week even as he lead case against Abbey Gate bomber, warns his colleagues: the Trump administration is sacrificing national security to purge Trump's perceived adversaries.

w/ @dnlbrns

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
Reposted by Zach Montague
patdeklotz.bsky.social
They seem heartbroken over this
Reposted by Zach Montague
jordanonrecord.bsky.social
It's like a Choose Your Own Hatch Act Violation.
Reposted by Zach Montague
kenvogel.bsky.social
Quite the postcard received by the federal judge considering a challenge to Trump's threats to deport noncitizens for pro-Palestinian protests.

The judge (a Reagan appointee) nonetheless ruled today that the threats infringed on protestors' 1st Amendment rights. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/u...
zjmontague.bsky.social
In a scorching opinion, Judge Young, the Reagan appointee who once seemed deeply skeptical of this lawsuit, filed a broadside against the Trump administration’s threats against all the pro-Palestinian demonstrators targeted for deportation, which he said flew in the face of the First Amendment.
Judge Rules Trump Unlawfully Targeted Noncitizens Over Pro-Palestinian Speech
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Zach Montague
nickturse.bsky.social
When drug boat operators -- impoverished fishermen trying to get by -- were caught in the past, they got a few years in prison. Now Trump is executing them without trials.

A must-read and an exceptionally smart take from my colleague Matt Sledge @theintercept.com

theintercept.com/2025/09/26/t...
Venezuela Boat Pilots Targeted by Trump Are Low-Level Pawns in the Drug Game
“They are the poorest and weakest link. They are simply pawns in the operation.”
theintercept.com
Reposted by Zach Montague
lawfaremedia.org
In The Situation, @benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org contemplates Trump’s replacement of the U.S. Attorney in EDVA who declined to prosecute his political opponents like James Comey—and why he’s in a rush.
The Situation: Committing Impeachable Offenses in a Hurry
Why is the president in such a rush to prosecute his political opponents?
www.lawfaremedia.org
Reposted by Zach Montague
maxkennerly.bsky.social
At the Nuremberg trials, Karl Dönitz was convicted of war crimes for the sinking of civilian vessels. This is not a complicated question, it's been illegal for centuries.
murosinvisibles.bsky.social
A fourth boat bombed in international waters. Total death toll now 19

What I dont get is, if these boats are "carrying fentanyl" as Trump says (they absolutely arent. Even the DEA says VZ doesnt produce fentanyl), then why not seize one and show us?
www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-...
U.S. naval forces have sunk a fourth suspected drug boat in the Caribbean, Trump says
U.S. naval forces have conducted another lethal strike on a vessel President Donald Trump said was tied to a designated terrorist organization involved in drug trafficking in the Caribbean.
www.miamiherald.com
Reposted by Zach Montague
maddow.msnbc.com
"In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration..."

www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...
Tom Homan was investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump's DOJ shut it down.
The FBI and Justice officials closed the investigation, which a Justice Department appointee had called a “deep state” probe in early 2025.
www.msnbc.com
Reposted by Zach Montague
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
🚨WHOA. According to @haleaziz.bsky.social, the Trump admin was actually going to implement the ICE "bounties" it has repeatedly said were false, offering $200 per arrest leading to a rapid deportation — and only walked the plan back after the New York Times got a copy of the memo.
Hamed AleazizNicholas Nehamas
By Hamed Aleaziz and Nicholas Nehamas
Aug. 5, 2025, 4:51 p.m. ET
On Tuesday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in an internal email that it would offer cash bonuses to agents for deporting people quickly, an incentive meant to motivate the staff to speed up President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Less than four hours later, the agency abruptly canceled what was supposed to be a 30-day pilot program.
“PLEASE DISREGARD,” Liana J. Castano, an official in ICE’s field operations division, said in a follow-up email to agency offices around the country.