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My name is Jim Santel I am your host this hour and next hour as well this Labor Day weekend 2025 so very pleased and honored as always that you have chosen to spend some of this important weekend when we recognize the Significant contributions of labor to our history our lives and our livelihoods.
It is also a time of
of huge, great activity by our federal courts who thought that at the last days of summer, 2025, we would have all of this activity in our federal district courts, our appellate courts, and yes, indeed, here on Amicus this hour and next hour, we are going to talk with you, talk with you about some of these major decisions coming out of our trial courts and our appellate courts.
And that discussion necessarily, importantly,
includes you as well, inviting you as always to be a part of our discussion, our examination, our analysis of what is going on in the areas of the rule of law and the administration of justice.
And yes, the government operation that is part and parcel of all of that.
You can do that.
You can be a part of the discussion by calling my producer and me.
Max is his name.
That number is 855-752-4842.
Once again, that's 855-752-4842.
You can also drop a comment, a question, an inquiry, an observation about any of these things on our extensive but achievable syllabus this weekend.
You can do that by dropping those questions into the chat box here on Amicus Law Review.
Civic media is the way to get in touch with us.
of our discussion this hour and next hour as well.
What is going to animate that discussion this hour and also in the second hour of our broadcast?
It is a lot as we often say on this broadcast and indeed it has been a week when federal district court judges and federal appeals court judges especially at the end of this calendar week have done a lot in the areas of law and government and the rule of law.
many of these topics many of these issues visited before once again back in the news some of them the top headlines some of them a little less so but no less important to understanding what's going on these days in America on the face of our planet it involves immigration it involves tariffs it involves the basic
do process rights of people in our nation.
It involves a lot of issues that we have talked about before here on Amicus, a law review, going to revisit some of those.
Also going to spend some time necessarily talking about civics.
We often engage here on our broadcast in aspects of law school.
And indeed, this weekend is no exception to that.
We need to go back and talk about where some of these courts are, what the authority is that they have to act in these areas.
and what their constitutional predicates are, all of that understanding what they have done in just the past several days here in the United States of America.
Let me give you a sense of what that syllabus again, ambitious, but achievable looks like in this.
edition of Amicus, a lot of you.
We're going to begin.
We're going to begin with the big news story.
You have seen it.
It is across the headlines, which is tariffs.
And yes, it relates to what the president has been doing for much of his term, one of his landmark
actions as the chief executive of our nation, imposing, rescinding, withdrawing, postponing, and reimposing tariffs of various kinds.
That has been in the news a lot.
You may recall well that we also talked about a fairly obscure decision by a non-obscure court not too long ago to tell him he can't be doing any of that.
Well, it turns out that there is a federal court, a federal appeals court that reviewed that lower court decision
And late this past week, just on Friday, a major blockbuster decision telling the president of the United States of America that with respect to the great majority of the things that he has been doing with respect to tariffs, no can do, no constitutional basis to do it.
The statutory invocation that he and his advisors have pursued is invalid.
It's a huge rebuke.
It is a huge pushback on what the president can and cannot do legally.
We're gonna talk about that case.
coming out of the federal circuit, and yes, we're going to talk about what that is, where it comes from, and what its authority is to make this major decision grabbing headlines again this weekend as we are celebrating and observing Labor Day.
Also,
also much impacted of course by these terms that's number one of five perhaps six different cases coming out of our appeals court there's something coming out of the ninth circuit we also visited this in the past involving temporary protected status the ninth circuit court of appeals once again telling the president that he cannot rescind an order of the prior administration
involving the invocation of the congressionally approved TPS temporary protected status.
We'll tell you what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did just late this past week.
And then we're going to talk about a lot of district court judges, including one of them.
in the District of Columbia, who has issued an order on another concept in the immigration area, which is called expedited removal, a way of moving very quickly to manage our immigration issues in this nation.
We'll tell you what a district court judge did, yes, once again, to enjoin to stop the president, to stop the administration from doing what it wants to do in terms of
expediting the removal of people, expedited removal once again in the attention of our federal judiciary just this past week, a district court judge, many other cases out there as well.
We also have a major case, and we're going to revisit something we've done before, this one involving a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice, your attorney general, my attorney general, you know who that is, her name is Pam Bondi, she has brought a lawsuit.
against all of the sitting federal judges in the district of Maryland saying that they're all acting badly, that they're all acting unconstitutionally and imposing a rule that says, if you want to deport someone in the jurisdiction of that court, you got to wait just a few days so we can process those claims and make certain you're not deporting them before we can conduct the proper judicial review that they are.
properly afforded under the Constitution, Pambani filed a lawsuit against all the judges, including the chief judge there in the district of Maryland.
These are all trial judges saying, can't do that.
You're impinging upon the president's prerogative when it comes to the imposition of policies in the area of immigration.
Just this past week, a major decision coming out of a district court
His name is Judge Cullen, and we're going to talk with you not only about what Judge Cullen has done, which is to dismiss that lawsuit, saying there's no merit to it.
It is frivolous.
We're going to revisit what we've done before, which is read to you, spend some time reading to you a major portion of this major decision issued by Judge Cullen, dismissing the government's lawsuit against the trial judges.
Why?
Because Judge Cullen's
opinion, his multi-page opinion is once again an opus when it comes to understanding the rule of law.
You may recall that in the past, coming out of the Fourth Circuit, there was a major case written by Judge Wilkinson.
He's at the Court of Appeals, the same area of our country.
Interestingly, Judge Wilkinson was the judge for whom Judge Cullen clerked when he was recently graduated as a lawyer.
Judge Cullen now issuing an order which is very much reminiscent of Judge Wilkinson's order of this past spring, which we read at great length because of its
significance in articulating the rule of law in America.
We're going to do the same with respect to what Judge Cullen has done, because the things that he says about the interplay between the branches of government, the respect that branches of government need to have for each other,
the disappointments that branches of government often have in the conduct of the others, and yet the affirmation that judges do have a role and that they cannot simply be sued to stop them from doing as the government, as Pam Bondi, as the president wanted, cannot be sued simply because you don't like what they're doing in terms of processing the cases in front of them.
It is a big deal.
It's a major decision coming out of Judge Cullen's court.
He's actually
judge from western Virginia, but he was brought in because of course all the judges have been sued there in Maryland.
And so reassigned to him, he has now issued this major order.
We're going to spend a lot of time talking about why that's so very important.
We're going to talk about another injunction issued by another judge, stopping the president from basically knee capping the voice of America.
and attempting to get rid of its leadership once again in joining the injunction function of federal courts.
We see that once again in a major voice of America case and then very locally.
Very locally we're going to talk about what Judge Lynn Adelman did in resolving the motions of Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan.
You recall well she is the local Wisconsin Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge who has been indicted by a federal grand jury in eastern Wisconsin for obstructing, allegedly obstructing the conduct of an agency attempting to arrest one of the
one of the defendants appearing in front of her.
We'll talk about what Judge Lynn Edelman did in resolving early this past week.
Two of the motions, really two arguments presented by Judge Dugan's attorneys dismissing both of them, denying the motions to dismiss and saying that the case should go to trial.
We'll talk about exactly what it is that Judge Lynn Adelman did in resolving those cases and what we can expect in terms of next best actions, including, yes, again, likely recourse to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, another appellate, a federal appellate court,
Tribunal likely looking at these major cases, this one included.
And then, and then as we do a bit in every broadcast, we're going to return once again to the Supreme Court.
We give you some basic statistical history.
now in the wake of the, not the resolution of the complete term, but the conclusion of the major decisions that it issued in this past term would give us some stats on what the Supreme Court has done.
And then once again, talk about some of the cases in front of the Supreme Court just five weeks away, five weeks from this coming Monday, the Supreme Court, once again, back in action, the 2025, 2026 term of
United States Supreme Court already 32 cases 32 cases already on its docket many more going to be a part of that docket the Supreme Court likely going to be inviting in more cases but we'll talk about some of the kinds of things the Supreme Court already has on its docket yes arguably although not certainly yet
a challenge to the same-sex marriage decisions of Obergefell of many years ago, affirming the constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry, not yet on the docket, but up for decision by the Supreme Court in terms of whether it will entertain a challenge to Obergefell.
That's coming up in late September, but we do know other things on the Supreme Court docket and those include things like the death penalty and voting rights and campaign finance and religious liberty and internet liability.
and yes indeed an aspect of abortion that is interesting as well all of that all of that among the 30 cases that the Supreme Court has already identified for its action its review its oral argument and its disposition in what is going to be a new term
Chock full of cases and decisions and challenges, no less significant than those of recent terms about which we have spent a lot of time here on Amicus.
We're gonna spend a lot of time, of course, in the weeks ahead talking about those cases in this edition, this Labor Day edition of our broadcast, talking about federal appeals court judges and trial court judges, making law in America.
Stay with us for that discussion.
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It is our weekly weekend review of all things related to government and rule of law, the administration of justice in our nation and on the face of the planet.
That includes lots and lots of things.
It is a lot to get to, but we've got the agenda, we've got the time, and we've got you as well.
Listening in, hopefully participating in our discussion as well, you can call in that number once again as 855-752-4842 or drop a line to Max and me on the chat box, and we will take a look at those comments, those questions as well.
Let us begin with a thing that is in the headlines of America just in the last...
hours of the week and that is that is that this appeals court the federal circuit appeals court has invalidated many of the sweeping major tariffs that have been the subjects of negotiation and imposition by the president of the united states one of his landmark his key achievements if you will in terms of his economic policies his international policy the court of appeals for the federal circuit
federal circuit invalidating not all but virtually all of the tariffs imposed by the president in recent months the federal appeals court ruling late friday that many of president trump's
Punishing tariffs around the world are illegal, are invalid.
And let's begin by talking a bit about where this comes from.
You may recall, because we talked about this a number of broadcasts ago, that when this matter first appeared before another court called the United States Court of International Trade, that court, that court located in New York City, it's a federal court.
It is a court properly constituted under the Constitution found.
For the first time that the president did not have the authority under the Constitution and under the particular statute, yes, we'll identify that again, has no authority to do what he has been doing for the past several months, engaging in these actions to impose, to negotiate, to rescind, to delay all of them.
Why?
Because there's no statutory authority.
And because in the end, the Constitution says that what branch of government does tariffs, it is the legislature.
The United States Court of International Trade established under, again, Article III, the Constitution, nationwide jurisdiction, you remember this, over civil actions involving all kinds of things related to finances and customs, international trade laws, all those kinds of things, including tariffs.
provides assistance to litigants who are there to challenge various things the government may do coming into court.
That legal assistance, if you will, is in the nature of reviewing their challenges to things that the government may do, that private parties may do in the areas of trade laws and tariffs and customs.
And so indeed,
A number of weeks ago, it is the United States Court of International Trade located there in the principal hub of economic activity in our nation, New York City, that said that the law did not grant the president what it called unbounded authority.
Those are its words to wage his global trade war.
That's how he described what the president was doing, said.
President has no right to issue any of these decisions affecting our trade and in particular imposing tariffs upon foreign countries.
The Trump administration, of course, promptly appealed that decision and the court at first allowed the president to maintain his tariffs while the judges consider the legality of his actions overall.
But in a seven to four ruling late Friday, late this past week, a majority of the court of appeals for the
federal circuit.
the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC, determined again for the second time, affirming what the Court of International Trade had done, that the breadth of these tariffs, most of them that the President had undertaken, simply illegal, unconstitutional, cannot do it.
What is the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit?
Again, that is a court.
It's once again an Article III court under the Constitution created for what it's worth for the historians among you.
And I know you all are historians.
October
1982, the passage of the Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982 had spent around a long time.
Court was formed by the merger of the U.S.
Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, that gives you some idea of what it does, but also an appellate division of the U.S.
Court of Claims, the same kind of thing that the International Trade Court does and more.
It is located, you may recall, you may even walked by it if you've been in Washington, D.C., right there in Lafayette Square, not too far from the White House.
It's in a building there, the National Courts Building.
It is the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
It is one of our circuits.
Its jurisdiction is premised upon these things, again, related to patents, and claims, and customs, and trade laws, and tariffs, all these kinds of things.
Its jurisdiction is not geographic, like, for example, it is here in the Seventh Circuit, where the
Court of Appeals, located in Chicago, reviews cases coming out of the trial courts in where?
In Illinois, in Wisconsin, and in Indiana.
The Federal Circuit reviews these kinds of matters in these areas, including tariffs.
And what specifically did the Federal Circuit do late this past week?
Again, upholding the lower court decision that said, Mr. President, what you've been doing is unconstitutional, illegal, can't do it, said this.
It seems unlikely that
Congress intended in enacting the IEEPA.
What is that?
You may recall this from our previous discussion.
We all know it now.
It may not trip off your tongue, but it is the statute called the International Emergency Economic
powers act, the IEPA, the Court of Appeals saying that unlikely that Congress intended in enacting that to depart from its past practice and grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs.
Unlike the Congress intended to do that, a majority of the judges wrote in their ruling, citing along the way the magnitude of the duties that Donald Trump has put in place.
This is no small thing.
And according to the Court of Appeals, once again, can't do it.
The president had invoked this economic emergency law to tax imports by imposing these levies, these tariffs.
And during the first term, his advisors had indicated that IEPA was probably not available.
He decided to go ahead in the second term.
Court of Appeals now saying can't do it.
When we come back, I'll tell you more about that decision, what the consequences of that are.
And then we'll talk about other appeals court judges, other district court judges acting in the area, in the area of rule of law.
Stay with us for that important review.
This is Amica Solar Review.
My name is Jim Santel on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.
We have got a lot of things in the area of rule of law to discuss, to engage with you on in this broadcast, this hour and the second hour as well as always inviting your comments, especially your questions, your inquiries, because as I say with increasing frequency, it's a lot.
It's a lot to consume.
It's a lot to keep straight, including some of the things that we necessarily need to understand these days.
in America, including something called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or the IEEPA.
It is a statute typically used by past presidents to issue foreign sanctions.
And the question is whether or not it can also be invoked by the current president to impose or levy his broad tariffs and the answer both from the court of international trade a number of weeks ago and now the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the federal circuit is no.
Can't do this, Mr. President.
Cannot invoke that particular statute.
Why in part because as the courts have said, doesn't make any reference to tariffs.
None at all.
What does refer to tariffs is a thing called the Constitution.
And that establishes in the legislature, not the executive branch, the authority to impose levies and tariffs of the sort that you are pursuing.
And so a major blow.
to the economic decisions, these international decisions at a time when we know even this weekend that India is meeting with Russia and China in part because of the tariffs imposed upon it by our government.
At that time, this opinion has major implications for our international status on the face of this planet.
The court's decision once again centers on these tariffs that Donald Trump
began in April.
He referred to this, as you may recall, as Liberation Day, imposing these reciprocal tariffs of up to 50% on some countries with which the United States ran a trade deficit, 10% baseline tariffs on almost everybody else.
He suspended those.
He re-invoked those.
You know the history on all of this.
But in the end because of their dissatisfaction with the effect of those tariffs some states and especially some small
business owners dramatically affected by these tariffs, now celebrating these decisions, including the decision of the federal circuit saying you can't do this, Mr. President.
Celebrating this decision brought this litigation challenging what he was doing.
The U.S.
Constitution, you know, we all know, gives Congress the power to set taxes, including tariffs.
It is explicit, and that's the basis upon which the federal circuit said no.
Lawmakers have gradually admittedly let some presidents assume some more power in these areas.
The court challenge does not cover, does not implicate the other Trump tariffs, including levies on foreign steel and an aluminum and automobiles that the president imposed after the Commerce Department.
It concluded that those imports were threats to national security, so a different kind of invocation.
Likewise, the order does not include tariffs that the president imposed on China.
In his first term, President Biden kept those in place after a government investigation included that the Chinese had used unfair practices to give their own tech firms an edge.
a rivalry with the United States of America.
So some exclusions, these are not across the board, but the great majority of the tariffs again imposed by the president in the wake of so-called Liberation Day, no longer valid if they ever were.
And so claiming this extraordinary power,
The president now has a major problem on his hand, and in particular, trying to explain to foreign countries how his power continues to be in place.
The administration argued that the past had indicated to him, including some things that President Nixon had done, that the language does in fact permit
him to do just this but again in may the u.s.
court of international trade again located in new york said that these tariffs exceed any authority granted the president and they
The trade court at that time combined a couple of challenges.
Five businesses and one by 12 U.S.
states into the single case issuing the order then, now, now affirmed by the federal circuit.
Now, admittedly, this case will certainly be appealed by the administration to the United States Supreme Court.
It will be fascinating to see if the United States Supreme Court
in its resolution of this case x quickly puts it on its docket for the next term what it may do but it does require it does require the court to wrestle with should require the court to wrestle with the issue of constitutionality the president vowed to take this fight to the supreme court
And he wrote on his social media platform, if allowed to stand this decision, he said, would literally destroy the United States of America.
And again, he does have alternatives out there, other things that he can do.
He can impose tariffs under different standards, including a thing called the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, other things out there, the Trade Act of 1974, but can't do it this way.
cannot do it as he has approached this process.
As he attempted to do, in his first term, his advisor is saying, we don't think you can do that.
Now you've got appeals courts in America telling the president as of just days ago that all of this work, all of these tariffs that he has imposed, unconstitutional.
What do we do with that now as a result of these major decisions?
Well, the rule of law says,
that a branch of government, yes indeed, can appeal, and indeed the Federal Circuit has suspended its decision for about 60 days until mid-October to do what?
Number one, to permit the economic markets likely to settle down just a bit.
This is big news, not just in terms of the rule of law, but also economically on the face of this planet, but also to permit the administration to pursue that appeal to the United States Supreme Court, presumably
Asking it to act in an expedited fashion, will this be another one of those expedited emergency appeals?
Will this be another decision by the Supreme Court without explanation or hopefully, hopefully?
Telling telling the president that indeed the lower courts are right on this that the Constitution means what it says and Says what it means a lot of history in though in the immediate past and coming up as well in the connection with the rule of law the Possibilities of what the president can and cannot do and the Constitution itself.
How do we interpret it?
How do we make sense of a specific grants of authority to one branch of government now another branch of
governments saying that yet a third branch of government, the executive branch, cannot do what it has done.
Major decision coming out of an appeals court, the federal circuit, just this past week.
Not to be outdone.
Another appeals court, this one on the other side of our nation, federal appeals court, the ninth circuit.
Friday, ruling against Donald Trump's plan to end something called temporary protections.
You may recall this.
We talked about this as well when it was before the trial court, about 600,000 Venezuelans who had permission to live and to work here in the United States.
The president suspending their temporary protections, suspending something called temporary protected status, TPS.
Remember this?
Remember this decision?
And the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a three-judge panel, saying that the Homeland Security Secretary, Christie Noem, just this past week, has no authority to vacate or set aside a prior extension.
of that TPS status, that temporary protected status, because once again, the law says you can't do it.
The governing statute written by Congress simply does not permit it, Mr. President, does not permit that, Secretary Noam.
That's what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has said once again, enjoining the stopping of that temporary protected status being suspended.
A couple of double negatives there, but basically reinstating TPS
for about 600,000 Venezuelans who had the protections of that prior to the administration's action.
President Biden, his administration, had extended that temporary protected status, again known as TPS, for people from Venezuela.
this administration rescinding that now a court of appeals a ninth circuit saying saying that just this in enacting the tps stat a statute congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable and dependable and insulated from electoral politics that's u.s circuit judge kim wardlaw w a r d l a w
who again is the one writing on behalf of the three judge panel in this major decision coming out of the Ninth Circuit.
It is unclear.
whether the ruling on Friday will have, what effect it will have on the 350,000 Venezuelans in the group of 600,000 whose protections expired already in April.
And so a lot of lawyering has to be done now in the wake of this major decision.
Protections for the remaining 250,000 Venezuelans are set to expire soon on September 20th.
And that once again means to talk, right?
It means that certainly the United States government, the administration,
Justice Department will once again appeal this appeal this to the United States Supreme Court and it has a major implication once again not only at the top of the list for some 600,000 Venezuelans previously granted this temporary protected status what is their status going forward they need to know
And at a time when people who are protected by some of these programs are in fact being taken off the streets and deported sometimes, sometimes without the new process to be afforded them by the law, this is another big deal.
It means that the government, at least for now in the wake of the Ninth Circuit, cannot go ahead and rescind the status afforded
these 600,000 or so Venezuelans.
Again, some subgroups of them, depending upon when the TPS status was granted, have different implications for them.
You may recall, well, we talked about Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco.
He was a district court judge who found way back in March when he talked about this, that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the president, the administration had overstepped its authority in terminating these protections and Chen postponed those terminations.
But the Supreme Court reversed him without explanation once again on its emergency docket now now the Ninth Circuit affirming that and saying nope can't go ahead with temporary protected status Recision can't remove that with respect to these large numbers of Venezuelans Properly lawfully in our nation.
That's the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals another major appellate decision coming out of our judiciary
just this past week.
Let's go.
Let's go to some district court judges also very active injunction function.
Once again, district court judges, let's go back to the other side of our nation, the DC trial judge, a federal judge on Friday.
Once again, the same time this is going on on the West coast Friday, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from carrying out speedy deportations.
Once again, in the area of immigration, right?
The
issue looms large in our federal judiciary.
Can't deport using an expedited process.
Expedited removal is the term of art that the lawyers and the immigration process contemplates here.
Can't do that.
Can't do an expedited removal for undocumented migrants in the interior of the United States of America.
The move, once again, a huge setback undeniably for the administration that has used this expedited process.
The district court judge, in this case, Gia Cobb, COBB, Washington, D.C., is indicating that the president, once again, has overstepped his bounds, cannot be doing this, cannot be, cannot be using this expedited removal process with respect to some migrants in the country illegally without appearing before a judge
first.
That's the point.
That's the rub.
That's the due process that's missing here.
When we come back, I'll tell you more about what exactly Judge Cobb said to the president, said to all of us in issuing this opinion as a part of the rule of law review that she has on her docket.
All of that as amicus a la review continues.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
My name is Jim Santel.
We are going through a lot, not all of them, but a lot of the cases decided by the appeals courts and the federal trial courts just this past week in a bunch of different areas, including this immigration issue that continues to loom large in our nation's history, talking about what Judge Gia Cobb, COBB, she is a district court judge, an appellate court judge.
She's a district court, a trial court judge in the District of Columbia.
be a finding that the president's decision to engage in a process called
expedited removal, basically not giving people the opportunities to have their cases heard.
Unconstitutional can't go ahead and do it.
She has suggested that the Trump administration's expedited use of this expedited removal system or process is trampling, as she said, on the individual's due process rights.
Here's what she said in particular in her order of just this past week.
She said, in defending, this is her word, not mine,
skimpy process, the government makes a truly startling argument that those who entered the country illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment.
but instead must accept whatever Grace Congress affords them.
This is Judge Cobb writing in a, again, an opus, a 48-page opinion issued late this past week.
Were that right, Judge Cobb says, not only non-citizens, but every one of us would be at risk.
Every one of it, she says, would be at risk as a result of what is happening here.
The judge smacking down, saying you cannot be doing this and cannot be doing this expedited removal process in a way that accomplishes a due process violation of these individuals subject to deportation.
The court goes on to say that the court merely holds in applying the statute to a huge group of people living in the interior of the country.
who have not previously been subject to expedited removal, the government must afford them due process.
She is not finding that the legislative authority under this
This process is improper.
She's not ruling on the constitutionality of that removal status statute or the application at the border.
She's simply saying for those who are inside the interior of the country cannot do it.
She added that prioritizing speed over all else will inevitably lead the government to erroneously remove people via this truncated process.
We've seen that before.
Have we not, Judge Cobb,
affirming once again the capacity of the administration to use the process but not in this way not in the interior not with respect to these individuals will this go up to the Court of Appeals sure it will where they go they go once again to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals
Maybe once again, reaching the Supreme Court, there's a lot of business.
Is there not inside the federal courts involving immigration?
A lot of that as well.
Along the way, we do have Mark from Prairie du Sac writing in about this issue having to do with tariffs, which we discussed at great length, in the first hour of Amicus.
He's asking, what about the authorities?
Where does this fall?
Where are the authorities of the government to do this?
And indeed, Mark, you're just right.
Section eight.
is in fact the provision of Article 1, the legislative enactment of our Constitution.
Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, and to pay the debts and provide for the common defense, and to impose, and duties, imports, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States of America.
All of that, all of that set by Section 8
of the first article of our Constitution.
Mark goes on to note that the Constitution also established in that same Section 8.
that it is that provision that establishes the authority of Congress to establish uniform rules of naturalization and uniform rules on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States.
They bring those two concepts together.
Mark, absolutely right.
When you ask, aren't the rules for naturalization under the purview of Congress also established?
All of that, all of that inside, inside Section 8 of Article 1, that's the basis upon which the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Mr. President cannot do what you are doing.
We've got other federal judges out there, likewise, in joining the government from doing various things.
Let's talk about U.S.
District Judge Royce Lamberth, L-A-M-B-E-R-T-H.
He, just this past week, stopped the Trump administration once again, yet another injunction from removing a fellow named Michael Abramowitz, A-B-R-A-M-O-W-I-T-Z.
He's the director, now maybe the former director of the Voice of America, the VOA.
That's, as you well know, that's the government-funded news organization that has been providing an awful lot of voices of democracy and freedom and rule of law throughout
the countries of our planet and it has been targeted.
Targeted by this Trump administration you may recall Kerry Lake coming out of Arizona Well, she's now a Trump appointee and she said she said that Congress Earlier this year in Congress that the agency was rotten to the core That's Kerry Lake obviously advancing the perspective of the Trump administration The Trump administration consistent with that view had placed Abramowitz on administrative leave along with nearly every other voice of America's staff earlier this
summer, notifying them, notifying all these people that their terminations would take place when this weekend.
August 31st.
The judge, the judge saying that in his unequivocal writing that the firing of Brahmawits and the others under these circumstances is plainly unlawful.
Those are his words.
He also noted that the administration officials had already treated a Brahmawits as effectively removed despite lacking any legal authority to finalize his dismissal.
That is once again yet a decision by a district court judge telling the
president and telling the White House, telling this administration, you gotta buy it by the law.
And this judge, Royce Lamberth, telling this administration that your decision to fire the director of the VOA and others in the leadership positions there cannot stand.
Will it once again be appealed?
You know what the drill is here.
Certainly it will be going up to the DC Circuit Court.
Maybe, maybe once again to the Supreme Court, if it once again decides to grant review.
When we come back in our second hour, more of all of this, the judges in America, very active, very alert to what's going on, including a judge who dismissed a major lawsuit of the Department of Justice.
When we come back, we'll tell you what judge Tim Cullen did just this past week in resolving,
This is the second hour of our weekend broadcast on this Labor Day weekend.
When we recognize, we embrace, we celebrate.
Labor in America, historically and presently.
And the implications of all of these various rulings past, present, and probably future with respect to the employment forces in our land, those connections cannot be overstated in terms of the rule of law implications of what judges do we have spent most of our first hour talking once again about the injunctions issued, the stop orders, if you will, entered by various judges, including this major decision coming out of the federal circuit telling the president
that the way in which he's been conducting the foreign engagements with other countries and tariffs, excises, levying those kinds of impositions of tariffs on foreign countries cannot go forward.
Telling him he's not doing it constitutionally, they're suspended that decision for about 60 days or so to give him an opportunity to appeal that.
to the United States Supreme Court, but also sending some major shockwaves across the planet with respect to the economic implications of the person who is engaging in foreign negotiation on these tariffs.
What is the authority that foreign leaders now understand this president has when an appeals court, a major federal appeals court in the United States of America has said, you can't do this.
You don't have the authority to go ahead and do that.
That happening just this past week along with another Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision telling the president you cannot deny temporary protected status for a large group of people in this nation.
Another district court judge saying you can't engage in expedited removal with respect to yet another group of people.
Another appeals court out there also also doing other things during the course of this past week which we will get
to in just a moment or so.
A district court, again, entering an injunction against the president, directing him, telling him he cannot terminate the employment of the leadership of the voice of America.
All those things happening, happening this past week in the United States of America, a couple of other major decisions.
by district courts, which we will now get to as a part of our second hour here in Amicus as always inviting your comments and questions 844-752-4842-855-752-4842 also dropping comments into our chat line.
Two district court decisions of significant note, one of them very local.
One of them having to do with the charges that were brought by a grand jury, by the U.S.
Attorney's Office, by the Department of Justice, again, sitting judge Hannah Dugan.
You know what this is all about, the charges against her that she had obstructed the conduct, the activity of federal agents in attempting to arrest someone in her courtroom, in a proceeding of many months ago now.
the indictment challenged by Judge Duggan on two bases, one that's in violation of the 10th Amendment and also that she is judicially immune.
Two very interesting arguments at the top of the litigation docket here.
Even before you get to the merits of this, whether the case can proceed at all under basic constitutional principles and immunity principles.
And you may recall well what these are all about, the 10th Amendment basically deciding that between the states,
in the federal government, those things that are not expressly articulated in the Constitution to the federal government are reserved to the states.
And Judge Dugan's attorney is saying that that means that the federal government should have no involvement in what is a state court matter.
Why?
Because the events that are described in this grand jury indictment where it happened occurred in her state courtroom.
while or attended upon kind of ancillary to her conducting state proceedings.
And so the 10th amendment they argued prohibits the federal government, the U.S.
Attorney's Office, the Department of Justice from going ahead and prosecuting it all, regardless of the facts of the case, regardless of the underlying merits of exactly what happened.
And also arguing consistent with what the Supreme Court has said with respect to a president of the United States of America, that a president has certain immunities.
for the actions, including criminal actions that he or she may commit an offense.
That concept also applies to members of the judiciary.
Now, judicial immunity has existed even before that decision of about a year ago involving the Supreme Court, and yes, involving Donald Trump in particular, invoking both judicial immunity and the 10th Amendment.
The magistrate judge, her name is Nancy Joseph, not too long ago, entered a recommendation
to the trial court saying based upon all sorts of considerations under both of those arguments recommending to judge Lynn Edelman who is the trial judge presiding over this case that he not grant the motion on either ground that both of them
While interesting to talk about and significant in terms of threshold issues, none of them, none of them should prevent the government from going ahead and trying this case.
And just this past week, Lynn Adelman, again, the trial judge, at least at the district court level, has the final say, maybe not ultimately the final say, but at the trial court level, he agrees with the magistrate judge and he says this.
There's no basis for granting immunity to Judge Hannah Dugan, simply because some of the allegations in the indictment describe conduct that could be considered part of the judge's job.
In other words, because they're intermingled doesn't mean that the government can't go ahead and prosecute, even if there are things that are judicial in nature that are also mixed in with things that may be, may be criminal in nature.
He wrote,
As the magistrate judge noted, the same is true in bribery prosecutions, concededly valid, where the judges were prosecuted for performing official acts intertwined with bribery.
Now this is not a bribery case, but the judge is using that as an analogy to explain how the confluence to bringing together both official duties and maybe arguably charged criminal conduct makes it impossible to
unattangle those things and therefore find that the judge is immune from prosecution, also goes on to say that the notion that the 10th Amendment precludes this prosecution from going ahead rejects that as well and rejects an argument that are arrest and the prosecution were a violation of the separation
between states and the federal government, which is what the 10th Amendment provides.
And so, and so what's happened?
The judge says, okay, when anybody come in, I'm conducting a hearing.
He said this coming week, that's going to be September 3rd, 11 a.m.
at the federal courthouse.
And I'm going to ask what the parties want to do now in the wake of the decision that I, he has entered here, judge.
Judge Lynn Adelman, what do you want to do next?
And highly likely, almost predictable, that Judge Duggan, through her attorneys, will appeal this where to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals will then review Judge Adelman's decision to determine whether or not it should stand or be reversed and sent back down, presumably, if it is reversed for dismissal of the case.
He wants to know.
What the what the defense in particular plans to do and of course if it goes to the seventh circuit highly likely highly likely as it will do That this case will not be tried anytime in this calendar year seventh circuit will take this up presumably ask for briefs on this some oral argument
maybe as soon as later this year, maybe into 2026, but assuming an appeal of this major decision coming out of Judge Edelman's courtroom, not likely that this case will go to trial if at all, anytime this year, maybe, maybe in 2026, depending upon what the Court of Appeals does, could be dismissed or could move on to trial.
by a jury.
And that's basically what the judge is saying.
I want this case to go to trial, let the jury figure out what the facts of this case are all about.
And that's the final important point to take away from this.
These are jurisdictional arguments.
They're issues about whether or not the government has the authority at all.
In the first instance, even to bring these lawsuits, the 10th Amendment, judicial immunity issue, all of that.
does not attack does not get to the facts of the case that's what the judge says he anticipates doing here having a trial and letting a trial jury a group of 12 people unanimously or perhaps not coming to a conclusion about the guilt or the lack of guilt here
by the defendant as charged in this indictment.
Again, Hannah Duggan presumed innocent until proven guilty by the government.
It's important always to reaffirm that fundamental notion as we talk about these cases.
This one now presumably heading to the seventh circuit for review of what the judge has done.
And then we have another district court judge.
His name is Tom Ert.
or Tom Thomas Cullen, not Tim Cullen, Tim Cullen, improperly in the...
previous segment indicated as a judge.
Tim Cullen, as you all know, a former politician here in the state of Wisconsin, former majority leader of the Wisconsin Senate.
For many years there, Senator Cullen died late last this past year, a very significant role in Wisconsin government.
This is a different person.
This is Thomas Cullen, Thomas C-U-L-L-E-N.
Thomas Cullen is a federal district court judge.
He is in the district of Western District of Virginia.
So he is in the state of Virginia, in the Western District of that state.
And he, this past week, issued, again, as a trial court judge, a decision in a major matter pending in Maryland.
And you may think, well, how is that happening?
What's going on here?
Well, it turns out, you may recall, we reported on this also in this broadcast a number of weeks ago, that the attorney general,
upset about what the chief judge in the district of Maryland had done in connection with his management of some of the many immigration cases pending there in front of him and other district court judges had imposed what basically is a two-day period, a two-business day period before the federal government can deport anyone.
If those petitioners are seeking review in the trial courts, basically letting the trial courts get a little bit of a breather
to figure out whether or not the case should be heard, to give the parties an opportunity to file their briefs before the government can go ahead and simply deport someone.
If they are seeking review by a trial court judge in Maryland, the rule was that the individuals can't be removed, their legal status cannot be altered, any alien detainee who had filed a petition for what?
For habeas corpus in that district, gotta give them at least two days.
before you can deport them prohibiting the government from removing those federal detainees before a judge has an opportunity to review their cases.
That's what the District Court Chief Judge, his name is George Russell, R-U-S-S-E-L of the U.S.
District Court for the District of Maryland.
He enters those orders and it applies to all of the trial judges in Maryland.
including significantly a judge.
We've talked about her a lot.
Her name is Paula Zinnis, X-I-N-I-S.
She is the one who has been and continues just this past week to preside over the case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
She has entered orders, as you know, for many, many months now, including an order now directing the government not to deport him while matters are pending, not just in Tennessee, but also in front of her.
It's a lot.
There are a lot of things going on there.
She is one of those judges in Maryland presiding over an immigration case in a situation where the federal government, the U.S.
Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, is seeking to deport, remove from this country individuals like Abraigo Garcia,
and others, the trial court, the chief judge, they're saying, before you can do anything here with respect to anybody, give us two days.
Let's figure this out.
Let's not have any premature deportations of any of these people.
Pam Bondi doesn't like that.
And the president doesn't like that and says that the chief judge and the other judges there in Maryland are doing things that are undermining the policies of this administration.
And so she does what?
She files a lawsuit.
against all the judges in Maryland, including the Chief Judge.
When we come back, I'll tell you what Judge Thomas Cullen has done in that case, a major decision.
I want to hear from Judge Cullen telling us about the rule of law in America.
This is Amica Salar Review.
My name is Jim Santel.
We are talking now about a major district court decision.
A major district court decision entered by federal district court judge, Thomas Cullen, C-U-L-L-E-N.
He is presiding even though he is located and he has jurisdiction in the state of Virginia, western Virginia.
He's presiding over this case pending in the district of Maryland.
Why?
Because all of the judges sued by your federal government, sued by Pam Bondi, inappropriately, frivolously, as we'll note in just a moment or so.
None of them, of course, can preside over a case in which they themselves are parties.
And indeed, that's how Pam Bondy captions the case.
United States America and others against Chief Judge George Russell, who entered this order with respect to the processing of immigration challenges and all the other judges in Maryland.
And so the case gets assigned to Thomas T. Colonies, U.S.
District Judge.
And he issues, he issues a 39 page opus, another judge issuing such a thing.
saying that the lawsuit brought by the administration by Pam Bondi is frivolous, it's ridiculous, it's got no merit, should not have been brought at all, and telling the administration in words that could not be clearer,
that they're spending their time doing this kind of frivolous thing when in fact they know better and they should know better and lawyers in the department of justice including our attorney general who's gone to law school who's been a practicing attorney was the attorney general in florida should know better than to file this kind of lawsuit scathing scathing 39 page ruling saying that this particular lawsuit is novel he gives him that
But he also says it's potentially calamitous.
And for that reason, he dismisses this case against all 15 federal judges who sit in Maryland no more.
He says along the way that the name calling has also got to stop.
He says that in recent months, this administration, and he's right about this, has described Federal District Court judges as left-wing, liberal, activist, radical, politically-minded, rogue, unhinged, outrageous, overzealous, unconstitutional, crooked, and worse.
Judge Cullen writes, and he says, that's gotta stop.
and goes on to say a lot, a lot about what this case is about and what about the rule of law in America means.
You may recall in one of our previous broadcasts that I read at length a very important opinion by a judge, an appeals court judge in the Fourth Circuit, which again has oversight over decisions by, for example, Maryland judges, Judge Harvey Wilkinson.
Harvey Wilkinson wrote this amazing nine-page opinion, which he told us an awful lot about the interaction between the branches of government, and urged, urged, urged that the executive branch stop doing these things like attacking the judicial branch.
He wrote at the end of that very important decision, he said this, we yet cling to the hope, this is Judge Wilkinson, that it is not naive to believe that our good brethren
in the executive branch, he's talking about the president, perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos, stop doing this, and recognize that we may not get along all the time, but we've all got our rules to play.
Well, it turns out that Judge Thomas Cullen, who interestingly was a law clerk for Judge Wilkinson right after law school, now taking the federal bench in
Western Virginia but also now in Maryland by virtue of the accusal of the judges there has issued a similar opinion.
It is 39 pages and it warrants and it's worth reading a lot of what the judge has said out loud.
He says, the plaintiff in this case, United States of America, Homeland Security, took Umbridge at Chief Judge Russell's actions, and that's an understatement.
The executive contends, this is again the judge writing, that the recent standing orders
constitute a direct assault on its, the executives, plenary authority to police immigration matters and enforce the nation's immigration laws.
The executive contends, again, this is the summary by Judge Cullen, that the standing orders are ultraviries, V-A-R-E-S, that means beyond the power of the court or beyond the power of an entity to act, given the limited statutory of district courts to review immigration matters.
Goes on to say this.
Fair enough, as far as it goes, if these arguments were made in the proper forum, again, the first attack on Pam Bondi, they might well get some traction.
And under normal circumstance, the judge says, it would not be surprising if the executive raised these concerns through the channels Congress has prescribed, that is, by challenging the orders as applied to a particular habeas corpus proceeding
through a direct appeal to the Fourth Circuit and to people like Judge Wilkinson, or is expressly authorized by federal statutes.
Let's follow the law, the judge says, by petitioning the Judicial Council of the Fourth Circuit, which has authority in these matters.
The trial court judge, Colin goes on to say this.
But as events over the past several months have revealed these are not normal times and you know that once again he's going to be talking about the Atmosphere in which he's issuing this opinion at least regarding the interplay between the executive and this coordinate branch of government It's no surprise he says that the executive chose a different and more confrontational path entirely instead of appealing
any one of the affected cases are filing a rules challenges challenge, the executive decided to sue in a big way.
In casting, it's why net judge Cullen says the executive ensnared the entire judicial body, a vital part of this coordinate branch of government as its principal officers in a novel and potentially calamitous litigation.
That's the language he used.
They assert that because the standing orders are quintessential judicial acts, the name judges are absolutely immune, this is the defendants now speaking, are absolutely immune from this or any other suit.
The defendants, again, the chief judge and the trial judges also argue that despite the potential merits of the argument that the defendants exceeded their power in issuing standing orders, there is no right.
There's no right to litigate this grievance in this matter.
Indeed, that's what Judge Cullen embraces.
He adopts, he says, and says, the court agrees nearly across the board.
He adopts exactly.
with the defendants who, yes indeed, are federal trial court judges in this case.
Any fair reading of the legal authority citing by the defendants leads to the ineluctable conclusion that this court has no alternative but to dismiss.
When we come back, I'll tell you more about what Judge Cullen has read in the pleadings and what he has said based upon review of those here on Amicus, a law review.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is Amica Salar Review.
We are talking importantly in this broadcast, the second hour of our broadcast, about a major decision.
that has gotten some attention, but not enough attention from my perspective because of the great schooling that a federal district court judge named Thomas Cullen does for all of us.
He takes us all to law school.
He takes us back to our civics courses and tells us how things work in the United States of America and along the way, one of the other audiences for his major 39-page opinion is indeed
President of the United States of America and the Attorney General of the United States of America, and anyone who thinks that the lawsuit of the sort that she has filed has merit.
And along the way, Judge Cullen has some important things to say about what the government has done on your behalf, what the Department of Justice is doing.
Here are the kinds of things that he writes.
He says this, to start this lawsuit, again, it's the lawsuit attacking and trying to stop.
The federal judiciary and the District of Maryland from doing some process to ensure that the decisions about immigration there are done in a logical and administratively coherent way.
This lawsuit, he says, is extraordinarily unusual, his words.
So before explaining, he says the specific reasons for dismissal.
This court takes a moment.
Let me take a moment, he says, to ground itself in two simple but fundamental constitutional precepts that guide much of its analysis.
First, he says, the executive branch
In case anybody needed to hear this, is not the sole sovereign in the United States of America.
Second, the federal judiciary does not have plenary authority, unmoored from a judicial case or controversy or cause of action to review any allegation of constitutional conduct.
Very much like the way Judge Wilkinson talked about the proper allocation of authorities,
Judge acknowledges here that we've all got our roles to play.
Nobody, as he goes on to say, is in the upper hand.
He says the framers of the Constitution sought to provide a comprehensive system that made the United States of America not a single branch the sovereign by dividing and allocating the sovereign power among three
Co-equal branches because I just say the coordinate branches together together form the government of the United States of America and Together he italicizes that they are the sovereign in this nation
Here is more, and here's the lesson he teaches all of us, including our government, as if it has to hear that, apparently it does.
He says this, regrettably this lawsuit effectively pits two of those branches against one another.
But it is important to remember that at bottom all branches and the public officials who serve in them share the same core sovereign interest to support and defend the Constitution.
An allegation by one branch that another has encroached on its constitutional prerogative is undoubtedly serious.
It is essential to our constitutional structure that each branch exercise the powers appropriate to its own department.
And no branch, he says, can encroach upon the powers codified to the others.
This system prevents the accumulation of all powers legislative executive and judiciary in the same hands and accumulation that would impose an inherent threat to liberty.
That's Judge Cullen writing.
The federal judiciary is obviously not above those rules.
Again shades of what Judge Wilkinson wrote months ago.
In the judicial branches case it is vested with the ultimate supreme power of judicial review.
which awesome though it may be can be wielded only in specific circumstances and to limited ends as allowed by the Constitution.
Among other constitutional prerequisites for the exercise of judicial power, the legislative branch must generally authorize it.
This court, he goes on to say, can appreciate the executive's concern that the defendants, again, the judges attacked by this frivolous lawsuit, have encroached on its duty to police core matters of immigration.
At this early stage, the judge writes, it accepts those allegations as true.
Like any other branch's actions, a court orders can overstep
and they can further intrude upon the prerogatives of other branches, again acknowledging that nobody is perfect, that judges can in fact make errors, as Judge Wilkinson wrote in the Fourth Circuit many weeks and months ago.
Goes on to say this, but those disputes, weighty as they may be, must be resolved within the constitutional structure and with due respect for the judiciary's
co-equal, co-equal, italicized standing with the executive branch.
The Constitution, Judge Cullen writes, does not give courts general oversight of other branches.
Rather, it permits courts to adjudicate only cases and controversies to the extent the Congress allows.
One branch's alleged infringement on another's exclusive power does not license a constitutional
free for all so this court must ensure that it has the constitutional authority to entertain the executives lawsuit with those constitutional principles in mind
with the specific reasons laid out below, the court finds that the executive suit must be dismissed its entirety.
And then Judge Cullen goes on in many, many pages to talk about what those principles are in the areas of a thing called justice ability, the ability of courts to resolve these cases.
He talks about sovereign immunity, again, judicial immunity, all kinds of things, invoking cases, winnowing and sifting through them through the course of many pages in his order.
And finally he comes again
to more instruction, more law school-like instruction about the lack of a cause of action in this particular matter.
This says the executives three count complaint generally alleges that the standing orders that is of the chief judge Violates certain federal and local rules as well as the immigration and naturalization acts jurisdictional bars It does not however Identify any statutory cause of action that would allow it to invoke a court's judicial power in the first instance to remedy those alleged violations instead again judge Cullen writes the
The executive claims that the United States of America can sue to enjoin any practice that infringes upon a sovereign interest.
That statement is true as far as it goes, Judge Cullen writes, but that authority stops well short of what the executive attempts to do in this lawsuit.
And the court will not extend that rule to imply a right that allows the executive.
On behalf of the United States, he's talking about what the administration purports to do on behalf of you, on behalf of the people of the United States of America.
Court will not extend that rule to imply a right that allows the executive to sue a coordinate branch of government.
And goes on to say this.
The executive claims that it alone, it alone has a sovereign interest in its ability to uniformly and expeditiously enforce the nation's duly enacted immigration laws and that it may sue inequity to vindicate that interest.
And then listen to this from the judge.
The executive, that's Pam Bondi, that's your president, fails to grasp that the federal judiciary as part of the sovereign shares that interest.
and concomitantly must ensure that the executive executes its duties within constitutional and statutory limits.
Though it has a prerogative to enforce the country's immigration laws, the executive, Judge Cullen writes, is not the only branch that has an interest in immigration and removing illegal aliens in accordance with constitutional and statutory structures.
The government of the United States of America italicizes that has broad, undoubted power over the subject of immigration and the status of aliens.
The federal judiciary's role is certainly more circumscribed than the other branches of this score, but it is nonetheless part of the sovereign United States government and thus shares the same constitutional interests.
Nothing in the case law.
Nothing in the case law, Judge Cullen writes, cited by Pam Bondi, cited by the executive, suggested it can sue a co-equal branch of government to vindicate a sovereign interest that is shared on both sides of the V, talking there about the V that occurs between the name or identity of a plaintiff and that of a defendant.
To hold otherwise, Judge Cullen writes, would give the executive unconstitutional leverage over its equal branches of government, eviscerating the principles of checks and balances that are a hallmark of our constitutional order at bottom.
And here's the lesson.
for the attorney general, for the president, for anyone who would think otherwise.
The executive appears to confuse an executive prerogative with a sovereign interest.
The court accepts the general rule of the United States of America may sue inferior parties to enforce its sovereign interests.
And the executive, as the branch of government constitutionally endowed with the duty to enforce laws, really does so on its behalf.
And here we go.
But that does not imply a cause of action to sue a co-equal branch of government to enforce a constitutional prerogative.
And because the executive is not itself the sovereign, once again, getting back to that fundamental point, its interests are not, if so, facto the sovereign interests.
For all of these reasons, the court does not read the executive's legal authority as permitting a lawsuit against defendants.
The judge there is saying unmistakably, clearly, the executive power is not plenary.
It is not extensive as to all other aspects of government operation and cannot be used, cannot be exercised in a way that would impede the work of other branches.
We're not talking here regrettably about the legislature, but about the judiciary once again.
And because of that, you are not the only, the exclusive sovereign interest, Mr. President.
All signs point, the judge goes on to say, towards finding that the executive lacks a cause of action to sue a federal district court,
and its officers for acting what in their judicial roles.
No argument to the contrary explains why this court should be the first to chart a new and an extraordinary path.
That's once again telling Pam Bondi what you're doing here is unprecedented.
What are you doing here, Madam Attorney General?
Ultimately, the court finds, interestingly, that a seven-circuit case called United States v. Zingsheim's, E-I-N-G-S-H-E-I-M provides support for that, identifies the seven circuit as authority for what the judge is doing, and then concludes this 39-page opinion with these words.
In their wisdom, the Constitution's framers joined three coordinate branches to establish a single sovereign.
That structure may occasionally engender clashes between two branches and encroachment by one branch on another's authority.
But mediating those disputes must occur in a manner that, here's that word again, respects the judiciary's constitutional role.
As Judge Wilkinson, and yes, he's talking about Harvey Wilkinson as former boss, the judge from the Forest Circuit, aptly noted in a case posing a similar, though less direct, clash.
Again quoting Wilkinson, he says, a reciprocal request for the roles of the executive and the judiciary may be too much to hope for in this most fraught and polarized of times, but it remains the only way that our system of constitutional governments can ever hope to work.
Much as the executive fights that characterization, that's you Pam Bondi.
A lawsuit by the executive branch of government against the judicial branch for the exercise of judicial power is not ordinary.
The executive's lawsuit will be dismissed and its motion for preliminary injunction denied is moot.
Whatever the merits of its grievance with the judges of the U.S.
District Court for the District of Maryland, the executive must find a proper way to raise those concerns.
The case is dismissed.
Thomas Cullen, U.S.
District Court Judge, wow.
Wow, 39 pages of schooling the Attorney General in the way that government works.
I hope that she is reading it.
I hope she spends some time going to the White House at her next visit and spending some time talking with the President as well.
He needs to hear this too, as does all America about the rule of law in our nation in 2025 and beyond.
When we come back,
Going back to the Supreme Court, let's talk about what it's doing in its coming term here on Amicus, a lot of you.
This is Amicus, a lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel.
And this is the final segment of our weekend broadcast here on Labor Day weekend, noting that Mark, in connection with my recitation of this major opinion, this memorandum opinion by Judge Thomas Cullen.
telling the judiciary, telling all about what the judiciary can and should and does do in our nation, telling the Attorney General, telling the administration what it can and cannot do, schooling all of us in civics.
Once again, Mark notes.
principally that trump and his administration failed to understand would accept that unlike the courts of of king george the third the courts of the united states are creatures of the constitution not the president i suspect mark that you and judge cullen would be good partners in articulating that view judge cullen plainly doing that over the period of
Breath of 39 pages in his memorandum opinion that like the previous opinion coming out of Judge Wilkinson the force circuit also coming out of that part of our nation's judiciary a major statement
about how our courts work, the roles that they play, and the important but limited role also of a co-equal branch of government, the executive, commend the reading of that opinion.
I've excerpted, frankly, a small portion of what Judge Cullen has said.
It is an important writing on behalf of the judiciary.
We know that the Supreme Court does the same thing.
Whether we agree or disagree with what the Supreme Court does, they all show issue as you know well.
Lots of opinions, lots of writings, sometimes issuing opinions without those writings.
That's the emergency docket, the shadow docket, about which we have complained with vigorous attention here on this broadcast.
Let me give you some statistics about just this past term now that we're through with that.
67 cases decided by the Supreme Court in this past term.
It doesn't include three cases that were dismissed as sort of improvidently granted.
Supreme Court reversed 47.
47 lower court decisions, that's almost 75% of the cases that it took and it affirmed 16 decisions.
The average reversal rate since 2007, 2007 during that entire period is 72%.
13 of the October 2024 term cases originated in the fifth circuit.
The fifth circuit, we know that well, not surprising at all.
Since 2007, the Supreme Court has issued 1,313 cases, reversing lower court decisions 72% of the time, and affirming those, about 27% of the time, decided more cases coming out of the Ninth Circuit, about 247 than any other circuit.
The second in line, coming up with great speed behind the Ninth Circuit, of course, the Fifth Circuit,
overturned a greater number and percentage of cases originating from the Ninth Circuit than any other U.S.
Circuit Court.
Interestingly, just from this past term, the 2024-2025 term, Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority in 95% of those decisions, the most of any other justice.
Brett Kavanaugh has the second highest frequency, 92%, and Katanji Brown Jackson
has the lowest frequency.
She's most often in the dissenting group in the majority at 72%.
And that leaves us to Katangi Brown Jackson.
You may recall that in our previous broadcast, we talked a lot about this mother major decision coming out of a federal court just last week, ruling by five to four.
That is the Supreme Court ruling by five to four and reviewing a lower court decision that the Trump administration could cancel about 780 million dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health.
And the upshot of that is that the grants already canceled.
would have to remain canceled.
But likewise, the going forward, that issue, the policy about whether or not those matters, those grants should continue in the future, that was the subject of a different set of opinions.
But the upshot is that in this very circuitous ruling involving the NIH and Amy Coney Barrett sort of being right in the middle, John Roberts joins the other members, Kadanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, usually in the minority.
He forms the four of the five to four decision.
And in the end, Val of that also prompts Katanji Brown Jackson.
Katanji Brown Jackson, as I hinted during the course of our last broadcast, to talk about the ways in which on the shadow docket in other ways, it seems to her,
and seems to an awful lot of people out there beyond just Katanji Brown Jackson, when the administration goes before the Supreme Court, it wins.
And indeed in her dissent, in this NIA case in which the government, the Trump administration was permitted to go ahead to cancel $780 million in national institutes of health grants, this is what Katanji Brown Jackson said, criticizing what she said were the recent tendencies, her words, of the Supreme Court to decide
with the Trump administration.
And she provided her remarks in what is plainly a very bitter dissent in this case involving the NIH.
She went on to rebuke her colleagues for, as she called, lawmaking on the shadow docket, again issuing opinions as here without explanations of why it is, for example, these grants can remain canceled.
She says, this is an unusual volume of fast.
preliminary decision-making opinions.
It has taken place.
She talks about related to hundreds of lawsuits that President Trump's administration has confronted.
And then it goes on to write this.
She says, this is Calvin Ball, jurisdiction with a twist.
Calvin Ball has only one rule.
There are no fixed rules.
We seem to have two.
That one,
And this administration always wins.
Now, what the justice is referring to, of course, is Calvin Ball describing the practice of applying rules inconsistently for self-serving purposes, yes, comes from the Calvin and Hobbes reference.
As we continue to talk about the Supreme Court, which we will in our next edition here on Amicus, talking more about what's on the docket of the Supreme Court in its coming terms, coming up in just over a month, including a variety of issues that affect our lives and livelihoods.
All of that coming up here on Amicus, a law review this weekend, Labor Day weekend.
ponder the role of our government, our rules of law, and the role of justice in America.
Have a good weekend,
everybody.
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