Welcome to Amicus, a law review with Jim Santel, Civic Media's weekly review and discussion of some of the most significant news stories in the areas of law, government, courts, and the aspiration for justice.
And now, here's your host, Jim Santel.
This is Amicus, a law review, and my name is Jim Santel.
I am your host here on the broadcast, Stations of Civic Media.
Both this hour and next hour as well as we review a great number of stories, events, occurrences in our lives and our livelihoods.
In the areas of rule of law, delivery of justice and government operation, once again, as always, I thank you for spending some portion of your weekend hours in discussion, in engagement with me on these major issues.
Let me tell you a bit about what is on our syllabus for our weekend broadcast.
We are going to begin virtually where we left off last weekend.
That is talking about some of these major criminal prosecutions
of the president's adversaries as he has identified them.
We're gonna talk about some developments in the case involving James Comey, some major motions that he has filed just this past week that have some legs, that have some focus and some substance to them that may alter if not result in the complete dismissal of the case against him.
We'll talk about the case paralleling that.
against Letitia James, who is the attorney general of the state of New York, will talk about her appearance in federal court in the eastern district of Virginia and the things that she said.
reaffirming her lack of any, any acceptance of responsibility, a complete denial as was anticipated of anything related to the validity of the allegations against her.
We'll talk more about that as well.
Her plain entry of a not guilty plea there in the district court.
And then we'll talk as well about the prosecution of John Bolton, which we just began to touch on at the end of our last broadcast last weekend.
We'll give you more detail on that.
And we will advance once again this major theory that the Bolton prosecution is unlike those against James Comey and Letitia James.
It partakes of both a case that does in fact arguably have some merit.
probable cause to believe he may have committed some crimes, while also being on that list of the president's adversaries.
And for that reason, a special lesson, a special note about the significance once again of what happens when a president becomes involved in decision making about who the federal government, who the Department of Justice prosecutes,
Pursuant to a grand jury indictment and then in the trial courts of our land.
We'll talk all about that We're also going to talk about something else that the president has done in recent days and that is exercises authorities
under the Constitution to commute sentences and to enter an issue pardons.
We'll talk about that major pardon of this fellow called CZ, this major crypto defendant, now now absolved of responsibility, a pardon issued with respect to him by the president.
We'll talk also about the commutation of the sentence as to former congressman George Santos.
Again, an exercise of presidential power unchecked.
under the Constitution, not subject to any review by any other entity.
following up on our previous discussions about the deployments of the National Guard in various cities around our nation, including Washington, DC and Los Angeles.
And of course, Portland and Chicago focusing especially upon that Portland case and the Chicago case will update you on what the Ninth Circuit is doing in connection with and a request for an en banc or all judge review of the case.
We'll also talk
about what the status of that seven circuit case is as it percolates up at yes that's right the United States Supreme Court will give you a sense of what the government is saying about the reason why the Supreme Court
according to the Solicitor General, needs to reverse the decision of the Seventh Circuit.
We'll talk once again about the comparisons between the Seventh Circuit case and the Ninth Circuit case and the divergent views that those two appellate courts have articulated in recent times.
And then we're going to talk about yet another exercise of governmental and presidential authority or lack thereof.
That is these attacks upon Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean Sea, in the Pacific Ocean, up to 10 now, up to about 43 people killed in those military attacks on those boats.
We'll talk about the ways in which interdiction by the Coast Guard, with the assistance of the Navy, Navy has normally been the process by which interdiction and a response to believed drug trafficking on the seas has been addressed.
And we'll talk about the
ways in which the war powers of this president are being exercised in a way that some are increasingly saying are unconstitutional.
Certainly the notion that he has identified and articulated, he has determined that we are at war with Venezuela and that these cartels
drug movers, are in fact terrorists who are threatening our land.
All of those determinations supposedly justifying his military action on these boats will talk about that consequence as well, the consequence of his making that determination, and the consequences for our international status in the world face.
All of that is coming up on
Amicus a law review we're going to begin however with a brief update
With the Supreme Court, as we often do, a couple of things happening just this past week will give you a calendar update to begin with, and that is the Supreme Court not hearing any oral arguments this past week, but back in business again in about a week or so, week and a half, on November 3rd, November 4th, and November 5th, they're going to be back in business entertaining oral arguments, and just this past week, the Supreme Court added a second gun case to
with Stockett, now getting closer to 40 cases in particular.
You may recall that the justices had already put on their docket for this term.
A case involving concealed carry on private property opened to the public merits and demerits of that just this past week.
The court added a second gun case.
And this new case, this new case that the Supreme Court is going to review is called the United States versus Hermione.
H-E-R-M-A-N-I.
It arises from a federal prosecution of Ali Hermione.
That's the name of the defendant.
And the case that he was facing, the charges he was facing, in that the government was affecting his right
otherwise established under the Second Amendment to possess a gun based on the fact that he was also engaging what the government described as the habitual use of marijuana, the interplay between drug use and the legitimacy of gun possession.
The Trump administration interestingly has argued that the court, the Supreme Court should review the dispute.
After the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Fifth Circuit said that the law
that prohibits that kind of thing, that is the possession of a firearm, while also involved in drug use, is unconstitutional, at least as it is applied to Mr. Hermione.
The administration, to be very clear, is arguing here that the justices should uphold, should support a gun regulation in this
particular context.
And in doing this, the government said that this case presents, according to the Solicitor General, an important Second Amendment issue that affects hundreds of prosecutions every year.
And they describe this particular issue this way, where the government may disarm individuals who habitually use unlawful drugs, but are not necessarily under the influence while possessing a firearm.
a timing issue here, a possession issue here, and a second amendment issue now back before the Supreme Court.
The Court of Highest Order here, the Supreme Court, you may recall in a major case, a term or so ago, this United States versus Rahimi case, there the court ruled eight to one over a vigorous dissent by Clarence Thomas, had ruled that the Constitution allows, does permit,
the temporary disarming of people by the government if those people have been found by courts to possess credible threats to the physical safety of others.
That's a domestic violence case.
A domestic violence restraining order prohibits you from possessing, using firearms.
And in Rahimi, Rahimi, eight to one, the court found that that is upheld and should be regarded in the federal courts as a basis for prosecution.
for people who are possessing weapons, using weapons, while they are subject to domestic violence restraining orders.
All of that is a lot and it is going to resurface again in this case called United States versus Hermione.
Another second amendment case determining again the interface between gun possession and gun use and drug use.
Can you prohibit someone who is not necessarily under the influence of drugs while possessing a firearm, but nonetheless habitually uses drugs?
Is that permissible?
Is that constitutional under the Second Amendment?
The Supreme Court agreeing just this past week to take that case up, a major case which we will continue to monitor here on Amicus, a law review.
We also know that the Supreme Court continues to grant certiorari in a number of other cases, and that includes that major tariffs case, the lower courts, both the court of claims, the court of international trade, and the federal circuit.
The courts below have found that the president under the Constitution and under the IEEPA, the statute that the president has invoked to justify his invocation of powers to set
tariffs and related impositions economically, that that particular law and the constitution that supersedes in a supreme over everything, both of those prohibit, prohibit the president from engaging in the kind of tariff setting work that he's been about for the past nine months or so.
Major decisions of two lower courts, a court of first impression and appeals court, and now pending, befending before,
the United States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court going to be entering the fray, if you will, and having oral argument on that case on November 5th.
And that case, again, will get a lot of attention nationwide because of the tariffs issued generally, and also because it underscores the focus of this term, as it has in recent terms, of the Supreme Court on the powers of the president.
What can the president do?
under the Constitution, what can he not do?
What can any president do, given the restrictions imposed by the Congress, given the restrictions imposed by the United States Constitution, and what are the latitudes?
What are the express things a president can do under statutory authority and also
congressional authority conferred upon him.
All of that, all of that's going to be before the Supreme Court again in this term including, including on Wednesday, November 5th when the court takes up this major issue of tariffs in America.
But we begin, we begin with actions and activities going on coming out ultimately from a building down the street.
down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Supreme Court building.
And that, of course, is at the main justice building at 9th and Pennsylvania.
We have talked previously about these three, at this point, prosecutions of the president's identified adversaries, the people he has spoken about in the harshest terms.
They also have been critical of him in many ways.
And in the wake of that, that is the president's calling upon the Department of Justice
and specific U.S.
attorneys to indict his foes, the people in the political arena with whom he has disagreed, the return of indictments against James Comey.
against Letitia James and against John Bolton.
The James Comey indictment, of course, was the first of those.
Letitia James' indictment followed that, both of those cases, pending and coming out of grand juries in the Eastern District of Virginia, based upon where the crimes there were allegedly committed.
And again, we hasten to add as to all three that each one of these defendants presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The Bolton case coming out of the District of Maryland will spend some time talking about that one as well.
All of them, all of this as Amicus, a lot of you, continues here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.
My name is Jim Santel and this is Amicus, a lot of you on the broadcast stations of Civic Media as always in this our weekly weekend broadcast addressing some of the major issues in the areas of rule of law, the administration of justice and the operation of government that necessarily includes these days
A continuing focus on an analysis of, at least up to now, these three prosecutions of people identified by the president of the United States of America as his adversaries.
Let's begin with updates related to the prosecution of James Comey, the former director of the FBI, former member of the leadership of the United States Department of Justice.
You recall well.
that James Comey indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia.
That's the Eastern District of Virginia, right across the river from Washington, DC.
And he is charged in particular with perjury.
in his testimony before a senate committee and also obstruction of congress obstruction of the proceedings of that very process and so now as a result of the return of that indictment the court the judge whose name is michael nockman off he is the federal district court judge who is presiding
over this case in the Eastern District of Virginia has not only accepted the not guilty plea from James Comey as a part of the routine process, but it's also established a mechanism for the pretrial management of issues that the parties may bring to the judge.
And that's the status in which we are in right now.
And in that connection, just this past week, one of the big rule of law stories of this past week,
Lawyers for James Comey have brought two major motions, seeking the dismissal, the outright dismissal, getting rid of the indictment entirely if the judge agrees with them.
On the basis of, yes, that's right, prosecutorial misconduct, specifically vindictive prosecution.
And also, interestingly, but not surprisingly, the allegation that the U.S.
Attorney, the interim U.S.
Attorney brought in, as you may recall, for the specific purpose of
seeking this indictment and obtaining this indictment from the grand jury after the previous U.S.
attorney, his name is Eric Siebert, decided not to proceed with this prosecution as a mirrorless procedure.
In the wake of all of that, the judge now saying, yes, you can file motions.
and those motions are now before him.
The motions from James Comey are two in number and they do in fact allege vindictive prosecution and incapacity of the second interim U.S.
Attorney there to prosecute the case in the first case.
Let's talk about those two motions.
The first motion again is a direct assault.
upon the nature of what the US Department of Justice is doing, not only in this case involving James Comey, but also arguably in the Letitia James case and likely in the James Bolton case as well.
Remarkable, truly remarkable circumstances, bring this together and make what is otherwise would be otherwise a
highly unlikely motion to be successful in front of the judge makes it a whole lot more likely that the judge may consider this seriously and might even grant the motion to dismiss based upon the allegations set forth in the motion.
What are those?
Well,
The motion begins with this fundamental notion, quoting again from the document itself, bedrock principles of due process and equal protection have long ensured that government officials may not use courts to punish and imprison their perceived personal and political enemies.
That's what James Comey's lawyers are writing about.
But that is exactly what has happened here.
That's what they say.
And indeed, what they're saying is that because the President of the United States has identified this strong and abiding and continuing animus, not only asking but seeking and pushing for the indictment of James Comey, that is a vindictiveness.
That's an animus that necessarily warrants dismissal.
Why?
Because it is inconsistent with the fundamental rules of prosecution, the rule of law, and
America and if in fact a prosecution is premised not upon the law and the facts but instead drives from a sense of hatred and animus and I'm going to get you type approach if all of that is a part of what is happening inside and outside the prosecution that is a basis for dismissal
of the case itself.
Now, traditionally, as I have noted already, these motions for vindictive prosecution are unsuccessful.
I cannot remember a single one in the 30 years of my time in the U.S.
Attorney's Office as the U.S.
Attorney or as an assistant U.S.
Attorney.
They may have been made, but they're almost always unsuccessful.
They're very, very, very difficult to support and to win.
And the reason for that is that the defense
is obliged to present and prove two basic tenets, two basic notions.
First, the prosecutors, the government, the U.S.
Department of Justice, displayed some animus, again, some dislike, some opposition to the defendants themselves.
While those defendants or the defendant was seeking to exercise some basic right in here, in this case,
the case involving James Comey, the allegation that indeed it's the president of the United States of America by virtue of the things he has said in the public domain about James Comey asking for his indictment, describing him in ways that are set forth also in this motion, and doing it in response to James Comey's own expression of disagreement with.
and objection to the things that the president has done exercising his right under the First Amendment.
The second part of any motion for vindictive prosecution.
has to be that the charges would never have been brought except for that animus, that dislike, that disaffection, if you will, against the defendant.
And here again, James Comey is able to establish, likely, an awful lot of support for that notion that he would not have been charged in this case.
It is a razor-thin case, absent the fact that he has run afoul of the present chief executive.
Now, as all of this proceeds, this animosity, this animosity set forth in the motion, will be the subject not only of this briefing on this motion, but maybe even oral argument if the judge decides to entertain that.
When we come back, I'll tell you more about exactly what this motion says that the president said.
supports this notion of vindictive prosecution, and then we'll also talk about the consequences of this in the litigation, the prosecution of this case, and the other companion motion to dismiss.
All of that on Amicus, a law review.
This is amicus a lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel your host this hour and next hour as we discuss initially the merits and the demerits of these major
federal criminal prosecutions against people like James Comey and Letitia James and John Bolton discussing right now the first of two major motions to dismiss the case against him filed by James Comey just this past week in their motions which are replete with specific references to the things that the president has said about James Comey
The lawyers describe in great detail the kinds of name calling and the kinds of things the president has said, describing Mr. Comey again coming from the words of the president himself, describing Mr. Comey as a leaker, a liar, an untruthful slime ball, a corrupt piece of garbage,
and a weasel who should be in jail.
Heavy emphasis on that because it suggests once again the vindictive nature of the animus that is needed to be successful in a motion like this.
In fact, there's so much in this motion.
There's so much to support this notion that Donald Trump is focusing on
his animus toward James Comey and wants him prosecuted, wants him convicted, wants him sentenced, presumably, that the judge, Michael Nachmanoff, actually afforded the prosecutors an enlargement of the number of pages that they would all otherwise be limited to to describe the number and the ferocity of these attacks by the president upon James Comey.
The animosity that they describe, they note, also extends
So far, and runs so deep that it goes into James Comey's family itself, they note a part of our recent history that in July, the Justice Department actually fired from her longstanding employment and assistant United States attorney named Marine Comey.
She is the daughter of James Comey, receiving excellent reviews routinely and purportedly fired simply because her last name is Comey, that she is the daughter of this person against whom the president holds so much
animosity.
And so all of this, all of this in support of this notion that this case is not premised upon facts and law, it is premised instead upon an interest by this president in convicting an enemy of his, an adversary of his, during the course of the lead up to this in which again the president replaced the prior U.S.
attorney.
who decided there was no there there that this case could not be prosecuted, replaced that US attorney with another one.
The president posted to his social media account just before that, directing the Department of Justice to return this indictment, identifying that Comey and others are guilty as hell, and ordering his attorney general to prosecute Comey now, capital N, capital O, capital W, with three exclamation points.
All of that, all of that supporting, supporting this notion that indeed, this is premised not upon the facts in the law, but instead upon this animus that the president has, supporting, giving legs to a motion that would otherwise be very difficult to show, and that the charges here would never have been brought but for that animus.
of the president against James Comey.
It is interesting to note along the way that there's another development in all this that further confuses this.
It's not central to this motion, but it's significant that in the charge itself, there is this description of James Comey responding to Ted Cruz, who is the senator from Texas who was quizzing him during the course of this Senate hearing.
And it's during the course of that that James Comey allegedly perjured himself
making a false statement about whether or not he asked someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports, referring that person to some media outlet.
And James Comey responds in that setting, no.
And it is that statement, no, declining to admit because it.
did not happen, that he told this other person to go to the news media.
The indictment also of course says that Comey then misled the committee by saying that he had not done so, thus obstructing their proceedings.
That's the second count in the indictment.
The assumption has always been.
that the person that Comey allegedly authorized to reach out to the media was the phone name Andrew McCabe, who once served as his deputy.
May remember his name from some previous proceedings there to leak information to the news media.
But some recent discovery produced in this case is indicating more and more that the prosecutors believe that Jim Comey lied about a different former FBI employee.
And his name is Daniel Richmond, R-A-C-H-M-A-N.
It is confusing at back.
It is imprecise at worst, and it will probably be the subject of even more motions down the road, perhaps for a bill of particulars as this case goes forward.
But it underscores once again the lack of precision, even in the drafting of this complaint, even in the drafting of the charge that is the first count in this indictment.
And then beyond, beyond the vindictive prosecution motion, there is a second one.
And that is premised upon the notion that the attorney, the U.S.
attorney, who finally did present this to the grand jury and who was successful in returning this indictment, that person was improperly appointed by the Department of Justice, by the president, and holds her post without the legal authority to do so.
And so therefore the argument goes, the case against James Comey,
that she presented to the grand jury that she is now prosecuting.
That case itself should be dismissed as entirety because of a lack of authority in the prosecutor.
herself now typically typically the attorney general is permitted to appoint an interim us attorney for about 120 days without senate confirmation i should say here that the rules and the regulations behind this when you have an interim us attorney that is between united states attorneys who are nominated by a president and confirmed by the senate you have to have somebody in that position to make decisions and keep the boat afloat and keep the u.s attorney's offices operating as
they should as a part of their regular civil and criminal litigation assignments.
So what you do is you appoint an interim U.S.
attorney, but under the law...
under the rules established by the Congress, there's only 120 days for that interim appointment to remain.
And so, Comey's lawyers are arguing that U.S.
Attorney Heligan, who was the successor to U.S.
Attorney Sebert, he was the fellow once again who left, arguably was fired when he found that there was no basis to prosecute Jim Comey, that Ms.
Heligan's term of office
is not existent at all because Eric Siebert himself had already served a 120-day period as the interim U.S.
Attorney absent the possibility of stacking those 120-day terms on each other.
There is no authority then for the President to appoint a subsequent United States Attorney in the wake of Eric Siebert.
And the basis then for the motion is that absent her authority, she had no capacity under the law to present this to the grand jury, had no capacity as she can do otherwise to sign off in the indictment.
We know that she herself appeared in front of the magistrate judge who had a difficult time in trying to figure out which of the documents in front of her was the real indictment, which one was the one that the grand jury had discarded.
All of that, all of that premised upon this expiration,
of a 120-day period for any intramusice attorney, not extending into the term of intramusice attorney Halligan.
That's the basis for the secondary motion filed by James Comey.
It is in the weeds, it is very wonky, but again, it goes to the very core of this case, even though, even though neither one of them
addresses specifically the substance of the charges, which I've just described once again.
That, of course, that, of course, could be the subject of more motions and more hearings.
And specifically, that's the kind of thing that if indeed this case survives these motions to dismiss, which it may well not.
If this does go to trial, that's when James Comey will have his opportunity to present probably in the course of just a few days, probably under a week.
His defense to this charge of perjury and obstructing the proceedings of the Congress.
The prosecutor in this case
who is brought in interestingly to handle the case.
His name is Roger Keller.
He's brought in from the Eastern District of Missouri into the Eastern District of Virginia, probably to supplant to take the place of the US attorney who is not skilled, has no experience in prosecuting these cases.
That substitute prosecutor has indicated that the government has about 10 witnesses to present in support of the prosecution of James Comey.
James Comey likewise, likewise will
present his witnesses, very likely will testify in his own behalf, which is one of those issues that defendants always face in criminal cases.
Do I testify or not hear the jury will need to hear from him that he did not commit this perjury, did not obstruct these proceedings.
It will also be interesting to hear and see exactly who those witnesses are.
who would establish clearly that the thing that James Comey said at trial, his answer to the question, no, that I did not encourage my subordinate, my patriot, my compatriot in the FFBI to go out and engage with the media.
That that person also has to come forward, one would think, to provide that basic information that would support the claim of a false statement of perjury.
There's a lot going on there.
These motions just filed
this past week anticipated fully, but changing, arguably, dramatically, the landscape of this case entirely possible, that the judge, Nakhmanov, in this case, could grant those motions and dismiss the case entirely.
Of course, the prosecution has the right, as they certainly will do,
push back on all this, they'll file a response to this motion.
And the defense will have a chance to file a reply as well.
If the case, if the case is in fact dismissed, certainly, certainly the government will appeal this.
to the appeals court.
And then we'll go down that road arguably, arguably one day, depending upon what the appeals court does, landing in the Supreme Court as well.
It is a lot, it is a lot going on inside this case.
But the reason I bring it up is because it will also animate certainly the cases, the prosecutions against Letitia James and John Bolton as well.
We know that Letitia James just late this past week appeared, appeared in front of the federal district.
court judge in the Eastern District of Virginia.
His name is Judge Jamar Walker.
He has now been assigned the prosecution of the case against her.
And you will call well that she herself has been indicted in two counts, the first count accusing her of committing bank fraud by seeking to defraud some financial institutions.
The second count accuses her of making false statements to one of those banks.
All of that, all of that in connection with her purchase in 2020 of a home in Norfolk, Virginia.
The document, the indictment accuses her of having said in some loan documents that she would use the home as a secondary resident, secondary to the one that she has in New York.
But instead that she used that home as a rental property, that they say is the false statement to the bank.
And they say that violated the mortgage agreement and allowed it to receive some more favorable loan terms.
Interestingly, the indictment says that she saved somewhere around $19,000 over the
of the term candidly, a very low amount given the standards of prosecution for U.S.
Attorney's offices around the country.
Some reporting more recently of an internal memorandum that not only casts more doubt on the legitimacy of this prosecution.
like the prosecution of James Comey, but also suggests that the amount of loss is wildly overstated, perhaps bringing it to an even lower number.
Letitia James will also certainly raise the same kind of vindictive prosecution.
allegations and arguments that James Comey has raised in his motions.
She will obviously identify the things that the president has said about her in recent times in the public domain.
And she will almost certainly also address this issue of whether or not the U.S.
Attorney in that same district had the capacity
to indict her in the first place, the same U.S.
attorney, same kind of thing before a different judge in the same district addressing many of the same issues, almost certainly in the Letitia James case.
Finally, when we come back, we'll talk about James Bolton once again, tell you more about that, and tell you why it's different from those other two cases here on Amicus, a law review.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is Amicus, a law review on the broadcast stations of civic media spending virtually all of our first hour this weekend with you discussing these major prosecutions of, yes, the president's enemies.
He has identified them as such as adversaries.
They have criticized him and been very, very critical of him in his conduct as a president, and he has returned.
that kind of emotion and that kind of language in their direction as well.
The things that the president has said with respect to James Comey.
and Letitia James, and also James Bolton are the very things that are now showing up in the motions to dismiss the very cases that the president himself wanted to have prosecuted.
The language that he has used, describing them as being guilty as hell, wanting them to be prosecuted, that very language is now the basis for these vindictive prosecution motions, one already filed by James Comey, the other one certainly coming in the case involving Letitia James, saying that
It's because of the president's comments and the encouragement to the Attorney General and to the U.S.
Attorney in eastern Virginia that these cases have been prosecuted and not because there is a factual or legal basis for doing so.
That's vindictive prosecution.
Also, these motions based upon
the incapacity, alleged incapacity of the interim U.S.
attorney to bring the case in the first instance.
Then there's the James Bolton case.
Again, it follows in the wake of the Comey and the Tisha James prosecutions.
It is, as you know, premised upon an indictment, 18 counts accusing John Bolton of using his personal email.
and also a messaging app of his own to share about a thousand pages of what are called diary notes, diary notes of his daily, day-to-day activities as Donald Trump's national security advisor.
In 2018 and 2019, a time obviously went during the course of the president's first term when John Bolton was in that capacity.
Those notes, according to the indictment, this 18 count indictment against John Bolton, allegedly sent to some family members.
who did not have security clearances, as John Bolton did.
And according to the allegations in the indictment, that information included some national defense information, details classified as top secret, and other materials that are related to the national security of our nation.
You may recall well.
that in a previous report and a lot of coverage in August of this year, some FBI agents descended upon John Bolton's personal residence.
This one, not in eastern Virginia, but in Maryland, in the district of Maryland, is still in Bethesda, just outside of the nation's capital.
And they were carrying out from his home a number of boxes with all kinds of documents.
That search, of course, pursuant to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution,
had to be upon a finding by a federal magistrate judge that there was probable cause to believe that there was evidence of a crime that James that John Bolton rather was in fact possessing these documents something that would support a finding a probable cause of criminal activity and it was in the wake of the removal of those documents that this indictment was issued now significantly significantly this particular prosecution unlike unlike
the Comey and James prosecutions had been going on, the investigation going on for many years went back in terms of time to the Biden administration.
This has already been under investigation.
Some folks, they're making the determination that there was not enough to indict during that term, but coming back again to the present US attorney.
The present U.S.
attorney named Kelly Hayes, U.S.
Attorney in Maryland.
This is now a different U.S.
Attorney than the one who is prosecuting James Comey and Letitia James.
And there, there, this case does not suffer from the son transfer from one U.S.
Attorney to another, doesn't suffer from the internal problems, the internal statements in the public domain or suggested in the public domain that there is no case here.
In fact,
U.S.
Attorney Hayes is a longtime career prosecutor who signed off on the charges in conjunction with the Department of Justice's National Security Division.
That gives you some reason to believe that, yes, indeed, there is at least probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed here.
We hasten as always to note that any defendant, including John Bolton, is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
He will also have his chance to present his case.
at trial but the difference between this one and the others is that there's a there there and it seems at least on the surface at this point yes probable cause to believe that John Bolton may have committed these crimes involving the retention and the transfer of classified materials to members of his family that in violation of federal law and there is in fact a there there there's a basis for believing that this case even independent of the president's allegations
and the statements made about John Bolton would have gone forward.
And there's the rub.
And there's the problem, as we described at the end of our last broadcast last weekend, which is John Bolton's case partakes of both what may be a legitimate prosecution and also an illegitimate prosecution.
Why?
Because it also can suffer from a motion
to dismiss for vindictive prosecution sufferer in the wake of the president's equally dramatic and vindictive and animus related statements against John Bolton.
And so the difficulty is that the president once again arguably dooming.
the very prosecution that he wants against John Bolton by saying these things in the public domain about John Bolton.
And yes, I should note John Bolton returned those statements in kind.
But by doing that, the president has actually compromised the very prosecution that he wanted to proceed.
And in doing so, it's made it entirely possible that the judge here, in this case, the John Bolton case, may in fact also embrace a vindictive prosecution notion and could dismiss an otherwise legitimate prosecution based upon probable cause and real facts.
That's the problem, Mr. President, in doing what you're doing, in articulating not only these things about
about people who have run afoul of you, but by directing the Department of Justice to issue these indictments to go after these people.
When we come back in our second hour, some final comments about this process and other adversaries who may still be out there subject to indictments as we move on then in other areas of the rule of law and the delivery of justice in America here on Amicus, Allah review.
Welcome to Amicus, a law review with Jim Santel, Civic Media's weekly review and discussion of some of the most significant new stories in the areas of law, government, courts, and the aspiration for justice.
And now, here's your host, Jim Santel.
This is Amicus, a law review.
My name is Jim Santel.
We are addressing, as we have in the past, will in the future.
the legitimacy, the illegitimacy of these prosecutions, at least as to two of the three recently indicted adversaries of the president.
We have talked already about James Comey, Letitia James, also now talking about John Bolton, and why that particular prosecution against him partakes of something different than the others, because in fact, it may be premised upon
Some credible reason to believe that he may in fact have committed a crime and yet and yet may be subject to dismissal.
Why?
Because of the statements that the president has made in the public domain condemning John Bolton.
And yes, indeed, John Bolton has written about the president said things in the same ilk that have been very critical of the president.
It has gone in both directions.
The concern, of course, is you have the chief executive involving himself in an area that other presidents
in contemporary history have not become involved in.
This has been the norm, that is the separation between the Department of Justice and the White House ever since Watergate.
It is the abuses of Watergate that we are now seeing again where a chief executive wakes up in the morning and says, I want my adversaries prosecuted.
And when the officials in the Department of Justice, and we've seen that in connection with at least one of those departing United States,
attorneys refuses to do that, that person is fired and a new person is placed in, and that person, that new U.S.
attorney, then returns the very indictment that the president wants.
That procedural history in these cases involving James Comey and Letitia James looms large.
and is in fact a part of the kinds of things that the judges in those cases will necessarily undertake to determine whether or not the cases can go forward.
The other part of this, of course, has to do with the authority of the U.S.
Attorney there in eastern Virginia to prosecute.
John Bolton's case in another district, in the district of Maryland, different prosecutor, different U.S.
Attorney, different history, a longer investigation, and an investigation that included a search of his own home.
and presumably based upon review and analysis by career prosecutors, career investigators who know what they're doing.
Again, not to presume that John Bolton is guilty, but just to indicate that he is now lumped in.
He is in the same pot with these others for whom there is very little reason to believe that the prosecution is premised upon anything other.
other than vindictiveness and animus, and if indeed John Bolton's prosecution is also dismissed, what you are now opening the door to is the dismissal of cases that are legitimate.
And that's not good for the justice system either.
And it underscores once again the problem with any president, including this president, engaging in the kind of trouncing on the separation that has always existed until Donald Trump became president between the Department of Justice and the White House.
There is more coming up here.
And we know as well that the president has identified other people on his list, so to speak, who might also be the subject of similarly vindictive process
Executions in the federal courts in the future if he can convince once again US attorneys in the appropriate districts to return those indictments by presenting some evidence before grand juries We know those people include arguably Christopher Ray the former another former FBI director Fani Willis the Fulton County DA who prosecuted that major omnibus Rico case against Donald Trump
We know as well that Adam Schiff has run afoul of the president and likewise an investigation presumably afoot with respect to him.
Another case may be involving mortgage fraud once again.
George Soros on that list, others presumably as well.
And this practice will repeat itself.
Again, whether there is legitimacy to the underlying charges or not, each one of these people identified by the president in the public domain as among his adversaries can then raise these credible
and not frivolous motions that they themselves are the targets and the subjects and the victims of vindictive prosecution by your department of justice.
necessary to continue to monitor what happens watching very carefully what the judges do with these all important motions in these cases and watching of course if they decide to deny those motions speedy trials in all these cases sometime probably in early 2026 if not before all of that happening again in the federal district courts of america at least up until now in eastern virginia and the district of maryland
Let's move to another area of presidential power that is properly allocated to this president and to any president since the time of our Constitution's writing.
You know well that Section 2 of Article 2 of the Constitution, Article 2 of course, is the portion of our Constitution.
that invests in a chief executive all the powers of the presidency and it includes in section 2 the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States except in cases of impeachment and the reason why that language
from the pen of James Madison and George Mason and others is so important is because it's one of the very few aspects of the Constitution that is completely unchecked.
There is no check against the pardon authority.
The president, this president, prior presidents have pardoned all sorts of people without, without any check.
no legislative check, no judicial check, and that's because the founders wanted it to be that way.
They wanted this to be a matter of pure grace, pure mercy by a president who will not be second guessed by any other branch of government.
And the presumption was that the chief executive would do this out of mercy.
Over the years, these standards have evolved to establish inside the Department of Justice, inside the Office of the Pardon Attorney, the concept that typically one is not entitled to a pardon or commutation of a sentence, that is, reduction of the sentence.
Absent is a period of times, typically at least five years since the conclusion of the sentence, the criminal judgment imposed upon the defendant, and then some showing that there's something about that person's life, something about their engagement in the community, something about their making their family, their community better in some way, themselves better in some way, that makes it clear that they have put that criminal behavior of theirs behind them.
They admit it, they acknowledge it, and there's something about their life in its
exact illustration and demonstration to the pardon attorney that shows clearly that they're entitled to a pardon.
It has been abused, undeniably.
There are presidents in both parties who have gotten a lot of criticism for exercising this
unchecked authority in ways that the public does not like and yet and yet it is there and that's the way that our Constitution reads.
We know that just in recent days this president has engaged, has invoked Section 2 of Article 2 of the Constitution in two ways.
Let's talk about those two.
You have heard about both of them.
One has to do with former Representative George Santos of New York.
He was that disgraced, fabulous, this fellow was making up all kinds of stories, all kinds
of lies that made him the target, the focus of frankly national, maybe even international scorn and engage in all sorts of fraud that landed him ultimately with a judgment, a sentence of conviction, more than seven years in prison.
He was charged in particular with a huge amount of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud.
He was required to pay $370,000 in court ordered restitution to his victims.
And again, until very recently, he was serving the first few months of his 87 month sentence.
That's a little more than seven years in federal prison.
The president has recently commuted his sentence.
C-O-M-M-U-T-E-D.
That's the verb.
That's the noun.
The commutation is the noun.
And the president has done that because in his view, these are the words of the president, George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and by all accounts has been horribly mistreated.
Therefore, I just signed a commutation, releasing George Santos from prison.
And then he goes on to say,
All capital letters.
Good luck, George.
Have a great life.
President in other settings has also acknowledged, as have other members of the White House, that the president was on the receiving end of petitions by George Santos to get the very commutation that he has now received.
Mr. Trump, the president earlier on, had acknowledged that George Santos, as a part of his fraud, his defrauding all of these people, he said he lied like hell.
And he also said, I don't know him, but he was 100% for Trump.
And apparently that's the basis upon which this president has now commuted the sentence of George Santos, basically releasing him from prison and also also removing from him the obligation to pay back.
any of this restitution to the many victims who are out there, George Santos saying, in response to whether or not he will still make good on at least that portion of his sentence, saying, I'll do whatever the law says, but plainly, with this commutation, this reduction in sentence, no longer obliged to do that.
When he was indicted back in 2023, prosecutors had accused him of multiple criminal schemes.
They arranged for everything from fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits,
unofficial forums using his political campaign to enrich himself, swindling money from donors for personal expenses, using one donor's credit card to steal $11,000 for his personal use, it goes on and on and on.
The defendant also of course boasted about extensive Wall Street experience.
He talked about his mother who had been in the World Trade Center on September 11th, claimed to be a college volleyball star of those lies, none of that necessarily
violation of federal law, but he also became the first person in history to be expelled from the House of Representatives without being convicted previously up to that time of a federal crime or somehow supporting the Confederacy.
This fellow has an extensive background and it is in the wake of that.
in the wake of that, that the president has commuted, meaning not pardoned, not erased the sentence, but has reduced the sentence to time served.
And George Santos now released from prison, as the president said immediately, no longer subject to his seven-year term of imprisonment, and no longer obliged to pay these several hundred thousands of dollars to his victims of his crimes as a result of that commutation.
The deceit, the deceit and the criminal conduct
well-established and George Santos acknowledging that in court, a plea accepted by the federal district court judge.
basically not wiped from the annals of this prosecution.
It's still there.
This particular commutation is unlike a pardon.
It does not remove the record of this, but it does remove George Santos from federal custody.
That happening at the pen of this president just this past week.
The president has also exercised his pardon power, the pardon power basically to remove from the annals, from the records of criminal prosecution,
a criminal conviction of a man named Chang Pen Zhao, C-H-A-N-G-P-E-N-Z-H...
AO.
He is referred to as CZ.
He is the richest man in crypto negotiation and in movement of cryptocurrency around the globe.
The cryptocurrency exchange that he himself put together is called Binance, B-I-N-A-N-C-E.
And as a part of a long-standing investigation there, CZ was identified, he was charged
ultimately convicted of money laundering.
Violations that allowed terrorists and other criminals to move money onto Binance and otherwise engage in conduct plainly in violation of federal law.
It was the world's largest exchange.
Interestingly, what the president said about this was what CZ did wasn't a crime.
When we come back, I'll tell you exactly what CZ
did in fact do what the federal court sentenced him for and what the effect of this pardon by this president under the Constitution is here on Amicus, Allah review.
Music playing
This is Jim Santel, and this is Amica Salaroview talking about the latest exercise by a president, a chief executive of his, perhaps one day, her unfettered unchecked authority to issue commutations and pardons under the Constitution of the United States of America commuting this president has the seven plus sentence of George Santos, that disgraced congressman.
who was identified and ultimately pled guilty to a variety of identity theft and wire fraud charges.
He is now free.
And as a result of the commutation of the president, he is no longer in the custody of the bureau of prisons and presumably no longer has to pay the $370,000 in monies and restitution funds that the court ordered that he pay to the victims of his criminal conduct.
And then we have the pardon.
This is an out and out pardon.
This is a decision by the president to effectively erase, not from history, it's still out there, but from the official records of criminal prosecutions in the United States, the prosecution, and yes, the conviction upon a plea of guilty, didn't go to trial, pled guilty to a huge amount of money laundering violations that allowed terrorists and other criminals to move money
on to Binance, the defendant in this case, Chang Pen Zhao, known as CZ.
He himself has a very interesting history.
He founded Binance in 2017.
It is to this day, the largest and the most influential crypto exchange currency operation in the world, processes as much as about two thirds of all the digital currency transactions on the face of the planet.
Customers can buy and sell and hold popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether.
Zhao himself, the most powerful executive in the entire crypto industry, he's worth an estimated 85 billion, 85 billion with a B. Social media commands that in ways big and small and otherwise has been one of the major movers when it comes to cryptocurrency in the
international transactions and on the face of the planet.
We know that as a result of his conduct, he drew the attention of federal authorities.
And in the end, after this extensive investigation, as he was moving toward trial, he played guilty.
In particular, Mr. Zhao, who again is a Chinese-born executive, he now lives in the United Arab Emirates.
He admitted
that he had violated the federal law or federal law by failing to install some very rigorous compliance systems required by law at Binance.
That is his company, his corporation.
You might say, well, gee, that doesn't sound all that serious.
But the problem with that is that by doing that, by knowingly failing to do that, what did he do?
That allowed people in countries that are subject to the sanctions of our nation and terrorist groups like Hamas.
like al-Qaeda, like the Islamic State, ISIL or ISIS, and others to move money on his platform, supporting the kinds of activities in which those terrorist groups engage.
And that's the reason why this prosecution was so very, very important.
When he pleaded guilty,
Zhao, who goes again by CZ, that's how he's referred to in the public domain, stepped down as the chief executive of Binance and he remained the majority shareholder and held on to virtually all of his wealth.
The important aspect of this is he acknowledged in federal court, in open court, that indeed that's exactly what he did.
He admitted to doing this major
series of crimes and the judge accepted that plea based upon the presentation of evidence at the sentencing, at the change of plea hearing, and at the sentencing as well.
Mr. Zhao then sentenced to prison.
And as a result of his four-month prison sentence, he finishes that up and he is released even before the pardon goes into effect.
The pardon effectively lifts any sort of impediment for Mr. Zhao going forward, including anything that would attempt someone who is otherwise guilty and has been a judge guilty of a federal felony.
Even in the context of some other pardons, this one is fairly extraordinary.
And indeed, the backlash in response to this is notable.
An economics professor, Cornell University, said, this is yet another example of the administration's blaze and flouting of the rule of law.
There is little justification for this pardon and highlights how far this administration will go to promote the cryptocurrency industry.
Others have likewise been very, very critical of this.
On the other hand, Caroline Levitt, who is, of course, the White House press secretary, said in a statement just this past week that President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden administration in their war on cryptocurrency.
She went on to say the Biden administration's war on crypto is now over.
And indeed, we know now as we look more into this, as the media does, that this is also an example of how some high-profile business partners of Donald Trump and his family have benefited from his rollback of some wide-ranging crypto crackdown efforts that were initiated by Joe Biden to seek this pardon.
Zhao hired some lawyers and some lobbyists and who were they?
They had some ties to the Trump administration while Binance itself struck a very lucrative and a good business deal for Binance with a thing called World Liberty Financial and that group, World Liberty Financial, is the Trump family's crypto startup.
The connections
to the Trump family and to Donald Trump himself cannot be overstated.
And that deal alone, that arrangement that accomplished this pardon in the end, likely to generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trump family.
And the family of fellow named Steve Witkoff, WITKOFF, who's the president's top
Middle East advisor the connections inside the administration the things that we now know about that prompted this pardon troubling indeed the office of the pardon attorney would otherwise have looked at this made a determination after after all of this was settled after mr. Zhao was long long released from prison and made a recommendation about whether there was something that merited this here the president intervenes issues this pardon which he has the right to do and accomplishes the complete pardon of seeing
the richest man in crypto who admitted to this major money laundering violation scheme during the course of his recent activity.
This is Amicus.
A lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel.
We're now turning to more exercises of government authority, chief executive authority, the tension between constitutional commissions of power and authority, congressional.
conveyances of authority and exercises of executive authority by this president.
We're talking now in this segment of our broadcast about, yes, once again, the National Guard.
We have spent a lot of time on this issue for two principal reasons.
One of them is that it is an awful lot about the power of the authority of a president and the checks and balances that the Constitution and the laws of our nation set up
not to prevent the president from engaging in the due administration of the laws as the Constitution requires him to do, but to ensure that when he does that, it is premised upon the law.
and upon the facts and an application of the law to the facts and the facts to the law.
We know what has been happening around the country.
We have spent some time in previous broadcasts talking about the various situations in places like Memphis and Washington DC and yes, Los Angeles and in particular, Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois.
We're gonna focus most of our attention now upon those last two cities, Chicago, Illinois.
and Portland, Oregon.
Chicago, a place once again identified by the president as a place where he would like to deploy the National Guard to restore peace.
to restore the kind of calm and safety and security that he feels is not present there, to address what he has described as a place of not just lack of safety and security, but also a place that necessarily needs imposition of more law enforcement than what the local authorities require and have asked for.
What the governor himself has said is not needed.
And that is one of the principal tensions that we see in all of these cases.
involving the president's description of various cities as being in dire need of the...
intervention of the National Guard and local authorities saying yes indeed we have problems but we can handle those on our own and I should say at the outset as we launch into this discussion about what's going on both legally and practically in Chicago and also in Portland that this is much related to but different from other issues that we've discussed and that is having to do with the work and the mission and the deployment of ICE agents.
We were going to talk about that in other settings in the future.
Right now, talking about the National Guard, this decision to federalize the National Guard over the opposition of the state governors.
contrary to their interests and contrary to the specific request that they have made to the president not to do this.
Let's talk first about Chicago.
We know in that case that a federal district court judge named April Perry, she is a trial court judge, had hearings on this, made the determination in the end, as we have described in the past in great detail, that in fact there is no insurrection, there is no rebellion to use the word of the applicable statute,
going on in Chicago and she acknowledges that there have been not only disruptions, there have been things that are violent in nature and that those are not to be tolerated and that those people engage in the violent behavior there should in fact and are being prosecuted by local authorities for that conduct.
But she says, as do the other judges who have addressed these issues, that those particular events do not partake of a rebellion that is an effort to overthrow the government, the entire nation of government in the United States of America.
And for that reason, the President's invocation of the Insurrection Act and his identification of this as being a rebellious city is simply unfounded.
Therefore, what did she do?
She said, not only
should the National Guard not come into the city, but they should be disbanded, at least as to this Chicago initiative of the president, goes up to the Seventh Circuit.
And we know from our discussion of this just last radio broadcast that the Seventh Circuit agreed with her wholeheartedly and said, yes, indeed, there is no basis to believe, even though there have been these disruptions in the local safety and security, the peace of the community has been disrupted to some extent.
but also noting that those are the kinds of things that come, frankly, in a free society that should be responded to by law enforcement with prosecutions and convictions, but not partaking once again of a rebellion of an insurrection that warrants this kind of dramatic response.
Well, we know that in the wake of that Seventh Circuit decision, again, by a panel of Seventh Circuit judges that the Solicitor General of the United States of America, his name, John Sauer,
I asked for review of that seven circuit opinion plainly in opposition to what the president wants seeking to lift that
order that blocked the deployment of the National Guard in Chicago.
John Sauer, again, the Solicitor General, said that the lower court intervention, as he said, countermands the exercise of the president's commander-in-chief authority and projects its own authority into the military chain of command, basically saying federal district court judges have no business doing this.
The administration contends that the president has unreviewable discretion.
Let me say that again.
The administration contends that the president, in its application for review by the Supreme Court, says that the president, the chief executive, has unreviewable discretion to do this, and that federal district court judges, and the federal appellate court, in this case, the seventh circuit, should stay out of this.
Opposing that, of course, arguing to the Supreme Court,
is, of course, the lawyers for Illinois and the city of Chicago, they told the justices this.
They said the state and local law enforcement officers have handled these isolated protest activities in Illinois.
And there is no credible evidence to the contrary, very much mirroring exactly what Judge Perry found, what the Seventh Circuit also found.
The state of Illinois lawyers, the city of Chicago lawyers, said that the state seeks to protect its sovereignty.
Yes, indeed, a state
rights issue here, retain control over local policing, and protect the basic structure of American federalism from unprecedented intrusion.
Again, they're all premising this upon the order from April Perry that said that the National Guard has no business being there.
And in that order, she cast doubt on the federal government's credibility.
She said, we do not doubt that there have been these acts of vandalism, civil disobedience, even assaults, but the court cannot conclude that the government, the declarations by the government are reliable and so National Guard, no permission to enter into the city.
That is the position of not only the federal district court,
which is the premise for the appeal to the Supreme Court, but also again the position of the lawyers who are defending the state and local law enforcement as well.
Opposed, opposed by the Department of Justice, representing the White House, arguably representing America.
That's what the Solicitor General of the United States is supposed to do.
The Supreme Court has now before it this issue of whether or not the Seventh Circuit's opinion, its order,
supporting the notion that there's no rebellion going on in Chicago, acknowledging that there should be other law enforcement activities to address these problems, whether that should be overturned.
Again, we wait probably in the next few days for a decision by the Supreme Court on what they will do with these petitions, with these arguments, to overturn what the Seventh Circuit has done right here in our circuit in a Midwestern city.
Let's talk about Portland, paralleling this in many ways we know there.
Another federal district court judge, we know this from our previous discussion of these events.
Her name is Karen Immergut, and she issued orders just like April Perry did.
She looked around and she said, based upon the evidence presented to her in a trial in front of her, she said, you know what, there's just no support for this notion that Portland is up for grabs and that because of a rebellion and insurrection going on here, it is necessary that the president overrule the governor.
of Oregon and direct the entry into the city of Portland of the National Guard.
She made the same kind of finding the federal district court judge made in Chicago.
Here, interestingly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals came down in a different direction.
Initially, suspending, if you will, a part of her order, but ultimately, ultimately, in a three-judge panel saying that deployment can in fact move forward for now under this preliminary ruling,
The legal wrangling, however, continues.
And while that appellate ruling from the Ninth Circuit, different, very different from the Supreme of the Seventh Circuit decision, lifted that block, that restriction that was imposed by Judge Emmergut, the deployment of Oregon soldiers there in Portland.
It was not immediately clear about the extent to which it allowed the president to use National Guard soldiers from other states as he had suggested he might do.
That remains a somewhat unresolved issue, but it's very clear right now that a lot of things are going on in the Ninth Circuit because in the wake of that divided opinion, two judges said, yes, indeed, the lower court judge is wrong about this.
And there is in fact a sufficient basis to.
order the National Guard to go in.
A third judge looked at this and she said, you must be joking.
She said that today's decision by the other two judges on the panel is not merely absurd.
She said it erodes core constitutional principles.
The judges who supported the decision to go in, they wrote this, their names are Bridget Bade and Ryan Nelson.
May cited some instances in the record in which they said demonstrators in Portland for example attempted to set fires in a building They threw rocks and sticks They threatened some officers with knives They shined lights and some officers eyes and they shot paintballs at officers and it's based upon those kinds of things that they came to the conclusion Contrary to the lower court judge that indeed
there is something partaking of rebellion in Portland, Oregon.
Therefore, they said, even if the president may exaggerate the extent of the problem on social media, it does not change the fact, these two judges said, that provide a colorable basis to support his decision to use National Guard soldiers.
So we've got a split, but the two to one majority
effectively permits the president to go ahead with this.
What happens in the wake of that is lawyers for Oregon, the city of Portland, immediately ask the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for what's known as an en banc hearing.
That's Latin once again for let's get all the judges together.
Let's have all the judges review this
decision by three of them and determine whether they're right or wrong.
That's an appeal before the chief circuit judge and 10 randomly selected judges among the entire group there.
And the Ninth Circuit has already solicited from the parties some information about whether they should go ahead and do that on bond hearing.
We are waiting in the midst of all of that negotiation and that review and that deliberation to determine whether or not the Ninth Circuit will pursue
to pursue that en banc review of the decision by the three judge panel.
In the meantime, in the meantime, there is a second temporary restraining order that was issued by Judge Immergut, which covered all federalized National Guard troops, not just those from Oregon, and that's still in effect, but probably not for very long.
The Ninth Circuit judges wrote in their order that they believe that the two restraining orders rise and fall together.
And federal lawyers asked Judge Emmergut recently to stay and remove the second.
So we've got a lot of things going on in the Ninth Circuit, and we'll see, we'll see exactly what it is that the Ninth Circuit does.
It is entirely possible that that case also, depending upon what an en banc panel does, if the en banc panel is convened, that case could also end up in the Supreme Court.
There may be different circumstances.
There may be facts between the Chicago case and the Portland case that differentiate them.
But fundamentally, both cases focus upon how when
interprets these kinds of things in the street.
Different interpretations, same law leading to different conclusions by federal judges.
When we come back, we'll talk more about that, and then we'll talk about yet another exercise of executive authority here on Amicus, a lot of you.
This is Amicus, a law review.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is the final segment of our tour broadcast this weekend, talking all about exercises of executive authority, presidential authority to issue pardons to engage in deployments of the National Guard.
to direct the Department of Justice to prosecute his adversaries.
And yes, indeed now also to direct the Department of Defense to attack Venezuelan and Columbia boats in the oceans, both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
We know what this story is all about.
The United States of America has attacked now, according to most recent account, 10 different boats killing about 43 different people as a result of these
war-like activities on these boats, and that is the point.
The president indicating that he has justified these boat attacks as a matter of self-defense at a time of high overdose deaths in the United States of America.
They have focused their rhetoric on the attacks on these boats at the high seas on Venezuela.
in particular.
The administration also has latest recent days and even recent hours indicating that it may pursue a land strike or a targeted operation against the country's president whose name again is Nicholas Maduro.
And of course, he is also an adversary of the president in the international market, the international scheme.
We have reporting, of course, that the U.S.
is even deploying some aircraft carrier to Latin America as the drug operations expand.
Venezuela's Maduro saying that the United States is fabricating a war after it deployed this huge warship and also
pursuing the continued destruction, the attacking of these various boats.
The real question is, of course, are these attacks legal?
Are they a part of the president's authority or are they something other?
A broad range of specialists in these cases dispute whether or not the president has the authority to do this.
Traditionally, it's always been the case when it comes to interdiction of boats, the president maintains that these boats are carrying drugs to America.
Traditionally, historically,
how we've dealt with that is through maritime drug smuggling operations, countering those as a law enforcement matter, not a military matter where you engage in a tax violent warlike behavior.
And that is included usually the Coast Guard interdictions, sometimes with the involvement of the United States Navy.
This is plainly different.
And although we have been able to do that with some success, that is interdicting similar boats in the past,
The Trump administration here asserts that these killings of these people in these boats is legal.
And again, as a matter of self-defense, he has described the people who are bringing these drugs into our nation as drug cartels, deem them terrorist organizations, and he has said that he has determined, found that as a matter of fact, that the United States is now in a formal armed conflict with them, these drug cartels, we are at war.
basically.
And the question, once again, is whether that is the case or not.
We know that the War Powers Resolution, which is this Vietnam era law that attempted to rein in the authority of presidents to do these kinds of things, says the presidents do have some authority here, but they have to end deployments in congressionally unauthorized hostilities after 60 days.
And of course, the big issue is that it's under the Constitution
that it is in article one that the Congress declares war and not the president.
The president here is saying that he is determined that we are at war and therefore can take this action by virtue of his factual finding about what is going on.
Question whether that is an overreach under the Constitution
and under the war powers resolution, we know as well that the law permits the president to carry out some limited strikes in the national interests, national concerns, war and that, as long as the anticipated nature or the duration or the scope of that falls somewhat short of a true full blown war in the constitutional sense.
The question is whether or not this falls in that category or, or is a true war of the sort that the president
cannot properly authorize, cannot do these things by virtue of his own determination.
And there is a fair amount of congressional pushback on this.
We know that Senator Todd Young, who's from Indiana, particularly upset with the Trump administration about these ongoing strikes against alleged drug boats off the coast of South America,
Young, Senator Young has accused the Trump administration of deliberately keeping lawmakers in the dark about the strikes and reiterated that the authority to declare war lies with the Congress rather than the president invoking both this constitutional argument and also saying, Mr. President, we don't know if your determination falls within the law.
the Constitution because you're not telling us what is going on.
He says this, if there's been any takeaway from me from the last roughly 25 years of congressional action and inaction, it's not that Congress needs to be more hands off.
It's that Congress needs to get out of the way, he said.
I think Congress needs to go further rather than just asserting our ability to authorize military force, which we certainly need to do.
We also need to officially bring to close these conflicts.
and make clear that we have constitutional prerogatives that need to be consistently asserted.
And again, all of these remarks echoed by others with increasing ferocity,
increasing clarity on Capitol Hill, certainly from Democrats and an increasing number of Republicans were concerned about this president's overreach under the law, under the Constitution, wondering out loud whether this kind of thing that is involving the death of human beings is involving a compromise in our status in the international community, arguably bringing us closer to perhaps a real war with Venezuela,
and in violation of some of our fundamental principles about how we engage in the international community in the rule of law.
Like all of these other issues affecting all of us in the area of presidential authority, we'll continue to focus on these, we'll continue to discuss them, and we'll take all of this up again next weekend when Amicus Alaraview continues here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.
Have a good weekend, everybody.