Major update on Trump defying court order - Brian Tyler Cohen

[TexasTowelie]

you're watching the legal breakdown
glenn the eyes of the nation are on
judge boseberg's courtroom right now
judge boseberg demanded that donald
trump's administration not continue to
deport these venezuelans who are accused
gang members until they've actually had
their due process the trump
administration refused to comply with
this court order and so in turn judge
boseberg demanded that the trump
administration come back into into court
to explain themselves we now have an
update as far as how that hearing went
can you explain what happened you know
it's pretty clear brian based on the
reporting that chief judge jeb booseberg
the chief judge of federal district
court in washington dc when he was
grilling donald trump's doj lawyers
about why it appears that they may have
violated his court order to turn planes
around the reporting is boseberg was
incredulous i'm going to use a word from
my jersey days it seems like judge
boseberg was pissed and he has demanded
more information here is the form that
more information will take the first
thing he said when the doj attorneys
were kind of doing the homina we don't
have all the details we don't know
exactly where the planes full of
venezuelans that had been snatched up by
donald trump's thugs and put on this
plane and sent where not to venezuela
but to el salvador with no court hearing
no due process no evidentiary showing
that these people were even sort of
susceptible to being detained and
deported and the doj lawyers didn't have
a lot of answers jeb booseberg judge
booseberg was incredulous and he said
"here's what i'm ordering you to do i
want a sworn affidavit." so that sort of
gets around the doj lawyers you know
yammering and stammering about we don't
really know what went on here i want a
sworn affidavit with a chronology he
didn't say minuteby minute but they
would probably be well advised to make
it a minuteby-minute chronology about
when those planes took off when they
received notice of judge boseberg's
order to turn the dang planes around
when those planes landed and he he judge
boseberg said "y'all are coming back
into court and we are going to drill
down and see if the trump administration
intentionally violated my court order."
and if he concludes that the trump
administration did intentionally and
knowingly violate his court order i
think the next thing we're going to hear
is the c-word contempt of court but
judge boseberg will decide what if any
next steps should be taken one to
address and remedy this situation and
two to punish to hold accountable the
trump administration in the event they
did intentionally violate a federal
judge's order on the latter half of what
you just spoke about what does contempt
look like for the federal government
it's not like they have to spend any of
their own money for example so so what
really can can judges do when you hold
the federal government in contempt
there's quite a bit they can do brian
there are two kinds of contempt civil
contempt and criminal contempt civil
contempt is the lesser sanction or
penalty so let's start with that civil
contempt is designed to put um usually
monetary fines or other conditions in
place to urge the federal government to
come into compliance with court orders
to basically what we call purge the
contempt get rid of the contempt by
beginning to abide by existing court
orders that's civil contempt however if
there are trump administration officials
up to and including donald trump um who
just intentionally defy and thumb their
nose at and disobey court orders then
the judge can say "i am prepared to hold
you in criminal contempt." now if you're
going to hold somebody in criminal
contempt there has to be notice and an
opportunity to be heard basically a mini
contempt trial and here is the really
good news brian um ordinarily judges
cannot initiate prosecutions on their
own why because prosecutions are
exclusively an executive branch function
and responsibility it's the department
of justice under the control now indeed
under the thumb of donald trump that
gets to make the decision whether to
prosecute a case or not that generally
includes contempt charges except when
the department of justice refuses to
prosecute a contempt charge that is
based on a violation of a judge's court
order then the judge has the opportunity
to appoint an independent prosecutor and
have that person prosecute the contempt
charge against the federal official so
that is good news on the procedural
front now let me tell you brian there's
some great law review articles out there
that collect up all of the instances of
contempt by federal government agencies
and officials and what i will say is in
reading that law review article rarely
does push come to shove rarely do judges
go all the way to criminal contempt
hearings for example a a cabinet
official who just steadfastly refuses to
comply with federal court orders but
importantly the federal judges have the
power and the authority to do it and if
ever that power and authority is going
to be tested it looks like it's in this
lawless trump administration can i drop
some cold water on on this theory and
and ask what about presidential pardon
powers i mean doesn't trump have have
cart blanch to basically issue pardons
in the event that some administration
official of his does get does get um
found to be in criminal contempt that he
could just issue a pardon and wipe the
slate clean well i'm going to be honest
here full disclosure there is no
precedent in other words no appellet
court up to and including the supreme
court has ever had to wrestle with that
precise legal issue that you just
spotted you really have earned your law
degree after nearly 500 episodes of the
legal breakdown that you and i have been
doing over the years it's a great
question let me give you my informed
opinion on how a court would rule you're
absolutely right recently the supreme
court has reaffirmed just how broad and
sweeping a president's pardon power is
however just as the courts can never
appoint a prosecutor except in the
instance when their own authority their
own lawful constitutional authority is
being defied by the executive branch i
predict the supreme court will say it is
a natural followon that if there is a
criminal contempt conviction of a
federal government official under those
circumstances guess what the president's
pardon power doesn't extend to that why
because that is a a an offense against
the judiciary that is necessary to
uphold the judiciary's separate but
equal powers as a co-equal branch of
government completely untested in the
courts but i actually think that result
makes a lot of sense glenn as the result
of this john roberts took the rare step
of coming out and issuing a rebuke of
donald trump because trump logged on the
truth social surprise surprise demanding
that judge boseberg actually be
impeached for committing the cardinal
sin of of not allowing him to just dis i
mean he's disappearing people who
haven't even been charged with a crime
or much less convicted of a crime and so
what do you make of the fact that we
actually now have supreme court justices
on this far-right supreme court who are
taking a stand against trump's overreach
yeah a really important statement and
let me say that chief justices of the
supreme court almost never speak
publicly about these kind of issues or
disputes indeed they usually do all of
their speaking through their rulings but
here is what the chief justice said
after you know elon musk calls for
impeachments of of judges who displease
i guess he and donald trump and donald
trump actually made some really
inmperate remarks about uh jeb booseberg
recently here is what the chief justice
said for more than two centuries the
chief justice said "it has been
established that impeachment is not an
appropriate response to disagreement
concerning a judicial decision." the
normal appellet review process exists
for that purpose if i can translate that
from justice to english that is
basically john roberts telling donald
trump and elon musk "shut the hell up."
and he's exactly right you know these
calls that we all know endanger judges
when donald trump begins to call them
names and and elon musk insists that
they must be impeached and removed
because they issued some ruling that you
know displeased musk and trump this is
dangerous we have seen judges like tanya
chutkin in dc and juan m in new york be
put in harm's way death threats come
pouring in from trump supporters their
homes are swatted in other words false
reports are made to the police that a
violent crime happened inside their home
such that swat teams show up at judges
homes with guns drawn i mean this is the
kind of nonsense and garbage and
dangerous inflammatory conduct that
really has to stop and in his you know
rather subtle way the chief justice of
the united states just told donald trump
and elon musk "this has got to stop."
glenn you you were actually quoted in an
article in the washington post i'll put
that right here on the screen this is
about judge booseberg you said that
judge booseberg is a singularly
remarkable prosecutor i say that because
he never lost a murder case and because
he would never tell anybody he never
lost a murder case it wasn't in his dna
to talk about himself or his
accomplishments i don't think there's
anybody better suited or better equipped
to handle these challenges to the
independence of the judiciary or
challenges to american democracy and so
can you talk about these attacks on
somebody look it would be one thing if
you had a judge who is as partisan as oh
i don't know let's say judge eileen
cannon down in florida but that's not
the case with judge boseberg who is
daining to defer not to donald trump but
to the law as it's written yeah jeb
booseberg in my experience and i've
known him for decades not only did i
supervise him when he was a homicide
prosecutor in my homicide section at the
dc us attorney's office he was my trial
partner we went to court every day stood
shoulder-to-shoulder trying some really
horrific murder cases you know you want
to take the measure of a man or a woman
have them as a trial partner in a you
know really high stakes murder case you
know this is a man who is singularly
devoted to the rule of law to the
constitution and applies you know the
rules and the laws without fear or favor
fairly and equally without any bias in
favor or against one party or the other
i actually can sleep well at night
knowing that we have somebody like judge
boseberg litigating these most
consequential issues because regardless
of how he rules it's going to be right
it's going to be accurate in accordance
with the law and the constitution and
brian you know people for may not
remember they may not have known in the
first instance you know judge boseberg
was also the chief of the fisa court the
foreign intelligence surveillance act
court when that whole thing blew up with
the carter page fisa warrant that was
issued and it had some misinformation in
it you know judge boseberg took a look
at what happened there and after the
durham report came out remember special
counsel john durham investigate the
investigators well there was a an fbi
employee who i believe was a lawyer who
was caught altering an email and that
altered information bad information
false information made its way into a
fisa application judge boseberg went
after that so hard he banned that person
from ever having anything to do with any
fisa court applications moving forward
and he also put safeguards in place
demanding that the the department of
justice account for how it is these
mistakes were made making sure there
were no other mistakes out there that
went undiscovered and unressed you know
these were things that if people looked
at them they would say "wow that seems
those seem to be pro-trump rulings pro-
john durham rulings." it didn't matter
how those rulings played out who they
helped who they hurt who they held
accountable who they exonerated he did
the right thing under all circumstances
and that is what he will continue to do
regardless of what elon musk or even
donald trump says about him well look
this is especially important i mean
really this case is kind of what we've
been expecting so to speak in the sense
that we've waited to see what happens
when the trump administration inevitably
decides to discard uh the ruling handed
down from a judge and that's what we're
seeing right now so uh hopefully uh we
will see the judge judge boseberg here
take a hard line against this uh against
this just complete this decision to
completely ignore a lawful order so a
lot more to come on this topic in
particular for those who are watching
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you're watching the legal breakdown