Trump makes devastating mistake in federal court - Brian Tyler Cohen

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Legal Breakdown episode 493: ‪@GlennKirschner2‬ discusses Trump's absurd justification in court.

Transcript:

you're watching the legal breakdown
glenn we have been talking a lot about
this deportation case that's going back
and forth in between the courts the
Trump administration has now invoked
what's called the state secrets doctrine
them doing this is as insane a move as
they can possibly pull can you explain
why yeah Brian this is absurd you know
we got to back up a little bit first
Judge James Booseberg who is presiding
over the litigation regarding the
unconstitutional deportation by the
Trump administration of a couple of
hundred Venezuelan immigrants and they
deported them to El Salvador we can talk
about why that is in a minute but Judge
Booseberg understanding that these
people were essentially being kidnapped
and you know sent to foreign lands
without having their constitutional
rights protected be because before you
deport somebody you are entitled to
notice and an opportunity to be heard in
court the Trump administration says "We
have no interest in complying with the
Constitution." So Judge Boseberg issued
an order on March 15th stop do not send
any more planes carrying migrants who
haven't had their constitutional rights
honored to Venezuela El Salvador or
anywhere else and in the event any of
these planes have taken off you need to
turn them around and bring them back
importantly Judge Boseberg said "Well
you don't need to release them from
custody you just need to get them into
court to honor their constitutional
rights of notice and opportunity to be
heard you know what the Trump
administration said in the face of that
court order nope we're not going to do
it so the next thing Judge Booseberg did
he said "Okay fine now I'm going to need
a whole bunch of information and
evidence to see if you intentionally
violated my court order such that I
should consider holding Trump
administration officials into contempt."
And when the judge asked for that
additional information the Trump
administration through his dirty DOJ
lawyers said um no we're not going to
provide you with information and here is
the reason they gave the judge for
refusing to provide that information
this is protected information under the
state secrets doctrine we couldn't
possibly tell you judge the information
that you are seeking what information is
that he wanted to know who these people
were that were unlawfully
unconstitutionally deported what time
the planes left and what time the planes
landed now get this Brian this would be
laughable if it wasn't so serious this
deprivation of constitutional rights
there are flight crews who know this
information when the planes took off
when they landed and who was on the
planes that went to El Salvador there
are ground crews there are airfield
crews there are hundreds and hundreds of
Venezuela migrants who know when the
planes took off and landed there are
probably hundreds if not thousands of
people in El Salvador who know when the
planes landed because they took these
people into custody and Brian here's the
kicker the Trump administration filmed
this stuff and released the videos
publicly but now they're telling Judge
James Boseberg he can't possibly be
trusted with this information because it
would reveal state secrets now Brian who
is Judge Booseberg first of all he's the
chief judge of federal district court in
Washington DC but here's the kicker he's
also the chief judge of the alien
terrorist removal court which was insted
by Congress in
1996 to deal with whether alien
terrorists should be deported or not
this is so absurd it is so you know
laughable that they're trying to pull
out this state secrets doctrine to
prevent giving Jeb Booseberg the
information that will enable him to say
you know what you violated my order and
I'm going to initiate contempt
proceedings against you so just just to
clarify so I can make sure that I'm
understanding here we couldn't possibly
understand somebody who is perhaps the
most qualified lawyer in his field to
deal with this exact issue because we
need to preserve um secret information
that they also simultaneously posted on
the internet on their official White
House channels uh for the entire world
to see as part of propaganda videos and
so that's how they have to preserve
secrecy in this whole process that they
are that they're uh holding holding as
dear as they possibly could does that
about sum it up brian you have a firm
grasp of the rationale that Trump's
dirty DOJ lawyers are offering for not
disclosing this information to Jeb
Booseberg i'm going to just take a flyer
and say the reason they don't want to
provide any more information is because
they know they violated the court order
and they know they will be facing
sanctions for contempt so you know this
is a game of chicken they're playing
they're not playing it well and I
predict it is not going to end well for
these DOJ lawyers who are making these
absurd arguments okay so so they uh
invoke the state secrets doctrine um and
it is so aggressively antithetical to
reality and so what happens here as far
as Judge Boseberg's concerned can he can
he impose sanctions on these lawyers for
for taking
such an unserious approach to what he's
doing i mean clearly he's not going to
stand for this and just say like "Oh
yeah the same video that you used to
create full-blown fascist propaganda and
and broadcast to hundreds of millions of
people that's the information that
you're supposedly saying is so secret
that we can't even tell a judge who's
presiding over this case about." Yeah
let me let me tell you what Judge
Boseberg has available to him by way of
sanctioning punishing holding in
contempt these DOJ officials but before
I do that let me just round out what we
were discussing because when they say we
couldn't possibly provide this
information to Judge Booseberg there are
actually mechanisms that are designed to
address just this highly sensitive
information that prosecutors need to
share with judges you know judges often
have some of our nation's sort of
highest level security clearances and
they have the ability to do two things
take information from prosecutors
exparte and in camera two fancy Latin
terms we don't need to use Latin terms
but lawyers tend to make things more
confusing than they need to be a judge
can actually say I'm going to take this
information exparte what does that mean
only one party will be privy to it so
the DOJ attorneys can literally share
this you know confidential information
with the judge and they can exclude the
defense attorneys who represent the
Venezuela immigrants whose
constitutional rights were violated plus
the judge can do it what's called in
camera meaning literally behind closed
doors in chambers no defense attorney no
public access no media access so there
are so many vehicles for the DOJ lawyers
to provide this information to to uh to
Jeb to Judge Boseberg so what happens
now well there are two kinds of contempt
that the judge can pursue there's civil
contempt and there's criminal contempt
civil contempt is basically when the
judge wants to urge or inspire or
encourage the executive branch to comply
with orders it feels like that ship has
already sailed but he can impose fines
for example on an administration find
them each day they don't comply with
court orders but like I say the damage
has already been done here because you
know several hundred Venezuelan
immigrants are now in prisons in El
Salvador why El Salvador well Brian the
reporting is that the El Salvadoran
government agreed to pay the Trump
administration money to house the
Venezuelan immigrants in an El
Salvadoran prison shocking I know so we
may be looking at criminal contempt what
does criminal contempt look like well
when you intentionally intentionally
violate a court order you are then put
on a mini trial guess what you get you
get a constitutional right to notice and
an opportunity to be heard exactly the
same rights that the Trump
administration deprived these Venezuelan
immigrants of and then there's a mini
trial and the judge decides if for
example a Trump administration official
or DOJ attorneys have intentionally
violated court orders they can be held
in contempt you know they may be fined
personally but even more importantly
they can actually um be sent to prison
for for a period of days or months so
this is nothing to play with and I would
suggest if they think they're going to
keep playing this hide the ball game
from Judge Boseberg it's not going to
end well for the Trump administration
glenn given the whole suite of options
that are in front of Judge Boseberg is
there any indication as to whether he's
going to go very extreme or or very slow
in terms of the application of these
punishments yeah it's a good question
rarely do judges hold executive branch
officials in contempt they have I would
I would I would also push back rarely
does something like do they give them a
reason to to the extent that the Trump
administration has and Brian it was an
appellet court judge just yesterday
Judge Patricia Mallette who actually
said during an oral argument on the
legality of Judge Boseberg's original
temporary restraining order saying you
can't keep deporting people
unconstitutionally and I'm ordering you
to turn planes around judge Mallette the
appellet court judge one of three on the
panel that heard oral argument yesterday
said to the DOJ lawyers "You know Nazis
had more rights were treated better
during World War II by the American
criminal justice system than you are
treating these Venezuelan immigrants." I
mean those are some strong and pointed
words and criticism of what Trump's
administration is doing i think Judge
Boseberg is taking this deadly seriously
i don't know this for a fact but I would
bet he is deeply offended as was I as a
career federal prosecutor seeing these
unsemly games that are being played by
DOJ lawyers so I think he is probably
going to push the sanctions as far and
as hard as he believes the evidence
warrants and finally when can we expect
some type of timeline in terms of next
steps because the Trump administration
really has mastered the art of just
delay delay delay and so they employ
these dilatory tactics knowing full well
that that really they benefit from
justice delayed justice denied and they
did that during Trump's own uh personal
um uh prosecutions during you know prior
to him becoming president and clearly
they're content to do the exact same
thing here yeah I have a feeling next
steps we're going to know pretty quickly
the reason I say that is because this
invocation of the state secrets doctrine
is so contrary to the evidence that we
have all seen even publicly revealed
that it it's just downright insulting
that they would make this claim to a
federal judge or any judge so I have a
feeling the next thing we may see is
judge judge Boseberg issue what's called
a showcause order and he will order the
DOJ prosecutors to show cause why they
haven't violated his court order and why
they shouldn't be held in contempt and
then it's on then we probably move to
contempt proceedings and you know that
is dramatic but if ever contempt of of
uh federal government officials is
appropriate
it's in this instance well look a lot to
a lot to still be uncovered in this case
in particular and and you can you can uh
tell that by the fact that Donald Trump
has been hellbent on this absolute tear
of trying to undermine Judge Boseberg's
legitimacy in very much the same way
that he's done to other judges who he
perceives as the biggest threat and so
um this is not going away anytime soon
and I do suspect that we will see some
quick action uh in terms of what's going
to happen next here so uh as soon as we
have any update we'll bring it to you
for those who are watching right now if
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i'm Brian Tyler Cohen and I'm Glenn
Kersner you're watching the Legal
Breakdown