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- [00:01]
Lisa Graves
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- [00:30]
Dina Dahl
This episode.
- [00:30]
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- [00:54]
Lisa Graves
Foreign.
- [00:59]
Dina Dahl
Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal af. It's Dina Dahl and Lisa Graves. We're standing in for Michael Popak and Karen Freeman Agniflo as they are both under the weather. But I am super excited to have Lisa Graves here co anchoring this with me. Those of you who are subscribers to the Legal AF channel are familiar with her work, but those who aren't subscribers, she is has a wealth of information about corruption, which seems to be the defining issue right now under Trump. So I can't wait to hear your perspective on the many legal issues that we are going to get into it. For those of you who are not familiar with court accountability, they are an advocacy group focused on corruption with the courts. Lisa Graves specifically deals with North True North Research, which is the investigative arm of cornpower Accountability. This is why she has all the info, all the details. And like I said, unfortunately we are rife with corporate corruption right now. And that kind of leads me into our first topic, which is the Department of Justice. As we know. We kind of see it blowing up in real time, right with Epstein MAGA trying to get Pam Bondi out, at least a segment of MAGA trying to get Attorney General Pam Bondi out, acting as if it's her fault that the Epstein files aren't being released and not dear Leader Trump. But at the same time we see what she is doing within the Department of Ethics, specifically having to deal with the ethics at the Department of Justice and that leads into corruption. If you get rid of the watchdog, if you get rid of the internal ethics leaders, there is nobody at the department who's able to pay attention, nobody who these attorneys can go to when they get an illegal order, an unethical order, they have nobody to go to. And that is the point. So just to kind of set it up specifically and then I want to hear what you have to say. Lisa, the director of Department of Ethics, this was the person that Pam Bondi just fired. His name is Joseph Tyrell. He was a career service. He worked for the FBI for 10 years before he depart started with the Department of Justice and now with him because he's the last in several people at the DOJ dealing with ethics who have left. There is now nobody left who these attorneys can go to. So speak to that specifically with your background, you know this is no mistake, right, that she, that she's kind of clearing out the people there in charge of making sure the attorneys are ethical.
- [03:43]
Lisa Graves
That's right, Dina. And it's always a joy to be on with you and really wonderful to have a chance to talk about this issue because I was deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal policy at the U.S. department of Justice. I worked under both Janet Reno and John Ashcroft. And I used to be proud to walk into that Department of Justice building, which had engraved above the aluminum doors on Pennsylvania Avenue. It had engraved, the place of justice is a hallowed place. But it is not a hallowed place right now because we've seen from the beginning of this administration, this effort by Donald Trump and his agents to just decimate the ethics and oversight of several agencies, including the Justice Department. One of the first things that Donald Trump did was to basically fire all of the inspectors general for these agencies, including the Justice Department. Other officials like this, that this man who has helmed this ethics department within the Justice Department. These are important roles. They provide an avenue for Justice Department line attorneys, people who are civil servants, sometimes political appointees, but predominantly civil servants and other employees of the Justice Department to report ethics ethic, ethical issues, raise ethical concerns. This role is also important for getting ethics opinions. And so what you've seen coming from this administration, from the beginning, from the Trump administration, is this idea that Donald Trump is the only person, along with Bondi, who can issue ruling statements about the law. They made that edict a couple months ago, and now you're seeing, among other things, this crushed down within the Department of Justice of the determinations by this president and this presidential administration of just firing people, not for cause, not because they did anything wrong, not because they didn't weren't doing their job, but I think in some cases because they were doing their job. So I, I think that that's a pretty good snapshot of what's happening and there's more. We've seen hundreds of lawyers leave the Civil Division, the Civil Rights division, other parts of the department, really hollowing out the lawyers who have served their careers defending the interest of the United States, including lawyers from federal programs whose role is literally to defend the United States agencies, the government's agencies. And so I really think the Department of Justice has been harmed by Bondi's leadership and it's been harmed by the Trump administration. Its independence certainly been collapsed because of Bondi's closeness to Donald Trump.
- [06:13]
Dina Dahl
Yeah. And I think just last week they fired 20 employees of the DOJ who worked on, you know, with Jack Smith on a January six prosecution. So they are definitely clearing people out. And when they remade the Civil Rights division to instead attack people's civil rights, we saw an exodus there as well. So Joseph Terrell, the Director of Ethics who just was pushed out by Bondi, his response responsibility was to advise Bondi and Todd Blanche, both obvious huge Trump loyalists. Todd Blanche, a former attorney for Trump on ethics. Right. So they pushed him out and was also in charge of like the day to day ethics. He did not go quietly. He posted a statement that said, I took the oath at 18 as a midshipman to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I have taken that oath at least five more times since then. That oath did not come with the caveat that I need only support the Constitution when it is easy or convenient. I look forward to finding ways to continue in my personal calling of service to my country. So clearly there somebody who took his job is in charge of ethics seriously, perhaps he will go on to do advocacy work to try to keep this Trump regime in check. Because we've seen quite a bit of people who have been pushed out go on to kind of nonprofit advocacy works, perhaps doing the same kind of work outside government that before they were doing inside government. And then this is all kind of, of course, happening with the backdrop of Epstein. And interestingly enough, as we know, Ghislaine Maxwell just filed a request to the Supreme Court that the Supreme Court set aside her conviction because she says the non prosecution agreement that the DOJ entered into with Jeffrey Epstein in 2008, and if you remember, in terms of the many connections around Trump and Epstein, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida at the time of that non prosecution was later appointed by Trump to be Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta. So that non prosecution agreement clearly covered Jeffrey Epstein. Right. You know, that's how he avoided any kind of significant consequence. She's now arguing that that also covered her and she's asking the Supreme Court to set it aside, her conviction based on that DOJ putting themselves at the timing of this. Lisa, I mean, let's talk about the timing of this, how it's right in the moment when we see Trump trying to say nothing to see here, nothing to see here. The MAGA base getting more and more upset. The fact that he's not releasing it, he sounds guiltier every time he tries to dismiss it. We see now his Department of Justice who he really controls completely. Right. I guess you could say that's one detriment. He can't separate and say the DOJ is doing something on their own because it's been so clearly run by Trump, unlike other administrations where there really is the separation that they're supposed to be. So the DOJ going to the Supreme Court, asking the Supreme Court not to take the case. So what are you thinking on this? I know, because you cover the courts. I mean, it seems like her argument's a little bit far fetched whether or not the Supreme Court is actually going to take this case or not. Did you, what are you thinking in terms of, I mean, the Supreme Court keeps surprising us, however, in ways that we don't like.
- [10:01]
Lisa Graves
Well, right. We don't know what this court is going to do in this instance. The solicitor general, Mr. Sauer, has said that the department does not support this appeal. Of course, we, I think we all remember that when she was convicted or when she was facing charges and then ultimately convicted, Donald Trump actually publicly said he wished her well. That's not the type of sentiment you expect someone to give to someone who was accused and convicted of basically trafficking, human trafficking of young girls for prostitution, for, you know, basically pandering and putting them into sexual service to Epstein's clients. But the story now is, or the big story now is how much Trump is trying to get away from all of the accusations that he put out there about the Epstein client list and also Bondi as well. And so they've really been spinning and spinning these past several days about how no one should be concerned about the fact that they're not releasing the client list. There's this assertion that there was never a client list. There have even been claims by Donald Trump that he never flew on Epstein's plane, even though there's photo of him on the plane that, you know, this is a long distance in the past and, you know, just move along, move along. Even though within the right wing infrastructure this has been a story that they peddled and tried to basically smear Democrats, even though, in fact, this idea of this list was affirmed even just a few months ago by Pam Bondi, along with video evidence. There's no indication that they're actually going to be prosecuting the men who are seen in the videos that she says she'll now never release. No one wanted to see pornography, obviously, but this idea really does lend to the notion that there's a real cover up going on by this administration. You even had Dan Bongino, who's a right wing talk show host, who's now in a leadership position at the FBI, arguing with Pam Bondi about how to handle the Epstein case. But let me just add one thing to the equation that I think most people don't realize. This Alex Acosta, who was someone who Donald Trump personally tapped for a cabinet position in his first administration, he is the person who, as you point out, Dina, and as people know, sign off on that rotten plea agreement with Epstein back in the, you know, early 2000s, mid 2000s. That was in the George W. Bush administration. I remember Alex Acosta because I first encountered him back in the 1990s when he was working on efforts to block Bill Clinton from putting judges on the US Federal courts. Then, after I went to go to work for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alex Acosta gets named to the Civil Rights Division. This is a guy who never handled a civil rights case in his life before then, that he was rewarded for his efforts back then to, in my view, weaken the Civil Rights division. He got the job as the head of the Civil Rights Division. Again, a person you wouldn't actually hire as your lawyer in a civil rights case. And then he fell upward from there. He was rewarded with the job of being the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, one of the most significant jurisdictions of the country in terms of prosecuting serious crimes, drug trafficking, human trafficking and more. He got that job and then he cut that sweetheart deal to basically let Epstein off the hook. And it was only when he was nominated a few years ago by Donald Trump for another position, and I think it was a Labor Department in the Trump administration, did his role in that dirty deal come out. And so what kind of vetting was the Trump administration doing when it tapped this guy to reward him with yet another post after that Epstein deal? It was only because the public rejection reaction, Epstein's role, that his nomination, that post finally failed. But the fact is, is that this administration, I think, has been really misleading, not just its base, but the American voters about what's at stake here, what happened in the Epstein case, Epstein case, what those files are about. And I honestly, I just cannot believe that they're going to get away with, and maybe they won't get away with this effort to just say, move along. After all of the effort they put into trying to hype this really terrible person and his terrible schemes and his effort to basically procure young women for really wealthy men in New York City and in Florida and people coming from around the world to his island estate where young girls were trafficked into prostitution, either directly or the equivalent.
- [14:32]
Dina Dahl
And Michael Bolf just in a recent interview speaks about that. Trump contemplated pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell. And so it will be interesting this, this filing to the Supreme Court comes at it, I would say, like an inopportune time for Trump because perhaps he's concerned again about what she might say or especially if with his DOJ kind of trying to argue the non prosecution agreement does not work. And just going back to the Department of Justice and kind of the chaos there, because here we have a Department of justice whose whole point is supposed to enforce our laws, enforce our federal laws, and instead they have remade it into their own. Trump's own bidding, maga's own bidding, taking away the corruption units. And now we have the ethics unit being gutted at the same time as the DOJ is suing, where we see them, suing Los Angeles for their sanctuary city policies and kind of using, frankly at this point, very limited resources. And when I say resources, I mean attorneys, because so many attorneys have, have gone, right? And let's talk about that. So here, this ethics department, with it being gone, the attorneys there won't have somebody to go to to be able to speak about, for instance, what happened with Mayor Eric Adams, right. And being forced to dismiss his case. And the attorneys there, a few of them resigned rather than do that because they felt like that was unethical. They felt like it wasn't based on the law, in fact, and didn't comply with the oath that they took. Now, these attorneys, some of them honestly just maybe non political, they're there because they believe in the job. They're there for perhaps most of the criminal cases that they take. You know, they're career prosecutors. And now they're being forced to go after denaturalizing somebody, right? The DOJ just sent a memo to the entire civil division not that long ago saying basically, use your discretion if you want to denaturalize somebody. Completely opening up Pandora's box. So let's say you have an attorney in that division or one of the many others, they no longer have somebody to talk over whether or not this order is ethical or not. Lawyers are governed. Right. We have a professional licensing organization. We have a bar association. We are limited on what we can say or do. And so these lawyers who stay now in the DOJ don't have an internal person to be able to talk, talk over. Hey, how close to this professional line am I right with this order? Are at risk of losing their license. And we have seen in the first Trump administration, of course, so many of Trump's close allies lose their bar license. Right? Rudy Giuliani, perhaps like the most popular, let's say, person in his thing that lost their bar license, which is very shocking. He was his federal prosecutor for so many years. But you have now more career level people who are frankly at risk of losing their bar license, no longer having somebody that they can go to. And I, and I think that that in itself, you know, sometimes we talk about like, you know, the bigger issues, of course, right. Pam Bondi herself being unethical. But it's the day to day people who frankly help carry out our laws or will carry out Trump's bidding. And those day to day people are going to be faced with many choices. And now not having an advocate, they're going to be in a much more difficult position of whether or not to take on a certain action, whether or not to just go ahead and quit. And I imagine we will see a lot more lawyers doing things that are going to make their bar license at risk. And we saw the American Bar association sue Trump over his executive orders, attacking law firms. And perhaps we're going to need those kind of nonprofit associations step up and watch what these kind of lower level, career level DOJ attorneys do and report them to the bar association. I mean, perhaps, Lisa, that is our last avenue if they're gutting the ethics department, is these outside licensing organizations.
- [19:08]
Lisa Graves
Well, you know, it is true that from an internal basis, having those offices, the Office of Government Ethics and other offices like the inspector general's office, those are important for the internal functioning of the department in terms of people being able to blow the whistle or seek ethical opinions, seek guidance, but it's also about how government functions for the rest of us by having attorneys who are bound by ethical codes, who are led by people who have ethics, who have that responsibility. This helps serve the American people. And I just want to touch on a couple things you mentioned. One was that this is also happening in the context where the Trump Administration has also decimated the offices that handle investigation of corrupt corporations and CEOs. So there's been this wholesale effort to basically weaken, undermine, mothball the experts within the Justice Department who have talent and skill at investigating corruption in the private sector. So that's really a gift to Trump's cronies, to people that are under investigation, have faced investigation, or would face investigation. Then you have this effort by Trump agents and actions by Trump agents to fire people who were doing their job, investigating and prosecuting the people who attacked our Capitol, who tried to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes, our votes in that 2020 election, to fire prosecutors who were doing their job, not in a political way at all, actually just trying to protect our rights and our democracy, to have our votes counted through that Electoral College process. People who investigating and prosecuting people who were engaged in violent acts of destruction, attacking police officers, attacking Capitol Police and putting the members of Congress at risk while they were doing their job. Then you have the Trump administration trying to cut this sweetheart deal with Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, who was facing a very detailed criminal complaint and indictment by a grand jury that had very serious charges of corruption by him with a foreign government, foreign agents. And the Trump administration, with the assistance of Emile Beauvais, who I'll talk about in just a second, but with the assistance of Emma Bovet, was trying to direct those federal prosecutors and in New York to drop the case, to drop it, and basically not with prejudice, but leave it hanging over him. And the talk on the street was that this dismissal of charges against Eric Adams was in order to get his compliance with the administration's efforts to assail New Yorkers through its immigration policies. The federal judge presiding over that case rejected that outlandish effort orchestrated by Emile Beauvais and the Bondi Justice Department to try to basically be able to keep squeezing Eric Adams whenever they wanted to take action in New York City. And so that judge required that those charges, if they were going to be dismissed, be dismissed with prejudice. So Eric Adams is off the hook, which I don't think he should be, but he's no longer under this sort of Damocles, basically, or this threat of the administration if he would not comply with their demands. But in that instance, you had, again, federal prosecutors that leaving their jobs, denying us of the expertise of these experienced federal prosecutors in prosecuting future cases just because they wanted to, in my view, seal the deal on this really corrupt deal that they were. This plea agreement that they were trying to make, not plea agreement Pardon me, this dismissal they were trying to make with Eric Adams, and that was executed by another Trump attorney in Milvo Bay, who then Trump turned around and nominated to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which has jurisdiction over New Jersey, which includes some Trump properties, some pretty famous Trump properties, and Emil Beauvais. There's a whistleblower who came out and there's internal text messages that confirm this, saying that Imelbauvet was basically telling Justice Department lawyers to f the courts to not follow the court orders involving these immigration cases. And this is someone who Trump now has chosen to get a lifetime position on the federal bench. And at his hearing for that Third Circuit position, Imma Bove basically said he didn't recall ever saying that. The whistleblower's testimony and statements, I think, are quite strong. The text evidence is quite strong. There's a recent statement, a letter just written just I think today by Senator Cory Booker, talking about why this is important, why this man should never be, pardon me, confirmed to a federal judgeship. But this is the type of corruption now that's not necessary, illegal corruption to nominate Emile Beauvais to this position. In my view, it's moral corruption for this president to reward his personal attorneys with these positions of power that could last decades, especially someone who has played such a central role in this administration's assault on the rule of law. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, Dana, but I want to pass it back to you.
- [24:07]
Dina Dahl
Well, I think you coined a new phrase, moral corruption. Definitely fits the bill here. Moral corruption and financial corruption. And we are going to go to an ad break. You have not yet joined Legal AF YouTube channel. Be sure to follow us there. Lisa Graves and I do a bunch of content Court accountability. Popak has curated so many new podcasts and playlists. We are deep diving into all these many legal issues that are coming out of this Trump administration. So be sure to check that out as well as the Legal AF substack for me. I don't know about you, Lisa, but it's always kind of hard to find all these filings. Sometimes it takes me forever just to actually find the filings. They have put it all on the substack. So when we are speaking about a filing, as we will after the ad break, because Trump is trying to appeal, the Los Angeles judge trying to stop ice there, that's going to be on the sub stack. All the many legal filings is so easy in one place. So be sure to check that out. But we are going to go to the ad break. Our sponsors, we're so grateful for our sponsors because in this day and age, right, I mean, you can, you're brave to be a sponsor on this channel when we get to talk about facts and law without fear or favor. So we will move on to like a really important LA judge and the Trump appeal, as well as an update on Abrego Garcia. He had a hearing today after this ad break.
- [25:43]
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- [28:35]
Dina Dahl
We're back and we're diving into Los Angeles, which is the central focus, it seems, for sure, with Trump and ICE. He's targeting Los Angeles. I mean, we had DeSantis and Abbott, the whole Biden term, act as if they're having some sort of emergency on the border. They're flying people via planes to Martha's Vineyard. All of a sudden, Trump decides to help Los Angeles. I don't know, maybe he doesn't care about his friends Abbott and DeSantis that much. But regardless, here in Los Angeles, that's where I'm based. You know, this is effective, affecting our community. And of course, there's some legal actions. Quick update. We have a Trump appeal as well. So and you and I actually did a duet on this for the Legal AF channel. So perhaps some people already kind of got up to speed on that. But we had the aclu Public Council, United Farm Workers, sue ICE saying, among other things, you are basically racially profiling when you are stopping people. And they just cited a ton of evidence as well as the fact that you're not allowing people to have attorneys, despite the fact that ACLU and public counsel went to these detention centers saying, hey, we're here, we're available, we want to speak to these detainees. And they were denied it. And then the overcrowded conditions that they are being held in. And so they argue that this was a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendment. Mayor Karen Bass, as well as some other cities, including West Hollywood, Pasadena, Culver City, joined in that lawsuit after that whole theater, let's say, but really awful theater at MacArthur park where they kind of showed their force and detained absolutely nobody. So we had a hearing on Friday and the judge issued an order in favor of the city of Los Angeles and as well as the ACLU saying that there was, quote, a mountain of evidence to support the claim that agents are arresting people solely based on their race, accents or the work they are engaged in, in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable government seizure, which those of us with eyes are seeing this, right? I mean, you don't go to a Home Depot parking lot, you know, unless you are targeting it based on the fact that the people there tend to be Hispanic. Right. Or the fact of the type of job they have. Right. They're not going in and raiding a law firm. Right. Or something like that. So they are doing. We have seen this, and the judge saw it with this evidence and issued an order that only applied to the Central District of California, although there it's Los Angeles county, as well as, I believe, six other counties. So it's quite a bit of area. But this is not a nationwide injunction. This applied there and said that ice, you have to stop this indiscriminate detaining of people, and you have to allow them an attorney, because otherwise what you're doing right now is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Issuing this temporary restraining order, we saw Trump go into court and argue a few things. They argued they didn't get enough notice. They argued that this judge, the typical arguments, this judge is trying to dictate our policy and stepping into our executive power. And also, interestingly, they brought up nationwide injunctions. The Supreme Court just stopped nationwide injunctions. We don't want the judge being this powerful, of course, here. This was not a nationwide injunction. This was an injunction overseeing the district that this judge governs, as well as the people that were. Interestingly, this was also a class action. They argued this on behalf of the class of people who were being detained. There's three different groups in that class action. It was really interesting. It was like one who didn't have a warrant, one group who didn't get identified, the federal agent didn't identify, and one where there was no suspicious activity. And so because you have to have reasonable suspicion in order to detain somebody, it is less than probable cause, but you still need reasonable suspicion. We have been here before. This is what that Arizona sheriff tried to do years ago. This is clearly within the realm of what a judge can do. But, of course, Trump going in there, trying to reverse the tro, trying to get an administrative stay. Los Angeles continuing to be the focus of how. How they are treating our neighbors, people of our community, just because they happen to have an accent or speak Spanish or work in construction. So, Lisa, tell me your thoughts on the kind of legal developments here.
- [33:30]
Lisa Graves
Well, it is really important that this judge issued that ruling. I think it's the right ruling on the merits. The case that the ACLU pleaded that the city of Los Angeles and their cities joined, I think was, well, pleaded. It really articulated very clearly why the actions of the Trump administration were in violation of long standing law. As you mentioned, Dina, there, you know, there is an ability for law enforcement officers, for agents to stop someone based on reasonable suspicion. But in this instance, there's no reasonable suspicion. And instead, what we've seen coming from Tom Homan, who is the person that Donald Trump has tapped to really spearhead these efforts, he has admitted publicly that they are detaining people in part based on physical appearance as well as their occupation. That doesn't make it into reasonable suspicion. You just can't assume that anyone who is working in landscaping or in a restaurant or, you know, at a farm is somehow reasonably suspicious of not being lawfully present United States. That's not reasonable suspicion at all. That's racial profiling. There's a word for it, there's a phrase for it, and it's something that has been barred by many governments, federal and state government agencies, to try to prevent the type of discrimination, stereotyping that racial, that racial profiling involves. And that's what's happening or what's been happening in Los Angeles, among other things, including this, this sort of assertive use of force or show of force to really try to intimidate people. And there's another component to this that I think is really important to underscore, which is this playbook is right out of the Project 2025 playbook. Donald Trump, during the presidential campaign, tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 agenda. He claimed he had no idea, even though there were photos of him at a Heritage foundation event, talking about how the Heritage foundation was going to fill in the details, even though the man he chose as vice president, you know, was involved in writing the foreword to the book by the president of the Heritage foundation, putting forward this agenda. And this agenda included many of these types of immigration actions that we're seeing this Trump administration implement. And so basically, you have Trump and his people following the playbook that was, that was written out for them in this Project 2025 agenda, which is super extre. And an undercurrent of that agenda is that they were going to use these policies particularly to target blue cities, to target cities, to target not just sanctuary cities, but cities led by Democrats and states led by Democrats. This is a political maneuver to try to discredit the political leaders of large Democratic states, large Democratic cities and try to go there. They're not going, as you pointed out, Dean, at the outset of the this, they're not going down to Texas. They're not going down there. I mean, they are in terms of the other parts of the border, but they're not using these tactics in Texas. They're not using this, you know, bringing the Marines into Dallas or something or Austin. And I'm not suggesting that they do to be equal or fair. I'm just saying this is a political agenda trying to target California. They were doing the same in Chicago. And then it's also sort of beyond a political agenda because it's also about targeting new targeting that this administration has unleashed to target kids in schools, going to actual schools to try to seize children or their parents invading the sanctuary of churches, of religious sanctuaries, to seize immigrants. These are very aggressive actions. And they're happening in the face of really the lie that this administration has told and that the Trump, that the Trump team was telling during the political campaign for the election, which was this notion that there's, you know, millions of murderers who are immigrants who've been unleashed in the United States. That's not true. People who have been convicted of murder are, you know, in jail and awaiting deportation at the end of their sentence, people who are working on job sites who are, you know, helping our communities, who are part of our communities, who may be married to US Citizens, have US Citizen children. These are people just trying to get by in this, this world, in this economy. And what we need is immigration reform that actually protects the work processes in the United States. And that doesn't try to criminalize people for being here in the United States. But instead, just today, Dina, the Trump administration is talking about basically deploying detention policies to sweep up anyone who doesn't have papers, deny them, bond and hold them indefinitely for months in detention. And we've already seen, as ACLU and others have raised the problems with these detention facilities, not just just alligator Alcatraz, but in general. And I would say to you, one of the things that I'm watching is the following, that we've got to follow the money, because this scheme to engage in mass detention is really about giving money, sending huge contracts, billion dollars, billion dollar contracts to buddies of Trump like Erik Prince perhaps, who's proposed building his own detention facilities and more. This is about also it's about corruption and it's about the denial of human rights rights. It's about trying to rewrite the rules that have long governed our country in terms of immigration processes as well as the processes for people to be united with their families to adjust their status to continue to contribute to the American community.
- [39:00]
Dina Dahl
I completely agree about the for profit detention centers. I think that is why the ICE budget is so big in his recent bill is because they are, they're budgeting for these sort of detention centers, which we saw with the for profit. It becomes a whole lobbying campaign and it helps benefit, as you said, his billionaire oligarch friends. Unfortunately profiting off the fear of people and people who just came here to have a better life. Because that is what this lawsuit showed, like their use of quotas. Their use of quotas is what is causing the racial profiling. Because to actually do the work you need to do to find the criminals, that takes time. And you can't use that amount of time if you're fitting profiling. And here in Los Angeles, I've talked to so many people and it is affecting families, mixed status families. People are afraid, as you said, people are getting detained at churches, at schools, at their workplace. Construction is slowing down because people are afraid to go to work. And this is during, after the Palisades fire, before the Olympics. Mayor Karen Bass just announced that they plan on giving cash cards to people who are affected by these ICE raids. The fact is California was 4th largest economy in the world. City of Los Angeles, as much as Fox wants to degrade it is, is also has always been doing great. And this attack on California is solely because they don't like where a blue state and they want to instill that fear. That fear is part of it. And this is kind of coming around also. They just talked about maybe giving as little, little six hours notice right before they send people to third world countries, which is horrifying and scary and also about fear. But to their point of, you know, the reason why racial profiling like if is so bad, not only because you're racially profiling somebody in violation their constitutional rights, but it's because you're not actually getting the criminal who nobody really wants this criminal to stay here. Right? And the White House just, just put out a post recently saying that 70% of those arrested under Tripe's ICE program had criminal convictions or pending charges. Right. This was the post on the official White House account. And NBC News was able to easily fact check that. And instead only 752 people, or 0.4% were convicted of murder and 1.8% were convicted of or facing pending sexual charges. Instead, they're talking so the White House account is saying 70% and we're talking murderers, rapists and child predators. And that's not even close to the facts. So why don't you spend less time targeting people who are trying to just do their job and contributing to society because they have brown skin and they have an accent and instead actually go after the people that you said you say actually in current time you're going after. This isn't just even about lying on a campaign trail. This is lying from a White House post. And I do think that his lying is getting, you know, he's, they've always lied, but they're doing it so much more brazenly by doing it on these kind of official posts. And it is so important to fact check it for us to get the word out here on legal AF to have the facts to rebut the facts when we talk to people. But you know, so, so the, so, so thank goodness ACLU and public counsel and city of Los Angeles have gone in there and gotten this temporary stay. We'll see what happens with his appeal. As we know, there's more going on with Los Angeles and California. Newsom sued Trump because of the federalizing of the National Guards. Trump has just announced that they are, or Hegseth has just announced that they are drawing down those troops. Instead of 4,000 federalized National Guards in Los Angeles, it's now going to be 2000 because they don't need anybody. It's very quiet here in Los Angeles in terms of, I mean, they didn't need anybody to even begin with because they were the ones that created the atmosphere. But certainly it has been so quiet, the fact that they even are using 2,000 National Guards when they could be doing it. I know Newsom said that before they were at the border actually trying to stop fentanyl from coming into this country. There's certainly more important and useful things they could be doing than being at a city where it's quiet and, and people aren't even, there's no reason to, to have them here. But at the same time, you know, just recently, just to update on that Newsom case, as we know, Justice Breyer and the district court ruled in favor of Newsom and said that Trump could not nationalize the California National Guard. It was a violation of the 10th amendment as well as a statutory violation. He was then returned. He was then overturned by the three judge panel at the Ninth Circuit. Well, interestingly, an anonymous judge at the Ninth Circle has requested an en banc review, which means that a major majority of the. Well, actually it means that 11 judges of the 9th Circuit will, could review the case and make a different decision than that three judge panel. We don't know yet how that is going to go because they have asked for briefing from the two parties from Newsom and Trump as to whether or not the entire panel should review it. In the ninth Circuit. It's not the entire panel, most other circuits of the entire panel because the 9th Circuit is so large, it is just the Chief Judge plus 10 others. So it's 11. So they're going to receive that briefing in the next few days and they're going to then vote. The judges vote. We don't see the vote. That's an anonymous vote, but the judge, and it's not anonymous to the other judges who requested this. It's just anonymous to us who requested it. But it's very interesting because the Ninth Circuit, as I know you know, Lisa, is very liberal. For him to have drawn two of his own appointees on the, on the panel on the death of three judge panel, it's highly unusual. Of course, of course, Trump and other Republican judges have appointed more to the ninth Circuit. So perhaps it's a little bit more conservative than it used to be 20 years ago. But you would think that if they do do this en banc panel, most likely they will side with Governor Newsom. So it's very interesting. That court case is still proceeding at the same time as Trump is drawing down the troops.
- [45:44]
Lisa Graves
Well, that's right. And as you point out, there was a long set of rhetoric by the right attacking the 9th Circuit in the 90s, early 2000s. But there have been more Republican appointees, not majority, but substantial number of Republican appointees over the years, including appointees who were handpicked by Leonard Leo advising Donald Trump on his judicial nominations. And it was really, I think, a bad draw for the country and for the Constitution to have a three judge panel that included two Trump appointees that, you know, that's just drawn basically they have, you know, the equivalent of the wheel they used to have in the old days of choosing which judges get to hear a case. In this instance, as you point out, if this, if this case is heard by a wider set of judges than judges who may be very loyal to Donald Trump, it's highly likely that the, that the lower court will be, would be affirmed because what Trump did here in, in trying to deploy these troops over the objections of the governor, over the objections of the city, was really irregular, really in violation of not just, in my view, the letter, but the spirit of the law governing when U.S. troops can be deployed within the United States, in particular deployed at the American people. And typically the National Guard, they're deployed with the consent of the governor or with the order of the governor, kind of in cooperation and collaboration between the federal government and the states. And that's often in cases of national emergency where there's a disaster like the fires or floods. But this was just, again, a show of force by Trump, an effort to, you know, kind of test in Los Angeles and perhaps for use in other places whether and how he can try to use federal troops against the American people. There were, you know, some rules of engagement that were deployed, in theory, to try to prevent those troops from having, you know, sort of direct violent encounters that we didn't have another Kent State disaster like from the 1970s in Ohio. But the fact is, is that those troops are trained predominantly for fields of war, for zones of war where the conditions are very different than the United States. They are, you know, have, you know, equipment that is, you know, very deadly and dangerous because they're trained for. They're not trained for responding to ordinary dissent by the American people, by people who are concerned about what's happening to their communities. And so the drawdown is an important step forward. A complete reversal of that policy is what's actually in order. But I am hopeful, even though en banc grants are rare by the Ninth Circuit and other courts of appeals, I'm hopeful that they will grant en banc in this case and have a full argument so people can understand why this matters so much, why the idea that Donald Trump can just send in the troops over the objections of the people you elected to represent you in your city and in your state, why that is such an anathema, so contrary to not just our statutes, but to the structure of our federal and state governments. We have had troops deployed, for example, to help effectuate the Brown vs Board of Education decision to integrate schools in the United States after schools have been racially segregated and there were violent mobs trying to prevent school children from going to school. And so in that instance, President Eisenhower did order the federal, the federal Guard to come protect those students so that they could exercise their fundamental rights as Americans to go to public schools that were under the equal protection of the law, that were not racially segregated. This, what's happened in Los Angeles is nothing like that. Nothing like that in terms of trying to actually have a very limited, constrained use of the National Guard in order to protect people's civil rights. In this instance, it's been designed to basically effectuate Trump's terrorizing policies, his policies to invoke fear in the populace and to do so over the objections of the elected officials in our democracy is really outrageous.
- [49:58]
Dina Dahl
Yeah. To your point of him doing so, you know, over the objections of Newsom, the governor, I cannot think of any case more important for them to take en banc. This is certainly, you know, this executive authority of a governor versus the executive authority of a president. And I can't think of a more important issue for them to take a look at. Before we go to Adric, I just want to jump right into Jerome Power Powell, Federal Reserve Chair, because as we have seen Trump, and not just Trump, J.D. vance, a lot of the allies really want Jerome Powell to step down. Never mind the fact that Trump actually appointed him years ago. But he's not doing their bidding, he's not lowering interest rates. And so there's a lot of talk, right? A lot of bullying actually, let's just be frank, a lot of bullying, a lot of talk trying to get him to step down. But I think the reason why we haven't seen him step down and just want to get your quick thought on this also, Lisa, is because it's different. Supreme Court basically already told him not to do this. We know there was a case that was came before the Supreme Court because Trump fired one of the members of the National Relations Board, Wilcox, and she went to the Supreme Court and said this was an illegal firing, which under the existing Supreme Court precedent, it was an illegal firing because Chief Justice Roberts had said you cannot fire a member of a multi member board without cause. But they decided to of course, let Trump go ahead and do it, but in that order, allowing Trump to do it. They specifically said that this situation was different than the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell making, telegraphing this to Trump well before Trump actually fired it, well before they got the case, telling Trump, we're not going to back that firing. Of course, you can be very cynical and say they don't care as much about labor as they do about the stock market. But regardless of what their personal motivations were for that, I don't know if I've ever seen the Supreme Court take such an activist position, you could say, because it wasn't even in front of them. But they're real people. They saw the news, they heard the chatter, they knew Trump wanted to do it and they kind of told him in advance, don't do it. And I think that's why Trump hasn't done it yet and probably won't.
- [52:21]
Lisa Graves
Well, it's interesting. I really appreciate how you set that forth, Dina. The fact is, as you point out, longstanding precedent was against the Trump administration in these other firings. It's outrageous that this Supreme Court has basically abrogated almost 100 years of legal precedence about the circumstances under which a president can fire a member of these boards. But as you point out, John Roberts, because in my view he's such a political animal, he basically said, sure, go ahead, fire these board members. But in essence, you can't do this in this one instance with the Fed. And, you know, so I guess we take solace in the fact that Roberts was trying to protect the Fed from having a total meltdown of just being an absolute instrument of this, in my view, very erratic, irrational president whose policies on trade have already had significant adverse consequences for our economy. Consequences that we're going to see more and more in these coming weeks and months as we get the effect of some of the effects on trade on shipping containers in Los Angeles and on the west coast and more. But today we've just seen Trump just blathering on trying to smear Powell for office renovations for the Fed as a way to kind of construct, in my view, pretext for firing him based on cause. So in essence, Trump is trying to articulate, in my view, a smear campaign in order to justify firing Powell so he can install some lackey who will do whatever he wants on interest rate. Now, now people have views about the Fed and its long standing independence of the President. I think most people favor the independence of the Fed from the White House. I certainly don't think that Trump should be setting interest rates for anyone anywhere after we saw his seemingly AI concocted trade tariffs where he was putting tariffs on Penguin Islands but not Russia. So I think that there are people in the Republican Party, including Republican operatives, who do not want Powell removed. And it seems like the Supreme Court is in that camp. But Trump is taking his efforts to try to get rid of Powell so he can install yet another loyalist to him. Not to the American people, not to the Constitution, not to the mission of the Fed, but someone loyal to him, which is his only test really for anything.
- [54:52]
Dina Dahl
Absolutely. Well, thank goodness, at least in this instance, Supreme Court seems to probably not be willing to go down that road from because that would be awful for all of us if he starts playing around with the economy. So if you are watching us on YouTube, be sure to also Listen to us on the podcast version of Legal af. And if you have not yet subscribed to the Legal AF YouTube channel, be sure to follow it. Hit subscribe. Popak has done an amazing job curating so many new commentators and podcasts. And if you want to stay informed, speak about everything Trump is doing with the facts and all the issues laid out, that is definitely the place to go. I love it when it gets bigger because it makes me feel like we are in the majority because otherwise hearing a lot of these things can get overwhelming, quite frankly, and, and really depressing. But we are the majority. As those numbers grow, it helps show that. And also, if you haven't yet subscribed to the Legal AF substack, there are articles Popoc does a morning wake up in the morning and you get to hear his thoughts on the legal news of the day. There's all the filings all in one spot. I think he's getting more and more contributors writing things. So if you like to read your news instead of only just listening, be sure to check out the Legal AF substack. And now we'll hear from some sponsors who we're grateful for. It allows us to speak the truth, speak democracy, not be so worried about whether or not we're going to get canceled. Not controlled by the oligarchs. It gives us a freedom here and we are grateful for our sponsors. And then when we come back, we're going to just tackle our last issue, which is the hearing today and the Abrego Garcia case, the new criminal defendant Abrego Garcia, which ironically, I think is giving him a of lot, lot more rights. So we'll discuss that after the break.
- [56:47]
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- [60:13]
Dina Dahl
Dina Dahl I'm here with Lisa Graves and we're going to break down our last topic regarding today's hearing. Abrego Garcia, who has been through quite a bit and has really become, I would say, kind of a flashpoint for both sides. You know, those of us who really believe in the rule of law and the fact that the US Admitted that they had mistakenly deported him to this El Salvadoran president and now he was brought back only to be charged criminally. And then, of course, for Trump, it's really becoming, I think, a symbol of him believing he can do whatever he wants to anybody at any time. So what happened was in June, there was a bail hearing of whether or not he was going to be released pending trial. And because the government could not state that they would not deport him while he was out on bail, the judge there, the magistrate, Judge Holmes, said that although he was not a threat to society, which is usually something that would keep somebody in jail pending their criminal trial, she was going to keep him because she did not have assurances that that he was going to be deported. So this hearing today was with the judge, Judge Crenshaw, who's actually going to oversee the trial. Judge Holmes previously is going to be dealing with the pre trial type issue. So, Judge, it's this irony here situation, Lisa, because we have the doj, the prosecution, asking that Abrego Garcia be released pending his criminal trial. This is like a complete flip from what we normally see. All of this happening at the same time actually is the civil case in Maryland is proceeding and they are asking their the attorneys asking the judge to issue an order that he has to remain in the US in that case. So there's multiple cases going on with him and perhaps whether or not that judge issues an order may affect also whether or not he's released. Judge Crenshaw has said that he's not issuing an order today, maybe sometime this week or next. But interestingly, some of the defense attorney, his attorney got a chance to poke some holes, let's say, at the evidence, I'll say evidence that the prosecution is putting forward to indict him. And kind of what I said before the break, you know, he now has a whole set of rights as a defendant, as a defendant in this country, we have or that person has quite a bit of rights that weren't maybe afforded to him. Right. As somebody who was a non citizen, immigration courts, although there is due process there, he now has this all on top of it, his attorneys were already able to get a gag order. Right. Against Pam Bondi and the other DOJ attorneys They stop lying about me. They're calling him a criminal left and right. Right. He's never had a conviction. He's just an alleged criminal. They're talking about his character, irrelevant information to it. He wasn't able to get that kind of gag order right with his immigration case. But now as a criminal defendant, he has a right to a fair and impartial jury. And if they go out talking about him, they are prejudicing or potentially prejudicing a jury. So he's got these rights that he didn't have before. So it's interesting because, yes, you could argue that the DOJ may just this move to get the upper hand, but in a lot of ways, they have put themselves into a system where he has quite a bit of rights, as Donald Trump knows, as he afforded himself every single one of those rights when he was convicted during his trial. Anyway, so we have the today some of the interesting, let's say polls that they poked through. One of them was the fact that they are asking or that prosecutors have alleged that Abrego Garcia solicited nudes from a minor on Snapchat. Right. That's one of their allegations. There's so many kind of allegations that they're alleging here. And the defense attorney pointed out the fact that the birth date on that Snapchat account that the prosecution is using, saying that this is a Bria Garcia's doesn't even match his birth date. Right. So they, and then, and it came out in the hearing that the investigator who's working for the prosecution didn't even know Obrego Garcia's birth date. Now, I filed, have filed true crime cases quite a bit. This is messy. You do not get a conviction with this kind of testimony. I mean, I know we're way far from a trial, but it doesn't even seem like they like that's the bare minimum. Okay. Right. Lisa is like knowing the birth date so that way you can confirm the Snapchat account can actually be linked to the defendant and not just words to a court. So that came out as well as the fact that one of the other pieces was, was they. Oh, yeah, this was another. It was the one of the lead witnesses that the prosecution plans on putting forward if this goes to trial was calling other witnesses from the jail. And when the defense was asking them whether or not there was whether or not they could have coordinated the testimony the that it was brought out, that three of the witnesses are actually related. So this kind of, this kind of hearing, what came out at this kind of hearing today shows, you know, I don't, I haven't seen all the evidence. I can't say for certain, you know, what evidence there is or isn't. But when you have a hearing like this and they can so easily point out this kind of holes, I mean, having witnesses speaking to each other, possibly coordinating testimony, you can just get that whole thrown out. Right. You may not even be able to introduce that kind of testimony in court. You have to be able to only introduce testimony to an adjournment jury trial if it's reliable, if it's credible. This is like a gold minefield for the defense attorneys, it seems like today.
- [66:35]
Lisa Graves
Yeah, that's right. I mean, the, the rules for witnesses, according their statements are pretty, it's pretty clear. I, I confess that I actually declined to take a detail to go work as an Assistant U.S. attorney on State at Main justice, but I did work on criminal justice policy, and I watched a lot of of your work, Dina, and other work covering trials. And I don't think I've ever seen anything like what we're seeing here, including, as you point out, the idea that the situation is so reversed where you have the prosecutors trying to get him out of jail. This basically almost never happens. Prosecutors are usually calling for bail or no bail under, you know, under some of the rules that we operate under in the federal system, not calling for him to be released. And then the defendant, defendant usually wants to be released to go be with their family as they prepare for their defense. But in this instance, this is acting almost like the denial of, or at least so far, it may happen next week or in the next hearing. But in this instance, the defendant doesn't appear to want to be released until there are guarantees that he won't then be deported. Because that's what the Trump administration has said that it, if the judge grants bail, they will remove him from the country mid trial. If that's not an indication that your criminal prosecution is weak, I'm not sure what is. But on top of that, as you point out, Dina, in civil court in Maryland, Alberto Garcia's lawyers are also trying to protect his ability to stay in the United States, not be just surreptitiously removed against the United States. And so everything is sort of upside down and topsy turvy. And this question of witness, I wouldn't say, like, I'm not going to call it witness tampering per se, but witness coordination is something that is usually very tightly restricted in grand jury proceedings and beyond. And in this instance, when you look at this case from the beginning to now, what you see, as you pointed out, was that the head of the Office of Immigration Litigation in the Justice Department, I think he was fired because he. He was in court and conceded that there was not evidence that basically justified a breeder Garcia's removal from the United States. But in essence, the Department of Justice was taking the position that they could just remove people, in essence, without evidence, if they, you know, if they asserted this power, this extraordinary executive power. And that's another part of the Justice Department that has been, you know, has had a spate of. Of firings of people retiring, of people taking early, early retirement or buyouts. The Civil division, which is the defense part of the Justice Department, you know, has been under extraordinary pressure from Pam Bondi, from the Attorney General, Trump's loyalist, and from her henchmen, in essence, to basically, you know, do whatever they can to buck up Trump's claims and Trump's case. And that's why, you know, after. After weeks of saying basically, that innuendo about Abrego Garcia, the photoshopping, claiming that he was an MS.13 gang member, et cetera, after all that innuendo, finally, the Department of Justice issued an indictment, and he's now back facing this criminal trial, these criminal accusations. But that indictment was immediately upon its filing, was criticized by legal observers for inaccuracies, inaccuracies from the get go. And so I think when I look at this case as an outsider, it certainly looks like the government's case may be very, very weak.
- [70:18]
Dina Dahl
Perhaps he might get it dismissed. Right? I mean, that is, you know, you do, again, you know, as a criminal defendant, you know, the government has to meet burdens and have. Have actual evidence that is reliable in court for a judge to rely upon. So we'll kind of see where this goes. But that is, unfortunately, you know, Abrego Garcia targeted by the government. You know, frankly, that's what's happening here. Targeted by the government, despite the fact that they admitted he was mistakenly deported. And now going through this, you know, you just feel. Because this man never asked to be a symbol, right, Even for us. Never asked to be a symbol for, you know, the rule of law. Right. And due process. And. But that is what he has become. His wife certainly stepping up to the plate as well, filing her own lawsuit, you know, and. But. But really, you know, just. They were just trying to live their lives and being caught up. And this is really just an. A further example of the lack of humanity and really where we're at as a country, how disturbing it is. But I'm so glad, Lisa, that you and I got a chance to talk about all these topics. Thank you so much for helping me co anchor this in the absence of Popak and Karen, who do it so wonderfully every week. But I had a great time with this and certainly want to keep watching your core accountability and just how, how can people find you?
- [71:51]
Lisa Graves
Well, I was going to say, Dina, it's a joy to talk with you, to be honest with you and be part of this network and to defend due process because at the end of the day, people can be convicted. They could be removed if there's evidence. But that lack of evidence, the lack of any independent oversight, that's what risks all of our freedoms. And so I'm really happy to be engaged in this ongoing dialogue conversation with you about how we protect the right of all the people in the United States by ensuring that we have due process. And there are ways you can find me. You can find me here on the Court Accountability Channel here on legal af, but also my research website is truenorthresearch.org we also have legal materials over at courtaccountability.org and my new book is coming out soon about John Roberts. And you can find more information@withoutprecedent.info and and sorry, one last thing. I also have a Substack newsletter that I do with Courier news. It's called Grave Injustice. And so there's lots of places to find me. I'm helisagraves. Where can people find you, Dina? How can people follow you?
- [72:58]
Dina Dahl
They can find me. Ask dinadahl on all the platforms as well as Midas and of course Legal af. And I'm trying to do more on Substack as well. And it's great that your book is coming out now, basically right before the next term starts. We will definitely have to dive more into all of your knowledge with Chief Justice Roberts and how he's remaking the court. And you know, the Supreme Court used to be kind of a sleepy institution that very few people talked about. And now, you know, the Republicans after Roe v. Wade have played the long game with the Federal Society of Remaking the Court, and Democrats really didn't because the Supreme Court was upholding our rights. The Supreme Court, of course, has not never, always upheld our rights. Right. With the Dred Scott decision. But it had for a while. And so I think that we, you know, turned our heads, so to speak, to our detriment, but it's not happening anymore. We're all becoming Supreme Court experts now. Well, so great to find you. And of course for everybody who has not yet subscribed to the Legal AF channel, that's where Lisa and I are doing duet. I'm doing some solos. Elisa Graves does some solos as well as duets with her current accountability colleagues. So be sure to free subscribe and listen wherever you are. Listening to podcasts and subscribe to those sub stacks. Get you informed. It was a pleasure being able to co host this with you today. I hope everyone is trying to enjoy the their summer despite, you know, the news. It's like whiplash. There's always something bad that's happening, but we are in this together. We're growing both the Midas and the Legal AF communities together. So we're ready. We're ready, but we have to keep growing because it's so bad. But hopefully everyone is enjoying their summer day, taking some time out to be among friends or family or just on their own, having a good walk while we can before we get to the next whiplash moment.
- [75:03]
Lisa Graves
Thanks, Dina. Thanks everyone.