Authored by Julie Kelly via Declassified with Julie Kelly,
"I've done this a long time and haven't seen one quite like this one, I have to say."
So said U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, who has sat on the D.C. federal court bench since Ronald Reagan appointed him in 1987, last April.
What exactly stumped the senior judge that day? Another pending mistrial in the government's prosecution of two of MS-13's most notorious gang leaders.
For the second time in five months, a D.C. jury refused to convict Moises Rivera-Luna and Tokiro Ramirez on two racketeering conspiracy counts originating from a 2011 federal indictment (read: brought by the Obama DOJ, not Trump's) for criminal gang activity in Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas. It appears from the official court docket that the pair became fugitives before the case could go to trial back then.
But in March 2025, the Trump administration extradited Rivera-Luna from Guatemala to finally face his day in court; Ramirez had been extradited from Honduras in 2022.
"Rivera-Luna is alleged to be an internati
