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Whether you're solving murders during breakfast, cracking cold cases on your commute, or playing amateur detective at bedtime, Amazon Music's got millions of podcast episodes waiting. Just download the Amazon music app and start listening to your favorite true crime podcasts ad free included with Prime. Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal af. I'm Karen Friedman, Agniphiolo here with Lisa Graves. Tonight. I'm so happy to have Lisa subbing in for Michael Popak, who's doing important work in San Francisco, California, where he's interviewing, I think, 13 Democratic state attorneys general who are doing a lot of the work across the country to hold this administration's feet to the fire and ensure that our democracy is not completely trampled over. So I look forward to these interviews that I'm sure Popak is going to be posting on the Legal AF YouTube channel. And that's going to be a wonderful thing to watch and to make sure that that everybody catches and go over to the Legal AF YouTube channel and subscribe if you can. It's a great place, a great source for so much that's going on, including the Midas Touch Network, which is also a great source. So those are the two places I like to go for my news and information about everything that's happening. But I'm so happy to be here. Lisa, thank you so much for always being here. We have an exciting lineup to talk about a lot going on, as usual. You know, it's, it's hard to keep up every week with so much going on and to try to decide what we're going to talk about and curate for everybody. This week, we decided we're going to talk a lot about a few things. So first of all, what's going on in Fulton County, Georgia? Right. The Fulton County, Georgia, is where, if you remember the famous call that Donald Trump made to this secretary, the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperker, saying, Find me 11, 70, 11,780 votes. And he was subsequently indicted in Fulton county along with over a dozen other individuals. And that case is no longer happening for various reasons. But that case is still in the news despite the fact that he clearly lost the election there. And they cert, they did numerous recounts. They investigated all of the claims that numerous bodies investigated the claims that the election was stolen from him, that none of them were founded. And so why is this still in the news? Because Donald Trump can't let go. He cannot let go of the fact that he lost in 2020. And the Trump administration has executed a search warrant and taken the original ballots, all of them. There's one copy. And he took all of them, including all of the records that go along with it. And they did it via a search warrant. And the search warrant, in a search warrant, you have to establish a crime was committed and that there's evidence of the crime.
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And.
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And they got a magistrate judge to sign off on it. Well, Fulton county is fighting back and saying that this search warrant, the affidavit that went along with it, was blatantly unconstitutional. There was no probable cause, and you can't rely on the people in the search warrant. So we're going to unpack that for everybody because it's really astounding, frankly. We're also going to talk about another judge, Judge Rufy, who, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, or Roof, who is issued a temporary restraining order in Pennsylvania where there's a museum at the home of George Washington and John Adams. Prior to when the White House was created, they lived there when they were president, and it is now a museum. And the Trump administration has basically ordered the mentions of slavery to be taken down. And they're white, literally whitewashing the American history and saying you got to take all the slavery stuff down. And they took it down. And this judge is fighting back, saying, no, history is not something that is optional and it's not something that's left up to whatever a politician's whims are. It is our history. And ordered these, ordered these, these exhibits, including a video, to be put back up in the museum while the judge continues to hear the case in full. But for now, it has to go up. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Abrego Garcia and the other illegally, 137 illegally disappeared and deported men and what the judges are doing in those cases, yes, they're still around and yes, they're still going on. And judges, Judge Zinnis, Judge Boasberg, they're trying to give these men due process that they did not get, and they are trying to implement that. So they are continuing to fight that fight and give people due process, which is obviously an important part of our Constitution and important part of what all of us, anyone who is in the United States is entitled to, whether you're a citizen or not. We're also going to talk about Melania and Mrs. Trump, who essentially is involved in a lawsuit with a journalist, Michael Wolf, and she is first she threatens him with, with basically, you're going to, you're defaming me take it down and apologize all the bad things you're saying. And now she's saying, you didn't serve me properly. And she's trying to get the cases, the case removed to from New York to Florida where she thinks that judges, I believe she's doing it because she thinks that judges will be more favorable to her down there. So that's going on and that's there's a lot of filings going back and forth with that. It's very interesting to some of the arguments that are being made there. And having Lisa here and not talking about the Supreme Court would be a huge missed opportunity since we are in the middle of a Supreme Court session and the Supreme Court sits from the first Monday in October through June or July. And so they hear cases during that time for oral argument. They also rule on shadow docket, you know, stuff that just comes before them on emergency basis and they issue opinions. And we've got some really big opinions coming out that they have not yet ruled and some big oral arguments coming up as well. So having Lisa, who's a real scholar, a real constitutional scholar here and an expert in the Supreme Court and not talking about what's to come would be a missed opportunity. So I'm so thrilled that, that we're going to get your insights into that. Lisa. So how are you? And good to see you.
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I'm doing all right. It's always lovely to see you, Karen, and an honor to have the chance to come in here for popac, who, as you said, is out there in California with those state AGs who are really on the front line in many ways of trying to defend our rights. So it's a always a joy to see you and I so appreciate your analysis, Karen. It's great to be on with you and here on Midas Touch.
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Yeah, it's, it's amazing. You know, when we, when again when we're preparing for, when we're preparing for this evening and you're just seeing how many of these things are in the news over and over again and how many of these things are also on late night comedy television. You know, it's just unbelievable to me that so much of these issues have really seeped into the mainstream. You know, used to be that the only people who were interested in, in legal cases and legal filings and the intersection between law and politics was really a small number of people. But it's really seeped into the mainstream because I think people see that it's more than just this case and more than just this filing, and it's really about what's going on in America right now and how that we really have somebody who is trying to control. Control us and control the narrative. This administration wants to control elections, and they want to take away our First Amendment rights, and they want to take away our voting rights and our abilities to vote for who we want to vote for. And it feels like we aren't living in a democracy. I mean, to see that Marco Rubio is endorsing Viktor Orban in Hungary, who is one of the most notorious dictators right now, is just unbelievable to me that this administration looks at things like power. They look at things like control and really taking away the power from the people. And so we have to continue to arm everybody with information so people can fight back and really keep this in the front headlines because we are coming close to the midterm elections. It's one of the most important elections in our lifetime. We've got to keep our democracy because that's what's at stake. It's not about whether you agree with this issue or that issue. Right. We can have debates about various issues, and that's what our democracy is about. Right. It's about debating issues, about agreeing on some, disagreeing on others. But because we live in a democracy, we sort of have this social compact that, okay, I might not necessarily agree with you, but I'm going to protect your rights because you have rights and I have rights. But that's not what's happening right now. Right now, our rights are being taken from us. And I can't think of anywhere that this is more stark than what's going on in Fulton County. Because, look, Fulton county, essentially, like I said in the introduction, this was sort of the place that Donald Trump was laser focused on that I have to find the votes. I have to find these 11,780 votes, because that's if I can flip that and I can flip Georgia and try to win the election. He just can't get over it. Right? He cannot get over the fact that they've. They've gone back, they've hand counted, they recounted, and all they have found are small, teeny, tiny errors, human errors that happen all over the United States. Right. Sometimes there's a few mistakes here and there, but that's why. But none of them would make any difference whatsoever in the election. Right. It wouldn't move the needle at all. It's just very, very few slight margin of error. There's no sort of widespread illegal people who aren't citizens voting because you can't vote if you're not a citizen. They didn't find any of that. They didn't find people voting on behalf of dead people. They didn't find these widespread fraud. They didn't find any. They found mistakes or human error in a very, very few, few cases. Very minuscule. They factored that in. He still lost the election. And so. But he can't get over that. And so there's a civil lawsuit going on that Donald Trump is trying to get the records right. He's still fighting this battle. He still can't, you know, get over the fact that he lost, even though he's president again. But we had a president for four years. He lost that election. You can't rewrite history. And there's a civil lawsuit going on where he's trying to get these ballots and it's being litigated. So far, the administration has not been successful in getting the ballots. And instead, what did they do? They executed a search warrant. They executed a search warrant and seized. They took all of the ballots. The ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, are not in possession of the Georgia of Georgia people at all. It is in possession of the Department of Justice. And they executed a search warrant. How do they execute a search warrant? So first, you can't just write out a search warrant and execute it. Right? You have to get it. You have to bring it to a judge. Somebody has to swear in front of the judge, and they have to establish that there is probable cause. Probable cause is basically a reasonable, good faith belief that it's more likely than not that a crime occurred. Right? It's probable cause to believe that a crime occurred. And you have to set out what that crime is. You have to actually say, this is the crime that occurred. And you have to also, if you want to execute a search warrant for evidence, you have to say, and this is where I want to search for the evidence. This is why I think the evidence is there. And this is where I think the evidence would establish a crime. You can't say what they said in this particular affidavit, which is things like it may have occurred. If all of these things happen, it might show this, but it didn't. Right? You can't just sort of say that. You can't use it as a fishing expedition. And so what essentially happened here is they execute the search warrant, they take all the documents. For some strange reason, Tulsi Gabbard happened to be there, which makes no sense whatsoever because she. Her jurisdiction is over things that happen outside the United States, not crimes that happen in the United States. It wasn't Pam Bondi, who, if you were going to have somebody who's in charge of the Department of Justice, which would also be very strange, at the execution of a search warrant. But she was there, and according to reports, she put Donald Trump on the phone with FBI agents who were cheering him on and basically patting him on the back and telling him they're doing a good job and they steal. They. They seize. Sorry. All of the. All of the records that are there. And what. What happened this week is Fulton county is now basically filed with the court, something saying that I want my stuff back, right? These are our ballots. They belong to us. And that this warrant that you obtained on January 28, 2026, is the only original copy of the records. And that this theory of probable cause that they lay out is actually unprecedented and falls, quote, woefully short of what is required. They basically establish. And the things that they set out in this legal filing was, number one, the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause, not possible cause. Right. Again, it's not this hypothetical. Oh, it's possible that it could be there. That. There. That. Not, not. Not that those documents would be there. It's possible that a crime may have been committed. No, it's not possible cause. It's probable cause. You have to establish that a crime probably occurred. And despite these years of investigations that have gone on, they do not identify facts that establish probable cause that anyone committed any crime. What instead they did was they established a hypothetical that only if true, these hypotheticals, then maybe a crime occurred. So that's number one. Number two, they said instead of alleging probable cause to believe a crime occurred, it does nothing more than describe human error. Human error that occurs in every election without any intentional wrongdoing. Right. They mislabel this expected margin of error, which every election builds in. Right. A margin of error. They mislabel that as, quote, deficiencies or defects that cannot establish probable cause. Okay. Number three, the affidavit for the search warrant omits material facts, including reports from publicly available sources that confirm that the conduct was previously investigated and it was found that any slight variation or anything was unintentional. So it's not criminal. Right. If there's a mistake, it's not. It's not intentional, therefore, it's not criminal. And so they left that out of the affidavit, something you're actually required to bring to the attention of the judge. And so they don't allege also that they fail to allege that Any witness that. That is in there, and they listed out, like, five or six witnesses. They don't establish that these are reliable or credible witnesses. And they.
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And.
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And what they did was they omitted that there, that these witnesses, many of them, have been actually discredited, and that information is available to the FBI who applied for this warrant. So these are serious material omissions. And this is an ex parte warrant, meaning that it happens. The FBI, when you go apply for a warrant or the Department of Justice, you go before a judge without the other party. So you go kind of in secret. You know, it's ex parte. And they basically said, look, if. Maybe if the judge were told, if the magistrate judge had been told that these people that you're relying on in this affidavit have been discredited, maybe they wouldn't have found them reliable and issued this search warrant. And then they go on to say, even if. Even if you do establish probable cause, the seizure of the original election materials is unreasonable and a callous disregard of the Fourth Amendment because the statute of limitations has lapsed. So even if all these things are true that you say they are or you say might be, because you don't even say they are. You say they might be, even if they're true, you can't bring a case because the statute of limitations has last. Therefore, there is no crime, because there's no crime you can bring. And Georgia says that it violates Georgia's state sovereignty by enjoining a pending state court and joining that proceeding and preventing Georgia from performing its constitutionally mandated role in administering elections. And they improperly used a criminal warrant to circumvent a pending civil lawsuit, which Trump was requesting, or the administration was requesting the same records. So they fought back. They fought back hard. This is a really, I think, astonishing affidavit. So many legal experts who read it, when it came out said, where's the probable cause? Never seen anything like this. People who have done. I've done. I've. I've supervised or. Or written probably a thousand search warrants, and I've never seen one that looks anything like this. They are usually buttoned up, meticulous, and clearly establish probable cause that a crime occurred. So that. That was just an unbelievable filing and fighting back from. From Fulton County. Lisa, what. What are you. What are you. What are your thoughts on this?
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Yeah, well, that was just so thorough and compelling, Karen, and the way you described it as never having seen a search warrant like this. When the. When the raid happened, we only had just some of the outside descriptions of the basis or the asserted basis for taking these ballots out of the custody of Fulton County. And so it was only within the past week or so that we've actually been able to see the. The warrant, the fuller set of details. And it really is shocking. And I haven't. I haven't been involved in pursuing search warrants myself in my career. My career on criminal policy and civil policy did not involve prosecution. So I really appreciate your assessment of it. I also think that a couple of things you said really are so important to underscore. One is that a search warrant is not a fishing expedition. This isn't a civil discovery. This isn't a civil suit at the outset. This is a criminal investigation that is supposed to be based on probable cause of a crime, and like you said, not possible cause. And I would say, actually impossible cause. Because when you look at this search warrant and the underlying claims that are asserted in it, it's like a Rube Goldberg, a Rube Goldberg machine, like a, you know, mousetrap, basically levers and pulleys and a ball, and everything has to hit just the right way. And then supposedly at the end of it, somehow the election was stolen. Well, that's not true. That's not what happened. These ballots. There were around 5 million ballots cast in Fulton county, which is the largest in terms of population county in Georgia, is the county that includes Atlanta. It was a county that Donald Trump lost. And that, as you point out, he went on to try to pressure the Secretary of State of Georgia, a Republican named Brad Raffensperger, to find him the 11,000 ballots that he needed or the votes that he said he needed to win when he lost. And these ballots were subsequently hand counted. Millions of ballots hand counted. They were also audited three times at every turn, every single time. This first, this comprehensive recount, this auditing, where you're taking sections and trying to make sure that things are properly counted, that nothing is double counted. Each of those investigations found that there was no election fraud, no systemic fraud, no basic no. No way to basically discount thousands, in fact, millions of ballots, but thousands of ballots to get Donald Trump to win. This is a case of the biggest loser, the biggest sore loser, really, in American history, Trump, who cannot let go of the fact that he actually did lose that race. And not only did he lose that race, but other people were elected in on those same ballots, and none of those have been contested. All the other people who won on those same ballots for state offices and federal offices, you know, that has all been considered settled. It's just Donald Trump's refusal to accept this actual defeat. And as you point out, another thing that is really astonishing about this warrant, which was taken to a magistrate judge, like you said, ex parte, on an ex parte basis without, you know, anyone else present. And once we finally had a chance to see it, it was shocking. It is shocking because the warrant, the basis for the warrant was asserted based on the assertions of these conspiracy theorists, people whose claims have been debunked. And let me just give you one of many examples of that. One of the key people involved in pursuing this case is not a federal official, not a state official. He's a well known election denier. His name is Kevin Monclaw. He was one of the people who made one of the complaints in the state election board investigation, which was a deep and thorough investigation of the claim of fraud. He repeatedly makes claims on social media. He's someone who was involved in the defamation suit by election by Georgia election workers against the Gateway Pundit. He was revealed to be a source of those slurs against those election workers. And the Gateway Pundit's own lawyer referred to Kevin Monclaw as, quote, a G D fraud. The full word fully fleshed out. That person said that Moncla is a known fabricator, quote, I wouldn't touch or publish anything he produces. That's one of the people who was mentioned. Now, of course, he denies it. He's, you know, thinks that he's got a case here. He doesn't. And what you have happening before our very eyes is a conspiracy theory, quote, report pursued by conspiracy theorists whose claims have been debunked over and over again, some of whom have serious issues of credibility that other people have made in response to their dealings with them that was not presented to the court, that the people that they, that the warrant relies upon have been discredited or their claims have been discredited. But also you have, in essence, a conspiracy theory that goes right to the presidency. And then you have a president instrumentally involved in pursuing this seizure of American ballots. And as you pointed out, you have not only that, you have purportedly Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, that's the head of our spy agencies in the United States, which is are supposed to be directed against foreign threats of interference. You have her on the scene. There are competing reports about whether Trump asked her to go or whether Bondi asked her to go. But it doesn't matter because the head of the spy agencies for the United States should not be on the ground at, at a polling place, at a, you know, at the clerk's office, in essence, where these ballots are taken, let alone involved in calling Trump to have a cheerleading session for the agents involved in executing the search warrant. Now that these ballots have been removed from their longstanding chain of custody, I don't think that we can have any confidence that those ballots can be trusted going forward, quite frankly, because this same administration, this FBI, this Justice Department, is engaged right now, in my view, in the biggest cover up that we've ever seen in American history regarding the Epstein files and selective release of some files, selective redaction of some files, omission of some files. This is a administration, in my view, that cannot be trusted with the seizure of our ballots and also the effort to create a precedent going forward for seizing ballots based on conspiracy theories. And then the other part of it, I think that is really also extraordinary is the head of the FBI for Georgia was not apparently involved in this search. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, which is someone who Trump appointed, was not the lead attorney on this. They brought in, in my view, a ringer from Missouri to move this case forward starting last fall. And according to reporting by ProPublica, who has been involved in pushing this case forward to a criminal investigation, Kevin Monkla and others who are part of this conspiracy group, these election deniers. So in my view, the warrant stinks. In my view, the challenge, the civil challenge against this warrant brought by Fulton county is well founded, pointing out the significant errors in the process that led to, to the execution of this warrant. And I also think it's just extraordinary to have a president involved in, in essence, helping to direct an investigation like this that not only risks the integrity of those ballots that were counted, recounted and counted again in Georgia, but also is basically a trial balloon for him asserting a right to seize ballots coming out of this 2026 midterm election. So those are my thoughts, Karen.
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Yeah, yeah. Well, no, but what you said really, I think is the key here, which is, I think this is. He's testing out what he's going to do in the midterms, right? He's testing out. They're testing out. What can we get away with? How do we do this? How do we seize ballots? What's the playbook, right? What do we have to allege? How do we, like, can we get away with this if this, you know, in the midterms? Because, of course, they're going to contest places that he loses. And I think that's the thing, you know, he's already said he wants to nationalize the elections which again, the Constitution specifically says the time, place and manner of elections is, belongs to the states. Even federal elections, especially federal elections. And it's really something that the, every state does it slightly differently. He wants to, you know, there's, there's these bills that are pending the SAVE act and you know, others about not just whether there's voter ID required but what type of id. Right. Also you have to have citizenship papers, not just your identification or you know, everything that they can do to try and disenfranchise people. They don't want mail in ballots, they don't want absentee ballots. They don't want anything other than of course, if you're in the military or you are, you know, have like a note from a doctor kind of thing. I mean there's, there's really a few, few exceptions and they're trying to control the elections rather than keeping it with the states. And we, we know that, that they want to have ICE and DHS to be at polling places and they're going to do everything they can to try and control the, and take the power away from the states at the midterms. And I think part of it is, part of that control is okay, how do we, what do we do after the fact? Can we get a hold of ballots, can we seize them? And you know, that's what I think of all the things that you said, I think that's kind of the most important piece of it and why I think this is such an important issue for us to keep talking about because this is just them practicing, right and seeing, seeing what's, what's going to happen.
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So yeah, it really is. And I think that obviously this case will be litigated up through the appeals process, probably end up at the U.S. supreme Court. I am concerned because the Roberts court has already shown its hand in terms of how, how it is treating Donald, Donald Trump with kid gloves. How in that immunity decision, that reckless counter, constitutional immunity decision that John Roberts wrote and orchestrated, that decision that not just paved the way for Donald Trump's return to power, but basically suggested that he could do no wrong when he was engaged in a so called official act. And John Roberts asserted in that opinion that directing prosecution, directing the Department of Justice is an official act of Donald Trump so he could not be prosecuted for engaging in criminal activity around these issues. But that doesn't make it okay. That doesn't make it legitimate. And I do think given the Other statements by Kristi Noem and other other loyalists of Donald Trump about the coming elections. Refusing to rule out having ICE agents at polling places, refusing to rule out having military or police intimidating voters at polling places. In 2026, we the People have a lot of work to do to make sure that our right to vote is protected and that every vote is counted and that ballots aren't seized and destroyed or somehow discredited by a president who has shown through his actions that he does not respect, in essence, is inclined not to follow results he doesn't like even when he loses, and asserting, in fact, that he wins places that he hasn't. There was a heat map that Rice University students issued about a week or so ago, which showed where Donald Trump had been sending ICE agents relative to the actual immigration levels in different states, like Texas versus Minnesota. But the thing you could see in the pattern in the heat map was that Donald Trump had sent ICE agents, in particular in these sieges, into communities and cities that he lost, states that he lost, even states like Minnesota, where he claims he should have won, when he has lost repeatedly. So we're seeing the weaponization, not just of the Justice, Justice Department, not just of the prosecutorial power, but we're also seeing the weaponization of other arms of the federal government, like the DHS arms, in pursuit of his punitive agenda toward those who have a right as Americans to not vote for him, in fact, voted against him.
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Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right, we got to take our first ad break, because that's what keeps the lights on here. We, we love our sponsors, and so many people who have sponsored us, have introduced us to that now have become a part of my life. And they're really wonderful. They choose us. They know what our point of view is. And so if you're interested, we recommend that you give them a try. You know, you get a special discount code for watching the show. And so it's a really important part of us keeping the lights on here, because we don't have a network that we have to answer to. We're not like being told that you have to pull the interview of someone running for office in Texas off the air the way they did to Stephen Colbert the other day. Right. We get to talk about what we want. We can speak freely. We interview who we want. And it's all because of the people who are watching this show right now and who support us and who are part of the Midas Touch Network and the legal AF community. And so thank you so much for everybody, all of the support and we're going to now go to our first
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And Lisa, let's just jump right in. I want to talk about this 40 page opinion by Judge Cynthia Roof, who ordered the Trump administration to restore these displays that discuss slavery at this site in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where George Washington lived as president and John Adams lived as well. This is in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania where Judge Roof compared the display removals to government mind control employed in Orwell's. In George Orwell's 1984 couple of quotes, the government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government funded monuments within its control. She issued her ruling on President's Day, which I thought was interesting because most government offices, all of them, were closed and the courts were closed. But she made sure that this ruling came out on President's Day. And she granted, I think, was symbolic intentionally. And she granted this immediate injunction requiring the installation, the reinstallation of, I think, 30 plus educational panels that were removed by the National Park Service from this site at Independence National Historical park in Philadelphia. These materials included a video at the President's House site where Washington lived for most of his presidency and where Adams lived. And, and I think the White House was ready, was create, was built and ready to move in around 1800. So this was a pretty important place where presidents lived prior to that. And some of the materials tell the story of a woman named Oni Judge, who was actually one of George Washington's slaves who escaped freedom and built a life for herself in New England. You know, it's part of our American history, our sad history, that that George Washington actually had slaves and so did others at that time. And if you remember, one of Trump's executive orders was to, quote, restore truth and sanity to American history, which called for eliminating divisive narratives from national sites. And so this removal was part of that executive order. Many museums and historic locations have responded by removing exhibits that discuss slavery and other challenges that disenfranchised or minority or marginalized groups have faced. And this opinion was very critical of the Trump administration. And this is a George Bush appointee, right? So she criticized the Trump, George W. Bush. She criticized the Trump administration as saying, quote, truth is no longer self evident, but rather a property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegates at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden or overwritten. And she's saying, why? Because, solely because the defendants say they have that power. But she said, no, no, no, that's not true. That's not correct. Put those items back up there while we do this case. You can't just change history because you want to. And the administration, of course, is nothing to see here. You know, we routinely change exhibits and, you know, we rotate them, et cetera. But. But Judge Roof wasn't buying it and said, look, the history of slavery is not contingent on the changing preferences of elected officials. And these displays were not just mere decorations to be taken down and redisplayed. This is a memorial. This is an actual memorial to enslaved people. It's a tribute to their struggle for freedom and an enduring reminder of the inherent contradictions of this country's founding. P.S. this memorial, this monument was erected and is supported by taxpayer dollars. So this is not something that you just get to kind of do what you want to do here. So it was a pretty, you know, for. For a temporary restraining order, which means it hasn't been fully briefed. It means the parties haven't fully, you know, it hasn't made its way through the legal process yet. It's just kind of an emergency application, if you will, to press, pause, keep the status quo while you litigate the issues. It was a pretty strong rebuke of this administration's whitewashing of our nation's history. And it's also, you know, coming on a week where we've lost one of the great civil rights activists. Right. You know, happening at the same time. And we're watching all of these tributes, you know, to now the late, great Jesse Jackson and, you know, Reverend Jackson and all of that he's done for people of color in this country and African Americans and talking about really trying to right the wrongs of slavery. And it's such a stark contrast to what the Trump administration's trying to do and to completely whitewash this and really kind of take away people's experience and the real history of this country. Did you get a chance to look at the opinion, Lisa?
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Yes, it's a really, really beautifully written opinion. I don't recommend that people read every opinion ever written by judges of the Supreme Court or the District court, but this really is worth people seeing with their own eyes, reading her words, because they're so compelling and they're so right on. And I think it's also, like you said, it was symbolic to issue that ruling on President's Day about the power of presidents, because in America, under our Constitution, presidents aren't kings, and presidents are humans who have faults. And in this instance, you know, our founding president, the first president of these United States under the you know, under our system of government was someone who had many great attributes, but he was also a slaveholder, and he held people in slavery and. And circulated them between his plantation and his homes in order to prevent them from becoming free while he was president. Upon his death, he freed the slaves that he had owned, hundreds of slaves that he had owned, but not the slaves that his wife had owned. So people who were enslaved by the Washingtons, some of them remained enslaved after his death. And that history is important. That's an important part of our nation. And the contradiction between this assertion, this declaration that certain truths are self evident and that these include these fundamental human rights that we as a country denied initially to blacks who had been brought here from Africa and who were enslaved on these enslaved enslavement plantations in these. These, you know, work, work environments without pay, under a tremendously cruel treatment of not being free. Families being separated people, spouses, people who were partnered, being separated from each other, their children separated from their parents. It is, in fact, an extreme chapter of American history. And then you have the arrogance of Donald Trump and his minions, you know, basically being vandals to our history, but also vandals in a real physical sense. To see those crowbars being used to tear down this memorial, it was revolting to see. To see the arrogance of these people who think they have a right to destroy this memorial about this part of our history, because Donald Trump and because his minions wanted it done. I'm really glad that temporary restraining order was issued. A restraining order is available for precisely this sort of circumstance where there's a substantial likelihood of success, because what is the authority for Trump to be. Trump and his people to be tearing down these investments by the American people and the irreparable harm of it. There's irreparable harm, although we're going to try to repair it. But this destruction of things, I think we have seen this sort of, in my view, vandalism over and over again, including at the White House, the unilateral action to tear down the East Wing and to assert a right to take donations from corporations or people who want Trump's favor in order to build an outsized ballroom that no one needs, that couldn't even be completed by the end of the term of this president of Donald Trump. It's outrageous. And we've seen similar things happen in other agencies. For example, we saw, you know, at the Pentagon, an effort to erase the history of people of color who have served our country honorably, including raising the flag at Iwo Jima, you know, this is a type of cleansing that is Orwellian, and I think Judge Roof was right to point it out. And as you noted, she was appointed to the federal district court by George W. Bush. This is not someone who's a liberal or progressive or what have you. She's a long standing city, city sitting judge who issued a compelling ruling that I hope everyone, anyone who's interested really, please take a look at it, please read it, please share it. It's really powerful and I think we're going to need it because this is not the only time this administration is going to be erasing history. They've been on a war path, in essence, for the past 12 months to try to erase history where they can, where they can get away with it. And it's been pushed back even about a couple weeks ago, taking down the rainbow flag, the pride flag at the Stonewall Historic Site, doing so just out of spite, asserting, oh, we have a right to change flags and only the US Flag can be flown on any given site. You know, that's an assertion that they're making. But at every point you see, like two paths diverge into the woods, really, like, you know, like the famous poem, and the Trump team chooses the path of destruction and erasure. And I'm glad to see people from both parties and judges from no party, but who were appointed in this case by George W. Bush standing up and saying, this is at least at this stage in the proceedings, inconsistent with the law, not authorized, and there's going to be more to come. But I was just really happy to see someone in a position of power say no to try Trump.
- [45:59]
A
Lisa, what does the judge do when inevitably Trump walks in, or the administration, I should say, walks in and says, we can't put them back up. They were destroyed, so we can't do it. What does the judge do there?
- [46:12]
B
Yeah, I mean, that is why the irreparable, you know, the irreparable harm, unfortunately, as it was happening, it couldn't be, you know, there was no way to act fast enough to stop it in the, in the midst of the crowbars coming down. And so I think ultimately the judge is going to have to order that, that those, those panels be replaced, that they be recreated and placed back on those walls. And, you know, that judges, it seems like, oh, could a judge actually order a physical act like that? Yes. Judges can issue orders to require that certain acts or deeds be done. And if they're not done, the people who fail to do them face potential civil or criminal contempt for failure to do so. So, unfortunately, Donald Trump has yet again cost the American taxpayer money, money through his destructive actions. And the effort to repair things that he breaks is costly. I hope the American people realize that it's us who are paying the costs of his destructiveness. But ultimately, the right thing here will be to get those panels back up and if they've been destroyed, which they may very well have been, or damaged in the crowbarring process, which was also just terrible, to. To observe that they will need to be recreated and replaced, placed in order to restore our history.
- [47:19]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of judges ordering people to do things, let's pivot to Judge Paul Azinis in Maryland and Judge Boberg, who both have issued orders involving people who've been unlawfully deported without due process. And Judge Zinnis, who is. Has been involved in the Abrego Garcia matter, has ordered that he cannot be re. Detained by ice, which is a big blow because they were attempting to deport him again. And Judge Zinish issued an injunction following an emergency order that blocked the administration from doing so in December. And essentially, if you remember, so, Judge, they deported him to El Salvador, and then they couldn't get him back, right? Because Trump was like, oh, I have no control. And then somehow, then they did bring him back, but they charged him with this crime, this old crime that they never charged him with before, but they went back and looked at all sorts of records and charged him with basically transporting, being part of a network of transporting people here who are not documented. And they charged him in Tennessee, where the judge there released him. They take him back into custody, and they were trying to find a place where now he's in ICE detention, right? They keep, like, putting him in ICE detention, sending him to El Salvador, bringing him now putting him in criminal detention, gets released, puts him back into the civil deportation detention. But from a. Like, to punish him, the administration wants to send him to an African nation. He's saying, I can't go back to El Salvador because I'll be persecuted there. Right? That's why he was seeking asylum here. People want to kill me there. He's like, but I'll go to Costa Rica. But they don't want to send him to Costa Rica, Right? He speaks Spanish. They speak Spanish in Costa Rica. He's like, I don't know anyone in Africa. I don't speak any African language. Send me somewhere where I can. I'll leave, but send me somewhere that I can live. Right? But they don't want to Send them to Costa Rica because they want to punish me him, but they somehow couldn't get their act together to send him to somewhere in Africa and they were holding him too long. And Judge Zinnis just said, look, you know, a, you can't just punish him. And you know, that's like this punitive kind of send you to another country. He's willing to go to Costa Rica. You can't get your act together to do it. So I'm releasing him and you can't re detain him. So I thought that was really, really interesting. And at the same time, we have Judge Boasberg now ordering the administration to facilitate the return of. Do you remember those 137 supposed alleged Venezuelan gang members who were unlawfully deported without any process, without, you know, sort of in the middle of the night the planes already took off like they lied to the court. I mean, this whole big thing about, you know, turn the planes around. But they refused. That whole thing has been going on and that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court said you shouldn't bring it in Washington D.C. you're supposed to bring it in Texas. But you do require, you have to give them due process. And so Boasberg is fed up. He's like, you've violated my orders. I should hold you in contempt. But in the meantime, you need to return these people or at least facilitate their return if they want to come back and essentially pay for their airplane flight and give them travel papers so they can get on an airplane. No. 1, the airline's not going to let them in without, you know, a valid passport or some paper. So you have to give them a piece of paper that says you can come back and you have to pay for it. And, but you know, it's unlikely that all of them or many of them will take up the admin, you know, take them up on this because if they come back, they have to be detained. Right. It's not like they're going to come back and be free. So I'm not really sure what import this, this kind of requirement. Of course the government doesn't want to have to pay for it or give them any papers, but the judge says that's what you have to do. I don't know what it's going to do. I don't know what he's going to do if he's going to continue on with his contempt proceedings. But, but that's kind of what's happening there. What, what did you notice in those two in Those two cases.
- [51:58]
B
Well, in the Abrego Garcia case, it, it really is outrageous, the punitive approach this administration has taken, not just to him, but in, in general. And there are many examples of it. But the notion that they want to return him or that they want to, to not return him, actually move him to a country in Africa and not to Costa Rica, in some ways, I attribute this to the U.S. supreme Court, to the Roberts court, in allowing these third country deportations or removals. That policy had really only been in place in very narrow circumstances. And those circumstances were if you could not return a person to their country of origin, to their country of their nationality, for example, because we did not have diplomatic relations with Cuba or with Vietnam for a period or with Iran. But otherwise, people are typically returned to their home country. For example, if they've served a prison sentence, then they're returned to their home country or to a suitable other country if they cannot remain in the United States. This administration has acted at every turn to try to deprive Garcia of his rights. And it's claimed claims about that have been, as you point out, repeatedly found to be false. False claims being made to the court, false assertions being made to the court. When one of the attorneys for the Justice Department who previously led the Office of Immigration Litigation Oil in the civil division of the Justice Department, actually told the truth to the court, that guy was fired. And then meanwhile, this administration has been defending and actually even promoting people like Emile Bove Bovet, who was appointed by Trump to the Third Circuit, even though a whistleblower attested that Bovet said, told other lawyers at the Justice Department when he was at the helm of it, to just blow off, in so many words, using the F word, to just blow off the court orders to not follow them. And so you have this pattern of obstruction, recalcitrants, dishonesty, a deceit toward the court. And I think the courts are trying to respond to that, you know, using the power of the law to try to have justice and fairness in these processes. So I was glad to see Judge Zinnis opinion. You know, in terms of Judge Boasberg, this is a judge who has been acting with courage and integrity in defending that fundamental premise of our Constitution, which is due process, that no one shall be deprived life, liberty or property without due process of law. In response to his, his, his courageous independence as a judge, Republicans in Congress, including in the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, where I used to serve as the chief counsel for nominations, but in that Judiciary Committee, Ted Cruz and his fellow Republicans held a hearing asserting that they wanted to impeach Judge Boasberg for supposedly being a rogue judge. Now, where was Ted Cruz and these Republicans on the Senate Judic Committee when investigations were revealing the corruption of Clarence Thomas, the. The millions and millions of dollars worth of gifts that he's received from Harlan Crow and other benefits of other big billionaire benefactors? Nowhere. But when a judge dares to in, you know, to use the law to its proper effect, which is to say, look, in the United States, part of being a free nation is due process of law. You cannot just whisk people out of the country without having a chance to have their cases heard. And in this instance, those men, the men who were taken, who were moved to that hellhole to seekot, where the administration claimed it had no power to get them back, even though we were paying ccot for the detention of those individuals, a number of weeks ago, There was a 60 Minutes report that showed what happened to some of them, that some of them were able to return to their home country, to Venezuela, and yet they have not had any real justice in American courts because the Trump administration denied them that by violating the orders of Judge Boasberg. And so, you know, it is appropriate that they have a chance to have their claims be heard. And like you said, under the rules for travel to the United States, you have to have paper paperwork to do. So usually that's issued by the embassy on the ground to get people, people to be able to board a plane. And that's certainly within the power of the Trump administration to order that to happen in response to a court order. But of course, this too will be appealed, and we'll see what John Roberts, with his affinity for ruling in favor of Trump on any matter that doesn't involve perhaps an economic issue, which we'll talk about later on, on tariffs, for example, seems inclined to basically let Donald Trump do whatever he wants, regardless of the destructive consequences. So this is, in a way, a line in the sand, but it's a drawing, a line that's important to draw, which is to say that the Supreme Court has at least recognized that people do have a due process right, that people who are undocumented immigrants still have a due process right because it applies to persons under our Constitution and not just citizens. And so this is a judge, Judge Boasberg, trying to effectuate and give meaning to that fundamental right that doesn't just protect, protect those immigrants, but protects us all from arbitrary and capricious or punitive action by the state without due process of law.
- [57:24]
A
Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of due process, it's so ironic because the next topic we're gonna talk about is Melania Trump and her arguing about her not getting due process. And we're certainly not getting a process that she's, that she wants. So I think it's gonna be very ironic because this, this lawsuit that she's trying to avoid, frankly, is really what she's trying to do. She doesn't, she doesn't want to be sued and she doesn't want to be deposed. We're going to talk about that and the Supreme Court when we come back from this break. We're going to take one more quick ad break and then we'll be right back.
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A
All right, we're back and let's talk about this thing going on with Melania Trump, the first Lady. There's a journalist, Michael Wolf, who filed a defamation lawsuit against Melania in New York state court in last October. And in December, she filed a notice of removal to the Southern District to have it sent to Florida, saying it shouldn't be in state court in New York, it should be in federal court in Florida, because I'm a Florida resident. This claim is going to be more than, I think, $75,000, which creates something called diversity jurisdiction, which means it gets removed from state court into federal court. The lawsuit itself is an anti slappy lapp lawsuit, which basically is a type of lawsuit that is to protect against malicious lawsuits being brought to try to get you not to exercise your First Amendment rights. And it stems from a demand letter that Melania sent to Michael Wolf, basically telling him that she's threatening to sue him for defamation because he, he keeps talking about her and Epstein. He's been writing about the Epstein before we got this trove of documents. He's been writing all about the connections who's connected to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and talking about the Trumps, and he included in there, Melania Trump. And she said, basically, either retract what you said about me being connected to Epstein and Maxwell and issue an apology, or I'm going to sue you for a billion dollars. And, you know, that's what she said. And he filed a lawsuit basically saying, you know, there's this anti slapp law that basically says you can't do that. You can't try to curb people's First Amendment rights by essentially threatening a lawsuit. And so he filed the lawsuit and he was proactive and aggressive and attached a copy of this demand letter to his lawsuit to be like, look, look what they're doing. They're essentially trying to extort me and to silence me. And he's been trying to serve her because in civil court, that's what you have to do if you're a plaintiff. You have to serve. You see on TV with the process servers, they're hiding behind bushes and they're trying to jump out and hand serve someone with the papers because that's what you're required to do by law. But it's harder to do somebody to serve someone with papers who's surrounded by Secret Service 247 who is, has, you know, armed guards everywhere, you know, at their homes. It's very hard to get close enough to get them to be served.
- [63:01]
B
And.
- [63:03]
A
And so even though she hasn't been technically handed or served the paper, she clearly knows about the lawsuit. How do we know she knows about it? Because she brought got this removal petition to federal court in New York saying, I'm not a resident of New York. I live in Mar a Lago, you know, I live in Florida, so New York can't have jurisdiction over me. And. And number one. And number two, I wasn't served. And what she didn't do, which I thought was interesting, was she didn't bring a counterclaim. Right. She threatened to sue him for defamation. He didn't apologize. He didn't retract it, but so countersue him for defamation. Bring your lawsuit, Melania. But she didn't. Instead, she's trying to get it removed to federal court, where people think the judges down there are people like Eileen Cannon, who will be much more favorable to the Trumps. And there's other judges down there as well. And so I think they're hoping to get it to a more favorable judge down there, or if not, who cares? Because it'll wind its way eventually to the Supreme Court, where we know those judges are favorable and much more favorable to the Trumps. So the Trumps don't want things in New York State Court because we see what. Donald Trump and his children were sued in New York State Court, and they have more than a $200 million finding against them for a civil case in New York. They're not gonna do so well in New York. So that's why she wants to get it to Florida. So Michael Wolfe, though, came back and said, I did everything I could to try and serve her, but it was impossible. But I'm telling you, she doesn't live in Florida. We know she doesn't live in Florida. First of all, the Melania movie just came out, and she's basically in New York the whole time. Right? So she's basically in New York, number one. Number two, I went and I spoke to someone who works at Trump Tower who not only said she lives here and this is her resident, they gave me the apartment number. And guess what? It's not the penthouse where Donald Trump lives. She has her own apartment. And he gave her the apartment number. And this is where she lives. Yes, she lives here. Yes, she's a resident here. And, you know, he talked about speeches that she's given, you know, during the election where she. In 20, I think it was 20, 24 election, where she's like, you know, I love New York. I live In New York. You know, her son is here, here. She spends a lot of time here. And so he basically spelled out how, look, she's actually a resident of New York, and so New York does have jurisdiction. But P.S. i tried serving her. I did everything I could. And she clearly knows about it because she's here and she's filing this. And he just basically said, look, she's intimidating me, trying to punish me for and inhibit me from exercising free speech. And, you know, it's kind of a big deal. And meanwhile, since this lawsuit's been going on, guess what? The Epstein files have been released. And there are emails in there mentioning Melania Trump. Right. There's, there's, there's an email exchange between Melania Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell where they're going back and forth and calling each other love and dear and, and, you know, trying to get together. And Melania is complimenting Ghislaine Maxwell on a New York magazine article. That a nice thing, basically a nice story about Jeffrey, about JE In New York magazine.
- [66:41]
B
And
- [66:43]
A
it's clear they were close, right? And it's clear that they had a relationship. So, you know, I don't know how she's, I don't think her defamation suit is going to be as successful as she'd like, but maybe bring it, you know, and see where it goes. So it's just, it's an interesting thing that's been going on. Did you get a chance to take a look at that, at those filings?
- [67:05]
B
I did. You know, it was interesting because it's been a long time since I looked at the international shoe case, which is a famous case. You learn in law school about minimum contacts as part of due process as you began this segment. So in order to have someone be held to account in a particular situation, state court, for example, you have to have minimum contacts or your due process rights are violated if you're sued somewhere where you don't actually have minimum contacts. But I would say that Melania Trump has maximum contacts with the state of New York. Not only is that there the, the residents in Trump Tower, but as you pointed out, and as, as Wolf has described from actual investigation on the ground there, she has a, she has an apartment in, in the truck Trump, you know, in that Trump building. In fact, in a sort of bizarre revelation I think came out during the 2018 financial filings for Trump, that, that in that, that in 2016, she purchased this one, this $1.5 million apartment. So she got an apartment somehow in the midst of. Right before she got the chance to become first lady of the United States and live in the White House house. And that is apparently the apartment where she, she, according to Wolf's assertions and attestation, where she really lives, where she's really been. And in fact, there have been a number of reports over the past 12 months that she's not at the White House often, you know, there have been, you know, other sightings of Melania, you know, at Mar a Lago and, and in the 2024 election, she voted in Florida in the primary and in the November election in Florida. But it sure looks a lot like she, that, like she also lives or lives in New York. And as you point out, the real substantive issue underlying this case, this effort to have, to prevent a slap suit, to have this anti slap suit that Woolf is pursuing, is this the questions that have been raised and you know, in fact have been shown in the Epstein files about the fact that she did have a relationship, a cordial, friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. There's more in those files that suggest a narrative of Epstein introducing Melania to Trump. There are other claims that we've seen over time about their intimate relationship and the Trump's intimate relationship and Epstein and more. I don't know. Wasn't there. Don't know if it's true. But what is clear from photographs and from the, the partial revelations we have from the Epstein files is that she, she did know him. That doesn't mean that she engaged any, any wrongdoing herself. It doesn't mean that she should be charged with any crime. But if the underlying case is defamation. I share your question, Karen, like, why did she not reply in part to this suit with pursuing the threat that she had made against Wolf about defamation? I don't think she has a leg to stand on in that particular instance. That's my opinion. But you know, it really is interesting, I'll say, to see this case move forward now that we have more information than we had before based on those Epsting files, which quite frankly reveal all sorts of awful depravity. This part of it is. This part of that relationship is a small part. There are other stories in there that I think are significant and really horrifying. But, but the question of who's telling the truth about that relationship, I think there's material in those Epstein files that really bears on that.
- [70:43]
A
And for those of you who we are talking about anti slap and an anti slap lawsuit, for those of you who don't know what that means, slap is an acronym It's S L A P P. It stands for Anti Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. It's essentially a lawsuit that's filed not to win on the merits, but to intimidate, punish, silence, to do that to people for speaking out, reporting, protesting or participating in public issues. So it's designed to stop those lawsuits. And New York has a pretty good anti slapp statute. So that's what he brought it under, saying her threat to sue me for defamation is her trying to silence me. She's not doing it because she's actually going to be defamed, but because she's trying to silence me from reporting this. So it's an important tool, I think good for him to bring it and we'll see where this ends up going. It's kind of a to be continued. But it was very interesting to see the efforts he made to show where she the contacts she has to New York and the investigation that was done there. LISA let's turn to the Supreme Court because we we're right smack in the middle of a term and big things are going to be coming down the pike, really big things. So why don't you give people sort of a preview of what's going to be happening over the coming months and what you predict and what you see happening this week.
- [72:20]
B
The court does have a day that's marked on its calendar as a potential decision day. And so there are a lot of reporters who are looking at the court's docket to try to get ahead, be prepared for any potential decision that could come down this Friday on the 20th. There are a couple of cases that have already been argued and that people are watching closely for. One of those is the Calais case, which is a case out of Louisiana involving an attack on the Voting Rights act and the assertion that it's unconstitutional to try to protect against a white legislature diluting the votes of black black residents of black citizens. And so that case could well come out this Friday. I don't think it will, in part because the Roberts Court issued an emergency order about a month and a half ago involving Texas, where it allowed Texas's new maps to go forward even though the court had not ruled on this particular challenge to the Voting Rights act, and even though the lower court in Texas had found that race was being used to basically we move black Americans out of their seats in Texas as part of this redistricting, and the Roberts Court allowed it to go forward. And then just a couple weeks ago, the Roberts Court allowed California's response to redraw five Districts in response to Texas, they allowed those maps to stand for this election. And so I don't think that we will end up with a voting rights decision this quickly from this court because I think John Roberts is determined to eviscerate that law. And they don't need to do it quickly in order to accomplish their results. The results of basically helping to, helping white legislatures to bleach out parts of the black caucus, black leadership in the south that has been protected through the Voting Rights act provisions to try to prevent the, prevent the vote from being meaningless, from not having a chance to elect someone to represent you by having what happened initially in Louisiana, which was, was a map that was drawn after the 2020 census that even though black Americans represented, you know, constitute more than 33% of the population. Louisiana, the white legislature drew a map that was five white majority districts and one, one black majority district. And that was, that was held to be in violation. They redrew a new map and now those new maps with two, two districts that would be a black majority district district is what's being challenged by the court. But the case I think that I now I bury the lead. But the case I think that people are anticipating could very well come down this Friday is the case on tariffs, which is where Donald Trump, through his Solicitor General has asserted this broad power to the court, a claim that under the International Emergency Powers act iepa, the president can impose tariffs unilaterally without Congress. Even though know the Constitution expressly says that the power to impose tariffs is a power of Congress under Article 1 in the Constitution, not ambiguous. It's very clear in the Constitution, this is not a presidential power, it's the power of Congress. And that's in part because I think the Founding Fathers, I'm not going to say I know all their thoughts, but this was not a power they wanted to have in the hands of one person, one man to act unilaterally. And now we can see why, because we've seen these irrational tariffs being imposed by Trump, like the, what looked like the AI tariffs that he announced on the White House lawn, that, that put a tariff on all the countries in the world except for his buddy, his buddy Putin in Russia, North Korea, his, you know, the dictator there. And, and I think those are the two. And then even imposed tariffs on Penguin Islands, islands that are not populated by humans or in any significant way. And then since walking back on those, that initial round of really outlandish irrational tariffs, Trump has then used the tariff power to basically reward countries that give him Gifts like expensive gold watches and to punish the countries if they have a leader who he thinks doesn't kiss his ring enough. And so that tariff power, even under the, you know, even under long standing law, is not something that a president should have. These are things that Congress should be involved in. But you also have this claim that because the International Emergency Powers act allows for the assertion of an emergency tariff, for example, right after Pearl harbor was attacked, to have a tariff on Japan immediately, that would be an immediate reaction, for example, but really it's about a broader actual war that we're engaged in. And then Congress comes through and ratifies that, that that's not here. That's not this. What we're seeing is irrational tariffs. And even at the oral argument in that case, you heard Neil Gorsuch, who is one of the Trump appointees, saying if this IEEPA is allowed to mean this, there's no way any president would sign into law a change to change that statute to claw back that power. That it's a one way ratchet. I think he's right. I don't think Neil Gorsuch is right much of the time, but I think he's right about that. And because the John Roberts court has really been so heavy handed on matters of class in favor of the wealthiest, you know, parts of our society, big corporations and because corporations and big corporate interests like Koch Industries and Charles Koch, billionaire who does not get along with Trump but who has helped, helped him return to power and helped him have a majority of control in the Senate and the House House. Koch and some of the other right wing billionaires or right wing interests oppose these tariffs, oppose these arbitrary tariffs because they disrupt trade and they're chaotic and they make it hard to plan. It's possible that the Roberts court will rule in favor of Charles Koch and not Donald Trump in this rare instance when it actually has a pattern over the past year, particularly in the emergency orders of ruling in favor of Trump. So that's the best ruling we're waiting on. And if the court does knock down Trump's asserted power, then there's going to be a scramble over how to pay back the tariff money that has been obtained to the countries or companies that have paid it. And meanwhile, some of those tariffs have already been imposed on ordinary people through the cost of goods. And we're not getting that money back. We the people who paid already for these tariffs due to Donald Trump's reckless, you know, arbitrary policies, that money is not coming back to us.
- [78:53]
A
Yeah, that's true. I mean the cost of so many things have already gone up. It's so much more expensive to purchase certain things or do certain things. And the stated reason is tariffs. Right. People are saying it's tariffs, it's the tariffs. So it'll be very interesting to see where they come down. And that's certainly one to watch. What are some of the big oral arguments coming up in the near term?
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B
Yes. So in a few weeks there will be the oral argument on the assertion that the president can unilaterally claim that if you're born in the United States, you're not a citizen. This is the so called birthright citizenship attack or challenge where Trump, right after he was sworn in, asserted that you are not a citizen. If you're in essence that they could decide whether you're a citizen or not, that you don't get automatic citizenship based on being born in the United States States. That provision is the very first line, the very first paragraph of the 14th Amendment. It is a provision that has always been interpreted to mean that if you're born in the United States, you're a citizen, period. The Trump team has gone in search of obscure claims by random right wingers basically asserting, oh no, you could deny it, you could deny this. But in fact, long standing precedent by the US Supreme Court from long ago, over a century ago, in the near in time to when that language was passed made it very clear that if you're born in the United States, you're a citizen, which is what the plain language means. But Donald Trump walks around claiming that he can deprive people of their citizenship. For example, he's asserted that he wants to take away Rosie o' Donnell's citizenship or some star moves abroad and he wants to destroy their citizenship even though they are native born citizens and can and you know, can in fact retain their citizenship, have done nothing wrong and under the First Amendment should not be punished for having their own personal views and speaking out in opposition to Donald Trump. But Trump wants to assert a power to define who is a citizen and who's not. That would be extraordinary and wrong. He is supported by some of these right wing groups that are funded by right wing billionaires and other dark money. I hope that this Roberts Court does not rule in his favor and rip out the language of the 14th Amendment. I would have said before the Supreme Court the Roberts Court's decision, the counter constitutional decision on immunity in 2024, I would have said even with the Roberts Court, this citizenship claim, this assertion of the President's power to deny People their citizenship is a total 100% loser. But after that ruling in the immunity case where John Roberts invented immunity for Donald Trump, that pardoned him effectively retrospectively and paved the way for his return to power and asserted that in his official acts he could engage, you know, he could not be found or charged with a crime that was, is so counter constitutional, so contrary to the text that a president has a duty to faithfully execute the law, which is the opposite of breaking it, let alone breaking it criminally. Before that ruling, I would have thought this was a slam dunk losing if Trump or anyone else asserted it. But since that ruling, all bets are off. This is a court that has invented so called doctrines like the major questions doctrine, which I consider to be the major questions fiction, since the Roberts court said, hey, Joe Biden can't forgive a small amount of student debt, 50,000, you know, 50 people for people making immediate, immediate income, about $50,000 a year. But Donald Trump can issue all sorts of extreme orders that are contrary to long standing law law. No question of major questions doctrine there. So this court, this robber's court, in my view, is not behaving like an ordinary Supreme Court or like an ordinary court. It's behaving like an arm of this president in many ways. And so that oral argument is coming up. I think it's the first week of April. We'll be on the lookout for it and we'll have more to share about who's behind the briefs and where the, what the arguments are far. But that's a case that should have been laughed out of court, basically. It should never have, it should never have gone this far that it's even a question because it's such a slam dunk under any rational assessment that the president does not have the power to change how citizenship, how people become citizens if they're born here, period.
- [83:23]
A
Well, maybe at the end of the oral arguments they'll do what's called a dig, right? Dismiss. Dismiss is improvidently granted or something like that. Right. So that, that's a very rare thing that they sometimes issue and just be like, we shouldn't have taken this case. It's not, it's not worthy of, of. But of course they won't because this is too important. But, but I agree with you. This, this shouldn't even be a question. So, yeah. All right. Well, we've reached the end of another midweek edition of Legal af. I am Karen Freeman Agnifolo with Lisa Graves, who I'm just honored to have on this show and to have your insight and your experience. And I miss Michael Popak, but he's out doing important work interviewing 13 attorneys general, state attorneys general who are doing really important work and helping helping maintain our democracy. So make sure you tune in to those interviews that is going to be on the Legal AF YouTube channel. And please watch Legal AF on Saturdays and Wednesdays. Saturdays is with Ben Meiselas and Michael Popak and every Wednesday is with me and usually Michael Popak. So great to see you, Lisa and thanks everyone for being here and for watching.
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B
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A
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