(CNN) — An FBI agent arrived at a crime scene and saw something suspicious: tied plastic baggies containing unknown substances resembling illegal drugs.
He would need to laboratory test the items to be sure. To do that, he would also get a warrant.
The Houston incident, following one of the latest deadly shootings by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, mirrors countless routine police encounters that happen daily across the country as officers find suspected drug paraphernalia and seek court orders to seize and test it for illegal substances.
In this instance, however, the search warrant, shielded from public view when initially filed, was inexplicably unsealed and made public the next day. Justice Department veterans told CNN they can’t remember a time when information that could be critical to a case was made publicly available while a criminal investigation was still underway.
“This is absolutely abnormal,” said Elie Honig, CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. “This raises all sorts of red flags and all sorts of questions about why they would unseal this now.”
The move quickly set off a firestorm, with immigration rights advocates accusing DOJ of trying to malign a dead man. And some legal experts are now questioning whether the department is playing politics in an unprecedented way with a high-profile criminal investigation.
‘It just smells of a smear campaign,’ an advocate says
The still-unidentified substances were allegedly found on the dashboard and floor of a van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Houston man ICE tried to pull over last week on suspicion of being in the country unlawfully. Importantly, he was not their original target. Instead, federal authorities said immigration officers were initially searching for undocumented migrants in another vehicle that resembled Salgado Araujo’s van when they initiated the traffic stop.
In a statement, which mirrors similar past statements issued by the Department of Homeland of Security during the Trump’s administration’s nationwide immigration enforcement surge, ICE said Salgado Araujo “rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer” before an immigration officer shot and killed him in self-defense.
No video has surfaced depicting the moment of the shooting and none of the officers were wearing body cameras. Men who were riding in the van with Salgado Araujo and his brother, Victor, told attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra they did not attempt to ram officers, nor put the officers in danger.
Salgado Araujo also had no prior criminal record despite the Trump administration’s claims it is targeting the ‘worst of the worst.’
In an affidavit seeking to search the vehicle filed in federal court Tuesday, the FBI agent who responded to the incident wrote “the white in color crystal-like substances packaged in small clear plastic bags are consistent with how users of drugs package controlled substances for distribution, manufacturing, and possession,” adding it was “consistent with methamphetamine.”
As is normal in active, high-profile investigations, the federal court docket shows the search warrant was originally filed by DOJ under seal, shielding its contents from public view.
But, a day later, in a move many who served in law enforcement viewed as baffling, the warrant appeared to have been suddenly unsealed while the ongoing investigation into the incident was still underway. It was quickly picked up by the media, with articles and TV segments spotlighting the FBI’s suspicion that Salgado Araujo was transporting methamphetamine.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the allegations in the warrant; why the warrant information was made public; and whether it was unsealed at the request of federal prosecutors.
Notably, attorney Ruby Powers representing Salgado Araujo’s family refuted the notion he was in possession of drugs, saying in a statement the family believed the plastic baggies actually contained “granulated salt, which is paired with lemon and water as a homemade electrolyte mix used by outdoor workers in extreme Texas heat, not methamphetamine or any other illicit substance.”
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, who has criticized federal authorities for not cooperating with his office’s investigation into the shooting, told CNN he also does not believe the substance the FBI found was drugs. The FBI has not commented on whether testing of the items has been completed.
In addition to criticizing the unsealing of the search warrant in the case, Teare told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday that he did not believe the FBI fully processed the van for evidence. That might include records from the vehicle’s computer system indicating its speed, steering, and braking, he said, as well as swabbing the exterior for DNA that may prove immigration officers were in physical contact with the van.
“All they were looking for were baggies that were in open sight, and the only thing that I can think they did it for was to smear a good man’s name,” he said.
The president of the LULAC Adelante PAC, a political group that supports Latino voter participation and candidates, accused federal investigators of trying to “change the public discourse and prejudice a jury in Harris County.”
“It just smells of a smear campaign and a cover up,” Domingo Garcia said Wednesday.
‘No reason to unseal it now,’ says DOJ veteran
“No prosecutor would ever unseal a warrant at this phase of an investigation under any ordinary circumstances,” said Honig, who served in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
He said warrants are typically only unsealed after a case has been indicted by a federal grand jury and federal prosecutors begin sharing evidence with the defense as required.
“There is no reason to unseal it now,” Honig said. “All you do is risk revealing information about your investigation you don’t want revealed. You could compromise your investigation, compromise witnesses, and undermine your own case.”
If the unusual step to unseal the search warrant was indeed meant to sully the reputation of Salgado Araujo and his passengers, it may have worked. Social media was ablaze with demeaning comments. Some, however, directed their skepticism and hostility towards ICE and the FBI, openly questioning why they would think someone would actually drive around with methamphetamine clearly visible on their dashboard.
One notable aspect of this apparent subplot is how little the presence of drugs, if eventually verified by FBI testing, would likely factor at all into the DHS Office of Inspector General’s ongoing investigation of the ICE officer’s decision to use deadly force. To date, DHS has not indicated the ICE officers who stopped Salgado Araujo had any knowledge of drugs possibly being inside the vehicle at the time of the fatal shooting.
It does remain to be seen whether any allegations of drug possession may be used in possible deportation proceedings for the passengers who were riding with him. The DA in Houston has requested they be afforded special visas while multiple investigations remain underway, calling the men witnesses to alleged crimes.
In a statement Thursday that did not address any of the questions raised about the unsealing of the search warrant in the case, Trump-appointed US Attorney Aaron Reitz, who took office this month after previously working for Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, insisted he is not “drawing any final conclusions while the investigation is ongoing.”
Reitz said federal authorities “are doing everything we can to seek the truth and do the right thing. In the meantime, I encourage the public to give the FBI and DHS the opportunity to investigate.”
The-CNN-Wire
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