Kristi Noem Invokes State Secrets to Cover-Up Her Inability to ID Women as Women
One of the transphobic right wing’s most annoying taunts is that Democrats can’t decide whether women are women. It is central to the long-running campaign to demonize trans people to claim that birth sex, which transphobes claim is a person’s true and immutable sex, is always immediately apparent.
Yet yesterday, Kristi Noem invoked State Secrets to cover-up the fact that she — and the agencies she runs — were unable to identify women as women. DOJ included Noem’s declaration as part of package invoking State Secrets in the Alien Enemies Act lawsuit yesterday.
The declarations, in general, are ridiculous given filings submitted by ACLU earlier yesterday.
- Notice regarding information request
- Declaration of SZFR (woman sent and then returned from El Salvador)
- Declaration of EEPB (Nicaraguan man sent and then returned from El Salvador)
Both Rubio and Noem’s declarations include language claiming that official acknowledgement of details of the deportation flights — the kinds of details Judge James Boasberg might use to hold them in contempt — is different than, “assumptions, speculation, public investigation, or informal statements.” This, mentioning “informal” reports or statements five times, is from Noem’s declaration:
Disclosure of the information sought in the Court’s Minute Order would cause significant harm to the United States’ national security even assuming some of that information has already entered public sources as a result of assumptions, speculation, public investigation, or informal statements. It is both true and well known that official acknowledgement of a fact may be damaging to national interests in a way that informal suggestions or speculation about that information is not. If the government were to confirm or deny the information sought by this Court’s Minute Order, there would arise a danger that enemies of our national security would be able to stitch together an understanding of the means and methods used to thwart their unlawful and sometimes violent conduct.
[snip]
There is a difference between official acknowledgement and informal reports: Official disclosures or acknowledgements threaten the United States’ national security interests in a way that informal reports or statements do not, because informal statements leave an important element of doubt that provides an essential layer of protection and confidentiality. That protection would be lost if the United States were forced to confirm or deny the accuracy of unofficial disclosures or speculation. [my emphasis]
But the plaintiffs’ declaration notes that after Nayib Bukele posted a propaganda video showing three planes that had brought detainees to El Salvador, with tail numbers visible, both Trump and Rubio effectively ratified by reposting the video.
In addition, public information shows that two planes were still in the air when the Court issued both its oral and written Orders. Most significantly, based on information publicized by U.S. government officials and publicly available flight data, at least two flights took off during the hearing on March 15—one at 5:26pm EDT and the other at 5:45pm EDT—and landed well after this Court’s written Order had been filed. See Pls. Resp. to Defs. Notice (ECF No. 21); see also Joyce Sohyun Lee and Kevin Schaul, Deportation Flights Landed after Judge Said Planes Should Turn Around, Wash. Post (Mar. 16, 2025). 2 And the video released by President Bukele that shows Plaintiff class members being hauled off the planes in El Salvador includes each plane’s tail number.3 That video was then reposted by both President Trump4 and Secretary of State Rubio.5
2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/03/16/deportation-flights-trump-elsalvador [https://perma.cc/Q6NH-ATY8]
3 https://x.com/nayibbukele/status/1901245427216978290 [https://perma.cc/BM73-547H].
4 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114173862724361939 [https://perma.cc/67LY-FREW].
5 https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1901252043517432213 [https://perma.cc/RXH4-XH4R].
The Xitter post from Rubio, using his official Secretary of State Xitter account, specifically says, “Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele” in response to his claim that 238 members of Tren de Aragua “arrived in our country” effectively ratifying that those planes were the ones used, and that the number Bukele used was the one given to him.
Perhaps the government is prepping a claim that these are “informal” statements. But Donald Trump has fired people by tweet, over and over, and nominated a good number of cabinet members by tweet, including Noem herself.
Trump’s tweets have official effect. To claim Trump’s tweet didn’t ratify Bukele’s post is nonsense.
Rubio and Noem’s focus on the danger of official confirmation is about refusing to provide Boasberg details showing that DHS had not done adequate vetting of the detainees to sustain the claim they really were members of Tren de Aragua. Again, this is from Noem’s declaration:
In addition to flight operations, the number of TdA members on a given removal flight is also information that, if disclosed, would expose ICE’s means and methods, thus threatening significant harm to the national security of the United States. Revealing and/or confirming the number of TdA members involved would reveal key details about how the United States conducts these sorts of operations and would allow other aliens (members of TdA and otherwise) to draw inferences about how the Government prioritizes and uses its resources in immigration enforcement and counterterrorism operations.
[snip]
When the United [sic] seeks to remove individuals to a foreign country, the United States must negotiate the details of that removal with the foreign country. This requires nonpublic, sensitive, and high stakes negotiation with the foreign State, particularly where, as here, the aliens being removed have been deemed enemy aliens and members of a foreign terrorist organization. Those negotiations cover sensitive issues, including representations regarding the bases on which the individuals are being removed from the United States, which can impact the foreign State’s willingness to accept the removed aliens and the procedures it will employ in doing so.
[snip]
Similarly, if sensitive information covered by a compelled disclosure — for example, the number and nature of aliens removed to the foreign State — were to come to light — the receiving foreign State’s government could face internal or international pressure making that foreign State and other foreign States less likely to work cooperatively in the future with the United States on matters affecting its national security.
Moreover, if a disclosure were to in any way undercut or, in the eyes of a foreign State (fairly or not) cast doubt on representations made by the United States during sensitive negotiations, that could likewise make that foreign State and other foreign States less likely to work cooperatively with the United States on matters affecting its national security.
Noem is not entirely making shit up (nor is she lying, elsewhere in her declaration, that confirmation that the flights landed in Honduras could cause problems).
Bukele said he was given 238 members of TdA. It was key to his propaganda campaign. If Boasberg now finds that’s false, it might well embarrass Bukele (though he’s pretty immune from embarrassment).
The problem for Noem and Rubio, is ACLU already presented two sworn declarations asserting that the Trump Administration’s public representations were false. EEPB, for example, described being told that El Salvador would not accept him, a Nicaraguan, because it would cause “conflict.”
I overheard a Salvadoran official tell an ICE officer that the Salvadoran government would not detain someone from another Central American country because of the conflict it would cause. I also heard him say that they would not receive the females because the prison was not for females and females were not mentioned in the agreement. I then saw the ICE officer call someone, and after the call, I overheard him saying we had to be sent back.
They included a guy whose accent undoubtedly makes it clear he’s not Venezuelan, but claimed he was a Venezuelan anyway.
More alarming still, Venezuelan woman SZFR — who, like other women on one of the planes, had not yet been formally deported and so by definition should only have been on one of the planes alleged to carry TdA members — described guards on the plane acknowledging that they knew an order prohibited the departure of the plane. She also described that guards were trying to force the male detainees on the plane to sign forms admitting they were TdA members.
10. When we got on the plane there were already over 50 men on the plane. I could see other migrants walking to the plane but we took off before any additional people boarded.
11. Within a couple of minutes of take off I heard two US government officials talking and they said “there is an order saying we can’t take off but we already have.”
12. I asked where we were going and we were told that we were going to Venezuela.
13. Several other people on the plane told me they were in immigration proceedings and awaiting court hearings in immigration court.
14. We were not allowed to open our window shades.
15. We landed somewhere for refueling. We were there for many hours. We were arm and leg shackled the whole time.
16. We took off again and landed fairly quickly. I was then told we were in El Salvador.
17. While on the plane the government officials were asking the men to sign a document and they didn’t want to. The government officials were pushing them to sign the documents and threatening them. I heard them discussing the documents and they were about the men admitting they were members of TdA.
18. After we landed but were still on the plane a woman opened the shade. An officer rushed to shut the shade and pushed her down by her shoulders to try and stop her from looking out. The person that pushed her down had HOU-02 on his sleeve.
19. I saw out the window for a minute and I saw men in military uniforms and another plane. I saw men being led off the plane. Since I’ve been back in the U.S. I have seen news coverage and the plane I saw looks like the one I’ve seen on TV with migrants from the U.S. being delivered to El Salvador.
20. All the men got off the plane. The remaining women asked what happens to us? I was told that the President of El Salvador would not accept women. I was also told that we were going back to detention in the U.S. [my emphasis]
But the most important part with respect to Noem’s sworn statement that she can’t reveal details about who was on the plane is that the agreement with Bukele said he would not accept women.
And yet Kristi Noem’s DHS sent women — around nine of them — anyway.
There’s a lot that Noem is trying to cover up with her State Secrets declaration, starting with how incompetent her DHS is.
But one of the key details she’s trying to cover up is that a committed transphobe like Noem couldn’t even properly identify the sex of the detainees she was sending to El Salvador.
This will end well given that when Noem gets upset she starts shooting living things.
As I’m sure our hostess knows, the State Secrets privilege was born out of a (successful) attempt to hide governmental incompetence (United States v. Reynolds, 345 US 1 (1953), wheren information about faulty maintenance leading to a military plane crash was hidden by invoking the privilege).
And just to make the irony even richer, in that case, like this most recent atrocity, the general consensus after eventual declassification is that there was nothing else secret about that info besides the screw-up.
Please. Find another word for “hostess.” She’s not selling cupcakes.
Please forgive me my inarticulateness
To summarize:
What time planes full of Venezuelans left for El Salvador – state secret.
Timing, targets and assets for an airstrike on Yemen – not classified and no big deal to air publicly.
MAGAs are Making Americans Safe Again esp. the children!
For example, Justin Eichorn is a Republican rep in Minnesota. He’s a loyal Trump supporter who sponsored a bill to make Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) a mental illness.
Here’s his campaign statement:
My family is a guiding factor in every decision I make. My faith helps me navigate the challenges life throws my way with understanding, compassion, and the heart of a Christian. Our God-given freedoms are what I swore to protect when I took my first oath of office in 2017. When I am faced with a decision, you can count on faith, family, and freedom being my guiding principles.
Turns out he’s a pedo who tried to hook up with a juvenile.
And then he tried to hide his gun from cops.
And then he tried to ditch his laptop before cops could search it.
And then his wife divorced him.
Shucks, who are we to judge? He’s ripe for redemption! Is Paula White available? We see a bright future for Justin in the Trump administration. That’s where MAGA criminals seem to end up.
OT: Look out below:
https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2025-03-25/warning-us-already-private-sector-recession-danielle-dimartino-booth
Republicans’ inflation tracker:
https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/state-inflation-tracker
According to them I am paying $1000/month more than when Trump left office in 2017. So much for Make Groceries Affordable Again.
Trump is selling Easter eggs for $200,000. Being a devout Christian he is offering them for just $75,000 to the budget-minded.
Same here – and I know for a fact that they’re lying, because my income hasn’t gone up a thousand a month.
My calendar says tfg entered office in 2017 not as you say left office. I’m really feeling like I’m losing my mind and you’re no help.
Sorry, my mistake!
Man? Woman? What does it matter to Noem, who thinks that immigrants are subhuman, germ-ridden vermin? From 2020:
Some blame meatpacking workers, not plants, for virus spread [AP]
” … South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, generated ire last month when discussing the closure of a Smithfield pork plant in Sioux Falls that infected 1,000 employees and people who came in contact with the workers, saying “99% of what’s going on today wasn’t happening inside the facility.”
The spread of the virus happened “more at home, where these employees were going home and spreading some of the virus because a lot of these folks who work at this plant live in the community, the same building, sometimes in the same apartment,” she said on Fox News. …
Achut Deng, a Sudanese refugee who works at the Sioux Falls plant, said after Noem’s remarks that the comments offended her, calling them “ridiculous.”
Many of Smithfield’s Sioux Falls employees live in well-maintained apartment complexes near the plant, some in multi-generational homes so older family members can be cared for. Others have single-family units. Deng, who was infected and recovered, believes she caught the virus at the plant because she lives only with her three children who have been out of school. …”
https://apnews.com/article/ne-state-wire-us-news-ap-top-news-wisconsin-virus-outbreak-6e446ae82aff17f25024f0533b7009ee
Maybe that the Secretary of DHS is a eugenicist should count as a valid state secret ?
In Derby Line, Vt, there is a building, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which straddles the international line, with entrances in either country. It was established in 1904 by Martha Haskell, a Canadian who married a timber merchant from Boston, as a gesture of good will & friendship between the two countries. A black line on the floor bisects the reading room — one side is Canada, the other is the US. For 120 years, citizens of either country have had free access to and use of the building.
A couple weeks ago, the DHS Secretary visited the Library in the course of following an investigation into the shooting death of a CBP officer while he was interdicting a couple of suspicious armed characters on the road.
I knew that once Kristi “The Canine Assassin” Noem stuck her snout in the Library that it would be only a matter of days before it was shut down to Canadian neighbors. Sure enough.
I wonder, though, what is she going to do about nearby Beebe Plain, Vt, where if you drive west on Canusa St you’re in Canada, but if you turn around and drive east you’re in the US?
Delaying tactic that Boasberg will find irritating. He still might get what he needs by waiting for more info to leak or, more likely, someone will negate “Dog Killer’s” claim by doing something stupid.
Off Topic… Orange Turd just dropped several E.O’s. One is a complex intrusion into voting rights dressed-up as a fight against the fabled “furreners votin in our elekshuns”. Lot’s of requirements to provide state voting roles to Homeland Security and, good Christ, DOGE to check for irregularities. No more early voting and restrictions on late mail in ballots. Also more focus on using “Real I.D.” (AKA, “Show me your papers!”) for one of its original true purpose, voter suppression. And, of course, the Attorney General will have all the tools to punish the Blue states for non-compliance. This one might end – up in court. Another E.O.s get rid of paper checks from the Feds, another way to screw with the marginalized and people of color. A third mandates some kind of electronic intergovernmental payments system. It does explicitly state that it is NOT setting-up a BitCoin fund within the Treasury. Sure…
The voting EO *should* end up in court because the executive branch has extremely limited powers when it comes to elections. Article I of the Constitution says,
Congress and the states play a role; the executive is supposed to execute the laws Congress makes, not assuming unilateral lawmaking by fiat.
I bet the asses in the administration are splitting their sides when they read what you wrote. (my grammar sucks here, sorry, but I hope you get the gist.)
Fuck their splitting sides. We have no kings here. When they stop with their splitting they should exit Signal and pull up a copy of the Declaration of Independence to remind themselves why we have no kings.
Particularly this bit:
In case they can’t figure out how to find it just like they can’t figure out how to use a SCIF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence#Annotated_text_of_the_engrossed_declaration
Alien Enemies Act Deportations Were Carefully Orchestrated To Keep Courts In The Dark https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/how-the-alien-enemies-act-deportations-were-orchestrated-to-keep-the-courts-unaware
Josh Kovensky March 25, 2025 5:42 p.m.
I guess these are the famous “state secrets”.
I can’t find any article but I thought it rather odd that Rick Grenell, of all people, had been visiting leaders in Central America — I want to say it was some time between 2023 and the 2024 election.
Might have been Guatemala rather than El Salvador, but it sure seemed odd he was there conducting what looked like a Logan Act violation, talking about American policy while he was not in a government role for the Biden administration.
Sure would like to know if this was related to advance work.
ADDER: There are comments containing links to articles about Grenell between January and October 2024. At one point he deliberately made himself out to be working for the US Government.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/05/richard-grenell-trump-far-right-foreign-policy
harpie did a lot of digging that included info about Grenell’s apparent Logan Act violation:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/01/13/scott-perry-explains-how-trump-fox-and-russian-propaganda-made-him-hate-rule-of-law/#comment-1033890
Grenell did an awful lot of legwork that looked like helping foment a crisis at the US-MEX border, but perhaps that wasn’t all he was doing. Did he meet with Bukele or a representative for Bukele?
Wow, Rayne, really good memory and digging!
I do NOT remember any of that AT all…oy!
What a great connection!
TIME ZONE ACCCKKKK!!!
From the article:
So, that’s 6:26 PM ET and 6:44 PM ET right?
Yes, your times are correct. Harlingen is CDT and it is also way south Texas. It’s down there in the tip of the point at the bottom. Those planes were not only over the Gulf of MEXICO by the time Judge Boasberg issued his ruling; they were there almost the instant they were airborne.
So yes, this was very well planned in advance.
THANK YOU, Tom! :-)
Which is why they staged them from Harlingen. The response to Boasberg’s show cause order notes that the detainees left from a place very close to the end of US airspace.
Yep, By the time your wheels are up, you’re feet are wet and you are either in Mexico or international airspace.
@Rayne
Also:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
Yup. All of that, too. No kings.
Heather Cox Richardson Reposted this earlier today:
https://bsky.app/profile/adamweinstein.bsky.social/post/3llatsc77dc2h
March 25, 2025 at 11:29 PM
From the alttext:
From the post:
“Trump’s tweets have official effect. To claim Trump’s tweet didn’t ratify Bukele’s post is nonsense.”
Should the second “Trump’s” be instead “Rubio’s,” per the context?
TRUMP posted [at the least] about the VIDEO:
This comment THREAD about it was posted on 3/16/25 at 8:17 PM ET
https://bsky.app/profile/newseye.bsky.social/post/3lkjuviybxc2g
March 16, 2025 at 8:17 PM
From the screenshot of TRUMP’s Truth(sic)Social post:
I have a note here in my papers: Who wrote this?
This is what’s linked at the end of the THREAD from my previous comment:
Fascist Propaganda VIDEO WITH the TRUMP T(sic)P overlayed:
I’m pretty sure Rapid Response47 is a WHITE HOUSE account.
When the WH posted that: 3/16/25 at 7:33 PM ET
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1901416490739347792
7:33 PM · Mar 16, 2025
BUKELE originally posted the VIDEO: 3/16/25 at 8:13 AM ET
There was a fascist film at the ELLIPSE on 1/6/21, too. From the #J6TL
10:57 – 10:59 AM Trump Film Ellipse Jan. 6, 2021 https://vimeo.com/508134765 [VIDEO 2:09] [Stephen MILLER’s WET DREAM] [TRUMP’s speech was planned for 11:00 AM, just after this film, but he doesn’t show up until 50 minutes later]
Here’s an article about that J6 film [and now I’ll stop…sorry to go on and on]:
10:59 AM Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda
Scholars on the Nazis and anti-Semitism have seen this before
https://www.justsecurity.org/74504/movie-at-the-ellipse-a-study-in-fascist-propaganda/ Jason Stanley February 4, 2021