As I stressed yesterday, SCOTUS made a BIGGER mess out of case involving removing of Garcia to El Salvador. SCOTUS's order was cautiously framed in suggestive terms designed to be equally respectful to co-equal branches of our government. It has ALREADY backfired.

It was entirely predictable that it would backfire because there is no mutual respect between Article II and Article III. Even last night, district court Judge Xinis fired first shot by entering a blatantly inaccurate order that mirrored media's talking points.

SCOTUS point blank did NOT affirm her order. To the contrary, the Court wrote that it granted in part and denied in part the application "subject to the direction of this order."

What SCOTUS did do was leave the order in place because it removed its own stay and directed the order to be revised on remand, with SCOTUS saying again, application was granted in part, "subject to direction of this order."

What was direction of this "order"? Well, SCOTUS ONLY said clarify what "effectuate" means, and also stressed time had passed so that couldn't be maintained, and that government should be prepared to share what it can about what it is doing to facilitate.

But SCOTUS gave more direction by expressly noting what components of the order it believed were proper and there were two: a) facilitate release from PRISON; and b) require government to handle Garcia's case as if he hadn't been improperly sent to El Salvador.

NOTE: SCOTUS never said order properly required Garcia's return to U.S. It also didn't say order "improperly" required Garcia's return to U.S. BUT it DID say it was proper to require government to handle Garcia's case as if he hadn't been improperly sent to El Salvador.

District court judge misrepresented what SCOTUS said, claiming it "affirmed" her order when it did no such thing & rather than consider SCOTUS gentle guidance of determining what government would have done w/ Garcia, judge plodded headlong into saying facilitate return to U.S.

An aside to illustrate how it was not an affirmation of order: If it were an affirmance of order, Garcia would have had to have been returned days ago & Trump would have had to effectuate return. SCOTUS left order in place until lower court could reissue it but didn't affirm.