Cruelty Matched with Lawlessness

Summary

Podcast Summary: Main Justice – Episode: "Cruelty Matched with Lawlessness"

Release Date: April 8, 2025

Hosts: Andrew Weissmann & Mary McCord
Produced By: MSNBC

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Introduction

In this intense episode of Main Justice, hosts Andrew Weissmann and Mary McCord delve into critical legal battles involving the Department of Justice (DOJ) under President Trump’s administration. They analyze wrongful deportations, controversial pardons, and the constitutional challenges surrounding recent tariff implementations. The hosts leverage their extensive DOJ experience to provide nuanced insights into these pressing issues, emphasizing the safeguarding of laws, the Constitution, and democracy.

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1. The Abrego Garcia Case: Wrongful Deportation

Overview: Andrew and Mary commence their discussion with the alarming case of Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran immigrant who was erroneously deported to a terrorist detention facility in El Salvador despite a judicial order preventing his removal.

Key Points:

• Wrongful Deportation: Garcia was deported without due process, violating a court order that recognized his lawful presence in the U.S. (07:11)
• Supreme Court Ruling: The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s decision, emphasizing that the U.S. government lacks the authority to deport someone lawfully present without due process (10:03)
• Government’s Stance: The White House controversially suggested directing the judge’s order to the President of El Salvador, highlighting a blatant disregard for legal protocols (11:17)
• Attorney's Retaliation: A government attorney faced administrative leave for candidly admitting the mistake, underscoring the administration’s pressure on legal professionals to align with its agenda (16:04)

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Weissmann: “The government's contention otherwise and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene are unconscionable.” (10:03)
• Mary McCord: “It’s an example of cruelty completely matched with lawlessness, dehumanizing.” (13:54)

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2. Controversial Pardons Related to January 6th

Overview: The hosts explore the Trump administration’s attempts to extend pardons issued in the aftermath of the January 6th Capitol attack to unrelated criminal activities, facing significant judicial pushback.

Key Points:

• Pardon Extension Efforts: The administration sought to broaden its January 6th pardons to include unrelated offenses, such as firearms violations (05:19)
• Judicial Resistance: Both district and circuit courts denied these extensions, highlighting the misuse of pardon powers (20:19)
• Supreme Court’s Stance: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Government should have handled these cases through habeas corpus proceedings instead of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), without addressing the merits of the pardon issue itself (26:55)
• Ethical Concerns: The Fourth Circuit criticized the administration for retaliating against attorneys who upheld legal and ethical standards (16:04)

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew Weissmann: “This is a resounding defeat for the Trump administration that is trying to deport people with no notice.” (32:17)
• Mary McCord: “I am not affording any deference to that position of the government because it’s unreasonable and it’s contrary to the plain language.” (43:34)

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3. Legal Challenges to Presidential Tariffs

Overview: Weissmann and McCord discuss a significant lawsuit challenging the legality of President Trump’s tariffs, particularly those imposed on China, questioning the constitutional authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Key Points:

• Lawsuit by New Civil Liberties Alliance: The nonprofit argues that the tariffs exceed presidential authority, labeling them as “ultravires” or beyond the law (50:08)
• Major Questions Doctrine: The case invokes this doctrine, emphasizing that significant actions like imposing tariffs should have clear congressional authorization (52:22)
• Separation of Powers: The lawsuit underscores the importance of congressional authority in taxation and broad economic measures, challenging the executive’s overreach (53:10)
• Judicial Perspectives: Commentators like Professor Steve Calabresi advocate for nationwide injunctions against the tariffs, reinforcing the separation of powers and the non-delegation principle (54:02)

Notable Quotes:

• Mary McCord: “The tariffs are a tax on Americans. If it’s really a tax on Americans and not responding to some emergency, then it’s Congress who has the power to tax.” (53:10)
• Andrew Weissmann: “It’s a fascinating overlap of legal principles with politics, and whether the courts will bail out the Trump administration from doing tariffs that are extremely unpopular and unprincipled.” (56:51)

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4. Attacks on Law Firms and the Adversarial Legal System

Overview: Mary McCord highlights the Trump administration’s attempts to intimidate law firms, undermining the adversarial system essential for upholding due process and the rule of law.

Key Points:

• Intimidation Tactics: The administration has issued executive orders and blacklisted law firms representing opponents, threatening their ability to defend clients effectively (57:46)
• Impact on Legal System: Such actions erode the adversarial system, crucial for presenting facts and legal arguments, and ensuring fair judicial outcomes (58:52)
• Op-Ed Insight: McCord’s Washington Post op-ed elaborates on how these attacks compromise the legal framework and hinder the pursuit of justice (57:41)

Notable Quotes:

• Mary McCord: “Donald Trump is now really trying to deprive other people of that same opportunity by intimidating law firms into not taking up issues and causes and representing people with whom he disagrees.” (46:48)
• Andrew Weissmann: “This goes back to the importance of having lawyers on both sides of the issue to uphold due process.” (58:52)

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Conclusion

In "Cruelty Matched with Lawlessness," Main Justice presents a compelling analysis of the Trump administration’s legal maneuvers that threaten foundational legal principles and democratic institutions. Weissmann and McCord provide a critical examination of wrongful deportations, dubious pardons, unconstitutional tariffs, and assaults on the legal profession, underscoring the imperative to defend the rule of law and due process.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Andrew Weissmann: “The government's contention otherwise and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene are unconscionable.” (10:03)
• Mary McCord: “It’s an example of cruelty completely matched with lawlessness, dehumanizing.” (13:54)
• Mary McCord: “I am not affording any deference to that position of the government because it’s unreasonable and it’s contrary to the plain language.” (43:34)
• Mary McCord: “The tariffs are a tax on Americans. If it’s really a tax on Americans and not responding to some emergency, then it’s Congress who has the power to tax.” (53:10)
• Andrew Weissmann: “It’s a fascinating overlap of legal principles with politics, and whether the courts will bail out the Trump administration from doing tariffs that are extremely unpopular and unprincipled.” (56:51)
• Mary McCord: “Donald Trump is now really trying to deprive other people of that same opportunity by intimidating law firms into not taking up issues and causes and representing people with whom he disagrees.” (46:48)

Note: Timestamps correspond to sections within the provided transcript for reference.

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Stay Connected with Main Justice:

To stay updated on the latest legal analyses and discussions, subscribe to Main Justice on your preferred podcast platform. Engage with the hosts by sending questions to [e-mail] and support the podcast by voting for them in the People’s Voice Webby Awards.

Transcript

[Alex Wagner]

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[Mary McCord]

USAA.

[Alex Wagner]

It's President Trump's first 100 days, and MSNBC's Alex Wagner will be covering it all from the front lines. What issue matters to you the most? Join her as she travels the country to talk to the people at the center of the President's policies and promises.

[Andrew Weissman]

Do you think now that he' pardoned.

[Mary McCord]

Everybody, he can count on this group of people again?

[Alex Wagner]

Search for Trump Land with Alex Wagner wherever you're listening and follow subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen ad free.

[Andrew Weissman]

Hi, welcome back to Main Justice. It is Tuesday morning, April 8th. I am Andrew Weissman and I'm here with my damaged but still standing co host, Mary McCord. Mary, how are you?

[Mary McCord]

I'm fine, I'm fine and I'm happy to be here this morning. Although I wish we had better, more happy things to talk about. But yes, the damage is because I took a little tumble this weekend while running, so.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah, but not your fault. It's like drivers need to be better at focusing on people running.

[Mary McCord]

Public service announcement. While you are driving and taking a corner too close, please pay attention to whether there might be a runner there who you might or might not just about hit. And that runner have to quickly dodge out of the way and trip and fall to avoid you hitting her. And then please stop when you actually almost hit somebody. That would be nice. That would be good manners.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah, you think so?

[Mary McCord]

Yeah. And please get off your phones. I don't know if this driver was on a phone or not because I was too busy dodging out of the way to avoid being hit. But get off your phones.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yes, get off your phone if you're walking and if you're driving either way. But also, how dare they. Because this interferes with Main Justice.

[Mary McCord]

I know because I am one armed now because my other shoulder was dislocated in the fall and is in a sling. And so it makes things very difficult.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah, well, a one armed Mary McCord is still better than a million other people, so I'll take it. But that is a really good segue to an announcement we have which is once again, we are nominated for a Webby Award as sort of a People's Choice Award, which means you can vote for that. And so once again, for those people who are listening. If you enjoy it, you can go to our show Notes and you can see the nomination for this year's Webby Award for our podcast. It is a Webby Award for Prosecuting Donald Trump because it's for last year. So don't be confused by that. It's the same podcast that we did because it's last year the name was Prosecuting Donald Trump. And you can go on there and vote. You only have until April 17th. So if you want to do this and you're listening to this, don't put it off.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

And we, we really appreciate it. It's lovely when we do this to know that there's an audience out there that appreciates what we're doing and we appreciate you. One quick thing, there are other MSNBC produced podcasts that are also nominated into America and also Chris Hayes's podcast, which is wonderful. Why is this happening? So with that, there is a lot to talk about.

[Mary McCord]

Yes. We're going to start by talking about two very significant cases. The case involving Abrego Garcia, he is an El Salvadoran immigrant who was mistakenly deported to the terrorist detention facility in El Salvador door against a judicial order not to deport him to El Salvador. And the case involving what to do about that, we were already going to talk about that. And the Supreme Court did something related to that last night. So we'll talk about that. And we were going to talk about that in combination with, of course, the case we've been talking about for several weeks involving the president's declaration or proclamation actually under the Alien Enemy act, the use of the proclamation to deport alleged members of Trend Aragua to that same El Salvadoran terrorist detention facility without any due process. And that's a matter that also has hit the Supreme Court. And we had a Supreme Court issue a ruling on its emergency. In both of these matters, the Supreme Court issued actions, I won't even say full rulings on its emergency docket. And so we will start, of course, talking about both of those things. And there are some things I think about that are very bad, but other things that I think maybe people don't understand in terms of the actual significance of those things. We then want to talk about something we actually have not spent time on on this podcast. And I think it's important for listeners to know, and that is this effort of the Trump administration to actually extend the January 6th related pardons to crimes committed by January 6th defendants that are completely unrelated to January 6th. And a district court judge said no and a circuit panel said no. And I think it's important for Bill to understand that.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah. This is one which, you know, it's interesting. It's dear to both of us and both of us have followed it has gotten zero traction. So I hate to make this like a teaser, but stay tuned for that because this is something Mary and I have really put off talking about because we wanted to find a place. And that's going to be an interesting discussion both in terms of what the judges are doing, but also the government's position. And then there's a last but not least, our third topic.

[Mary McCord]

Yes. And this is something we have not also yet talked about, although it's still relatively new, which are the tariff. I mean, there's been tons of news about the tariffs, the toll they're taking on the markets, the toll they're taking on small businesses. But I think a lot of people may not understand sort of the separation of powers issues that are raised by the president using executive authority rather than Congress imposing these terrorists. Right.

[Andrew Weissman]

This legal issue.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

I know everyone's talking about it in terms of it's true. There's this big picture. But since we're lawyers and people are here and the topic is main justice, we're going to take a sort of legal view into that. And it's a fascinating. I'm going to give a one tiny spoiler alert. Pay attention to the group that is challenging the tariffs is not the group that you might think it is a conservative group that is challenging the legal authority of the executive branch to issue these tariffs. But with that, Mary, shall we turn to the topic du jour? And maybe it's worth doing a bit of a level set because there's sort of two separate issues here. As you mentioned, there are two cases. There's the case in Maryland of Mr. Abrego Garcia. It is conceded that he was wrongfully removed from this country with no due process and in contravention of an immigration judge years ago saying that he can stay here legally.

[Mary McCord]

Well, that he cannot be removed to El Salvador in particular.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yes, yes. And so if the government wanted to reopen that, just like the case we're going to talk about with Judge Postberg, they had a means to do this through notice in a hearing and saying to the judge that that underlying order should be changed, they could prove if they thought he was a member of a gang. Remember, he is not accused of being part of the sort of Venezuelan gang. Exactly. The Venezuelan gang. And there are some vague allegations that he's part of Ms. 13, but that has not been established. And so he was removed and sent off with a no notice, no hearing and put it in legal terms, no due process. That's right, pre deprivation and was sent off to the same prison in El Salvador as the people in the Judge Boasberg case, the people alleged to be.

[Mary McCord]

Members of of TDA. And just before we get into the legal issues, Mr. Abrego Garcia came here as a teenager, I believe in 2011, I think he was 16 years. And he and his family fled because they were being threatened by cartels and gangs in El Salvador. And they came here and he has no criminal record here at all. He is married to a U.S. citizen. He has U.S. citizen children. He has been checking in, at least this is according to his family and him. He's been checking in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement regularly yearly. People who are known to be here are required to do that. He's been doing all the right things. Yet nevertheless, he was apparently, according to the government, on that third flight on March 15, the same day that two flights took off with alleged members of Trend Aragua in violation or at least potentially in violation of Judge Boasberg's order. And we're going to talk more about whether there was contempt there. There was a third flight that day where the government says none of the people on that flight were alleged members of Trend Aragua. They were all being deported based on other immigration authorities. But the government, as you said, Andrew, has conceded in court it was a mistake, it was an administrative error to put Mr. Abrego Garcia on that flight. So his family, of course, sued to say bring him back, do what you can to bring him back. And what did the government say, Andrew?

[Andrew Weissman]

Well, so the district judge ruled in favor of Mr. Garcia and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, not known as a sort of liberal bastion. I mean, it's a very well respected circuit. It is a circuit where right after 9, 11 lots of terrorism cases were brought in that circuit. And a unanimous ruling with different opinions, but a unanimous ruling on the substance upheld the district court. And I'm going to read from a quick paragraph from the circuit opinion and then I'm going to I'll be so.

[Mary McCord]

Curious if it's the same ones that I have, although I highlighted a bunch of things.

[Andrew Weissman]

So yeah, there are, there's a lot, but I tried to pick out something short. So this is from Circuit Judge Thacker, joined in by Judge King. And this is the quote, the United States government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process. The government's contention otherwise and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene are unconscionable, unquote.

[Mary McCord]

And yes, I did have that highlighted. But let's back up for one second because the reason that the circuit is writing that is because the government came in and said, we acknowledge it was a mistake, but we can't do anything more. He is an El Salvadoran citizen in custody in El Salvador, and we don't have the power to order whoever runs that prison or the president of El Salvador. We don't have the power to order him to return his own citizen.

[Andrew Weissman]

And there was a snarky comment from the White House when the district judge said, I'm ordering you to do whatever you can to bring him back.

[Mary McCord]

Facilitate bringing him back. Yeah, that's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

And the White House issued this sort of snarky comment that said, we suggest that the district judge direct that to the president of El Salvador. This, it's almost not worthy of discussing this because it's so stupid. I mean, it's, it's just assuming that we're all morons. The district judge and the circuit court address this issue. This is not like they, the government sent somebody off to some foreign country where we have no relation and the person's now in the wild and they don't know where they are and they're just going about their business and there's no relationship with any foreign country. Even then, by the way, the United States might have an ability to try to bring them back, but here the government has touted their agreement with El Salvador. We're paying them. We're paying them to do it. You have Christine talking about how this is one of the tools in our arsenal to deal with immigration problem. And so the idea that this is somebody who is out of the control of the government, my view on that is not only is there no record support, but the government has to come in and prove it. If they want to come in and say that we don't have the ability to do anything, it's not a question of the court ordering El Salvador to do anything. It's the government has jurisdiction over America and the American people. And it might be.

[Mary McCord]

And the American government, if the American.

[Andrew Weissman]

Government can place him there under a contract, they can bring him back. And so that. It just was such a silly make weight to say that. But this is my big picture that I was, I was Talking to Lawrence O'Donnell last night, this is my big picture, because legally the government agrees there was a mistake. And their only argument is that somehow we don't control, but we're not putting on proof that we don't control and have any ability to facilitate his coming back, which is just factually not supported. This is my big picture, Mary. You have been in the government and I have been in the government for years. I can't imagine a situation where internally you have realized that you have made a mistake, that you have deported a human being to another country and you do not do anything to bring the person back. I can't think of an administration where the conversation wouldn't be regardless of party.

[Mary McCord]

There wouldn't be litigation. How do we they would be working to fix it.

[Andrew Weissman]

You would say, how on God's green earth do we bring this person back as fast as possible? It's an example of cruelty completely matched with lawlessness, dehumanizing.

[Mary McCord]

It's almost as like this is not a human being we're talking about with the family with children. And you know, that family was completely like he got picked up. They didn't even know until he was able to make a call saying he was being deported. There was no opportunity to contest this. And what you're saying, though, Andrew, segues so nicely into talking about the government attorney in court, because essentially what you're saying is kind of like what the lawyer said. This is a lawyer who has been arguing various cases about immigration. He is not somebody who's been pushing back hard on the administration. He's been going in and arguing cases, including, I think he was part of the team that was involved in the Venezuela case. Yet he said to the court in candor, he did what he had to do in candor and said, I haven't been able to get a satisfactory explanation about why the government doesn't think that it could bring him back. And for that and for admitting that it was a mistake, he was put on administrative leave. And according to the attorney general of the United States, it was for failure to engage in zealous advocacy on behalf of the United States. And here's what the 4th Circuit had to say, Judge Thacker, about that. Of note, in response to the candid responses by the government attorney to the district court's inquiries, that attorney has been put on administrative leave, ostensibly for lack of zealous advocacy. But the duty of zealous representation is tempered by the duty of candor to the court, among other ethical obligations, and the duty to uphold the rule of Law, particularly on the part of a government attorney. I mean, retaliation against someone who is doing what they are obligated as an attorney to do, which is tell the truth to the court, is just, you know, we're at a new level here. Right. We've seen retaliation for lots of things, but we're at a new level here.

[Andrew Weissman]

And that attorney, just to be clear, is not some deep state attorney.

[Mary McCord]

Yeah, that's what you say. Yeah, exactly.

[Andrew Weissman]

So let me read to you what the senior DHS Department of Homeland Security spokesperson has said, because it is equally, I won't say shocking, but it's easily concerning. Thanks to President Trump, foreign terrorist organizations no longer have legal protections in America. Mr. Garcia was a leader in MS.13, a brutal gang that rapes, murders and maims for sport. Credible evidence links him to human trafficking. Footnote. No evidence was presented to the district court or the court of appeals on that. If they have proof of it, there's a way to have had a hearing and to prove that. But that is not something. If they say that now, it's like, well, why didn't they present that to the court? It certainly cast doubt on it, but if they can prove it, go right ahead. That's what the hearing would have been for. And then, instead of acknowledging the hard work of our law enforcement in making America safe again, the mainstream media is trying to turn a violent gang member, c E G no proof, into a media darling and victim. This isn't a misunderstood soul. This is a ruthless criminal who terrorizes communities. The truth is simple. He's off our streets. That's the story. Here's what's just so shocking about that. Let's assume that is all true. There's no proof of that, but let's assume that is true. That has nothing to do with due process. Under that reasoning, and this president, who was a criminal defendant in four cases, should be the first person to know this. You don't sit there and say, oh, you know what? Well, Donald Trump committed crimes in four jurisdictions, so let's just send him off to jail. This is like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, you know, off with her head, trial to follow. That is what due process is. The idea that it's like he's off our street because he's a bad person. That is irrelevant to the legal principle of due process. And you didn't present proof of it. But it's just so shocking to me that of all people, you'd think somebody who had been a criminal defendant would understand that.

[Mary McCord]

Yes. And you know what you've said was really partly what's encapsulated by an amicus brief filed by three, you know, well known legal scholars in the Supreme Court. When, of course, the government raced up to the Supreme Court on its emergency docket, said, please stay this order of the district court to use all efforts to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia by what would have been 11:59. Last night, Monday night, the government raced to the Supreme Court and said, put a stay on that. We can't do that. Made all these arguments again, that they're unable to. You know, this is foreign diplomacy and very sensitive and they can't possibly do this on this timeframe. And they shouldn't have to do it at all because they don't have authority over the El Salvadoran president. In the Supreme Court, there was a very brief three page amicus brief filed by Dean Erwin Chemerinsky at UC Berkeley of Law Larry Tribe and Martha Minow, all constitutional scholars who said at bottom, the Solicitor General, meaning the government. The government's argument is that once the executive branch has removed an individual from the United States and arranged for that individual to be held in a foreign prison, an Article 3 court is constitutionally disempowered from ordering that the individual be returned to the United States, regardless of whether the executive branch's removal of the individual lacked any statutory basis and failed to afford the individual any due process and flouted a court order issued pursuant to a congressional statute barring removal. They went on to say, if the government's argument were correct, the executive branch would possess a shuddering degree of power, power that the President could wield in extreme and extraordinary ways, including against American citizens, that the President simply disfavors. Because again, once out of our territory, the government's position here is our hands are washed of this. We have no more power. And that should frighten everyone, even when.

[Andrew Weissman]

They'Re conceding that it was a mistake.

[Mary McCord]

Exactly.

[Andrew Weissman]

So, Mary, what did the Supreme Court do for the request for a sort of administrative stay?

[Mary McCord]

Yeah, and I think this is important because the Chief justice issued an administrative stay. That does not mean the court has ruled on the merits. It does not mean that the court agrees with the government. That means they wanted a little bit more time to get some briefs and figure this out. So he just issued an administrative stay, which is just meaning. District Court judge.

[Andrew Weissman]

Everything's on hold for a moment.

[Mary McCord]

Timeout. Timeout.

[Andrew Weissman]

And a very short time frame. The papers are due today, as I understand it. And one. One side's already filed.

[Mary McCord]

That's right. That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

Basically everyone is ready and so we are waiting right now for a decision.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

Should we take a quick break and come back and talk about the Supreme Court? We've got the Supreme Court issuing this administrative stay in the Abrego Garcia case. But also last night there was a lot of activity yesterday because the Fourth Circuit issued its decision. The administrative day that you just talked about from the Chief justice that also came down yesterday. And then last night there was a decision from the Supreme Court that was sort of 6354 on this issue, but in many ways was 9 0. And it'll be interesting to see whether you and I have the same view of this. But let's come back and talk about what the Supreme Court did in the case from Judge Boasberg.

[Mary McCord]

Sounds good.

[Alex Wagner]

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[Mary McCord]

I do think it's worth being very clear eyed, very realistic about what's going on here.

[Alex Wagner]

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[Mary McCord]

Welcome back. So, as promised, this was just one of the things that happened late yesterday. Even later than this, we had the Supreme Court issue a response to another emergency appeal by the government. And this was in the case we've been talking about, the case that involves the two temporary restraining orders issued by Judge Boasberg back on March 15, ordering the government first not to deport the five plaintiffs who had brought the case, not to deport them under the authority of the Alien Enemies act without any due process. And then his second order after he issued a presumptive class certification classifying all the alleged members of Trenda de Aragua as plaintiffs in a class action and ordered that no one be deported under solely under the authority of the Alien Enemies act proclamation to El Salvador, and that any planes in the air be turned around. As we talked about before, this raised two issues because there was a question since two planes carrying people being deported solely under the authority of the Alien Enemy act, two of those planes did leave. Still unclear exactly what time they left or exactly what time they left US Airspace or exactly what time they landed in El Salvador. But they certainly left after the first Trojan, potentially after the second TRO. And those, we believe around 140 deportees are now in that prison in El Salvador. So there's an issue about whether the government violated Judge Boasberg's order. That issue is still a pending issue. What we'll come back to, but then the substance of whether the judge could order them not to be deported there under the Alien Enemies act, that is what went up to first. The court of appeals. And the court, in a split ruling 2 to 1, said, yes, this is something Judge Boasberg had authority to do. The dissenting judge said, well, this should have been brought as a habeas corpus proceeding as opposed to a proceeding under the Administrative Procedure Act. So again, a technical distinction. That's what went to the Supreme Court, and that's what in a 5 to 4 ruling, the court last night said, we're not reaching the merits of whether this was a proper proclamation under the Alien Enemy act and whether it can be used this way to deport members of a criminal gang designated as a foreign terrorist organization outside of the country. We're not ruling on that, but this should have been done in habeas. So what is habeas?

[Andrew Weissman]

Andrew, Can I just say before we get to that, I think there's been so much misreporting about this decision because of this idea that it's 5, 4 on this technical issue of should they bring this under habeas or under the apa, the Administrative Procedures act, and that for most people listening to this, they're like, who the hell cares? Right? It's just like, I mean, but that is what lawyers do is we worry about sort of like what particular statute is and should have been brought under this versus that. And there are venue issues like where you can bring those particular statutes. But here's the critical issue, and this was something that was said by the in the procureum, the sort of main opinion of the court, but also in the dissents in everybody said this. Yes, all nine justices agree that the plaintiffs here were entitled to due process, that they were entitled to be heard before they were removed. We talked about this issue of if you remove 100 people and what if you make a mistake is to 10, weren't they entitled to say, you know what, the statute doesn't apply, this is not an invasion, that the gang is not invading, that there's no connection to a foreign government, that I'm not part.

[Mary McCord]

Of the gang, I'm not even in the group. Yes, exactly.

[Andrew Weissman]

So that's sort of like the. We see with Mr. Garcia the issue of why you want a hearing beforehand. Because they're agreeing it was a mistake. And so you have nine justices. Nine, just to be clear.

[Mary McCord]

Yes.

[Andrew Weissman]

All saying that there was an entitlement to an appropriate pre deprivation hearing, but meaning before being deported. That to me is the take home here.

[Mary McCord]

And they order, even in the per curiam, the five part, they order that from this date forward the government must give notice and an opportunity to be heard to anyone that they intend to deport under the authority of the Alien Enemies act before they are deported. So that is a positive ruling for.

[Andrew Weissman]

All the rhetoric of the dissents. Today's order and procure him confirm that the detainees subject to removal orders under the aea, that's the Alien Enemies act, are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal. The only question is which court will resolve that challenge? Which court sort of initially. And that's the issue of habeas versus the Administrative Procedure Act. The Administrative Procedure act in a nutshell is sort of there as a catch all and generally exists to say when no other statute applies, it can kind of fill in the interstices when they're an agency action.

[Mary McCord]

And here there was an agency action. Right. Like putting all of you on this plane under Alien Enemy act and we're deporting you. Right.

[Andrew Weissman]

And in habeas is when you are challenging your confinement and you're saying you're illegally confined, you bring an action in the location where you're confined to say release me. And so that's sort of the general view. Let's leave aside for a moment the people who are in El Salvador right now. But if there are people in the class that was certified by Judge Boasberg that are in Texas, the court's saying they need to proceed by habeas in Texas because that's where they are or.

[Mary McCord]

Anywhere else if they haven't been moved. But just so people understand why we're saying Texas, what happened in sort of the wee hours of the night and the early morning before these two planes departed is that people who were in detention in various places around the country all got relocated to Texas to that detention center. And then that's where they were deported from Harlingen, Texas. So that's saying you would have to go to court in Texas where you were being held, or if you got notice before you got to Texas, you'd have to go to court wherever you were. Of course, none of them had any notice. And in fact, one of the issues here is that the proclamation was not even made public until about an hour before the district court, Judge Boasberg's hearing on that Saturday afternoon. So there was no while they were basically loading them on the planes. So there was no chance.

[Andrew Weissman]

There's another issue, which is what do you do with the people who are actually in El Salvador? Because if they listen to me, it's like, well, wait a second, how do you file this in the district where you are because you're an now in a foreign country and there, there is good law that that may be able to be filed in D.C. in other words, that we could end up with those people with a habeas challenge before Judge Boasberg.

[Mary McCord]

Yes, that's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

But here, let me just make sure people understand this sort of habeas idea, because this was something addressed in the Garcia case that we just talked about, because there, both the district judge and the court of appeals, we're thinking about should this be a habeas, where you're challenging your illegal detention. And what the district judge and the circuit said is that's not what this Garcia case is about. He's challenging his removal.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

If he were free as a bird in El Salvador and not in a prison, he would still be making this claim because he was illegally deported. And that is what's the claim before Judge Boasberg.

[Mary McCord]

And that's what he said. You're not challenging your detention. You're challenging your deportation without due process under the Alien Enemy Act.

[Andrew Weissman]

So I actually think on, I mean, you know, who cares what I think in terms of the court is ruled. But I mean, I think this issue, that where this Supreme Court on this technical issue is should it be a habeas or should it be the apa? I think they got it wrong. And that's where, if I'm reading this correctly, that's a 5, 4 decision and that Amy Coney Barrett joins with. And so, by the way, thank God for the women.

[Mary McCord]

I know it's five, four on gender lines.

[Andrew Weissman]

This is a gendered decision. And you have four justices, I would say, agreeing with I think getting it right, I won't say agreeing with me, I'm agreeing with them that the challenge here is not to the illegal detention. There may be grounds to detain these people. The issue is the deportation without notice. So in any event, this is all sort of very much in the weeds. As to the technical issue of, like, what's the ground for and thus where you could file it. I want to make sure everyone's sort of getting the picture from Mary and me, which is that this is a resounding defeat for the Trump administration that is trying to deport people with no notice, because they obviously have a procedure that they could do this all with notice and it would be fine. They could do it with notice and due process. And there's a procedure already in place for that. They were saying, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to do summary removals. And you have nine justices saying no.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

There's no way to put lipstick on that pig. Right. To make it not still a pig.

[Mary McCord]

That's right. And I think there's another point, and this goes to your getting in the thorny issue of habeas. I mean, one of the things that the dissenters said is that this is not an issue for the emergency docket. Remember, by the way, the Chief justice saying on the immunity decision that they took months and months and months to render, that this is not something that should have, you know, there's been just.

[Andrew Weissman]

Good point.

[Mary McCord]

Truncated and expedited briefing on these important issues. I mean, that was months and months and months. And that's partly why, you know, the majority under the chief was sending things back for more work to be done in the district court. Here we're talking just days and not full briefing. And one of the issues that the dissenters had is, like, this isn't even about the merits of whether the Alien Enemies act applies here. This is just a fight over the right court. And that is not something that we need to be digging into on our emergency docket here without briefing. In fact, the dissenters say, against the backdrop of, you know, everything going on leading up to this case, there's every reason to question the majority's hurried conclusion that habeas relief supplies the exclusive means to challenge removal under the Alien Enemies Act. At the very least, the question is a thorny one, and this emergency application was not the place to solve it. The court also was noting the difficulties of habeas because you're talking about people potentially in different places around the country or even if they're all in Texas getting notice, how soon before the flight are they going to get that notice? Getting an attorney, getting that attorney to file something in court, getting that court to actually take it up and act on it before they're deported. So there's a lot of things they raise here. And the other thing I think we do have to point out that the dissenters raise because this segues very nicely into what is still remaining in front of Judge Boasberg. And this is something that the per curiam, and by the way, per curiam just means that short majority opinion didn't have a justice's name assigned to it. It means those five just agreed to those, I think it's like four paragraphs without anybody putting their name on it. But this issue that is still alive is there was really suspect behavior by the government on the day that this all happened. I mean, we had apparently this proclamation done on a Friday, but not public until late Saturday afternoon. We had the judge ruling in the morning at I think, you know, 9:30 or 10:00am that the five plaintiffs couldn't be on flights and saying, I'm going to have a hearing later today. And wouldn't you think, and this is what Judge Boseberg said at the hearing last week on whether his order had been violated. Wouldn't you think that the attorney then for the government would have said to his clients, dhs, hey, the judge is having a hearing later today on whether his ruling on the five individuals should apply to a bigger class. So we better, better hold any operational plans to do any more flights. We better hold that for the judge's ruling. But that's not what happened. Instead, we had two flights leave. And, you know, the, the dissenting justices are saying there's something that's very smelly here about this, about the government's behavior here. And that's another reason why they were concerned about the majority ignoring that completely.

[Andrew Weissman]

So Judge Boisberg still has that pending before him. And although it's sort of now in an unusual posture because his order, his TRO has now been sort of not sorted. It's been vacated. But that doesn't give you a ground. You can't sit there and say, I can violate a court order.

[Mary McCord]

That's right.

[Andrew Weissman]

You know, because ultimately it was technically, it should have been done under procedure A versus Procedure B, especially given the ground, which is just habeas versus apa. It's not like they reached the merits of it and said that Judge Boasberg was wrong to issue a TRO at all under any circumstances. So he still has the issue that is pending before him, which is a fact finding and legal finding as to whether he thinks there was contempt. And so that is, as we say in the law, sub judicy, which is under advisement. And so between now and I think, our next podcast show, we will have a decision, I think, from Judge Boasberg, who will decide what he thinks. In other words, he may decide that the government's right and has come up with good faith arguments. He may decide that they're wrong. You know, it was a very rough hearing that he had with the government is putting them through their paces, but, you know, we'll see what he decides on their legal issues. But that actually still is alive. And we also could see, as we noted, with respect to the people who are in El Salvador, we may very well see those habeas petitions coming back before the D.C. court and having it being assigned to Judge Boasberg as a related case. Right, as related to the case, because obviously he's been dealing with it.

[Mary McCord]

Yeah. He did say at that hearing, it seems to me that there is a fair likelihood that the government acted in bad faith throughout that day. And he's just trying to figure out, you know, what do I do? What more would I need to determine that it could be actual declarations or testimony from the people who did not stop those planes. And he's. He's going to make those decisions.

[Andrew Weissman]

Who did it, who made the decision, who made the decision. If he thinks there was contempt, he asked for names. Exactly.

[Mary McCord]

Of who made the decisions, who was told about his order, all of those things. And so that's what he's contemplating. And as you say, it's not good enough to say, I disagree with your order, I'm violating it. Even if ultimately the order is overruled, you don't have the option to just violate it. Your option is to appeal.

[Andrew Weissman]

Right. And so stay tuned for more. Mary and I are going to definitely be like dogs with bones on that. And stay with it. Mary, this is a good place to do a quick recap in front of another D.C. district judge, Dabney Friedrich, and talk about a decision that she made that also went to the court of Appeals. And I can give sort of a table setting. And then do you want to talk about sort of what the legal issue and what the circuit did there?

[Mary McCord]

Sure.

[Andrew Weissman]

Okay. So Dabney Friedrich is a district judge. She's a colleague, obviously then of Judge Boasberg, federal judge in D.C. i hate to have to say this, but she was nominated to the bench by Donald Trump. And I say that just so that people aren't thinking a, that just because you're nominated by Donald Trump means you're going to somehow not follow the law. And she got this case. And it had to do with a defendant named Dan Edwin Wilson. According to the court filings, he was being charged in connection with his conduct at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. And he also was facing separate charges relating to the possession of an unregistered firearm that is also federal crimes. But those had not to do with anything that happened at the Capitol. They were two years earlier in a different time and a different location.

[Mary McCord]

And there were multiple weapons, by the way, including assault style rifles.

[Andrew Weissman]

And so because he was a single defendant facing these different charges in two different districts, the government joined them together and had him deal with this all in D.C. before Judge Friedrich. So different crimes, different times, but the parties agreed that she would deal with both of these.

[Mary McCord]

And that was because he was taking a plea. Right. So he was, he wanted to do what we call a global plea. Rather than have to negotiate in a plea agreement in one court with one set of prosecutors and then go negotiate an agreement in a different court with a different set of prosecutors, you're just like, hey, can I enter a global plea that resolves all of my matters in various places in just one place in front of one judge.

[Andrew Weissman]

Exactly. And he pled to the capital offense that. I'm sorry, not a capital offense. Yeah, exactly. He pled to an offense at the Capitol, which was a conspiracy to impede or injure federal law enforcement officers on January 6th. And he pled to illegally possessing six firearms, two, as you said, military style rifles without serial numbers. So significant things.

[Mary McCord]

Yes.

[Andrew Weissman]

Now, here's the issue, because probably people are going, why are Mary and I so interested in this case? The issue is that, as we all know, the President, President Trump, when he came into office, issued this global pardon for everyone who had been convicted, whether they'd gone to trial or whether they pled guilty. He also had an order with respect to dismissing cases that were pending that hadn't yet gone to trial.

[Mary McCord]

But related to the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. That's who he was. Pardoned.

[Andrew Weissman]

Exactly. That's the key issue is that the pardon said that the president on January 20 issued a, quote, a full, complete and unconditional pardon. To some more language, individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United states Capitol on January 6, 2020, 1. So the government initially took the position that, of course, that doesn't relate to the gun crimes here because they happened at a different time and place. They in 2022 and a different location. And then the government switched its position and said, no, no, no. Because the investigation of the offenses at the Capitol led to discovering the firearms violation. The pardon should cover all of his offenses. And that was the issue before Judge Friedrich. So what did she do and then what happened on appeal?

[Mary McCord]

Well, she said, look, the plain language of the pardon does not apply to these Kentucky firearms, Mr. Wilson. They had nothing to do with. They are not related to the attack on the Capitol or January 6th. You know, they didn't occur at the Capitol, which would be related to. And they weren't on January 6th of 2021. She said, All I have to look at is the plain language and plain text of the pardon. She acknowledged the President's pardon power is plenary. He can pardon for federal crimes, but just says he didn't pardon for these crimes under the plain text. She also, I think very pointedly said the government's change of position. I am not going to accord deference to it because it is unreasonable. She said, from January 20 through February 18. Because hers was not the only case where people who had been convicted of January 6th offenses and other offenses, a bunch of those people started doing this, hey, hey, hey, I'm a pardoned for everything. Let me out of jail. Because what was happening is they were getting pardoned for the January 6th offenses, but they had a different offense that was still keeping them in prison. Right. And these were offenses typically just like what happened in Mr. Wilson's case. It was when the government, in the course of its January 6th investigation, executed search warrants at some of these people's houses. That's where they found things like, you know, grenades and military style rifles and other things like that. Because there was a case involving grenades. They also sometimes found things like child pornography. And I'll come back to that. So those people were not getting out of prison. And they started saying, hey, hey, hey, I got pardoned. I should be let out. And the government, from January 20 through February 18, repeatedly and unequivocally, this is Judge Friedrich writing, stated in courtrooms across the country that the plain and unambiguous language of the pardon does not apply to criminal offenses that did not occur at or near the Capitol on January 6th. She then goes on to say, Less than two weeks later, however, the government began to change its position. And this is when it said in cases like Mr. Wilson's and others that we have now. And the explanation was, let me scroll to it. That they had, quote, received further clarity on the intent of the presidential pardon, unquote, after consulting with Department of Justice leadership. Now, as Judge Friedrich says, she pushed the prosecutor on sort of an articulation of the pardons meeting and how it can actually apply beyond things that were in Washington, D.C. on January 6th and did not get satisfactory answers. So in her view, she said, I'm not affording any deference to that position of the government because it's unreasonable and it's contrary to the plain language. And it's also inconsistent because in cases involving child pornography.

[Andrew Weissman]

Exactly.

[Mary McCord]

The government did not take the position that that was covered by the pardons. They took the position, inconsistent positions in one case saying, oh, but there was already some indication of, you know, child solicitation and other child related offenses. So this is different. And in another case, there was no difference at all. The child pornography was found in the search warrant. And so the judge says, reasonably, says, your change in position here is totally unfounded. I'm not crediting it. I'm sticking with the plain language. And you know, Mr. Wilson, if, if the President wants to pardon you for these Kentucky firemen offenses, he can do so, but the pardon you got does not cover those.

[Andrew Weissman]

Right. And this is one where, if the government wanted to deal with this, why are you doing all of this work in court? The President can just issue a new pardon if he wants to pardon for that. And one of the hypotheticals from Judge Friedrich was just wonderful where she said, are you saying that if you did a search warrant on this person's home related to the January six Capitol attack and you found, and you know, unbeknownst to you, you found evidence that the person committed a murder unrelated to January 6th, that you're now going to have the position that that was a pardon. And they basically said, I have to get back to you. And Judge Friedrich said her comment was like, that's just remarkable that you would say that, especially when here, with a stroke of a pen, if that's what the President intended, he could make it clear. This goes up to the circuit. And in a 2 to 1 decision, Judge Friedrich, I am happy to say, is affirmed and saying quite clearly this is just unrelated in time and place to the stated pardon that was given. So that doesn't cover these firearms. So we really wanted to cover this so that you understood just what the doj, the Department of Justice, is doing here. I mean, it's such bad judgment.

[Mary McCord]

The position is putting the trial attorneys, the ones who have to go into court. I mean, we already talked about the one now in Abrego Garcia, who's on administrative leave because he was truthful to the court. We're seeing this example of the lawyer saying, all I can tell you is we've received further clarity. I mean, we're seeing over and over and we don't have time to get into it today. We're seeing over and over in other cases the attorney who's there in court saying, I can't answer that question or the answer they give is this is what I've been told to say. And they're being put in really difficult positions. We've mentioned before we're going to see people leaving. There already have been a lot of people leaving because they're being put in this position of having to decide between complying with their ethical responsibilities to the court and following orders from above. And so more to come on that. Shall we take a break and come back to tariffs?

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah, let's come back to tariffs and you can educate me, because here's an issue which, you know, I'm this is, you know, relatively new to me. This is an issue of there are all these tariffs, but there is a legal issue with respect to whether the president has the power under Article 2 to issue these tariffs and what is his legal authority for it and what is the challenge? So stay tuned. We'll come right back and talk about that.

[Alex Wagner]

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[Mary McCord]

What issue matters to you the most?

[Alex Wagner]

Join her as she travels the country to talk to the people at the center of the president's policies and promises.

[Mary McCord]

Do you think now that he's pardoned every everybody he can count on this.

[Andrew Weissman]

Group of people again?

[Alex Wagner]

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[Mary McCord]

There's probably both both messaging and policy issues, but as you look to kind of where the Democratic Party is. Do you think it's more a messaging issue, more a policy issue?

[Alex Wagner]

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[Andrew Weissman]

Welcome back. So, Merritt Carry tariffs. There is a new lawsuit in federal court in the Northern District of Florida that is brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance. What are they alleging with respect to the tariffs that the President has issued? And I think they're specifically focused on the China tariffs, but it would be of general applicability. But what is this group? And then what's their legal challenge?

[Mary McCord]

So this is a nonprofit group that has traditionally taken up conservative causes. And in fact, one of the lead lawyers on this I went to law school with. I know him quite well, or I did back in the day. So this is a lawsuit brought on behalf of an American stationary company who's impacted by the tariffs because the supplies they need for their work here in the United States come from China. And so the tariffs on China have hit them. And so they're challenging this on multiple grounds. One is that the tariffs are what they call ultravirus, meaning outside of law, because they were imposed under the President's authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers act, also known as ipa, and that this is a statutory authority for the President to engage in certain responses to emergencies. Really, it's used usually in areas of national security. And their view is that ieepa, for all the things it might allow the President to do, it does not allow the President to impose tariffs like this. Tariffs are something that Congress has the authority to impose. And Congress, although it can delegate some of its authorities to the President, it can't delegate anything that is this sweeping because that would raise questions about things like the major questions doctrine. And the major questions doctrine is something that got kind of popular over the last few years and normally was something raised, in fact, by conservative lawyers and conservative public interest groups to challenge things that the Biden administration was doing, things such as broad student loan forgiveness. The argument there was even if Congress has delegated some authority to the President, in that case, it was under the Heroes act to respond to Covid that the Congress surely didn't delegate to the President something as major, raising such a major question as broad student loan forgiveness. Here the tables are turned and the issue is, did Congress, through what powers it's had to delegate powers to the President under ipa, surely that didn't include anything so major and really unrelated to national security as these tariffs.

[Andrew Weissman]

So it's sort of a doctrine of, you know, if the Congress is going to do something this big, it needs to be super clear that it was delegating this. That's so under a major question. The court's saying we're not going to just presume that kind of power without a sort of clear delegation. And as you said, it's usually been used as a weapon against sort of Democratic presidents doing things, but here it's being used by this group to say that it's been abused by President Trump in many ways. I thought their complaint sort of reads, well, there's sort of a lot of embedded legal issues, but they're basically saying, you know, this is not some emergency, this is just a tax on Americans. And if it's really a tax on Americans and not responding to some emergency, then guess who has the power to tax?

[Mary McCord]

That's Congress.

[Andrew Weissman]

And so once again, this is where you're seeing private lawsuits dealing with things that you think Congress would be a little bit more up in arms about their own institutional concerns and power. But that is sort of, you know, we've talked about Youngstown, we've talked about how much Congress has really not stood up for its own power and authorities vis a vis the executive branch. And sort of the original framing construct of three equal branches of government is something that is really gone by the wayside. And this is an example of that, because it's not Congress who is part of this lawsuit. It is a private party saying that this is violating that separation of powers for one of the reasons being exactly what you said. I do find it very interesting that it's this group. It puts an interesting twist on the litigation.

[Mary McCord]

There's other commentators, though, conservative commentators, also writing about this. In fact, Steve Calabresi, Professor Calabresi, I read over the weekend writing that there should be a nationwide injunction granted. And I this is really right. We've been talking about nationwide injunctions, about how these are criticized. Frankly, they're criticized by both sides, where you sit, where you stand. But there should be a nationwide injunction because there is no emergency here. And as he points out in his post on Reason.com, i think, is where I read this. He points out that this is about trying to sort of restore the manufacturing base in the United States, which has been, you know, suffering for decades now. And it's not some emergency all of the sudden that you can use IEEPA in order to try to remedy through these tariffs. And this violates the separation of powers. This is a matter for Congress. And therefore there should be A nationwide injunction on it. One of the other interesting things here we talked about major questions doctrine. That's this doctrine, as we've been discussing, that even if Congress could delegate certain authority to the President, it has to be clear. Right. When it's on such a major issue. It also hearkens back to something called the non delegation doctrine, which was used by the Supreme Court back in the 1930s, back during the New Deal when FDR, President Roosevelt was making sweeping sort of policy enactments to build infrastructure and on and on and on. So many things. People who studied the New Deal, and this is something at the time was used occasionally to say, wait a minute, even if Congress delegated certain powers, it can't delegate away sort of all of its constitutional powers. Those are things that are part of Article 1 of the Constitution. They're given to Congress, they can't be delegated. That then has kind of gone out of favor, the use of non delegation doctrine, really, since the late 1930s in order to restrain the President. And it's been interpreted sort of much more liberally now to as long as the Congress has provided some intelligible principles by which its delegation, you know, is constrained and by which a president who's trying to act under that delegation would have these principles to follow, that it might be okay. But this tariff situation sort of brings back to the fore the idea about, hmm, has the delegation, if there's delegation under aipa, and I think that's a big if to issue tariffs as opposed to take other types of sanctions and other kind of things that presidents regularly do under aipa. If there's that delegation, maybe that would violate the non delegation doctrine. So we're getting very heady in some of these separational powers issues. But I think we'll be following this because this is not going to be the last of what we're seeing about major questions or non delegation doctrine, particularly I think, in this tariff area.

[Andrew Weissman]

Absolutely. And it's got such an interesting intersection of the legal principles with politics. Small P. And whether the courts will essentially bail out the Trump administration doing tariffs that are extremely unpopular and unprincipled.

[Mary McCord]

I mean, the calculation is like, what, you know, divide the something, something by two. It's like it wasn't even principled.

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah. So it's a fascinating overlap of those two things. So much more to come. Mary, thanks so much. I'm so glad we actually got to all of this. And I'm glad we got the shout out to the pardon issue before Judge Friedrich and her. I thought really terrific decision and the fact that she was affirmed. There's a lot. I think we sort of flagged some issues for people to stay tuned to.

[Mary McCord]

We're going to put something else in the show notes that we did not have time to cover. I published an op ed in the Washington Post last night.

[Andrew Weissman]

It's terrific.

[Mary McCord]

Thank you. That goes back to this issues we have discussed before about the attacks on law firms. And my point with this post was to show that one of the reasons, besides the fact that the attacks on law firms, the executive orders, blacklisting law firms, besides the fact that they're unconstitutional, one of the reasons that three different judges, almost immediately in record time for litigation, issued injunctions barring the key provisions of those orders is because judges recognize what this kind of blacklisting does to the adversarial system, the system by which lawyers on both sides of an issue present facts and present legal arguments to the court and the court can make a decision that is core to due process. We've talked a lot about due process today, but to make that work, you've got to have lawyers on both sides of the issues. Donald Trump certainly benefited by having lawyers representing him in all of the civil and criminal cases against him. And he is now really trying to deprive other people of that same opportunity by intimidating law firms into not taking up issues and causes and representing people with whom he disagrees. So that'll be in the show notes too.

[Andrew Weissman]

So thanks so much for listening. And remember, you can subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to get this show and other MSNBC originals ad free. You'll also get subscriber only bonus content. To send us a question, you can email [e-mail] and remember to vote for.

[Mary McCord]

Us in this year's People's Voice Webby Awards along with our sister podcasts Into America. And why is this Happening? Check out our show notes for how to vote for each podcast. This podcast is produced by Vicki Virgolina. Our associate producer is Jamaris Perez. Our audio engineers are Mark Yoshizumi and Bob Mallory. Our head of audio production is Bryson Barnes. Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio.

[Andrew Weissman]

Search for Main justice wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series.

[Alex Wagner]

It's President Trump's first 100 days and MSNBC's Alex Wagner will be covering it all from the front lines. What issue matters to you the most? Join her as she travels the country to talk to the people at the center of the president's policies and promises.

[Andrew Weissman]

Do you think now that he's pardoned.

[Mary McCord]

Everybody he can count on this group of people again?

[Alex Wagner]

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