The judge said he didn't blame the Trump lawyer for not knowing. But I think it's the judge's job to blame the Trump lawyer for not knowing. After all, that lawyer knew that the detainee wasn't around, had time to prepare for court, and could have told the judge how they can find out where the man was taken.
In other words, if you're the government's lawyer, you either need to have answers or you need to say where answers can be found. If you can't do any of those things, then you are not acting in the interest of justice and you should be sanctioned or held in contempt until you're willing to act with decency.
The other option is to declare that the lawyer is not representing the state, on the grounds that they don't have any information about what the state is doing. If so, where is the state's representative? Why didn't they show up in court?