On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN NewsNight,” Gene Rossi, who worked at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1989 to 2016 and is an Adjunct Faculty member at George Mason University, said that Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan “adjourned the case without telling the prosecutor and without telling the victims. And, whether there’s probable cause or beyond a reasonable doubt could convict her, that, to me, shows that she was willfully trying to hide that defendant from being arrested. And that bothers me a lot.” But he wouldn’t have papered the case and he doesn’t think the case will make it to a jury or result in a conviction if it does.
Rossi said, “What you have here is a Judge who’s just incredibly angry that DEA agents, ICE agents, Custom[s] and Border Protection deportation officers are hovering around like bees for a man that they’re trying to arrest. It’s anger on steroids.”
He added, “That prosecutor had this case on his docket. He had the victims there in the audience. For the victims, and I’m a big victim advocate, this was a big deal. And the thing that really bothers me about the Judge, and I think this is a big mess, is that she adjourned the case without telling the prosecutor and without telling the victims. And, whether there’s probable cause or beyond a reasonable doubt could convict her, that, to me, shows that she was willfully trying to hide that defendant from being arrested. And that bothers me a lot.”
Rossi further stated that Dugan adjourning the case “points towards her trying to conceal and obstruct the arrest of this individual…whether I, as a prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, would have papered this case, probably not. I did a ton of illegal immigration cases, a thousand. I tried and I supervised thousands. Would I have papered this case? No. The thing that bothers me about the Justice Department in this case is they made it into a show. They waited a whole week to paper this case, a week. And here’s what I want to say: You have the right to get an arrest warrant, and you have the right to get a summons. And that they got [an] arrest warrant for a judge shows that they wanted to make this a spectacle. Last point I want to make is, I indicted — or I presented to a grand jury and indicted a state prosecutor. I indicted a prosecutor, and I got a summons, because I didn’t want to make a spectacle. They made a spectacle of this case.”
Rossi further predicted that the charges against Dugan won’t make it to a jury, and if they do, “you’re going to have an acquittal or a jury nullification, period.” And stated that the arrest was designed as a distraction.
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