July 17, 2025 • 36 mins
Samuel Siegel, Senior Counsel at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, discusses their lawsuit, on behalf of CASA, against the Trump administration over the revocation of temporary protected status for Afghans. Dave Aronberg, former Palm Beach County State Attorney, discusses Democrats storming out of the hearing over the controversial nomination of former Trump criminal lawyer Emil Bove to the Third Circuit. June Grasso hosts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A reprieve for nearly twelve thousand Afghans. An appeals court
stepped in to keep protections in place that have prevented
the Trump administration from deporting them. That's at least until Monday,
while both sides file legal briefs and the Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals makes a decision. The Trump administration has
(00:28):
moved aggressively to remove Temporary protected status from Afghans and
hundreds of thousands of people from six other countries as
part of the administration's effort to ramp up deportations. Joining
me is Samuel Siegel, Senior counselor at the Institute for
Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law along with the
(00:50):
Washington Lawyers Committee. It's representing KASA, a non profit immigrant
advocacy group that sued the administration over the TPS revocation
for Afghans as well as for people from Cameroon. So
before the appeals court stepped in, the Trump administration had
planned to end Temporary Protected Status for Afghans. Tell us
(01:14):
about that.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So, the Trump administration had announced that it was ending
temporary Protective Status for Afghanistan. This week, it announced that
the conditions that initially led to the designation of that country,
the ongoing on conflict between Taliban and other insurgent groups,
and the extraordinary humanitarian conditions, were essentially no longer so
(01:36):
severe that it merited that designation. I guess to take
a step back and talk a little bit about TPS.
TPS is a status that the Secretary of Homeland Security
can designate a particular country for based on certain conditions
in those countries, particularly if the country's experiencing an ongoing
armed conflict, if there's a natural disaster, or if there's
(01:56):
another extraordinary condition in the country. If the Secretary makes
that conclusion, then he or she will designate the country
for TPS, which allows individuals from those countries to live
and work in this country for a particular set period
of time. Secretary of ma Orcus concluded that Afghanistan merited
that determination back in twenty twenty two and extended in
(02:19):
twenty twenty three based on those conflicts and the conditions
in Afghanistan, and Secretary norm at least purported to say
that those conditions no longer existed now. Of course, our challenge.
One of our arguments is, in fact, that purported rationale
for the decision is not the one that's actually motivating
the actions here. Our argument is that this is a
(02:40):
preordained decision as part of the Trump administration's broader effort
to reduce the number of non white immigrants in this country,
and that's the basis on which we have asked the
Fourth Circuit to pause the GPS determination while the appeal
plays out.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Are you also arguing in this that what the Homeland
Security Secretary determined that you know, there are improvements in
security and economic situations, and that Afghan nationals can return.
Are you arguing that that's factually incorrect.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
We're not making that specific argument, in part because of
some jurisdictional bars on what the courts are allowed to consider.
I think what we are as pointing to that the
conditions in the country are not good, and this further
supports the argument that the purported rationales that things have
improved are not the actual one. So it's that mismatch
between what's actually going on in Afghanistan and the actions
(03:36):
here that support our argument that even if things might
have improved a little bit, and that's not really the
reason that she's doing that. And I will just note
to this effect. You know, as part of the litigation here,
the administration had to produce an administrative record, which is
all the things that were in front of the Secretary
when she made her decision. And in November of twenty
(04:00):
twenty four, the US Customs and Immigration Service, which is
one of these that typically consults on these, concluded that
and I'm going to quote here quote Afghanistans civilian population
faces dire challenges, including a collapsing economy and healthcare system,
ubiquitous food and security exacerbated by drought, and widespread in
(04:20):
security due to decades of armed conflict and insurgency that
are entering a new danger phase. It also stated that
the Caliban authorities violently target citizens and foster continued armed
conflict and in your ethnic strife, and that it imposed
the vitrictions on education, employment in other areas on women
that foreclose their ability to meaningful participate in their country.
(04:43):
So again, we're not necessarily challenging the underlying factual conclusion
of what's going on here, but we're saying that these
kinds of statements from the federal government itself demonstrate that
there's really something else going on here.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So Maryland Federal Judge Theodore Will Judge Schwang allowed your
challenge to TPS to go forward, but he declined to
halt the administration's policy and preserve GPS protections. He found
that your group hadn't established sufficient likelihood of success on
the merits. Will you explain why he thought that you
(05:19):
wouldn't succeed on the merits here?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I think Judge Swang issued a well considered and balanced opinion.
He concluded, as you said, that our challenge can go ahead,
notwithstanding a couple of jurisdictional arguments that the defendants had raised.
And he also concluded, by pointing to things like the
US Custom and Immigration Service report that I just quoted,
that we had plausibly alleged that the action taken with
(05:43):
respect to Afghanistan is part of a broader policy to
reduce the number of non white immigrants in this country
and to effectively terminate almost all TPS designations. But then
he said, we had not yet introduced enough evidence to
sort of get over that likelihood of the success on
the merits hump, And so there's some delta there in
his mind that we hadn't yet demonstrated that we could
(06:06):
get there, and he said, look, I'm going to allow
this claim to go forward. You all can go into
discovery and try and identify additional evidence that will support
your claim here, but at this point I'm not going
to enter relief. So we respectfully disagree with that part
of Judge Chwang's ruling. We think that the allegations that
(06:26):
we made here and the evidence before the court was
sufficient to at a minimum temporarily pause the termination of
Afghanistan's PPS designation while we get that discovery while things
play out. And that's sort of the similar request that
we've made of the Fourth Circuit is just to postpone
this agency action while the appeal plays out. And one
(06:48):
thing I'll just note here, you know, Judge Chwang noted
that other courts have entered preliminary relief of some sort
in response to similar claims and similar amounts of evidence
in the past and the first administration and said, well,
we hadn't produced enough evidence here. I think it's important
to note that in those cases, the time between when
(07:09):
the end of the TPS designation was announced and when
it took effect was in most cases more than a year,
so those parties had much more time to produce the
kind of evidence that Jige Chwang is asking for. When
we're asking for just this sort of temporary relief while
things are playing out to the merits, we think that
first of all, the evidence that we have produced and
(07:30):
the things that we've pointed to, like the thing from
USCS that I pointed you to, like some other statements
from President Trump and Secretary Nome, demonstrate that this is
part of a preordained effort and demonstrate that we will
likely succeed on the merits when we get there, especially
as we get into discovery and produce more evidence in
support of our argument.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So the Fourth Circuit gave you an administrative stay for
a week. What's happening in that week?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Right so for right now, as you mentioned at the
out said, the Afghan PPS designation was set to expire
on Monday. By virtue of the Fourth Circuits decision, it
postpones that action for at least that week, which means
that Afghans who are facing the possibility of either having
to leave this country or exist in some legal limbo
and not be able to work or able to do
(08:17):
so for at least this week. In the interim, the
Court has asked us to brief our request, formally called
a postponement of agency action pending appeal. The federal government's
brief is due by eleven to fifty nine pm Eastern tonight,
and then we have twenty four hours to return around
a reply, and then we'll get a decision, presumably at
some point before next week Monday at eleven fifty nine pm.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Is this a losing battle in the end, because if
and when it reaches the Supreme Court, you're not likely
to find a receptive audience, at least among the conservative justices.
At the end of May, the Supreme Court allowed the
Trump administration to immediately strip the legal right to temporarily
live in war work in the US from as many
(09:02):
as half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
And that followed another order in May that allowed the
administration to end TPS protections for three hundred and fifty
thousand Venezuelans. So is the Supreme Court likely to end
TPS protections for Afghans as well?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So I don't want to make too many predictions about
exactly what the Supreme Court is going to do here.
I will say that we're very confident in our case,
and I'd just like to parse out those prior grants
of I think stays of lower course orders. So with
respect to the cubanations, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans, that was actually
with respect to a parole program that had been adopted
by the Biden administration, so it didn't involve temporary protected status,
(09:45):
and I think, you know, sort of trying to extrapolate
what the court said they are and apply it here,
I think is a very difficult thing. Similarly, with respect
to the Venezuelan program, that was respect to the temporary
Protected status, but in that case, the arguments that were
being made were different from the ones that are are
being made here. There, for example, the plaintiffs argued that
Secretary Mayorkists who had extended the TPS designation for Venezuela
(10:09):
for about eighteen months at the end of the Biden administration,
and then Secretary Nome had revoked that extension. The plaintiffs
there argued that Secretary Nome doesn't have that sort of authority. We,
by contrast, here are arguing that the reasons that we're
given were pretextual that this was a preordained effort. Also,
you know, I think there are extremely strong equities here,
(10:32):
as Judge Swang recognized in his decision. I mean with
Afghans in particular, we're talking about individuals who served our country.
One of the members of COSTA who's our client here
is a person named Bs who faced death threats due
to her work as an interpreter for international and United
States agencies, and she's fearful that if she's returned, she's
(10:54):
going to be targeted by the Taliban if she goes
back to Afghanistan. So again, I think it's always a
little bit of azus proposition of guessing what the Supreme
Court might do if we get there. But we think
that we've got a very strong case and that what
the Court did with respect to Venezuela and with respect
to the parole program doesn't shed all that much light
on what it might do here.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
So can some of the Afghans that you're representing apply
for special immigrant visas or asylum?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Some may be able to, you know, but I think
it's important to emphasize here that TPS is, you know,
the bird in the hand. It guarantees them the ability
to be in this country. It guarantees them the ability
to work in this country. It guarantees them under the statute,
they cannot be put in detention on the basis of
their immigration status. Things that may not apply to everyone
(11:45):
that is securing or in the process at least of
securing relief through other means. So there might be other
things that are available. Whether or not they will ever
be able to take advantage of those status, you know,
who knows, especially as this administration has assiduously worked to
make those kinds of relief further out of reach.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
One of the things the White House Press Secretary said
was that temporary protected Status was never intended to be
a de facto asylum program and that it's not supposed
to be renewed over and over again.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
And I think that's certainly right. I mean, it's baked
into the name temporary protected status, But there are specific
criteria that the Secretary is supposed to analyze in good
faith in determining whether or not to designate a country
in the first place and to extend, including for example,
whether or not there's an ongoing armed conflict there, and
(12:37):
when the Secretary offers reasons that are contrary to one
or offers reasons that are protextual. We just don't think
that that's the basis for being able to terminate a
TPS protection. If she makes a good faith assessment, then
this can be terminated. And TPS designations have been terminated
in the past. Just hasn't done what the statue requires
(12:58):
in this instance.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Thanks so much for joining me. That's Samuel Siegel, Senior
counsel at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at
Georgetown Law.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I will now go to voting because we have competing
markups and other committees and people have to leave here soon.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
We'll go to Bovi's nomination.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
The clerk will call the rule as the chairman, Mister chairman,
point of personal privilege.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Chairman, mister Chairman, according to Rule four of the Committee,
we have the right to continue to debate this nomination.
I'm invoking Rule four of the Committee. We have the
right to debate this nomination.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Seconding Senator Booker's demand for a vote on his request
to hear from the wistle ble.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Mister Chairman, you should at least acknowledge my rule for
point of order. You're out of it. I don't understand this.
What are you afraid of about even debating this, putting
things on the record, hearing from every senator. Dear God,
that's what our obloations are.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
It was an unusual scene in the Senate Judiciary Committee
today as Republican chair Chuck Grassley called the role over
the protests of Democratic Senator Cory Booker that Grassly was
violating the rules of the committee by cutting off debate
on the controversial nomination of Emil Beauveat, President Trump's former
(14:22):
criminal lawyer to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals. The Democratic senators stormed out of the
room as the Republicans unanimously voted to advance Beauvet's nomination
to the full Senate. Since January, Beauvet has been serving
as the principal Deputy Attorney General, overseeing dozens of firings
(14:44):
of prosecutors who worked on January sixth connected cases and
the dismissal of bribery charges against New York City Mayor
Eric Adams, which prompted the resignation of seven veteran prosecutors
in New York. Democrats had wanted to hear from a whistleblower,
a former Justice Department lawyer who alleged that Beauvet encouraged
(15:05):
lawyers to defy court orders using foul language, something Beauvet
denied when asked by Democratic Senator Adam Schiff during his
confirmation hearings.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Senator, I have no recollection of saying anything of that
kind to the extent I you sure.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Recall, mister Bob, if you said or suggested during a
meeting with Justice Department lawyers, maybe they should consider telling
the court for you. It seems to me that would
be something you'd remember, unless that's the kind of thing
you say frequently.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Joining me is Dave Ahrenberg, former Palm Beach County State Attorney.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Dave.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
The Democrats just wanted to hear from this whistleblower who's
backed up his allegations with text messages. Why are the
Republicans even refused to call him, leading to this showdown,
which is probably getting more attention than his testimony would have.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Elections have consequences, is what's going on. Donald Trump ran
to be everyone's retribue, the people who want to get
back at other people in government, to go after the
deep state, to fire people at the DOJ and Emil
Beauveat has been his henchmen. And now he's going to
get a lifetime appointment to a prominent appellate court. And
(16:14):
there's been some buzz that Trump ultimately wants him to
be on the Supreme Court. But first things first, shouldn't
be surprised at the process is not up to snuff,
because when it comes to doing favors for the Boss,
the Republicans will roll over. If you're going to bet
on Republicans to stand up to President Trump or to
follow the traditional rules and norms like they do, like
(16:37):
it's been done for hundreds of years in the Senate,
you'll be waiting a long time and you'll be disappointed.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
There's been a lot of opposition from different camps to Bovey. Yesterday,
more than nine hundred former Justice Department lawyers signed a
letter to the Judiciary Committee urging the Senate to reject
his nomination. Do you think this means that Republicans will
advance every judicial nomination that Trump makes.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Well, Boba is different than the others because Bobat was
Trump's personal lawyer, and he's Trump's personal pick. This is
not someone that was recommended to him by the Federalist
Society or some outside group. This is someone Trump wanted
because Trump believes he will give Trump loyalty and he resents,
meaning Trump resents the Federalist Society and the old school
(17:23):
Conservatives who promise him that these judges would be constitutionalists
and good judges. Trump interpreted that to me loyal to him.
And so that's why Trump says, all right, he doesn't
like Leonard Leo anymore of the Federal Society. He's just
going to nominate people who'll be loyal to him and
do his bidding and help him weaponize not just the DOJ,
(17:45):
but also the bench.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And this is the reason why judges, even Republican judges,
are not retiring recently, because you know, it was one
thing when Trump was appointing judges in the classic mode
of conservatives judges, but now he's appointing loyalists.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Well, because Trump's not a traditional Republican. Trump only became
a Republican later in life. He's he's a Trumpean, He's
a Maga. It's different. And you're seeing the split within
the Republican Party now based on Jeffrey Epstein when it
comes to Maga turning on Donald Trump. A MAGA is
not loyal to the Republican Party. If Trump tells MAGA
(18:24):
to start its own party, they will. And so he
doesn't care about judges who are there as strict constructionalists
or are going to be good for traditional Republican and
business interests. No, he wants people who are loyal to him,
and that's why he wants a Milpa van in the court.
And that's why he's slow in nominating judges this time around.
Remember in the first term he was like a house
(18:46):
on fire. He nominated a ton of judges early on,
with the help of Mitch McConnell. But now he doesn't
want those judges. He wants people who are loyal to him,
and that's why it's harder to find folks who are
qualified who meet that's standard.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Let's turn to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's been in
the news a lot lately, and a case that I
find startling stunning. There's a plastic surgeon who is accused
of conspiracy to defraud the government, among other things, selling
about nineteen hundred fake COVID vaccination cards for nearly ninety
(19:22):
seven thousand dollars, destroying more than twenty eight thousand dollars
of government providing COVID vaccines. So he's on trial in Utah.
The prosecution is presenting its witnesses. Five days into the
prosecution's case, Bondi decides to drop the case. So she
orders the prosecutors to drop the case and dismiss the charges.
(19:45):
Have you ever heard of an instance where an attorney
general in mid trial dismissed charges.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
I can't think of one instance other than this. This
was a cause celeb on the far right, the MAGA world.
Marjorie Taylor Green was lobbing for him, and someone got
the attorney general's a year and made her believe this
was the political prosecution, that this guy is targeted because
he was helping parents have a choice of whether or
not to vaccinate their kids. Instead he was inject named
(20:15):
with saline. He was deceiving authorities and helping parents in
that way who wanted to buck the rules at the time.
So on the far right, this Sky is seen as
a hero. And since he is being prosecuted, not others
like this, I don't think there's any other case we
know of like this that was used as sac He's
being singled out even though others did the same thing.
(20:38):
That's questionable, but being singled out and with all the
pressure from the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world, especially
when you have everything going on, when Marjorie Tayler Green
and others in the MAGA world are turning on the
Trump a ministration because of Epstein, well, this was perhaps
the right time to do them a solid.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
What's also stunning is that Bondie credited Congressman Marjorie Taylor
Green and Senator Mike Lee on social media. So the
Attorney General giving credit to political leaders for dropping a case.
Does this show that the Justice Department is not maintaining
a division between politics and its prosecutorial decisions.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Remember what I said at the beginning of this interview,
elections have consequences. The voters chose a person who said
that I will be a retribution, and they made it
clear that he was going to turn the dj into
an agency that did his will, his bidding. And so
we shouldn't be surprised now that if he wants to
help a political supporter, especially one that's starting to turn
(21:43):
on him because of Epstein, that he's going to do it,
and ultimately he makes the decisions, and it shouldn't be
a surprise. This is what they campaigned on. Whenever someone
says we're going to stop the weaponization of the Department
of Justice, generally that means we're going to weaponize the
Department of Justice.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
By the way, that case, the Utah surgeon case, had
gone through the weaponization group and passed the weaponization group.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Right, They had this whole group as designed to root
out cases motivated by politics, and that group, that committee
said now this is okay, this is legit, and then
the decision was made to undo this case. Anyway, So
this was the type of thing that Trump ran on,
and it wasn't something that was out of totally out
(22:28):
of the ordinary. I mean, we have seen presidents be
very close to their attorney's general in the past. JFK
appoint his brother to be attorney general. Barack Obama had
his so called wingman, Eric Holder, is his attorney general.
It happens, but we haven't seen are decisions that are
at least obviously made because of politics. Now does it
happen anyways, Yes, But this is just like saying the
(22:51):
quiet part out loud.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
By the way, the Defense attorney said that she thought
that the prosecutors were joking when they called her on
Saturday to say we're dropping the charges in the middle
of trials. So that shows how unusually is you mentioned
the Epstein files, and Bondi is coming under fire. She's
facing increasing anger from the GOP bass and calls for
(23:15):
her resignation over her handling of the Epstein files. Why
do you think she went out upfront and said I
have the list. It's on my desk.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Well, to be fair, June, she didn't say I have
the list. It was asked of her on Fox News,
said that there's a list, right, and then she said
I have it on my desk. So the implication is
it's the list. But she then correct herself afterwards to
say that I meant I had his file on my desk,
And actually I believe that's what she meant. But at
(23:49):
the time, when you're on TV and you get caught
up in the moment with Fox News, you want to
please people, and people in the far right were clamoring
for the list, and you say something that was inexact,
and it's come back to Bier. But in the end,
there is no list. I mean, I was a state
attorney in Palm Beach County, six years after the Epstein
stuff was over. And it's clear based on everyone I've
(24:14):
spoken to and everything I've read outside the office, I
had no access to any inside information the grand jury
reports that were all kept by the clerk, not by
our office, but talking to prosecutors and reading about journalists.
If there is no list and Epstein did kill himself,
now that's different than the question of are the third
(24:34):
parties involved who should be prosecuted? Well, that's a different question,
and the DJ is saying no, We're going to end
it here. And I have thoughts about that. But in
the end, I think Bonnie was telling the truth that
there is no list and he did kill himself.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Coming up next, most Americans think the government is lying
about the Epstein files. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
This is Bloomberg Law.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
With June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
It's hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
While campaigning last year, President Donald Trump promised to release
files relating to Jeffrey Epstein, but this month, the Justice
Department said that Epstein did not maintain a client list
and said there was no additional information on the case
to release that sparked a furious reaction from many of
(25:26):
Trump's supporters and repeated calls to release the files. Trump
has attempted to tamp down the uproar with explanations like this.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
It's all been a big hoax.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It's perpetrated by the Democrats, and some stupid Republicans and
foolish Republicans fall into.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
The net, and so they try and do the Democrats work.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
But pressure continues to build on the Trump administration to
release the Epstein files, and according to a new Reuter
Zipsis poll, about sixty nine percent of Americans think the
federal government is hiding details about Epstein's clients. That compares
to just six percent who believed the government. I've been
(26:07):
talking to Dave Ahrenberg, former Palm Beach County State Attorney.
Dave not releasing the files seems to be feeding into
the conspiracy theories that there's something there to hide, and
it doesn't look like it's going to die down, so
why not just release the files.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
That's where they aired. They really did try to placate
the conspiracy theorists in their base, of which there are many.
In fact, Dan Bongino and Cash Bottel came to power
based on conspiracy theories. In fact, Donald Trump came to
power based on conspiracy theories. He ran on Barack Obama
being from Kenya. He then said the twenty twenty election
(26:45):
was stolen. Both of them were false, both conspiracy theories,
and then the third one on Jeffrey Epstein, and that
one is coming back to bite them because the alligator
is always hungry, and you can try to feed it,
eventually it's going to bite your face off. And that's
what they've learned. They over promised, and now the MAGA
base is churning on them and the facts are what
(27:07):
they are. As far as why aren't they releasing the
whole file, well, a few reasons. It is standard practice.
It is the norm that you don't release the names
of individuals unless you're going to charge them within the DOJ.
Of course, at the same time, this is the same
VOJ and Trump administration that has been breaking norms, so
this is the one norm they're adhering to. But I
do think the real reason is that President Trump's name
(27:30):
is caught up and it's not as doing anything illegal
or involved with human trafficking or illicit sex rings, but
just by being friends with this person of which a
lot of people were on Palm Beach. I don't think
he wants and his people don't want his name to
be out there and wants the story to end. But
by blocking the release of all the documents, it keeps
(27:51):
it going.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
We've been talking about politically motivated dismissals of cases. Let's
turn to politically motivated pross secutions of cases. Trump on
Truth Social has accused Senator Adam Schiff of mortgage fraud
and demanded that he'd be brought to justice. Schiff has
flatly denied that he falsely designated his Maryland home as
(28:15):
his primary residence. The request for the information on Schiff
apparently came from the fahfa's inspector General. It's also similar
to the allegations that have been made against New York
State Attorney General Letitia James. Does this chain of events
seem unusual or troubling.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Well, it's easy to send something to the FBI and
just say look at this wrongdoing, especially if it involves
an elected official. So we've seen this before about investigations
of that are politically motivated. The Russia probe of the investigators,
the probe that John Durham and Bill Barr conducted to
investigate the investigators that eventually blew up in their face
(28:59):
because they are built in safeguards, built in guardrails for
out of control prosecutors. If you go ahead and you
start charging people without evidence, that case, first off should
get thrown out by the grand jury. Will not be
indicted by the grand jury. And if it does, if
it meets that standard of evidence, which is relatively low,
then a judge could throw it out. And then if
it does ever get to a jury, the jury can
(29:20):
do what it did in a John Durham cases and
quickly acquit and then the prosecutor's egg all over his
or her face. So that's a cautionary tale. I've always
said that Pam Bondi is a twenty year prosecutor. She
will not cross the red line and Trump up to
use a term of fake evidence to bring bogus charges
against Trump's political enemies like Matt Gates would have. That's
(29:41):
why Matt Gates was the first Attorney general appointed by
Donald Trump before he had to back out because Gates
promised to blow the place up. Bondy knows better and
she's not going to do that and cross the red line.
And if that happens, have me on and I'll eat
some crow.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I will remember that, Dave. There seems to be a
continuing per urged by Bondie of Justice Department lawyers. Federal
prosecutor Maureen Comy, who worked on the criminal case of
Jeffrey Epstein and Glaine Maxwell, was the prosecutor in the
Sean Diddy Comb's case, was fired yesterday. Comy is also
(30:18):
the daughter of former FBI Director James Comy. It seems
too coincidental.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Oh, it's not. If you have the last name of
Komy and you work for this administration, you should prepare
the boxes to remove the stuff from your desk. Same
thing if you have the last name of Fauci or
anyone else on Trump's target list. He hates Komy. He
wants Comy prosecuted. So isis gonna allow his daughter to
(30:46):
continue in her prominent role at the SDNY, especially after
they lost the prominent case and Diddy. Now I know
they got the lesser charges, but they lost, so yeah,
so this was the time for them to do it.
Do I agree with it? Do I like it?
Speaker 5 (30:59):
No?
Speaker 4 (30:59):
No, I think prosecutor should be judged based on their
work product, not based on their last name. But again,
this is the kind of stuff Trump campaigned on being
your retribution.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I mean, would a prosecutor be fired after losing one
of the most high profile trials since probably the most
high profile trial since Trump was elected.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
No?
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Did Chris Darden and Marshall Clark get fired because they
lost the O. J. Simpson case. No, that doesn't happen
unless you're just incompetent at your job, and none of
those people were incompetent. So the only one fired is
the one who has the last name Comy.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
In another Justice Department move that's already drawing fire from
some California lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi. Attorney General Pam Bondi
this morning went on a tour of Alcatraz because President
Trump is thinking of turning it back into a prison now.
Alcatraz is currently a profit maker for the federal government.
(32:01):
As a tourist attraction. It earns about sixty million dollars
a year. I didn't think they were really serious about this,
but maybe they are. Why.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
It's about the show. Trump loves performative art, and this
is right up his alli. Remember the movie Escape from Alcatraz,
and it's a symbol of being a great movie, right, Clinticewood.
So Alcatraz is a symbol, it's the rock. It's just
a symbol of a government that was probably a little
too obsessed with visuals being tough on crime, when in
(32:34):
reality it wasn't all that. And it's now a tourist site. Well,
this is right up Trump's sally, all these other images
of him being tough on crime, telling police to hit
the suspect on the way and the car let him
bump the head on the car door on the way in.
If that isn't enough, well why not have the symbol
of Alcatraz no matter what the costs. After all, our
(32:54):
government can just print money, right, And it's not like
we're in massive deficits, are we.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
The cost of refurbishing the island and building a new
prison has been put at a quarter of a billion
dollars at a minimum. Let's turn to the other Alcatraz Alligator.
Alcatraz controversial, to say the least, immigration detention facility in
your neck of the woods in Florida. The detainees are
(33:20):
suing the Trump administration alleging inhumane conditions and unlawful confinement.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah, it's going to take time to wind through the courts.
Maybe we'll get an injunction and then the Supreme Court
has curtailed injunctions, but they could get one for this facility.
And from what I hear, they're right, it's not something
that should be there that This is again about show,
not the go. This is about imagery. They're selling swag
for Alligator Aclatraz swag. Oh yeah, it's on the Republican
(33:47):
Party's website. Governor Santis is pushing it. This is performative
art and it plays into exactly Trump's strength, which is
immigration and criminal mindagrants, even though the people they are
largely are not criminals. There are people who may have
overstayed their visas, but they didn't commit crimes in the
United States, at least not most of them were hearing.
(34:08):
The conditions are reportedly inhumane. The conditions may not even
survive a low level tropical storm, of which unfortunately Florida
gets this time of year. It's already flooding even before
there's ever been a tropical storm in the area. So
is this something that we should be doing? No, No, Again,
though it is about a symbol it's the same reason
(34:30):
why they're trying to pay two hundred and fifty million
dollars to restore the original Alcatraz. But at some point
you got to believe that voters, they just say, what
about substance? Is this kind of country we are where
it's all about symbolism, It's about showing people how overly
tough and harsh and punitive we are. Like maybe at
(34:51):
some point we can just go back to our roots
and just try to be that shining city on the hill.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
A state representative, Angie Nicks, and a Democratics representative in Florida,
is filing a separate suit against DeSantis challenging the legality
of the site's construction on protected land. Is that protected
land where it is?
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Native Americans say it is? But I mean again, these
lawsuits will take some time. And is she filing in
state court or federal court?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
State court?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
If it's in state court, the appellate judges were all
appointed by Republicans and many of them are appointed by
DeSantis and the Supreme Court of Florida six out of
seven conservative majority. And so if it's a state court lawsuit,
that ain't going anywhere. If it's a federal lawsuit. Perhaps
they could get an injunction, but this is going to
wind its way through the courts, and the win here
(35:41):
is not in keeping people there. That's not really the
concern of DeSantis and Trump. They just want the imagery,
and they like the imagery of having Democrats fight this
because the Democrats are fighting this on the Republicans' terrain.
It's much better for them to go to war on
this than to go to war on Epstein or on tariffs,
(36:04):
all notoriously unpopular.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
It's hard to get away from the Epstein files though.
Thanks so much, Dave. That's Dave Ehrenberg, former Palm Beach
County State Attorney. And that's it for this edition of
the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the
latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can
find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot
(36:26):
Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, Slash Law, and remember to
tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten
pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening
to Bloomberg
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A reprieve for nearly twelve thousand Afghans. An appeals court
stepped in to keep protections in place that have prevented
the Trump administration from deporting them. That's at least until Monday,
while both sides file legal briefs and the Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals makes a decision. The Trump administration has
(00:28):
moved aggressively to remove Temporary protected status from Afghans and
hundreds of thousands of people from six other countries as
part of the administration's effort to ramp up deportations. Joining
me is Samuel Siegel, Senior counselor at the Institute for
Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law along with the
(00:50):
Washington Lawyers Committee. It's representing KASA, a non profit immigrant
advocacy group that sued the administration over the TPS revocation
for Afghans as well as for people from Cameroon. So
before the appeals court stepped in, the Trump administration had
planned to end Temporary Protected Status for Afghans. Tell us
(01:14):
about that.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So, the Trump administration had announced that it was ending
temporary Protective Status for Afghanistan. This week, it announced that
the conditions that initially led to the designation of that country,
the ongoing on conflict between Taliban and other insurgent groups,
and the extraordinary humanitarian conditions, were essentially no longer so
(01:36):
severe that it merited that designation. I guess to take
a step back and talk a little bit about TPS.
TPS is a status that the Secretary of Homeland Security
can designate a particular country for based on certain conditions
in those countries, particularly if the country's experiencing an ongoing
armed conflict, if there's a natural disaster, or if there's
(01:56):
another extraordinary condition in the country. If the Secretary makes
that conclusion, then he or she will designate the country
for TPS, which allows individuals from those countries to live
and work in this country for a particular set period
of time. Secretary of ma Orcus concluded that Afghanistan merited
that determination back in twenty twenty two and extended in
(02:19):
twenty twenty three based on those conflicts and the conditions
in Afghanistan, and Secretary norm at least purported to say
that those conditions no longer existed now. Of course, our challenge.
One of our arguments is, in fact, that purported rationale
for the decision is not the one that's actually motivating
the actions here. Our argument is that this is a
(02:40):
preordained decision as part of the Trump administration's broader effort
to reduce the number of non white immigrants in this country,
and that's the basis on which we have asked the
Fourth Circuit to pause the GPS determination while the appeal
plays out.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Are you also arguing in this that what the Homeland
Security Secretary determined that you know, there are improvements in
security and economic situations, and that Afghan nationals can return.
Are you arguing that that's factually incorrect.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
We're not making that specific argument, in part because of
some jurisdictional bars on what the courts are allowed to consider.
I think what we are as pointing to that the
conditions in the country are not good, and this further
supports the argument that the purported rationales that things have
improved are not the actual one. So it's that mismatch
between what's actually going on in Afghanistan and the actions
(03:36):
here that support our argument that even if things might
have improved a little bit, and that's not really the
reason that she's doing that. And I will just note
to this effect. You know, as part of the litigation here,
the administration had to produce an administrative record, which is
all the things that were in front of the Secretary
when she made her decision. And in November of twenty
(04:00):
twenty four, the US Customs and Immigration Service, which is
one of these that typically consults on these, concluded that
and I'm going to quote here quote Afghanistans civilian population
faces dire challenges, including a collapsing economy and healthcare system,
ubiquitous food and security exacerbated by drought, and widespread in
(04:20):
security due to decades of armed conflict and insurgency that
are entering a new danger phase. It also stated that
the Caliban authorities violently target citizens and foster continued armed
conflict and in your ethnic strife, and that it imposed
the vitrictions on education, employment in other areas on women
that foreclose their ability to meaningful participate in their country.
(04:43):
So again, we're not necessarily challenging the underlying factual conclusion
of what's going on here, but we're saying that these
kinds of statements from the federal government itself demonstrate that
there's really something else going on here.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So Maryland Federal Judge Theodore Will Judge Schwang allowed your
challenge to TPS to go forward, but he declined to
halt the administration's policy and preserve GPS protections. He found
that your group hadn't established sufficient likelihood of success on
the merits. Will you explain why he thought that you
(05:19):
wouldn't succeed on the merits here?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I think Judge Swang issued a well considered and balanced opinion.
He concluded, as you said, that our challenge can go ahead,
notwithstanding a couple of jurisdictional arguments that the defendants had raised.
And he also concluded, by pointing to things like the
US Custom and Immigration Service report that I just quoted,
that we had plausibly alleged that the action taken with
(05:43):
respect to Afghanistan is part of a broader policy to
reduce the number of non white immigrants in this country
and to effectively terminate almost all TPS designations. But then
he said, we had not yet introduced enough evidence to
sort of get over that likelihood of the success on
the merits hump, And so there's some delta there in
his mind that we hadn't yet demonstrated that we could
(06:06):
get there, and he said, look, I'm going to allow
this claim to go forward. You all can go into
discovery and try and identify additional evidence that will support
your claim here, but at this point I'm not going
to enter relief. So we respectfully disagree with that part
of Judge Chwang's ruling. We think that the allegations that
(06:26):
we made here and the evidence before the court was
sufficient to at a minimum temporarily pause the termination of
Afghanistan's PPS designation while we get that discovery while things
play out. And that's sort of the similar request that
we've made of the Fourth Circuit is just to postpone
this agency action while the appeal plays out. And one
(06:48):
thing I'll just note here, you know, Judge Chwang noted
that other courts have entered preliminary relief of some sort
in response to similar claims and similar amounts of evidence
in the past and the first administration and said, well,
we hadn't produced enough evidence here. I think it's important
to note that in those cases, the time between when
(07:09):
the end of the TPS designation was announced and when
it took effect was in most cases more than a year,
so those parties had much more time to produce the
kind of evidence that Jige Chwang is asking for. When
we're asking for just this sort of temporary relief while
things are playing out to the merits, we think that
first of all, the evidence that we have produced and
(07:30):
the things that we've pointed to, like the thing from
USCS that I pointed you to, like some other statements
from President Trump and Secretary Nome, demonstrate that this is
part of a preordained effort and demonstrate that we will
likely succeed on the merits when we get there, especially
as we get into discovery and produce more evidence in
support of our argument.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So the Fourth Circuit gave you an administrative stay for
a week. What's happening in that week?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Right so for right now, as you mentioned at the
out said, the Afghan PPS designation was set to expire
on Monday. By virtue of the Fourth Circuits decision, it
postpones that action for at least that week, which means
that Afghans who are facing the possibility of either having
to leave this country or exist in some legal limbo
and not be able to work or able to do
(08:17):
so for at least this week. In the interim, the
Court has asked us to brief our request, formally called
a postponement of agency action pending appeal. The federal government's
brief is due by eleven to fifty nine pm Eastern tonight,
and then we have twenty four hours to return around
a reply, and then we'll get a decision, presumably at
some point before next week Monday at eleven fifty nine pm.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Is this a losing battle in the end, because if
and when it reaches the Supreme Court, you're not likely
to find a receptive audience, at least among the conservative justices.
At the end of May, the Supreme Court allowed the
Trump administration to immediately strip the legal right to temporarily
live in war work in the US from as many
(09:02):
as half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
And that followed another order in May that allowed the
administration to end TPS protections for three hundred and fifty
thousand Venezuelans. So is the Supreme Court likely to end
TPS protections for Afghans as well?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So I don't want to make too many predictions about
exactly what the Supreme Court is going to do here.
I will say that we're very confident in our case,
and I'd just like to parse out those prior grants
of I think stays of lower course orders. So with
respect to the cubanations, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans, that was actually
with respect to a parole program that had been adopted
by the Biden administration, so it didn't involve temporary protected status,
(09:45):
and I think, you know, sort of trying to extrapolate
what the court said they are and apply it here,
I think is a very difficult thing. Similarly, with respect
to the Venezuelan program, that was respect to the temporary
Protected status, but in that case, the arguments that were
being made were different from the ones that are are
being made here. There, for example, the plaintiffs argued that
Secretary Mayorkists who had extended the TPS designation for Venezuela
(10:09):
for about eighteen months at the end of the Biden administration,
and then Secretary Nome had revoked that extension. The plaintiffs
there argued that Secretary Nome doesn't have that sort of authority. We,
by contrast, here are arguing that the reasons that we're
given were pretextual that this was a preordained effort. Also,
you know, I think there are extremely strong equities here,
(10:32):
as Judge Swang recognized in his decision. I mean with
Afghans in particular, we're talking about individuals who served our country.
One of the members of COSTA who's our client here
is a person named Bs who faced death threats due
to her work as an interpreter for international and United
States agencies, and she's fearful that if she's returned, she's
(10:54):
going to be targeted by the Taliban if she goes
back to Afghanistan. So again, I think it's always a
little bit of azus proposition of guessing what the Supreme
Court might do if we get there. But we think
that we've got a very strong case and that what
the Court did with respect to Venezuela and with respect
to the parole program doesn't shed all that much light
on what it might do here.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
So can some of the Afghans that you're representing apply
for special immigrant visas or asylum?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Some may be able to, you know, but I think
it's important to emphasize here that TPS is, you know,
the bird in the hand. It guarantees them the ability
to be in this country. It guarantees them the ability
to work in this country. It guarantees them under the statute,
they cannot be put in detention on the basis of
their immigration status. Things that may not apply to everyone
(11:45):
that is securing or in the process at least of
securing relief through other means. So there might be other
things that are available. Whether or not they will ever
be able to take advantage of those status, you know,
who knows, especially as this administration has assiduously worked to
make those kinds of relief further out of reach.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
One of the things the White House Press Secretary said
was that temporary protected Status was never intended to be
a de facto asylum program and that it's not supposed
to be renewed over and over again.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
And I think that's certainly right. I mean, it's baked
into the name temporary protected status, But there are specific
criteria that the Secretary is supposed to analyze in good
faith in determining whether or not to designate a country
in the first place and to extend, including for example,
whether or not there's an ongoing armed conflict there, and
(12:37):
when the Secretary offers reasons that are contrary to one
or offers reasons that are protextual. We just don't think
that that's the basis for being able to terminate a
TPS protection. If she makes a good faith assessment, then
this can be terminated. And TPS designations have been terminated
in the past. Just hasn't done what the statue requires
(12:58):
in this instance.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Thanks so much for joining me. That's Samuel Siegel, Senior
counsel at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at
Georgetown Law.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I will now go to voting because we have competing
markups and other committees and people have to leave here soon.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
We'll go to Bovi's nomination.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
The clerk will call the rule as the chairman, Mister chairman,
point of personal privilege.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Chairman, mister Chairman, according to Rule four of the Committee,
we have the right to continue to debate this nomination.
I'm invoking Rule four of the Committee. We have the
right to debate this nomination.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Seconding Senator Booker's demand for a vote on his request
to hear from the wistle ble.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Mister Chairman, you should at least acknowledge my rule for
point of order. You're out of it. I don't understand this.
What are you afraid of about even debating this, putting
things on the record, hearing from every senator. Dear God,
that's what our obloations are.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
It was an unusual scene in the Senate Judiciary Committee
today as Republican chair Chuck Grassley called the role over
the protests of Democratic Senator Cory Booker that Grassly was
violating the rules of the committee by cutting off debate
on the controversial nomination of Emil Beauveat, President Trump's former
(14:22):
criminal lawyer to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals. The Democratic senators stormed out of the
room as the Republicans unanimously voted to advance Beauvet's nomination
to the full Senate. Since January, Beauvet has been serving
as the principal Deputy Attorney General, overseeing dozens of firings
(14:44):
of prosecutors who worked on January sixth connected cases and
the dismissal of bribery charges against New York City Mayor
Eric Adams, which prompted the resignation of seven veteran prosecutors
in New York. Democrats had wanted to hear from a whistleblower,
a former Justice Department lawyer who alleged that Beauvet encouraged
(15:05):
lawyers to defy court orders using foul language, something Beauvet
denied when asked by Democratic Senator Adam Schiff during his
confirmation hearings.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Senator, I have no recollection of saying anything of that
kind to the extent I you sure.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Recall, mister Bob, if you said or suggested during a
meeting with Justice Department lawyers, maybe they should consider telling
the court for you. It seems to me that would
be something you'd remember, unless that's the kind of thing
you say frequently.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Joining me is Dave Ahrenberg, former Palm Beach County State Attorney.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Dave.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
The Democrats just wanted to hear from this whistleblower who's
backed up his allegations with text messages. Why are the
Republicans even refused to call him, leading to this showdown,
which is probably getting more attention than his testimony would have.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Elections have consequences, is what's going on. Donald Trump ran
to be everyone's retribue, the people who want to get
back at other people in government, to go after the
deep state, to fire people at the DOJ and Emil
Beauveat has been his henchmen. And now he's going to
get a lifetime appointment to a prominent appellate court. And
(16:14):
there's been some buzz that Trump ultimately wants him to
be on the Supreme Court. But first things first, shouldn't
be surprised at the process is not up to snuff,
because when it comes to doing favors for the Boss,
the Republicans will roll over. If you're going to bet
on Republicans to stand up to President Trump or to
follow the traditional rules and norms like they do, like
(16:37):
it's been done for hundreds of years in the Senate,
you'll be waiting a long time and you'll be disappointed.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
There's been a lot of opposition from different camps to Bovey. Yesterday,
more than nine hundred former Justice Department lawyers signed a
letter to the Judiciary Committee urging the Senate to reject
his nomination. Do you think this means that Republicans will
advance every judicial nomination that Trump makes.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Well, Boba is different than the others because Bobat was
Trump's personal lawyer, and he's Trump's personal pick. This is
not someone that was recommended to him by the Federalist
Society or some outside group. This is someone Trump wanted
because Trump believes he will give Trump loyalty and he resents,
meaning Trump resents the Federalist Society and the old school
(17:23):
Conservatives who promise him that these judges would be constitutionalists
and good judges. Trump interpreted that to me loyal to him.
And so that's why Trump says, all right, he doesn't
like Leonard Leo anymore of the Federal Society. He's just
going to nominate people who'll be loyal to him and
do his bidding and help him weaponize not just the DOJ,
(17:45):
but also the bench.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And this is the reason why judges, even Republican judges,
are not retiring recently, because you know, it was one
thing when Trump was appointing judges in the classic mode
of conservatives judges, but now he's appointing loyalists.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Well, because Trump's not a traditional Republican. Trump only became
a Republican later in life. He's he's a Trumpean, He's
a Maga. It's different. And you're seeing the split within
the Republican Party now based on Jeffrey Epstein when it
comes to Maga turning on Donald Trump. A MAGA is
not loyal to the Republican Party. If Trump tells MAGA
(18:24):
to start its own party, they will. And so he
doesn't care about judges who are there as strict constructionalists
or are going to be good for traditional Republican and
business interests. No, he wants people who are loyal to him,
and that's why he wants a Milpa van in the court.
And that's why he's slow in nominating judges this time around.
Remember in the first term he was like a house
(18:46):
on fire. He nominated a ton of judges early on,
with the help of Mitch McConnell. But now he doesn't
want those judges. He wants people who are loyal to him,
and that's why it's harder to find folks who are
qualified who meet that's standard.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Let's turn to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's been in
the news a lot lately, and a case that I
find startling stunning. There's a plastic surgeon who is accused
of conspiracy to defraud the government, among other things, selling
about nineteen hundred fake COVID vaccination cards for nearly ninety
(19:22):
seven thousand dollars, destroying more than twenty eight thousand dollars
of government providing COVID vaccines. So he's on trial in Utah.
The prosecution is presenting its witnesses. Five days into the
prosecution's case, Bondi decides to drop the case. So she
orders the prosecutors to drop the case and dismiss the charges.
(19:45):
Have you ever heard of an instance where an attorney
general in mid trial dismissed charges.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
I can't think of one instance other than this. This
was a cause celeb on the far right, the MAGA world.
Marjorie Taylor Green was lobbing for him, and someone got
the attorney general's a year and made her believe this
was the political prosecution, that this guy is targeted because
he was helping parents have a choice of whether or
not to vaccinate their kids. Instead he was inject named
(20:15):
with saline. He was deceiving authorities and helping parents in
that way who wanted to buck the rules at the time.
So on the far right, this Sky is seen as
a hero. And since he is being prosecuted, not others
like this, I don't think there's any other case we
know of like this that was used as sac He's
being singled out even though others did the same thing.
(20:38):
That's questionable, but being singled out and with all the
pressure from the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world, especially
when you have everything going on, when Marjorie Tayler Green
and others in the MAGA world are turning on the
Trump a ministration because of Epstein, well, this was perhaps
the right time to do them a solid.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
What's also stunning is that Bondie credited Congressman Marjorie Taylor
Green and Senator Mike Lee on social media. So the
Attorney General giving credit to political leaders for dropping a case.
Does this show that the Justice Department is not maintaining
a division between politics and its prosecutorial decisions.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Remember what I said at the beginning of this interview,
elections have consequences. The voters chose a person who said
that I will be a retribution, and they made it
clear that he was going to turn the dj into
an agency that did his will, his bidding. And so
we shouldn't be surprised now that if he wants to
help a political supporter, especially one that's starting to turn
(21:43):
on him because of Epstein, that he's going to do it,
and ultimately he makes the decisions, and it shouldn't be
a surprise. This is what they campaigned on. Whenever someone
says we're going to stop the weaponization of the Department
of Justice, generally that means we're going to weaponize the
Department of Justice.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
By the way, that case, the Utah surgeon case, had
gone through the weaponization group and passed the weaponization group.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Right, They had this whole group as designed to root
out cases motivated by politics, and that group, that committee
said now this is okay, this is legit, and then
the decision was made to undo this case. Anyway, So
this was the type of thing that Trump ran on,
and it wasn't something that was out of totally out
(22:28):
of the ordinary. I mean, we have seen presidents be
very close to their attorney's general in the past. JFK
appoint his brother to be attorney general. Barack Obama had
his so called wingman, Eric Holder, is his attorney general.
It happens, but we haven't seen are decisions that are
at least obviously made because of politics. Now does it
happen anyways, Yes, But this is just like saying the
(22:51):
quiet part out loud.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
By the way, the Defense attorney said that she thought
that the prosecutors were joking when they called her on
Saturday to say we're dropping the charges in the middle
of trials. So that shows how unusually is you mentioned
the Epstein files, and Bondi is coming under fire. She's
facing increasing anger from the GOP bass and calls for
(23:15):
her resignation over her handling of the Epstein files. Why
do you think she went out upfront and said I
have the list. It's on my desk.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Well, to be fair, June, she didn't say I have
the list. It was asked of her on Fox News,
said that there's a list, right, and then she said
I have it on my desk. So the implication is
it's the list. But she then correct herself afterwards to
say that I meant I had his file on my desk,
And actually I believe that's what she meant. But at
(23:49):
the time, when you're on TV and you get caught
up in the moment with Fox News, you want to
please people, and people in the far right were clamoring
for the list, and you say something that was inexact,
and it's come back to Bier. But in the end,
there is no list. I mean, I was a state
attorney in Palm Beach County, six years after the Epstein
stuff was over. And it's clear based on everyone I've
(24:14):
spoken to and everything I've read outside the office, I
had no access to any inside information the grand jury
reports that were all kept by the clerk, not by
our office, but talking to prosecutors and reading about journalists.
If there is no list and Epstein did kill himself,
now that's different than the question of are the third
(24:34):
parties involved who should be prosecuted? Well, that's a different question,
and the DJ is saying no, We're going to end
it here. And I have thoughts about that. But in
the end, I think Bonnie was telling the truth that
there is no list and he did kill himself.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Coming up next, most Americans think the government is lying
about the Epstein files. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
This is Bloomberg Law.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
With June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
It's hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
While campaigning last year, President Donald Trump promised to release
files relating to Jeffrey Epstein, but this month, the Justice
Department said that Epstein did not maintain a client list
and said there was no additional information on the case
to release that sparked a furious reaction from many of
(25:26):
Trump's supporters and repeated calls to release the files. Trump
has attempted to tamp down the uproar with explanations like this.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
It's all been a big hoax.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It's perpetrated by the Democrats, and some stupid Republicans and
foolish Republicans fall into.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
The net, and so they try and do the Democrats work.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
But pressure continues to build on the Trump administration to
release the Epstein files, and according to a new Reuter
Zipsis poll, about sixty nine percent of Americans think the
federal government is hiding details about Epstein's clients. That compares
to just six percent who believed the government. I've been
(26:07):
talking to Dave Ahrenberg, former Palm Beach County State Attorney.
Dave not releasing the files seems to be feeding into
the conspiracy theories that there's something there to hide, and
it doesn't look like it's going to die down, so
why not just release the files.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
That's where they aired. They really did try to placate
the conspiracy theorists in their base, of which there are many.
In fact, Dan Bongino and Cash Bottel came to power
based on conspiracy theories. In fact, Donald Trump came to
power based on conspiracy theories. He ran on Barack Obama
being from Kenya. He then said the twenty twenty election
(26:45):
was stolen. Both of them were false, both conspiracy theories,
and then the third one on Jeffrey Epstein, and that
one is coming back to bite them because the alligator
is always hungry, and you can try to feed it,
eventually it's going to bite your face off. And that's
what they've learned. They over promised, and now the MAGA
base is churning on them and the facts are what
(27:07):
they are. As far as why aren't they releasing the
whole file, well, a few reasons. It is standard practice.
It is the norm that you don't release the names
of individuals unless you're going to charge them within the DOJ.
Of course, at the same time, this is the same
VOJ and Trump administration that has been breaking norms, so
this is the one norm they're adhering to. But I
do think the real reason is that President Trump's name
(27:30):
is caught up and it's not as doing anything illegal
or involved with human trafficking or illicit sex rings, but
just by being friends with this person of which a
lot of people were on Palm Beach. I don't think
he wants and his people don't want his name to
be out there and wants the story to end. But
by blocking the release of all the documents, it keeps
(27:51):
it going.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
We've been talking about politically motivated dismissals of cases. Let's
turn to politically motivated pross secutions of cases. Trump on
Truth Social has accused Senator Adam Schiff of mortgage fraud
and demanded that he'd be brought to justice. Schiff has
flatly denied that he falsely designated his Maryland home as
(28:15):
his primary residence. The request for the information on Schiff
apparently came from the fahfa's inspector General. It's also similar
to the allegations that have been made against New York
State Attorney General Letitia James. Does this chain of events
seem unusual or troubling.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Well, it's easy to send something to the FBI and
just say look at this wrongdoing, especially if it involves
an elected official. So we've seen this before about investigations
of that are politically motivated. The Russia probe of the investigators,
the probe that John Durham and Bill Barr conducted to
investigate the investigators that eventually blew up in their face
(28:59):
because they are built in safeguards, built in guardrails for
out of control prosecutors. If you go ahead and you
start charging people without evidence, that case, first off should
get thrown out by the grand jury. Will not be
indicted by the grand jury. And if it does, if
it meets that standard of evidence, which is relatively low,
then a judge could throw it out. And then if
it does ever get to a jury, the jury can
(29:20):
do what it did in a John Durham cases and
quickly acquit and then the prosecutor's egg all over his
or her face. So that's a cautionary tale. I've always
said that Pam Bondi is a twenty year prosecutor. She
will not cross the red line and Trump up to
use a term of fake evidence to bring bogus charges
against Trump's political enemies like Matt Gates would have. That's
(29:41):
why Matt Gates was the first Attorney general appointed by
Donald Trump before he had to back out because Gates
promised to blow the place up. Bondy knows better and
she's not going to do that and cross the red line.
And if that happens, have me on and I'll eat
some crow.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I will remember that, Dave. There seems to be a
continuing per urged by Bondie of Justice Department lawyers. Federal
prosecutor Maureen Comy, who worked on the criminal case of
Jeffrey Epstein and Glaine Maxwell, was the prosecutor in the
Sean Diddy Comb's case, was fired yesterday. Comy is also
(30:18):
the daughter of former FBI Director James Comy. It seems
too coincidental.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Oh, it's not. If you have the last name of
Komy and you work for this administration, you should prepare
the boxes to remove the stuff from your desk. Same
thing if you have the last name of Fauci or
anyone else on Trump's target list. He hates Komy. He
wants Comy prosecuted. So isis gonna allow his daughter to
(30:46):
continue in her prominent role at the SDNY, especially after
they lost the prominent case and Diddy. Now I know
they got the lesser charges, but they lost, so yeah,
so this was the time for them to do it.
Do I agree with it? Do I like it?
Speaker 5 (30:59):
No?
Speaker 4 (30:59):
No, I think prosecutor should be judged based on their
work product, not based on their last name. But again,
this is the kind of stuff Trump campaigned on being
your retribution.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I mean, would a prosecutor be fired after losing one
of the most high profile trials since probably the most
high profile trial since Trump was elected.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
No?
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Did Chris Darden and Marshall Clark get fired because they
lost the O. J. Simpson case. No, that doesn't happen
unless you're just incompetent at your job, and none of
those people were incompetent. So the only one fired is
the one who has the last name Comy.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
In another Justice Department move that's already drawing fire from
some California lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi. Attorney General Pam Bondi
this morning went on a tour of Alcatraz because President
Trump is thinking of turning it back into a prison now.
Alcatraz is currently a profit maker for the federal government.
(32:01):
As a tourist attraction. It earns about sixty million dollars
a year. I didn't think they were really serious about this,
but maybe they are. Why.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
It's about the show. Trump loves performative art, and this
is right up his alli. Remember the movie Escape from Alcatraz,
and it's a symbol of being a great movie, right, Clinticewood.
So Alcatraz is a symbol, it's the rock. It's just
a symbol of a government that was probably a little
too obsessed with visuals being tough on crime, when in
(32:34):
reality it wasn't all that. And it's now a tourist site. Well,
this is right up Trump's sally, all these other images
of him being tough on crime, telling police to hit
the suspect on the way and the car let him
bump the head on the car door on the way in.
If that isn't enough, well why not have the symbol
of Alcatraz no matter what the costs. After all, our
(32:54):
government can just print money, right, And it's not like
we're in massive deficits, are we.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
The cost of refurbishing the island and building a new
prison has been put at a quarter of a billion
dollars at a minimum. Let's turn to the other Alcatraz Alligator.
Alcatraz controversial, to say the least, immigration detention facility in
your neck of the woods in Florida. The detainees are
(33:20):
suing the Trump administration alleging inhumane conditions and unlawful confinement.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah, it's going to take time to wind through the courts.
Maybe we'll get an injunction and then the Supreme Court
has curtailed injunctions, but they could get one for this facility.
And from what I hear, they're right, it's not something
that should be there that This is again about show,
not the go. This is about imagery. They're selling swag
for Alligator Aclatraz swag. Oh yeah, it's on the Republican
(33:47):
Party's website. Governor Santis is pushing it. This is performative
art and it plays into exactly Trump's strength, which is
immigration and criminal mindagrants, even though the people they are
largely are not criminals. There are people who may have
overstayed their visas, but they didn't commit crimes in the
United States, at least not most of them were hearing.
(34:08):
The conditions are reportedly inhumane. The conditions may not even
survive a low level tropical storm, of which unfortunately Florida
gets this time of year. It's already flooding even before
there's ever been a tropical storm in the area. So
is this something that we should be doing? No, No, Again,
though it is about a symbol it's the same reason
(34:30):
why they're trying to pay two hundred and fifty million
dollars to restore the original Alcatraz. But at some point
you got to believe that voters, they just say, what
about substance? Is this kind of country we are where
it's all about symbolism, It's about showing people how overly
tough and harsh and punitive we are. Like maybe at
(34:51):
some point we can just go back to our roots
and just try to be that shining city on the hill.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
A state representative, Angie Nicks, and a Democratics representative in Florida,
is filing a separate suit against DeSantis challenging the legality
of the site's construction on protected land. Is that protected
land where it is?
Speaker 4 (35:12):
Native Americans say it is? But I mean again, these
lawsuits will take some time. And is she filing in
state court or federal court?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
State court?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
If it's in state court, the appellate judges were all
appointed by Republicans and many of them are appointed by
DeSantis and the Supreme Court of Florida six out of
seven conservative majority. And so if it's a state court lawsuit,
that ain't going anywhere. If it's a federal lawsuit. Perhaps
they could get an injunction, but this is going to
wind its way through the courts, and the win here
(35:41):
is not in keeping people there. That's not really the
concern of DeSantis and Trump. They just want the imagery,
and they like the imagery of having Democrats fight this
because the Democrats are fighting this on the Republicans' terrain.
It's much better for them to go to war on
this than to go to war on Epstein or on tariffs,
(36:04):
all notoriously unpopular.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
It's hard to get away from the Epstein files though.
Thanks so much, Dave. That's Dave Ehrenberg, former Palm Beach
County State Attorney. And that's it for this edition of
the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the
latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can
find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot
(36:26):
Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, Slash Law, and remember to
tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten
pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening
to Bloomberg
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