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Michael Popak (0:59)
The Department of Justice and the Trump administration thought they were going to be able to rid themselves of Judge Boasberg, the chief judge of the D.C. court who just found probable cause that the Trump administration has committed criminal contempt and is about to refer it over to the prosecutors in the executive branch or a special prosecutor, maybe Jack Smith, that the judge appoints. And there's more things going on in that court since that historic finding by the judge of possible criminal contempt against the Trump administration. I'm going to update you right here in some in this fast moving story only on the Midas Touch Network and Legal A F. So the argument that the Trump administration is making and they have filed an appeal, as we would have expected, on the finding yesterday by the judge that he is starting criminal contempt processes against the Trump administration unless by next Wednesday week from yesterday they bring back two plane loads of people that were deported and removed to El Salvador and brings them back because they violated the court's order while it was in place to ground those planes and found willful disregard of his order. Now we know the Trump administration, let's just cut to the chase, is not going to do that. They're not going to bring back Abrego Garcia back to his family or back to the states. They're not going to do it for the two plane loads either. It would be inconsistent with the inconsistent and unconstitutional position position that they are taking. So what is a judge to do? Well, firstly, he has the power to appoint a special prosecutor, a private attorney to prosecute the executive branch. If the executive branch won't prosecute itself. And we know. Let's cut to the chase again, Pam Bondi and the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, God help us. Donald Trump is not going to prosecute himself. But there is case law under a Supreme Court precedent, which is called Young X Rail Louis Vuitton, about the Louis Vuitton Company, in which it was quite clear, as written back in 1987, including Justice Brennan, that if the executive branch won't prosecute, investigate itself for contempt of court, then the judge has the power, limited power, but a power to appoint a private attorney. I can't think of a better private attorney to appoint than Jack Smith. So that's where when people say, well, who is he going to, you know, the prosecutors are never going to prosecute this case. Right. So the judge will appoint his own. That's one. Secondly, the aclu, the American Civil Liberty Liberties Union, has smartly filed a new piece of paper just yesterday in which they're telling the judge, look, you may have had your ultimate ruling vacated by the United States Supreme Court about the Alien Enemies act. And where due process needs to be done, Supreme Court having ruled, you got to do it with notice and habeas corpus petitions individually. The same habeas corpus petitions that Donald Trump is now complaining about, saying, oh, yeah, we have 500,000 cases. There'll be 500,000 habeas corpus petitions individually in Texas and New York and all these other places. Well, that's not, that's not Justice's problem. That is a natural result of the position that the Trump administration has taken, which is that Judge Boasberg didn't have class action ability to handle all of these cases in one jurisdiction. Well, of course, if you're going to do habeas, then you have to try to do it in these individual cases, maybe grouped together in other jurisdictions. That's a natural result of the Department of Justice's harebrained idea. That's one. But the ACLU just filed this new motion for temporary restraining order with Judge Boasberg saying, look, when it comes to notice, the constitutional due process required notice to each person before they are subjected to a process and then removed from this country. You should continue to keep the class in place and as it relates to notice in order to effectuate the habeas corpus rights, habeas corpus petition, due process rights of each individual for notice, keep everybody together. And you should order that the Trump administration give proper notice to the class through this court in order for them to have their habeas petition rights because if you have the right but you don't know about it, you don't know when it should be invoked, what right do you really have? That is their argument and the judge finds that interesting based on the filing and he is giving the Trump administration until tomorrow at 9, actually Friday at 9:00 or Saturday at 9:00. Sorry to file their opposition paper a reply paper over the weekend and then the judge is going to hear oral argument on this in the first week in May.