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My name is Jim Santel.
I am your host on this broadcast coming to you from
the studios of civic media here in Radio Park in Racine, Wisconsin, broadcasting throughout the state of Wisconsin and beyond, delighted and honored that you have chosen to spend some portion of your weekend time with me and with my producer Max as we talk with you, engage with you about the major stories in the areas as always of law and government and the administration of justice in America.
and beyond.
Once again, honored to have you with Max and me this broadcast as always.
We do have an ambitious but achievable agenda once again.
A syllabus attracts in many ways the major stories of this past week since we were last together last weekend.
Also providing some commentary on what these stories mean in the areas of the rule of law as we often do.
Let me describe those.
to you as we begin our broadcast this weekend on the broadcast stations of civic media.
We're gonna begin as always with some reporting from the courts.
And this week we've got two appellate courts, two federal appellate courts,
different parts of the East Coast to appellate courts issuing major decisions in cases that have been on our docket.
In past broadcasts, we'll tell you about those, one of them international in nature, one of them quite domestic in nature involving our president.
And then we're gonna talk about three other district court decisions of recent times as we have done in recent weeks.
One of them, yes, having to do again with the issue of birthright citizenship.
We'll talk about two other decisions made by federal district courts with respect to the actions of this administration Yes, once again injunction function the function of federal district courts and appellate courts as well when it comes to reviewing the actions of this administration Determining their legality
their constitutionality.
We've got three of those district court judges weighing in just this past week on those kinds of topics, those issues, and we will talk with you about those.
They are in the series, the continuing recent tradition, if you will, of judges appropriately receiving applications from litigants.
typically private parties who are asking the judges to enjoin to stop to temporarily restrain the actions of the government when it comes to things that those petitioners believe are unconstitutional.
The judges almost to a person universally agreeing with those petitioners and putting in place what are called temporary orders, non-permanent orders,
but that keep things either in place or ensure that the status quo is not unduly affected by the actions of the government.
We'll talk with you about what those three district court judges, again, in different parts of our nation, have done just this past week.
Then we will return.
We will return as we always do to the United States Supreme Court, spending a lot of time, a lot of time in this broadcast this weekend, talking with you about something that we have been focused on
on a lot in recent months, and that is the so-called shadow docket.
We'll tell you where that name comes from, where that language comes from.
You may be surprised to learn that it comes from a statement and some writings and some musings of one of our current Supreme Court justices who coined the phrase, not without some objection by one of her colleagues.
We'll talk about both of those justices.
More importantly, we're gonna talk about the applications for
and the receiving of emergency orders by this United States Supreme Court.
We have chatted about this before, identifying the abundant problems for the American population and understanding what our highest court in the land is doing when in fact it grants these applications significantly without explanation.
One or two in some rare instances, a few paragraphs, but not a whole lot.
of explanation about the reason why it is necessary to act in an emergency status, an emergency application to stop, to enforce, to do something that the administration wants the court to do.
We'll talk about the problems with this emergency docket.
We'll talk about some specific instances where it has been invoked in recent times, the numbers of applications in recent months, approaching 2020 in number, not all of those granted, but numerous occasions when the United States Supreme Court entertaining and then granting these applications, these requests, these petitions for immediate action.
there the question once again is that immediate action truly necessary and when it happens while the underlying litigation well the merits of the underlying case are still the subjects of analysis and review by the lower courts the district courts the trial courts the appellate courts what does that do to the confidence we have in the system of justice that contemplates the opportunity to present cases at a district court level
have it heard by an appellate court, and then ultimately designed and argued before a Supreme Court.
That's the way our system normally works, upset in recent months and not only in recent months.
This is not a thing completely new with this administration, but the number and ferocity of these applications is a cause of concern.
We'll talk about exactly what this means in America today and what it
portends for the future as the Supreme Court is not out of business but is anticipating the formal start of a brand new term come early October of this year.
That all coming out of the United States Supreme Court just this past week and in previous weeks and months as well.
We're also then going to go down Pennsylvania Avenue there in Washington DC as we often do and make a stop at 9th and Pennsylvania.
10th in Constitution, that's where the United States Department of Justice, the RFK building is, and we're going to be talking about employment inside the Department of Justice.
Yes, some substance there as well, but employment and lack of employment, firings, terminations made by this Attorney General Pam Bondi.
and others just this past week, including two notable firings, one of them of an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York, another one of them, the ethics officer, in charge of the ethics office of Maine Justice, that person also terminated this past week along with...
recent terminations, recent firings of the January 6th prosecutors, recent firings of all of those attorneys and some staff responsible for those prosecutions of Donald Trump in the previous administration.
You recall those, well, that was the Mar-a-Lago case.
That was the January 6th insurrection case.
Both of those, both of those effectively dismissed by the Department of Justice prior to the start of this administration.
And now,
All of the staff, virtually all the staff, the lawyers and support staff responsible for those cases now terminated by this administration significantly without cause.
These are not at will employees and yet they're told to leave.
We'll talk about the significance of the departures of the firings and in particular focus on a branch that I hope you have never heard of called the federal programs branch.
A huge, a huge record of departures.
From that branch just in recent months since Donald Trump was was selected and elected by our Country to be our president We'll talk about why that's important and we'll then talk about something else that the president has done contemplated doing in the future with respect to these firings of personnel staff across government
We'll talk about what happened at the time of the publication of that thing called Project 2025, anticipating a thing called Schedule F. Now we're going to intrigue you with something called Schedule G, and what that means, what the President contemplates in implementing that.
as a way of further not only ensuring the loyalty of people around him, but their permanency while he is president.
We'll talk about that as well.
And finally, yes, we need to talk about at the end of our second hour, something that unfortunately, unfortunately, in the midst of many other more important things in America, including the environment and education and crime in America.
and overseas engagements, and agriculture, and commerce, and labor, and the state department issues of international development, justice department issues, having to do with civil issues, civil rights issues, all kinds of things out there, while all of that is going on in America and should be getting the attention of America, the media, and the United States Congress, and yes, indeed, the president of the United States of America continuing to focus
at great length, including as late as yesterday, bringing yet another lawsuit in connection with, yes, that's right, the Jeffrey Epstein matter.
And we'll talk about what takeaways we can pull from those recent events because there are some rule of law events.
There are some civics aspects to that.
There are, believe it or not, some law school instructional things to understand about even this request now made through the attorney general from the president to release.
to release the so-called grand jury transcripts of the entire of the entire Jeffrey Epstein case.
That, of course, is a misnomer.
That's not what those grand jury transcripts are about.
And we'll talk about whether or not that application for the release of those materials as sought by the president and now petitioned by the attorney general.
We'll talk about what they want from that court.
Now,
reviewing that petition and whether or not it's likely under the federal rules rules six in particular whether that petition can and will be granted at all given the standards the unusual nature of this request
The fact that it is animating a lot of our time, our focus in America, when in fact in the end ultimately this is about human tragedy.
And specifically the tragedy of victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell, his co-defendant now in federal prison for the same type of conduct.
We'll talk about the true
aspect of this, which is the tragedy visited upon victims of this horrific crime and the inappropriateness of the responses by many members of our current administration, including a guy named Dan Bongino, who's the deputy director of the FBI, who decided about a week ago simply not to show up at work.
Because he didn't like what was going on, this infighting, as you know well with the Attorney General, maybe even with his own boss, Cash Patel, the FBI, all of the intrigue leading to what I've been calling recently, unfounded conspiracies about unfounded conspiracies, prompting, prompting the New York Times to put together Venn diagrams of all this to keep it all straight.
It is a lot.
It is, I would offer to you, not worth the time to try to straighten it all out other than to pull some major
takeaways from this story, rule of law stories, government stories, how it should operate and is not operating.
The reason why, the reason why these applications for grand jury transcripts will probably not be granted and what we can take away generally from what is going on in America based upon that story.
not a major story, even though it is being presented to you and to all of us in America these days, as the thing on which we should all be focusing.
In fact, many other issues, and we will get to them here on Amicus Law Review.
As always, we're taking your questions, your inquiries, your comments, your observations, 855-752-4842.
855-752-4842.
That's the line you can call in.
Talk to Max and me.
Let us know what's on your mind.
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A lot of you are weekly weekend wrap up of all things government and rule of law, justice related, delighted.
Thank you so very much that you are spending some of your weekend time with Max and me as a part of our production.
Here in the broadcast stations of Civic Media, as always, this hour and next hour, entertaining your questions, your comments, your inquiries, your observations, that phone number, once again, is 855-752-4842.
You can also be in touch with us by dropping a note, a question, an inquiry into our chat box.
We'll take a look at those and make you a part of our discussion this weekend here on Amica Solar Review.
We begin, as I promised, talking about
Courts.
nothing new there for this broadcast, but new decisions coming out of federal appellate and district courts around the country.
We're gonna spend some time talking about three of those district court judges who are making law in America.
That is what judges are required to do as they resolve the controversy, the causes of actions that are in front of them.
We'll talk about those judges in just a moment.
And then we've got two appellate cases, again, coming out of appeals court.
on the east portion of our nation.
We'll talk about why those are significant and what they mean for you.
All of that here on Amicus, a lot of you.
Let's jump right into those district court opinions.
You recall well, because we have spent so much time appropriately talking about it here on Amicus, a lot of you, that the United States Supreme Court just a few weeks ago issued one of the major decisions
of our time, certainly the most significant decision ruling of this term.
And that is finding, finding that lower courts cannot, cannot, cannot issue nationwide injunctions, cannot issue orders that apply across the board to all the different 93 district courts, the appeals courts, there are about 13 of them all together, including the federal circuit and others out there in Washington, DC.
The United States Supreme Court saying from the pen of Amy Coney Barrett that
those kinds of practices are done.
Case called Trump versus Casa that yes had it as its underlying predicate.
An issue about whether or not the 14th Amendment does in fact confer birthright citizenship.
You recall this issue because that phrase is now ensconced forever in your brain because of the focus and the interpretation given the 14th Amendment.
inappropriately unlawfully unconstitutionally by our president who says that if you are born here of parents who are not lawfully here who are here temporarily you're not a citizen standing on its end well over a hundred years a precedent tradition understanding and that decision that decision about whether or not that interpretation is accurate still not resolved
at the Supreme Court level, causing an awful lot of confusion going forward.
The president's executive order set to expire in about eight days from now in terms of the suspension, that is, the suspension of its application, it goes back into effect eight days from now.
And in anticipation of that, we've got an awful lot of people running into federal courts around the country seeking to have resolution of their cases and of the cases of others.
We recall well that in that same opinion, finding that national injunctions can no longer apply to anything, including issues related to birthright citizenship.
The Supreme Court also said, but there's some other avenues out there.
You can do things called class actions.
You can bring together people who have commonality in their facts, in their backgrounds, in their histories.
They share the same perspectives on the case, on the cause of action for that reason.
You can bring them together, certify a class of them, and enter judgments as to them.
You recall well that taking up the Supreme Court's direction, a
United States District Judge in New Hampshire named Joseph will plant we talked about his order first one of its kind just last week he finds that indeed indeed there is a class he certifies a class of all the newborns who might otherwise be affected by the president's executive order on February 20th and going forward and he says that as to that class which I'm now certifying all affected
all of those all of those people now affected by his order which stays which prevents the implementation of that executive order as to all of those babies in america who would otherwise find themselves without citizenship here in this country and in other places
around the world.
That's what Joseph LaPlante, United States District Court judge in New Hampshire did just last week.
And we've got more of that.
And that leads to the first of our several district court judges and the decisions that they are making in America here in implementing the rule of law.
Just this past week, a federal judge, this one in Maryland, became the second judge, the second jurist to block President Trump's order, restricting birthright citizenship,
under the 14th Amendment, blocking it from taking effect in just a few days from now.
United States District Judge, her name is Deborah Boardman, B-O-A-R-D-M-A-N, she's a trial judge there in Maryland, said in her opinion just this past week that she would grant class action status on behalf of all the children, once again, all of those newborns who are affected by the order, and she granted a preliminary injunction blocking it.
She did not immediately rule noting that a previous decision of hers to block the order was on appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and that court would have to return the case to her but she said that an immediate ruling is appropriate and she indicated in the words of Joseph will plant her colleague in another district that indeed this particular executive order by
by the president was unconstitutional.
Recall well again what Joseph Plant has said, inconsistent with the law, inconsistent with the interpretation of the 14th amendment.
Now we've got another judge, her name Deborah Boardman, who does the same thing, and presumably other judges around the country, other petitions being filed in other districts around the country.
presumably also getting the attention of those judges, just as has gotten the attention now of Judge Deborah Boardman, who says that she is much inclined as well to enter a similar order.
certifying the class of young people, of children born just in recent months, and in joining the implementation, the effectiveness of the president's order when it goes back into effect in just a little over a week or so from now, according to the Supreme Court.
That's issue number one.
That's decision number one among the district courts of this land.
When we come back, we'll talk about two others in other areas also, also having impact upon things that our president has done
Judges saying no.
All that as Amicus a la review continues.
This is Amicus a la review coming to you from the broadcast stations
All the civic media throughout the state of Wisconsin and beyond, delighted, honored to have you with me and Max this weekend as we talk about what's going on in our federal courts, district courts, appellate courts as well.
Let's get to those right away.
As all of you know well, this president has been terminating, attempting to terminate the employment of a lot of different people throughout the federal government.
Let's talk about one of those involving the Federal Trade Commission, the FDC, located there in Washington, DC, but having a huge impact on trade issues worldwide, including right here in the United States of America.
A federal judge just this past week, a district court judge, her name is Lauren Alicon,
has restored, has restored a member, a board member of the Federal Trade Commission to her post.
She ruled that President Donald Trump...
illegally fired this particular board member early this year.
That of course, a part of his efforts to exert control over the FTC and many other federal agencies nationwide.
As we have talked before, this a part of his overall view of a unified executive that has the authority to hire and fire and direct the actions of all sorts of agencies, not just those at the cabinet level, but the so-called independent agencies as well.
created by Congress to be independent that Federal Trade Commission is among them.
This decision by Judge Ali Khan basically allows Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter to resume her duties that were suspended after the president fired her as a commissioner, as a board member on the FTC, and as late as this past Friday morning, the FTC website updated to reflect that Slaughter is now among the four sitting commissioners once again.
The Trump administration, not surprisingly, as it does, as is its prerogative if it chooses to do so, has decided to appeal that, of course, to the appellate court.
The case could make its way back to the Supreme Court once again.
The conservative court, as we have talked before, has already narrowed the reach of a 90-year-old decision that was part of the ruling by Judge Ali Khan called Humphrey's executor.
That's a decision which the court previously had told President Franklin Roosevelt, rebuffed President Roosevelt, when he tried to terminate employees of the federal government, holding the FTC commissioners could be removed.
only for cause and not at the whim, not at the like, not at the discretion of the president in particular.
That issue in this case called Humphrey's executor back on the docket once again.
At the time, the Supreme Court also permitting Donald Trump to fire the heads of other independent agencies.
You recall this well.
In May, the court allowed Donald Trump to remove members of the National Labor Relations Board.
and also of the Merit Systems Protection Board.
We're gonna talk about that in just a few moments ago.
Also agencies, independent agencies have got great responsibility in their congressionally assigned areas to do the work of you and me.
And the Supreme Court basically saying that the president has the authority to fire the leaders, the commissioners, the board members of those entities without a whole lot of description about why.
the Supreme Court is letting him do that.
The justices also currently weighing an emergency appeal from the administration to oust some members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as well.
Donald Trump fired them in May.
A federal judge, like in all these other circumstances, also restored those positions, finding the president's action is unconstitutional.
But the legal fight, again, as to the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Product Safety Commission,
and certainly again the FTC here could reach back to the Supreme Court.
The president has recently raised the prospect of firing once again the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell.
That's why that has loomed large in here as well.
Chairman has said it's his view and it's the view of most other people looking at this that the president does not have The authority to do that but all of that all of that wrapped up in this assumed responsibility Terminating people from these various commissions again this past week.
We've got a judge telling the president that he cannot do that as to the
Federal Trade Commission, in her opinion, Judge Ali Khan, again, invokes the proper application of this case called Humphrey's executor and says he can't do this, cannot act that way, Mr. President, she said, who really would uphold, in her words, clearly established law.
that has been enacted by a co-equal branch of government that's the congress that's what she's talking about reaffirmed by another co-equal branch of the government that's the supreme court and acquiesced to by 13 executives over the course of 90 years we've all understood this to be the law of our land
For nearly a century, she says, why are we doing this?
Why are we going back and revisiting this right now?
The law hasn't changed.
The facts, the people have changed, but the facts have not changed.
The judge acknowledged here, again, that this would probably be not the last word with respect to this particular FTC employment.
She said, defendants are, of course, free to take their quarrels with Humphrey's executor to the Supreme Court, almost seemingly encourage them to bring it back to the Supreme Court and luring them perhaps to review once
Once again, that president, the court has no illusions about where this case journey leads, the judge wrote.
And of course, all of that happening in the midst of this general attack upon independent agencies as a part of this theory.
It has been out there for a long time, articulated without any sort of embarrassment in Project 25, embraced by this president, embraced by others, including our attorney general, that says that the president has the unified executive authority to do what he wants when it comes to establishing the law, even with respect to those agencies like the Federal Reserve, like the FTC, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all these other places.
in our government that have independent authorities to act, maintaining that that's not accurate, that again, nearly a century of tradition is wrong.
This past week, a judge once again pushing back on that and saying, no, Mr. President, you are not right about that.
Yet another judge, another judge in a
entirely different subject matter different forum but also in a federal courtroom justice past week once again telling this president that what you're doing is illegal a federal judge justice past friday told the president that his attempt to affect the international criminal court
cannot stand.
We've talked about this in the past, the president sparring with the ICC with respect to some of its rulings in the past.
He issues an executive order targeting those who work with the International Criminal Court.
The ruling by a judge, her name is Nancy Torreson.
District Judge Nancy Torreson follows what was an April lawsuit filed by two human rights advocates challenging, challenging the decision, the ruling, the executive
Order by Donald Trump way back in February that authorized potentially far-reaching economic and some other travel sanctions on people who work.
at the International Criminal Court.
In other words, if you work there, I'm going to impose some economic and travel sanctions upon you.
That's what the president has said.
And also, pursuing investigations of others who might be involved with the ICC.
In the ruling, U.S.
District Judge, once again, Nancy Torreson, called the executive order an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.
She invokes the First Amendment says you cannot do that.
She says the executive order appeals to restrict substantially more speech than necessary to further that end.
You cannot do this, Mr. President, is what she says.
The executive order broadly prohibits any speech-based services that benefit the prosecutor, regardless of whether those beneficial services relate to an ICC investigation of the United States, Israel, or any other U.S.
ally.
She's going right
to the president's attacks on the ICC, first amendment attacks of people who are working there.
And of course, in the wake of that, likewise, likely pushback on this, the executive order imposed sanctions in particular upon a prosecutor there.
His name is Karim Khan, K-H-A-N, who is British.
He is with the ICC, the U.S.
Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control placed on him
in the wake of the president's executive order, placed him on a registry of sanctioned individuals and entities, basically restricting his actions in all sorts of areas.
Judge Nancy Torres in this past week telling the president he cannot do that, cannot do that.
That's in violation of the constitution and rights to speech, right to engage in this kind of activity, and going right to the core of the International Criminal Court as the president has attacked it.
in recent times that coming out once again of yet another federal district court judge looking at a decision made by our president and saying you do not have the authority to do that will that be appealed highly likely will we get some further statement from the supreme court about whether president can do that with respect to the ICC we'll see where all of these things
And that's our district court summary.
Now we go to appeals courts in America.
Two cases, one of which we've talked about a lot.
The other which we've only touched on briefly in years past.
But both of them coming out of appellate courts now.
These are not the district courts.
These are not the trial judges.
These are appeals court judges.
And some major rulings coming out of those appeals court courts just this past week.
This one, the first one, involves E. Jean Terrell.
You'll call this case well.
She is a journalist.
She is an author.
Her works have appeared in many major magazines and commentary about lots of things going on in America.
She alleges that way back in the mid-1990s, Donald Trump, our current president long before he was president, sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.
and she wrote about it, she talked about it.
And during the course of his first presidency, in his first term, Donald Trump, you may recall well, said that that never happened, said that she is lying, made some other scurrilous remarks about her physical appearance, which I'm not going to repeat, and basically defamed her.
And I say that because that was the finding of not one, but two different juries over the period of the past couple of years, finding that the statements by our president in the White House, but nonetheless in connection with his
past relationship with Eugene Carroll.
And by relationship, I do not mean any sort of personal relationship, but just the litigation relationship and the things they've said about each other, that his statements about her, that she has lied about this event, misrepresented what happened, that that is defamation.
And indeed, after trials in the federal courts in recent years, two different juries, different juries found that Eugene Carroll was in fact the victim of defamation, that is the knowing
misstatement, the knowing lying about something by the defendant, in this case, Donald Trump.
And so in one of those cases, in one of those cases, the jury awarded Eugene Carroll $5 million for the damages suffered by her as a result of the then president's defamation of her.
And it is that case.
It is that case that was reviewed now by the Court of Appeals.
It was tried in the Southern District of New York.
That is the Manhattan District Court.
And the 2023 charges
of, of E. Gene Carroll, of defamation before that court again in recent times.
Just this past week, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit there in New York announced that the original decision would remain in effect, upholding the lower court's judgment, the lower court's decision to award that $5 million amount of money.
The president does have the authority, if he wants to seek an appeal to the Supreme Court, he can do that.
Note, however, that there's yet another
judgment out there that one is for about eighty three point three million dollars yet another jury another case that one also up on appeal that one is still in place all of this pending and now coming out of the appeals courts in our nation when we come back yet another appellate court another appellate court deciding on military justice when we return here on amicus a lot of you
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We are talking about major decisions of justice past week by our federal district court, our trial court judges, and also now appeals courts.
This one, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, that's right there in our nation's capital, reviewing all kinds of cases coming out of, yes, the district court there, a lot of them having to do with the exercises of federal responsibility and federal authority, a lot of government cases.
And indeed, this latest decision by the appeals court there,
is in that category.
Where does it come from?
You recall well that there was a plea agreement, a plea agreement in not a district court, but a military court last summer.
In it, in it, an individual named Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that name probably is significant to you because yes indeed, this is the person, this is the terrorist, he is the architect
of the 9-11 attacks on the United States of America.
We think about Osama bin Laden being at the head of that.
He certainly was.
But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the one who put all this together.
and orchestrated all of the people involved in that attack that took the lives of just about 3,000 people on September 11th in 2001.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he was arrested, he was identified, investigated, we'll get back to that in just a moment, and ultimately spending time, yes, at Guantanamo Bay there on the Cuban island, rather, right there to the south of the United States territories.
What happens is, at last summer,
as he is there and facing charges in the military court for the deaths of 2,976 people there on September 11th.
He enters into a plea agreement with the government and the deal had been struck by a senior military official there at the time to bring the case to some conclusion.
And basically it would be that Mohammed would admit
to doing what is alleged he will admit to the allegations against him in connection with the September 11th violence in exchange for which he would not be suffering the death penalty.
And that all going on inside of a military court.
A lot of this because and the reason for its delay is because of the concerns about trying this case in a federal district court as opposed to a military court.
A lot of this having to do with
concerns between the positions of the families of the victims, defense perspectives on this, and in particular, the notion that it might be possible even to try this case in a federal court, even in a military court, based upon the fairly well-established notion that Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed was not only interrogated but was tortured by representatives of our government as a part of the investigation here.
Torture at the time.
Believe it or not, authorized by a memorandum of the Department of Justice since rescinded by our Department of Justice, but he was the subject of torture, as were many of the others, including his confessions to this horrific conduct.
All of that, all of these major challenges and bringing this case to some resolution requiring years and years of litigation back and forth inside the military court.
Arguably, arguably put in place to be resolved by virtue of this plea, he pleads guilty.
He remains in prison, sentenced to 2,976 years in prison, representing the number of victims of the 9-11 attack.
And in the wake of that, all of the military lawyers and the judge, so forth, proceeding pursuant to that plea, what happens is that former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, you remember this well, he looks at this and says, no, I do not agree.
and he sides with those members of the family and others there in the public who say this is not an appropriate resolution of this case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
And for that reason, I'm going to rescind, I'm going to stop this plea agreement from going ahead.
All of that, all of that gets appealed then, the question of the authority of the defense secretary.
And in a two to one decision just this past week, U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit says that the defense secretary, in this case, Lloyd Austin,
at the time.
Indisputably, they say, acted within his authority when he nicks this deal.
last August and did not permit it to go ahead.
The court says having properly assumed the convening authority, that is the capacity to bring this military court together and to have proceedings there with respect to Mohammed in that forum.
The secretary determined the court said that the families of the American and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out.
Again, that plainly would not happen if this plea went ahead.
The secretary acted with the bounds of his legal authority, and we declined to second guess his judgment.
That was written by judges Patricia Millett and Naomi Rao.
Those are both appointees for what it's worth.
President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, respectively.
And there was yet another judge who disagreed with that.
But she is in the minority here, the two-to-one disposition.
And what this ruling means is that this is the latest back and forth.
in this long-standing saga for more than 20 years about what the nation, what the military, what we do with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now back in the military court, and all of that, all of that, the focus of the appeals court that says that, yes, indeed, the Secretary of Defense has the authority to revoke
the agreement and to stop the plea agreement from going forward, even though the judge and the other military officials, even a military appellate jurist, found it proper.
And as a result of that, back.
back to, not square one, but back to an earlier stage.
The dissenting voice that one person on the court, also an Obama appointee, his name, Robert Wilkins, wrote, the government has not come within a country mile of proving clearly and indisputably that the military judge aired.
In other words, he would have supported the plea agreement.
He, however, is in the minority.
He's the one person out of the three judge panel who disagrees with the
decision of the majority here, and he says that the plea agreement should have gone ahead.
When we come back, we'll talk about other cases pending in the courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
We're going to take some callers as well as Amicus, a lot of you, continues.
My name is Jim Santel your host for this the second hour in our weekly weekend review of all things Rule of law and justice related.
We have spent our first hour with you this weekend talking as we often do about the decisions of appellate courts and district courts including those district courts that continue to be the bastion of justice and rule of law in America
finding based upon their review of the facts and of the law that various executive orders, not all of them, it's not universal, it's not across the board, but many of the most of them issued by the president in various areas do not withstand constitutional review.
Indeed, just this past week, judges telling the president that he cannot enforce his orders with respect to the International Criminal Court.
can't, can't in fact fire a board member, a commissioner of the federal trade commission and cannot pursue his executive order with respect to birthright citizenship.
That of course, like the other cases, all of them going to be receiving more attention by the judiciary.
All of that, all of that, a part of the rule of law and a part of the president's view that he has got this capacity as the chief executive to do all of these things encouraged an awful lot by a
Congress that does not do oversight on any of this and is not engaging in any way when the president oversteps his bounds with respect to their authority to establish the laws of our land, including various agencies, certainly being given the green light by our United States Supreme Court.
We'll talk about that more in just a few moments.
When we talk about the many cases in which the Supreme Court, without decision-making description,
is telling our president to go right ahead and do what he needs to do.
as the president of the United States of America.
In all of this, in all of this, we appreciate so much the comments written and also oral from our listeners.
Appreciate very much Mark writing in from Perry Drusack saying that in connection with many of these orders, he says, Trump is not the law.
His sworn duty is to take care that the laws of our Constitution, of our government be faithfully executed.
Again, he says, shall in law means must.
Apparently, there are members of the Supreme Court like
President himself and of course others who miss that point.
And indeed, Mark, that is a great concern.
That's one of the challenges.
It's the reason why we have the constitutional crisis that we have had at least since March of this year.
I appreciate very much that comment.
Also calling in from Madison, we've got Dick.
Dick, I appreciate very much you're being a part of our broadcast this weekend again.
Thanks for taking my call real quick on the obscene situation.
Yes.
All of a sudden now we're going to release this or
documents pertinent to it.
I believe those documents pertinent to it that might imply that there's something incriminating about the president.
I think those are probably already in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.
I really don't see us seeing anything coming out of her that's going to indicate that he's involved.
It's going to turn into something that it totally isn't in my mind.
I wouldn't trust it at
And Dick, we're going to talk about that at great length.
I agree with you for all sorts of legal reasons as well.
There may be the political reasons or maybe the historical reasons you've just identified.
and there's some other reasons why this particular direction from the president to the attorney general to get a release all of these documents well it's very particular it's about a direction to get grand jury materials and we'll talk about whether or not there's merit to that request at all with the district court judge will indeed grant that and beyond that
The question I think I hear it in your voice, I hear it in the substance and the tone, Dick, is what are we doing here?
Why are we doing this?
To what end does all of this reach?
We'll talk more about that.
Dick, appreciate very much the comment.
At the end of this hour, so stay with us for that discussion as well.
And Dick, appreciate you're teasing that for our future discussion.
We wanna spend some time talking about, once again, the United States Supreme Court.
We have spent a huge amount of time talking about its merits,
that is the 67 cases that have decided this past term, the 2024, 2025 term, 67 different decisions, rulings, things that it has authored with explanations and following the submission of briefs and oral arguments and consideration by the justices over long periods of time, weeks and months, resulting in opinions that are 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 pages long, explaining why it is they're doing what they're doing.
We've got majority opinions.
We've got dissenting opinions.
And the point of all that, of course, is there is transparency to use that word.
It's all important today as it has always been in America when it comes to understanding what our judges and our justices are doing.
And we've talked a lot about those merits cases in the past, even while these, what I'll refer to them as the shadow docket cases, have also been proceeding.
Those are different in number.
and they're different in process than are the merits cases that we have talked about, including things like birthright citizenship, including last week that long discussion that we had appropriately about the intersection of religion and academics there in Maryland and throughout the United States of America, many other cases also on the docket of the court of this past term.
Those are all merits cases subject to this careful analysis and review, producing something that we may have discussed
We may agree with it, we may disagree with what the Supreme Court says in the end, but in the end you know why it is.
They're saying what they're saying, even if we disagree with the disposition itself, or even the reasons for coming to it.
The great difference is what is called the shadow doc at this emergency application procedure.
And according to my count, that of many others, we're approaching about 20 of these applications, even since January 20th of this year in the last six months or so, situations where this administration through the office of the solicitor general, his name is John Sauer, S-A-U-E-R.
We've talked a lot about him.
He's your representative before the United States Supreme Court.
He authors these briefs.
He presents these arguments to the Supreme Court almost 20 different times, 18, 19 different times in recent months.
He has said to the Supreme Court that even though there is litigation pending, pending in the lower district courts and the appeals courts, and we've heard about both of them already today on this very broadcast, even while that's going on, even while they have not resolved the underlying merits,
of those cases, the causes of action, the challenges that have brought people into place.
The judgments are not yet done.
Supreme Court.
intervene and direct that the president be permitted to do what he wants to do inside those cases, to go ahead with the executive orders that are the very subjects of the challenges in those cases.
That's the emergency application doctrine, if you will, and it has been invoked with breakneck speed in this administration in the Supreme Court.
That has on at least on least nine times in the past several weeks alone issued issued orders unsigned With virtually no explanation whatsoever.
No sense of who is saying what about the merits of the case in many of these cases We get a sense of who the dissenters are
because they articulate their views, but they are not in the majority and we don't have a sense.
We don't have any feel for why it is the Supreme Court again intervening in these lower cases, telling the president that even while his very policies and executive orders are subject to review at the lower courts, which is how our process
contemplates review, even while that's going on, you may go ahead and do the thing that you have directed be accomplished by virtue of your executive order.
What are those kinds of things?
All kinds of things, that is, firings and cessation of monies flowing with respect to transgender rights, kicking people out of the United States military, doing things with respect to funding across universities and colleges.
The list is legion.
and the Supreme Court again in this emergency application docket and pursuing this so-called shadow docket doctrine has been giving the president the okay to proceed.
We're gonna talk about that because once again it's back in our national attention.
About a week or so ago we commented and reported at great length about this major decision right after the 4th of July giving the president authority to go ahead to slash the federal workforce to dismantle
federal agencies across the board based upon an executive order that he issued months earlier, directing all of his federal agencies around the cabinet, and yes, again, beyond his authority.
directing all of them to begin to identify those places where these federal workforces can be dramatically reduced.
He issued that by virtue of an executive order.
And finally, finally, again, in early part of this month, in early July, the Supreme Court said, yes, indeed, go ahead and do that, the order lifting a lower court ruling that had blocked those mass layoffs.
It said, Mr. President, you cannot do that.
The order from the Supreme Court again in connection with this emergency docket unsigned does not include, does not include a vote count and it is therefore the shadow docket.
We'll talk in a moment about where that word comes from.
It's typical in these emergency applications and we know that in that particular case it was lone Justice Katangi Brown Jackson who wrote a very public dissent objecting to this and talking about how it's not this court's role
to swoop in and second guess a lower court's factual finding, she said, no one seriously disputes that the president's executive order would lead to enormous real world consequences, including the dismantling of much of the federal government as Congress has created it.
That's what the sole dissenter, Katanji Brown Jackson said a couple of weeks ago when the Supreme Court affirmed on this shadow docket, without an explanation,
the permission it was giving to the president to go ahead and slash these workforces.
And we've seen that, of course, before, during and certainly after that particular order.
Indeed, we've seen people leaving the State Department about a week or so ago, long-tenured representatives, long-tenured Foreign Service officers there at C Street, leaving the State Department upon the direction of the Secretary of State, pursuant to the authority given to the Secretary
by the President and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court.
And we talked about the consequences of that as Katangi Brown Jackson identified just this past week.
early this past week, more of that.
Supreme Court agreeing on Monday again by virtue of its emergency docket that Donald Trump and the President of the United States of America can in fact proceed with dismantling what?
The education department, along a target, both in the campaign and during his presidency to this date.
Dismantle the education department by firing more than a thousand people.
Go ahead and do that, Mr. President.
That's what the Supreme Court said just this past Monday.
The Trump administration, again, had previously announced its plans for about 1,300 people from the Department of Education.
That's a significant portion.
That's about a quarter, actually more than a quarter.
It's 4,000 employees there at the Department of Education.
This is part of the president's effort, the initiative, sometimes embraced by the so-called
a musk group or musk team to bring dramatically down the federal government's overall role in the nations in this place schools around the country the education department again on the target of the president by virtue of his directive to the secretary of education to reduce that workload affirmed given the green light by the supreme court
it undeniably, as in all of these situations, represents a dramatic, a dramatic expansion of presidential power.
We talked before about the fact that this is a part of this unified executive theory where the president has authority to do anything that's not exclusively and narrowly legislative and is not exclusively judicial in nature.
He has talked already about the fact that if there's any decision made about what the law is,
And it is contrary to what his view is in any of these agencies, that law is not effective and his is.
When we come back, we'll talk more about the impact of what the Supreme Court has done in this emergency docket and why it affects our day-to-day lives here in the United States of America as our broadcast continues.
This is Jim Santel and this is Amicus, a lot of you.
We are talking now necessarily once again about the so-called shadow docket, this mechanism through which the United States Supreme Court with increasing speed, increasing numbers
is agreeing to hear, although even that verb is inappropriate, to entertain appeals while the underlying litigation is going on of various issues, attacking, attacking the very soul and core of our normal process in the adjudication, the litigation, the contests over how it is our government should work.
We know that just this past week, once again, on Monday, the Supreme Court permitted Donald Trump
to basically dismantle the education department in a major, a major unassigned order.
a single force sentence paragraph that was entirely devoted to the procedural mechanisms, apposing the lower court's ruling that had said the president cannot, in fact, accomplish these firings of about 1,000 people from the education department.
The Supreme Court, while that underlying litigation is still going on, saying that, yes, Donald Trump can terminate these employment situations, these employment relationships with all of those
Department of Education employees in clearing the way.
for doing this in this instance and many others.
The count is at least in the teens, depending upon how you count them, depending upon how you regard them, and we'll talk a little bit more about some of those in just a moment or so.
The reality is that this is transforming American government and American justice.
Issuing these orders that lack a fundamental court characteristic of all of those other cases decided this past term, the 67,
or so of those, and that is no explanation of the rationale.
And we are meant to guess.
We are left to guess on what it is that the Supreme Court is really saying.
The order, again, with respect to the Department of Education, typical of these situations, does not include any explanation of why the majority of the court ruled as it did.
It was plainly an exercise of power, power and authority.
They can do this.
They are the Supreme Court and the Constitution
but plainly not reason.
The silence about exactly what is going on here in the Supreme Court underscored by the fact that there was again a major dissent.
This time joined in by two other justices.
It is written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
It's 19 pages as opposed to the virtually no pages written by the majority explaining their decision.
19 pages written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in by
Katanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and here's what she says.
She says, the majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive.
But either way, Justice Sotomayor says, the threat to our Constitution's separation of powers is grave.
She says, the question of whether the nation's highest court owes the public an explanation for its actions has plainly grown.
and she is concerned about it.
She says that we're using these truncated
procedures to produce these very terse and nondescriptive orders, they're provisional, they're interim, they're not meant to be permanent, but they are sure are having their effect to remain in effect the president's executive orders that he's issued, while once again the underlying courts are adjudicating whether those executive orders are legitimate or not.
And the upshot as Justice Sotomayor says is that those interim orders, those emergency orders
effectively resolve the case.
The court, as we know, has allowed this administration to do many, many things.
Again, my count, well into the teens under this emergency docket, including things like firing tens of thousands of workers.
We've talked about some of those already.
Discharging transgender troops.
Again, that underlying litigation is still going on, but permitting the president and the secretary of defense to terminate the work, the service, long-standing, honorable, no indication of anything
dishonorable in any way in any way compromising the outstanding professionalism of our transgender troops fire them and they are gone and they are gone on this emergency docket ending protections for literally hundreds of thousands of migrants from these war-torn countries around the world fundamentally shifting power again from the capacity of the Congress
to decide these cases to the president.
That was the temporary protective service program that was in place that protected people who came here because of fear for their lives and now exposing them to deportation.
Again, all of this with no or virtually no explanation or very scant explanation of how it arrived at those results.
Some calculations, again, lots of people looking at this.
Last 10 weeks alone, this is according to a Georgetown professor.
named Stephen Vladek.
He's very reputable.
He wrote all about this in a book called The Shadow Docket.
It is years old, but it's excellent in terms of explaining what this is all about.
He keeps track of this as do other entities out there.
He says the last 10 weeks alone, the court has a grant to this emergency relief to the administration without explanation seven times, seven times.
And he talks about the massive real world implications when the justices are not telling us
the reasons for what they're doing.
Again, again, this is different from the so-called merits docket.
We can still, and we should in appropriate circumstances disagree with the Supreme Court.
We should in appropriate circumstances agree with its dispositions, but we can do that based upon an understanding of what they're saying and the explanations for what they're doing.
That's what's missing in all of this.
Now, where did this come from?
Well, critics have called this the shadow docket for a long time.
is not original with Professor Vladik, it comes, of course, from a Supreme Court justice herself.
And with the arrival of Donald Trump's second administration has taken on even more heat, more emphasis in the public domain.
Justice Elena Kagan first used the term way back in 2021 in criticizing the court's work.
The majority had just issued this midnight ruling, remember this, that left in place that Texas law that effectively overturned Roe versus Wade, abortion legitimate, even while the court was still addressing the underlaw.
situation.
She came up with the phrase at that time and we come back I'll tell you more about that and tell you more about what why this is important and what the court may do in the future here on Amicus.
A lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel and this is Amicus, a lot of you.
We are talking in this, the second hour of our broadcast, all about this thing called the shadow docket.
That's the description of it given sort of casually by, yes, indeed.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and she does this many years ago in connection with this midnight ruling again an emergency ruling by the Supreme Court a few years back that left in place that Texas law that would effectively overturn Roe versus Wade in the state
at a time when Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land.
This is before the Dobbs decision.
And yes, indeed, the court the following year would adopt would issue that decision in Dobbs, not without the scathing dissents of the dissenters.
But in dissent, at the time that the Supreme Court, even before Dobbs was issued, when it let the Texas law that would have effectively overturned Roe v. Wade, that effectively changed the law,
with respect to one state in the entire United States Union, she said the majority's decision is emblematic of too much of this court's shadow docket decision making, which every day becomes more unreasoned, more inconsistent, and impossible to defend.
That's where this word comes from.
It comes from Justice Elena Kagan describing it as being in the shadows, and again, adopted by authors who've been tracking this kind of thing, and by
generally the public as a shorthand to explain what the Supreme Court is and more importantly is not doing when it comes to making these major decisions.
For what it's worth, here's the history on the other side.
About a month later, Justice Sam Alito, he recognizes what Justice Kagan has said.
He gives a speech at Notre Dame and he defends the court's approach to these emergency applications.
He said the catchy and sinister term shadow docket has been used to portray the court as having been captured by
a dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its ways.
This portrayal, Justice Alito said, this portrayal feeds unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court and to damage it as an independent institution.
He compared, interestingly,
this description of what the court has been doing, was doing, is still doing as what emergency medical technicians face when they come upon the scene of an accident.
He said, you can't expect the EMTs and the emergency rooms to do the same thing that a team of physicians and nurses will do when they are handling a matter when time is not of the essence in the same way.
And he said, believe it or not, that sometimes it's better to say less.
Then more and he approached this and says scant and absent reasoning is sometimes the better course of action Let's talk about that once again again the the reference to medical
treatment and care being given is completely inappropriate.
Of course, you've got life and death decisions, and it raises, as does Justice Kagan and others, the question of where the emergencies are in all of these cases.
In some instances, it's an emergency because right now we've got to overturn what have been years, if not decades, of precedential
decisions by the court and we've got to get rid of all sorts of employees inside the Department of Education, the Department of State, other places.
On an emergency base, we've got to do it right now.
We've got to get rid of the transgender military folks immediately because
Why?
What is that emergency that would otherwise render it akin to medical care at the time of a scene of an accident?
No such emergency in virtually any of these cases, though one instance, as we've talked before, where there is often an emergency where they have traditionally in years past appropriately invoked this emergency application procedure is when someone's on death row.
And a state where the death penalty is in place is about to execute someone and a lawyer.
Maybe several lawyers petition the Supreme Court to take one more look at the case because you don't have a second chance.
And the Supreme Court will sometimes invoke that automatic, that emergency state to say, wait a minute,
Give us a couple more days.
Do not execute this convict, this defendant, until we've had that time to look at it.
Truly a life and death situation.
I would offer that virtually all of these others, 10, 15, maybe 20 different applications being presented to the Supreme Court by our Solicitor General in support of the President's executive orders that have to be implemented immediately.
even though years and years have been in place, because why?
That the emergency nature of these is simply non-existence, which is the reason why you do have Justice Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Khatange Brown Jackson writing these scathing dissents, not only about the impact of letting these things go ahead without the complete disposition of the cases at the lower courts, without getting the judgment of a district court, reviewed by an
appellate court that it won't get and creates a record that can be fully reviewed by a Supreme Court, letting all this go, letting all this happen, dismissing people from their jobs, terminating the financial support that's been going out to various academic and other institutions that have relied upon this for our livelihoods and our lives and our communities, gotta do that right away.
Supreme Court.
in at least 10, 12, 15 situations coming up on those numbers has permitted the government to go ahead and have those executive orders issued not only, not only in their full glory and their full impact, but immediately.
And that's what the issue is.
Among other illustrations, you may recall well that when this happens, we've got confusion also in the lower courts.
Orders without any reasoning, which is what the problem is here, can create that sort of confusion.
Maybe not that dismay but that's head scratching that goes on to the lower courts You remember for instance that the court allowed the Trump administration just a few weeks ago to deport those migrants This was the South Sudan case to countries other than their own giving without giving them without giving the due process to show that they would in fact Not know about these countries of their deportation to which they're being deported.
They would face the risk of torture some other dangers and the
litigation was about whether or not that could happen, absent giving these convicted criminals who are in fact being deported, the opportunity, the due process opportunity to be heard as the law required.
The Supreme Court, giving no reasons, said that in fact the administration could go ahead and do this.
The lower judge, lower district court judge who had enjoined that from happening, his name was Brian Murphy, remember this?
From
from Boston had said you know there's nothing about that order gives me any direction I'm continuing to tell the government not to proceed to deport these eight nine or so defendants these convicts who again should be and are going to be deported without giving them the opportunity to show that they would face danger even torture
in these countries of their ultimate destination.
What has to happen is then because of the lack of certainty is that everyone scratches their head and the court silence again prompts the administration to go back to the Supreme Court days later seeking clarification of what it meant.
And then the court issues a second order.
And again, no more than two pages, very brief.
And that allows the administration to send the men to South Sudan.
That's the kind of mess that happens
in that instance and in others when you pursue this on a regular basis.
It is a reason for concern.
We know that the Supreme Court is already administering and reviewing other cases for its next docket, the full docket.
on that likely list we've talked about these things in the past you've got more applicants coming in there is an application for the supreme court to intervene in a case that could significantly once again reduce the scope of the voting rights act there's another matter that's taking up this issue but whether or not 10 commandments the 10 commandments should be inside the schools the public schools of our nation now the court hasn't granted
the appeals in those cases yet, but it underscores the significance of the kinds of things that our Supreme Court is likely going to be taking on in the next term.
The importance of those is no less.
when it comes to all of these other cases, the non-merits cases, to which it's giving a short drift and giving us no reasons.
And that is why this is such a great concern.
And that's why I'm spending so much time talking about the reasons why Americans of all political persuasions, under all circumstances, should be legitimately concerned about the breakneck speed of the use of this shadow docket, of the use of these emergency applications,
because they result in very quick decisions, and perhaps most importantly, no clarity.
With respect to the disposition of the cases, they in many cases bring them to an end because of the effective import, the impact of the decisions themselves, the decisions to support, support the executive orders of the president, but beyond that.
When it comes to understanding the jurisprudence of our Supreme Court, no clarity, no reasons, and that, that I would offer to you, is different.
From what we have seen in the United States Supreme Court jurisprudence, not without some exception, but it's been limited for well over 200 years.
That's the problem, and that is the concern.
Among the other concerns, of course, are the impact upon human beings.
not only overseas, but also the employment situation here in America, employment situations for even things like those immigrants who are here, perhaps some of them illegally, many of them certainly in those circumstances, all of that raising issues about human beings and their status in this nation.
That issue also deep inside the Department of Justice as well.
as terminations just this past week happen at the hand of the Attorney General.
You know them well.
Let's talk about two of them and then some more general considerations here too.
Maureen Comey.
Maureen Comey, C-O-M-E-Y, yes.
This is not her principal claim to fame, but yes indeed she is.
She is the daughter of James Comey, the former director of the FBI.
She is a federal prosecutor in her own right.
She is an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York who has by all reports done an outstanding job in providing professional litigation professional prosecution efforts initiatives in the grand jury and in trial courts including the prosecution of yes Sean Combs and yes the Maxwell cases
in that district.
Yes, we're going to get to a bit on Jeffrey Epstein at the end of this hour.
She is responsible with others for those kinds of prosecutions and she is let go.
Apparently at the direct direction of the president of the United States of America through Pam Bondi who says that you're fired.
And she walks out of the U.S.
Attorney's Office as an assistant United States Attorney.
She is not an at-will employee.
And she of course directs and tells her colleagues who remain behind that this is the conduct of a tyrant.
And of course, we have not heard the last from her likely like many others.
She will appeal that removal to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
She does have protections.
You can't simply do these kinds of things with people or in those positions, but she is not alone.
We know that in addition to her, the attorney general is also fired, fired the ethics chief.
the individual who is the head of the Office of Ethics inside the Department of Justice.
That is no small thing.
The ethics official, the ethics official who's been there a long time, like the Assistant United States Attorney Comey.
His name is Joseph Terrell, T-R-R-E-L-L.
He was told about this.
He took to LinkedIn on Monday to tell colleagues about his removal.
And he said, until Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of Justice, responsible for advising the attorney general and the deputy attorney general directly on federal employee ethics.
I was also responsible, he said, for the day-to-day operation of the ethics programs across the department.
And that means just what is
says and says what it means he is now gone and he is also terminated also playing the subject to protections but he is no longer working there and the president terminating these people without authority and indeed the president and the attorney general we know also firing other groups of attorneys
We know about their terminations of large numbers of people who are involved in the January 6th prosecutions.
They have now terminated virtually the entire staff of those people responsible for the prosecutions of Donald Trump in recent years.
All of that coming out of the Department of Justice just this past week and beyond.
When we come back, we'll tell you more about that and then talk about this other major issue that is before the American population here on Amicus.
Allah review.
This is Amica Salaro, my name's Jim Santel.
We are talking about not just this trend,
But this plain practice, this plain policy inside the president administration, including the U.S.
Department of Justice, to terminate people we do not like, perhaps because their last name happens to be Comey, perhaps because they're in charge of ethics inside the Department of Justice and apparently people like Mr. Terrell, who's been the ethics officer of the Department of Justice for a long time, doing an excellent job of providing ethical advice and counsel to members of the Department of Justice.
top officials, he is no longer there.
We got rid of him too.
Again, contrary to the law, you cannot simply do this, but the president is showing them the door.
We know as well, we know as well that there are other terminations going on with respect to people who have previously been involved in the prosecutions of this president, the Mar-O-Lago case, the case involving January 6th.
All of those prosecutors, about 20 of them have recently been dismissed as well, not on the merits, not for cause.
They're not at will employees, but they've been treated like that.
They have been shown the door and they are gone because of the justice work that they did in the past.
We know as well that the assistant U.S.
attorneys who handled those January 6th prosecutions, all of them in the U.S.
Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C.
are likewise gone from our system because of the work that they did.
in support of the rule of law in America.
It is a very troubling trend and it continues seemingly unabated.
Much of it at the hands also of a person named Emile Beauvais.
He's still inside the Department of Justice in the Deputy Attorney General's office.
He was the author of a lot of those firings early on.
And he may well be, almost certainly will be headed to the United States Court of Appeals for the third circuit upon the nomination of this president to take on lifetime tenure in that appeals court.
just below the United States Supreme Court.
In addition to those terminations, those purposeful movements to get rid of staff inside the Department of Justice.
We also have simply departures.
This significant coming out just this past week, the U.S.
Department of Justice units called the Federal Programs Branch.
It's charged with defending all of these policies and practices, the executive orders inside this administration, recently seeing departures of about 69 of 110 lawyers.
That's about two thirds of the entire staff there departing as a result of two things.
One is overwork.
They are simply deluged by all of these cases, can no longer handle it.
But more importantly, more importantly, defending cases that they feel they cannot defend.
And that's the principal reason why they're leaving.
One of them says, we have come to work at the federal programs branch to defend aspects of our constitutional system.
And how can we participate in this project of tearing it down?
They are decimated by the kinds of things they're being asked to do in trying to represent factually, legally, to defend these executive orders for which there is no defense in the courts.
And now you have nearly 70 of 110 of these attorneys walking out the door since Donald Trump was elected in November.
Will they fill those positions?
Sure they will.
They will find attorneys to come in and do that defensive work.
What is the downside of these firings and of the departures there?
It is a huge, huge diminution in the expertise that is otherwise there inside the Department of Justice.
You don't restore that overnight.
And our Department of Justice in all of these areas and more is lessened by virtue of these departures of good, decent people.
handling their jobs apolitically without partisan perspective and being fired because of the work that they have done also in that a partisan non-political way in the past.
It is a reason for great concern.
Finally, finally.
We've got the Epstein matter, the Jeffrey Epstein matter that has captivated, seemingly, the United States of America.
Let's begin with this general observation as we always do.
This is human tragedy, as always said.
Every single criminal prosecution is human tragedy.
This is no exception.
At the top of this, let us not forget that ultimately this case was prosecuted against Maxwell, who remains in federal custody in federal prison 20 years based upon her conviction
for this human trafficking of individuals, victims, victims of Epstein and Maxwell alike.
They're out there.
They are real, live human beings.
And this side show, this circus show that's going on right now, involving the conspiracies, the unfounded conspiracies about unfounded conspiracies that's taken over Washington, that's got the deputy director of the FBI squabbling with the attorney general and with the director of the FBI in public and private.
all of that, all of that in embarrassment to government, especially when the core focus should have been and was upon the victims of this offense conduct.
They're out there and one can only wonder what they're thinking about how this has been turned in the public's view by virtue of what the president has done recently now suing the Wall Street Journal to further exacerbate all of these conspiracies within conspiracies.
prompting the New York Times to put together Venn diagrams to try to keep it all straight and along the way, along the way directing his Attorney General to seek the release of the grand jury transcripts.
Here's the significant point about that under Rule 6C.
That request may well not be granted by a district court judge who has to identify the law enforcement reasons for doing it.
You don't release grand jury transcripts, there's a presumption that they will not be released, absent some law enforcement reason that is compelling and known based upon another piece of criminal investigative or prosecutorial work, some legitimate government reason, and not, and not because it's a subject of late night talk shows, and also a banter inside the Beltway in Washington, D.C.
Highly likely that will not be granted and beyond that the grand jury transcripts themselves about the underlying conduct they do not show they will not reveal all of this recent intrigue once again the unfounded conspiracies inside the unfounded conspiracies about what the president calls a hoax.
That's not in these grand jury transcripts.
And it is a misnomer.
It's a misdirection to say that somehow if these are released, we're going to get clarity on all these things that happen.
I would offer that once again, this issue is tragedy.
It's human tragedy for everybody involved.
It is unfortunate that we are not talking about the larger issues facing American, Washington, DC, and beyond, including right here in Wisconsin.
We'll talk more about that and other matters affecting the rule of law and justice and government.
Next weekend, come back and be a part of that discussion at that time.
My name is Jim
Santel.
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