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My name is Jim Santel and I am your host for this broadcast, both this hour and next hour as well.
I am joined in the studios of Civic Media here in Racine Park.
by my excellent producer Max and together we're going to be taking your live phone calls your texts your inquiries your questions that telephone number is 855-752-4842 one more time that's 855-752-4842 Max and I
soliciting, encouraging, urging your questions, your inquiries, your comments, your observations about those items that are on our ambitious but achievable syllabus.
And there is a lot I often say on this broadcast.
It is a lot.
No exception this weekend as we plow the ground and review the geography of the rule of law, the administration of justice and the operation of government locally throughout our state and especially.
across the nation.
We're going to begin by moving from where we were last weekend, which has perched atop Capitol Hill there at the so-called White Palace.
That is the place in which the Supreme Court does its business.
We're moving down Pennsylvania Avenue.
We're moving down that major street in American history.
down to the Department of Justice where we're going to spend most of this hour and a portion of next hour talking with you about the things that have been going on at Maine Justice.
We have spent a lot of time in recent months talking about just that issue this weekend, no exception at all, focusing especially.
upon those things, those events, those circumstances that have given rise to rule of law, questions, concerns, issues, all kinds of things going on at the U.S.
Department of Justice under the newly appointed Attorney General, or should I say more accurately, the acting Attorney General of the United States of America.
We spent a lot of time last weekend talking about the fact that Pam Bondi, the President's
First Attorney General in this is second term was fired while the two of them were en route to the Supreme Court to listen to that major oral argument on birthright citizenship.
She is gone.
She has since left the Department of Justice and remaining behind is Todd Blanche who has served as her.
deputy attorney general throughout these first 14 or so months of the second Trump term, now named the acting attorney general.
And as we talked last week, there will come a time when the president presumably sometime soon will nominate a new attorney general.
for review by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate side of the Congress and then for ultimate action by the full Senate, either confirming or rejecting that nominee, likely accepting that nomination of the President.
Todd Blanche has not yet been nominated and he may not be.
depending upon what the president's preference is.
We've talked about some other names that could be in the running for that top law enforcement spot, and that leads to the significant issue, the focus of our first package, our first bucket of things here on Amicus, a law review, and that is what's going on under the administration of Todd Blanche.
What kinds of things are happening that may begin to describe his approach to the rule of law in America?
Many of those things continuing from the time that Pam Bondi was the U.S.
Attorney, continuing into his term as the acting Attorney General, and presumably will go forward even under the administration of yet a third Attorney General, the second one perhaps.
to be nominated and confirmed under this administration by the United States Congress.
There is a lot going on inside the administration of Todd Blanche there at 9th and Pennsylvania.
That's where the main justice building is located.
It's the RFK Justice Department building named after a former attorney general, a former senator from the state of New York.
And his name, of course, is Robert F. Kennedy.
His son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is now serving as our Secretary of Health and Human Services, as you know.
The family tie is deep there in Washington.
And back at Maine Justice, the focus on issues related to justice remains deep as well.
We'll talk about some of the things that have been animating the lawyers, the policymakers at Maine Justice,
in the time and immediately prior to the time that Todd Blanche became our acting Attorney General.
We'll talk about something related to the conviction, the former conviction of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.
Major news in that area.
We'll talk about the initiation of an investigation of Cassidy Hutchinson.
You may recall her name.
She testified very notoriously.
during the course of the January 6 House Committee investigation, we'll talk about the fact that under the Blanche administration, the Department of Justice is rescinding some civil rights settlements that affected the rights, the constitutional rights of transgender students in America.
We'll talk about the fact that even before he took office, he was also the architect of a decision to drop charges against those police officers who had unlawfully
and in horrific error killed Breonna Taylor many years ago, we'll talk as well about the arrest of an ex-army employee.
Allegedly involved in disclosing national security secrets.
We'll talk about the firing of immigration judges under the Blanche administration.
We'll talk about the problems faced by attorneys in the courts of this country as they continue to provide inaccurate and misleading information to judges who are appearing and presiding over cases in which the government is involved.
And then, yes, as if that's not enough, we'll also talk about what appears to be the start of a new investigation by the Department of Justice of, yes, that's right, the NFL, the National Football League, focusing upon the viewers and the amount of advertising involved in that sport in particular under the aegis of the National Football League.
There's a lot to get to, a lot going on just in these first
weeks or so of the Blanche administration.
We'll talk about all of that and more.
Necessarily in our second hour, we have got to spend some time talking about the federal district court judges continue to do in this country as they define who we are, our lives and our livelihoods.
Yes, we're going to talk about what Judge Lynn Adolin presiding over the
trial, the criminal trial of former Wisconsin circuit court judge Hannah Dugan, resulting in her conviction charges brought by the Department of Justice.
We'll talk about what Judge Edelman did in connection with a request.
by Hannah Dugan through her attorneys to throw that verdict out to dismiss the case.
The judge issuing a major ruling just this past week.
And in other districts around the country, we'll talk about what a federal district court judge in Boston did on the east coast of our nation.
in telling the administration that it had no business in denying, rejecting the visa of a Harvard medical student for importing some frog embryos into the country.
We'll talk as well about what another federal district court judge said in connection with the attempts by this administration to stop NPR and PBS.
challenges brought by them under the First Amendment, alleging that the rescission of funds to them constituted an infringement of their free speech, their free publication, their advocacy rights.
We'll talk about what that particular judge said about the First Amendment, NPR, PBS, and the President's efforts to shut them down.
a story largely overtaken by some legislative action in that same area.
We've also got some news coming out of the D.C.
U.S.
Attorney's Office.
The incompetence, the bungling of cases involving firearms at a time when the president, as of all presidents, bemoaned the fact that we have got too much gun violence in this nation.
Jeanne Pirro
Janine Pirro, the U.S.
Attorney in the District of Columbia, having great difficulty in identifying those cases that she can keep alive, guns cases in the District of Columbia, and then as if that is not enough, we'll also talk about a federal district court judge also right there in the District of Columbia.
who has doubled down, has reaffirmed his prior decision that we talked about right here on this broadcast, telling the Secretary of Defense that he cannot, cannot, cannot restrict access of reporters to the news and events of the Pentagon of our Defense Department.
It turns out that Pete Higgsath, our Defense Secretary, made a second attempt
to impose rules.
The judge has looked at those again and said, you have not improved.
No correction there.
Once again, enjoining the secretary from enforcing those particular laws, those rules, those procedures there at the Pentagon.
Lots and lots of things going on in America these days.
We'll get to all of them as we talk about the conduct of government.
the administration of justice and the applications of the rule of law in our system here in Wisconsin throughout the nation and even across the planet.
We may also have some time at the very end to talk about the comments made by our president in connection with the continuing prosecution of the war in Iran.
His threats, undeniably threats to commit war crimes, will talk about why that is so, about why the things that he says are unprecedented when it comes to leveling the civilization there in Iran, stopping the conduct of civilian operations there, why those are threats to
war crimes and all of that all of that as a part of our assessment of constitutional principles that apply not just in small areas but in big areas as well.
So let's begin by talking about the United States Department of Justice.
It is one of those 1935 construction buildings right there on Pennsylvania Avenue.
when you have been there you probably walked right by it.
It is not a place for tourists simply because inside you've got lots of lawyers and staff who are doing things that are not nearly as interesting at least visually as going to the Smithsonian doing many of the other wonderful things that one can do in our nation's capital but it's right there and every four years we see the Department of Justice on visual display when presidents now
as a part of their motorcade going from the Capitol to the White House after having been invested, sworn into the presidency, either walk or drive right by it.
That building has also been the focus of a lot of attention, as for the first time in recent history, the current president has placed a banner over the front of the entrance of that building.
at main justice and that banner of course a picture a depiction of the president basically establishing something that's also referenced just this past week which is that he is in charge not only of the executive branch and its administrative agencies but also in charge of making decisions inside that very building about who and who who will be and who will not be prosecuted
by the prosecutors there.
A dramatic change from the past.
All of that as we come back here on this first hour of Amicus, a lot of you broadcast stations of civic media.
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We are going to begin our analysis of all things rule of law and administration of justice related by talking about the now emerging administration of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
What do we know about Todd Blanche?
We talked about him a lot last.
broadcast.
We know among other things that he used to be the president's private attorney.
Yes, he was one of those attorneys who was representing the president when he was in so much criminal trouble in federal courts and in state courts around the country.
You may recall him sitting next to the president in that New York Manhattan courtroom.
when the president was charged with 34 violations of New York law having to do with reporting, inaccurately reporting as it turns out, as the jury determined, finding the president guilty.
34 felony counts of misrepresenting uses of monies, misrepresenting them for legitimate law purposes when in fact they were used to silence people.
who would come forward, including people like Stormy Daniels, to talk about past affairs.
President found guilty of those offenses, even though it was Todd Blanche who sat to his left and pursued the principal defense of the president at that time a private party in front of the judge and the jury there in Manhattan.
Todd Blanche, also involved in the federal cases involving
the documents at Mar-a-Lago and also the attempt to overthrow the insurrection on January 6th.
Todd Blanche, a representative, a defense attorney, they serve an incredibly important role in our criminal justice system.
Without criminal defense attorneys, we could not have an effective system.
You could not have proper representation.
So there is nothing about his representation about the president that was improper.
acquired obliged to provide a vigorous and a forceful defense.
The concern, of course, that many of us have is that when you are in that capacity, you're also in a private attorney-client relationship with your client.
And that client can be assured that the things that you tell your lawyer, your attorney, in the midst of that conversation
of that relationship will never see the light of day.
That's called the attorney, client privilege, not to be disclosed.
under virtually all circumstances.
There are a couple of exceptions called the crime fraud exception, a few other things, but the fundamental principle is I tell something to my lawyer and he or she is obliged to keep it secret for all time.
Todd Blanche had that relationship with Donald Trump as a private counsel, as a private client.
That was Donald Trump.
And that relationship continues.
The concern, of course, is that Todd Blanch now is in a new position.
He is the principal federal law enforcement officer for our nation, still obliged to keep secrets, still obliged to provide that cover of the attorney-client relationship to and for and with and across the aisle, if you will, to his former client.
circumstances could arise in which his present service as the Attorney General supposedly supposed to be in support of the Constitution of our nation of the Department of Justice and most centrally of you of the people of the United States of America those those are his present clients supposed to be that there are circumstances one could imagine in which disclosures made
by a person now the president of the United States of America, formerly a private citizen, disclosures made in that period of time, could conflict with the acting attorney general's obligations now to the country, to the Constitution, and to things beyond the president, or maybe not.
Because in a series of memorandums of just this past week or so, Todd Blanche reaffirmed the position
Taken by his predecessor her name Pan Bondi again no longer our Attorney General in which he basically said once again implicitly if not explicitly That our client of the Department of Justice is not the American people.
It's not the Constitution It's not some broader sense of justice It is the president and that once again as it was in the 13 or so months that Pan Bondi was our Attorney General that is a departure
That is a departure from every recent administration Republican and Democratic alike.
It was a wall that was set up, was in place before Watergate, reaffirmed after Watergate, and the notion is that decisions made by the Department of Justice, civil litigation decisions,
criminal decisions, policy decisions should not be dictated by the politics, the partisan views of the presidency, of the White House, regardless of the party of the person who occupies the Oval Office.
That has been the way it has been since 1974 or so, the administration of Gerald Ford on forward until the first term of this president,
until the second term of this president, Todd Blanche, effectively affirming that that wall that previously appropriately existed between the Department of Justice, when it comes to litigation and prosecution decisions, all the important to ensure the integrity of what the Department of Justice does, that wall again remains busted.
broken someplace between 9th and Pennsylvania and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a memo to his staff the Acting Attorney General this past week said this he said our mission here at the Department of Justice remains the same today as It was yesterday of course yesterday the mission according to Pam Bondi was we serve the president and he went on to say President Trump
has promised a safe America and we will continue to deliver on that promise now that that in and of itself taken out of context may not be problematic but in context and in the wake of the history of this Department of Justice this administration it underscores a reaffirmation of that notion that there is not a separation between the Department of Justice and the White House when we come back
We'll tell you more about what Todd Blanche has said in his first few days and what he and his administration has done in these first several days there at Maine Justice.
All that coming up on Amicus, a lot of you.
This is amicus a law review on the broadcast stations of civic media.
My name is Jim Santel I'm your host this hour and also next hour Delighted and honored that you've chosen to spend some portion of your weekend
with me and my producer Max as we talk about the geography review the geography of the rule of law administration of justice and operation of government across our land talking in particular this broadcast about Todd Blanche who's the new attorney general he's the acting attorney general the president has not yet indicated whether mr. Blanche will be nominated formally
to serve in that capacity presumably upon confirmation by the United States Senate or it will be somebody else.
And there are names out there.
of others who might be in the running for that top federal position now that Pam Bondi is out, which leads us to the kinds of things that Todd Blanche has said and done in the first week, the first days of his tenure as our Attorney General.
He thanked former Attorney General Pam Bondi for what he called her friendship, her service, and her selfless dedication to our department and our country.
In a separate memo, he also said that he is officially moving
now from his office, which is on the fourth floor of the main justice building there in Washington, DC.
That's where the deputy attorney general's office and staff is located.
Going to move upstairs into the fifth floor offices of the attorney general, presumably upon the assumption that it won't be anytime soon, during which he's going to be leaving that position, maybe returning to the deputy attorney position formally or or being confirmed.
as the next Attorney General.
So moving up geographically inside the Department of Justice, and then there was this.
During the course of his first public press conference this past week, the Attorney General in response to a question about this transition said this.
He said, nobody has any idea why the Attorney General is no longer the Attorney General.
And I'm the acting Attorney General, except for President Trump.
Let me read that again.
Nobody has any idea why the Attorney General is no longer the Attorney General, and I'm the acting Attorney General, except for President Trump.
Well, an awful lot of indication that it fell into two categories, two buckets of things that the President was displeased about in connection with the administration of Pambadi.
One of them, the handling of the Epstein files, bungled, if you will.
from the day of announcements about there being lists of perpetrators, the documents being on her desk, and disclosures being incomplete, redacted, names of victims released, names of perpetrators not released, all sorts of things that continue to be the subject of congressional review and an awful lot of consternation all up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Epstein files, one of the major
problems of the Bondi administration in terms of handling that hot potato.
And second, of course, maybe at the top of the list, the President's frustration with the incapacity, the appropriate incapacity of the Department of Justice, including U.S.
Attorney's offices in Eastern Virginia, other places to prosecute successfully.
to conclusion, to conviction, to judgment, the president's political foes.
We saw that with James Comey, we saw that with Letitia James, and others in under investigation, the incapacity from the president's view of Pam Bondi to bring those cases forward and to pursue his political enemies.
Those two things principally probably resulted in her ouster Todd Blanche now in that position now ensconced in the official office of the Attorney General.
And what is he doing?
Well,
Well, he's inheriting a lot of his own woes with respect to some of the things that he has done and said, and some new things that he has undertaken, some things that predated his time as the Attorney General, some things that are new to his current making.
Let's talk about one of those things that predated his time as the acting Attorney General.
Todd Blanche, again, taking the reins of the Department of Justice,
even as a federal judge is deciding whether some controversial remarks that he made last year when he was the deputy attorney general about Kilmar Abrego Garcia you remember he was the individual improperly unlawfully the administration said oops we committed an administrative error in deporting him to El Salvador but then refused to bring him back except upon
The return of indictment in Tennessee alleging some federal crimes here.
It's a convoluted and very serpentine story.
But along the way, Blanche made some public statements about whom the human smuggling charges brought against Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Again, wrongly deported to that mega prison in El Salvador.
And for months, for months, the comments made by the deputy attorney general about the motivations, presumably the improper motivations for prosecuting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, bringing him back here for the purpose of prosecuting him, suggesting that this prosecution of Abrego Garcia is vindictively pursued.
This is a vindictive prosecution based upon the things that Todd Blanche said about the reasons for it.
Why are we doing this?
Why are we bringing him back now?
Him among about 250 others deported, bringing him back because, purportedly, some motives and intentions that are not, not within the proper ambit of criminal prosecution.
A judge, a judge now poised to decide
at any time in the near future, whether those comments require the actual dismissal after all of this, of those human smuggling charges against Abrego Garcia.
If he doesn't ascend those charges through the window, he could also decide actually to summon the now acting attorney general to his courtroom in Nashville, Tennessee, where that's where those charges are pending, to answer questions under oath
about what exactly the department was doing, what was its motivation in criminally pursuing Abrego Garcia.
The situation underscores, again, the series of missteps by this administration, ways big, small, and in between when it comes to attempting to do criminal prosecution properly out of the proper motives as well.
The judges' determination as to the truthfulness of
Blanche's statements, whether they reveal accurately, inaccurately, his views, the views of the former attorney general will take on a major role in determining what happens next in this prosecution of Abrego Garcia.
You will call well.
This is a defendant who has flown back to the United States of America in June after those federal prosecutors in Tennessee secured a pair of human smuggling charges against him.
Those derived from a traffic stop a couple of years earlier Identified during the course of some discovery the day officials announced the Abrego Garcia's return you recall that the Attorney General then Pam Bondi telling telling the Nation about his return that same day that same day the deputy Attorney General now the acting Attorney General told Fox News
This he said that the Justice Department started probing a brago Garcia after heavy emphasis on that word after a judge in Maryland.
Her name, you know it.
Well, it's Paula Zinnis.
We have talked about her a lot on this broadcast only after a judge in Maryland both concluded that the administration had no right to deport him.
and also the same judge accused officials of doing something wrong in its approach to his case.
After, after they felt bruised by those comments by Paula Zinnis, it was only after that that they decided to seek an indictment against him.
That is not a proper basis for pursuing allegations, pursuing criminal charges.
As I've often said, one of the single most significant things a government can do with respect to
individuals in this country, citizens and residents alike, the possibility of detention if you are not motivated by what the facts show you, by what the law
commands, and instead doing this to prove some judge wrong when it comes to her statement that the government had no right to deport Abrego Garcia, that they're doing things wrong.
If you're doing that for that purpose, you are acting improperly.
The judge, his name is Waverly Crenshaw.
We've talked about him before.
He's the presiding judge.
over that criminal human smuggling case that's still on the docket there.
He postponed the trial.
It was supposed to begin much earlier this year.
Over these contentions, it was Todd Blanche, now our acting attorney general, who disclosed that the reasons for this prosecution are vindictive and are not proper and that are intended instead simply to punish Abrego Garcia for the filing of the case in Maryland.
over his wrongful deportation, a case that has gotten a favorable reaction from Paula Zinnis as we know well.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche at the time linking the Maryland lawsuit to the investigation of the criminal behavior of Abrago at a minimum, suggesting to an awful lot of people looking at these pleadings that the Trump administration once again was frustrated with Abrago Garcia
Case not a run of the mill prosecution at all.
And Judge Crenshaw saying effectively all of that in his preliminary orders to this time.
Crenshaw has given prosecutors the chance to fend off the presumption.
that they were wrongfully prosecuting Abraigo Garcia by putting witnesses on the stand earlier this year trying to get to the bottom of this and trying to determine what the basis for this prosecution is.
Is it because there really is a legitimate law enforcement reason to prosecute him for events of several years ago in connection with alleged human smuggling or are we simply trying to punish him for his pursuing his immigration case to the good reception of a judge in Maryland?
All of that coming up in the weeks, days, months ahead as Judge Crenshaw wrestles with all of this, that has been the product of our now acting Attorney General's comments to the media about the reason why all of this has been done.
A regular Garcia's lawyers themselves have said the most like the explanation for all of this is that any attempted explanation would be futile.
and expose the vindictiveness of the core prosecution in this case.
Of course, the Department of Justice has maintained that none of that is true, notwithstanding what the now acting Attorney General has said.
that is the result of an independent decision by the U.S.
Attorney, his name Robert McGuire.
That was the sole basis upon which the government sought this indictment.
That's what the government has been contending.
But the prosecutors, again, have a road to pursue here because they've now got to convince.
the judge that this was a legitimate indictment, that this prosecution is legitimate.
If Crenshaw concludes to the prosecutors successfully rebutted that presumption of indicitiveness, if they pushed it back, then the decision will kick off another round, another round of court proceedings that may include, may include the testimony of Todd Blanche, our acting attorney general in that courtroom in Tennessee to explain what he meant and say what he meant.
when he talked about the reasons for pursuing Abrego Garcia in the first place.
It is a complicated matter.
The matters related to Abrego Garcia in front of Paul Zinnis continue as the government continues to spar with his attorneys and frankly with the court as well about whether and where Abrego Garcia should be deported simply questioning the motives once again
of the Department of Justice of Homeland Security and treating Abrigo Garcia the way that they have over these many months.
There seems to be no inclination that the Department of Justice is dismissing the indictment, the judge in Maryland said.
The bottom line here is either you want him here for the criminal case or you don't.
That's Paula Zenis also suggesting to the Department of Justice attorneys in Maryland.
Doubting their motives for going ahead on all of that Todd Blanche has a bit of explaining to do perhaps to judge Crenshaw with respect to that and The acting attorney general has some other problems that he is inherited not of his own making but inherited from his predecessor Paula
pull up Bondi as well, and Pam Bondi as well.
And those in part are the products of things said by prosecutors in the courts of this land.
When we come back, we'll talk about what the Pam Bondi prosecutors have said, what the Todd Blanche prosecutors are continuing to say in the courts of our land here on Amicus, a lot of them.
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Sam Bondi, things that he has done of his own making.
Many of those are in connection with things that attorneys under the Bondi and now Blanche administration have been saying in court.
Just this past week, more evidence of the problems in that area with the Department of Justice attorneys, misleading, misstating the facts, dissembling in front of federal district court judges.
Circumstance continues this past week.
A federal judge in Manhattan has ordered the Department of Justice to preserve all communications about migrant arrests in this country.
Why?
Because the Department of Justice lawyers, again now under Todd Blanche, have disclosed that they relied on, wait for it, incorrect information.
Wrong information provided to the court in their defense of some migrant arrests, causing the federal judge to say, well, if you're telling me things that are not true in court, then I need to have you preserve everything that's coming out of main justice, including from the Attorney General.
The lawyers for the migrant groups who are plainly defending those migrants' positions told the judge that they may seek sanctions against the government, against the Department of Justice,
And the court's permission to gather evidence about what exactly happened in connection with these misrepresentations.
The latest ones made now under the Blanche administration to federal judges.
We have seen this repeatedly in the past 14 months.
The misstep again among several by Department of Justice attorneys.
in recent days.
A government attorney also alerted a Rhode Island court of inaccurate statements that were made by that attorney during a hearing about the administration's demands for state voter records.
Oops, we goofed.
Told you some wrong things, judge.
We take it back.
Another department lawyer apologized to another federal judge in Washington state for missing a key deadline due to what he called
unfamiliarity with local procedures.
That's incompetence.
And that is happening now under the Blanche administration, just as it did under the Bondi administration.
These things continue to happen.
We know that judges have historically, as we've talked about before, relied on a principle called the presumption of regularity.
Let me say that again.
That's the presumption of regularity.
What does that mean?
The notion is that you trust the government in sharing accurate information and acting in good faith when you appear as I did for many years in front of judges.
And judges ask me a question.
I have one of three responses.
I can give the judge information knowing it to be accurate.
I could say to the judge, I do not know.
And I could also say to the judge, I need to find out.
Any one of those is appropriate because the judges will rely on the accuracy.
And if I make it up because I don't know or because I haven't discovered the truth, then I'm destroying that presumption of regularity that has attended the Department of Justice for decades until this administration.
And if judges no longer have a baseline level level of this confidence.
in the Department of Justice in the things, the truthfulness of the things that the attorneys say, it damages the very fabric of the entire system of justice.
Now it's rare for this to happen, at least it used to be rare, but it's happening with greater frequency, witness what's happened again just this past week.
Just this past week in connection with this issue about migrant arrests, the government had argued for months that a 2025 memorandum
from ICE enforcement authorities authorized civil migrant arrests, their detentions.
at U.S.
immigration courts.
You can go into the courts and arrest them.
But in a March 24th letter, the judge U.S.
Attorney's Office reported that they had learned that oops, that is no longer the position of ICE.
Here's what the Department of Justice, your Department of Justice wrote, we deeply regret that this era has come to light at this late stage after the parties have expanded significant resources and time to litigate this case.
And this court has carefully considered
plaintiffs challenged to the ICE guidance.
We've gone down this road a long ways.
We've argued this.
It turns out we were wrong in providing the court with a statement of the Department of Justice position.
This representation goes on.
This error, however, was not caused by a lack of diligence and care by the underside attorneys.
Here we come at the finger pointing to others.
The undersigned were specifically informed by ICE that the 2025 guidance applied to immigration courthouse arrests based on our discussions with ICE today.
This regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency attorney error.
Those folks over there inside ICE
told us inaccurately what their position was.
We transmitted that onto the court.
We've had arguments about it, and we goofed.
Sorry, Judge.
That's the statement made by your Department of Justice in that Manhattan case.
The Justice Department, in addition to all of these kinds of missteps, has also lost about a quarter of its attorneys in 2025, including, as you know, hundreds in leadership positions
of great responsibility and authority and expertise.
The Office of Personnel Management has confirmed that data, and we know that the reduction of a quarter of the experienced staff of the Department of Justice takes its toll, probably has a direct effect, which is misrepresentations, mishandling of cases in courts in front of judges who are increasingly frustrated
We know Paula Zinnis is one of those, the judge in Maryland.
We know James Bosberg is one of those.
We know that other judges around the country in Chicago, in Portland, in other places have relied upon the presumption of regularity when they look at Justice Department attorneys and ask them what the facts are and what the law is.
The judges anticipate that lawyers will be providing them with accurate information.
In fact,
that's not the case the presumption of regularity no longer attends and it is a problem now at the inbox and at the desk
of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche after assuming responsibility for that top job.
That also now a part of his legacy.
Many opinions crossing his desk from judges issuing strong language denouncing the administration's actions as unlawful and unsupported.
Todd Blanche, it's now your responsibility.
When we come back in our second hour, even more,
of what's going on at the Blanche Administration Justice Department.
All of that described here on Amicus, a law review.
This, as you know well, is our weekly weekend review of all things related to the administration of justice, the operation of government, and the pursuit of the rule of law.
an aspiration for our nation and for all of its peoples.
On this broadcast, this weekend, we are focusing in on the new tenure of our acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, who assumed that position after, after the firing, the departure of Pam Boddy, the Attorney General for the Trump administration in its first 14 months or so.
Talking now about the kinds of things that Todd Blanche has said directly and indirectly,
that he is now going to own as the Attorney General responsible for lots of his past comments and certainly all things going forward as well.
Among other things, the Blanche administration is already telling us a lot about its intent with respect to the litigation, the prosecution, both
a criminal and also civil of cases pending and new matters in front of the Department of Justice.
Let's talk about a whole series of those.
You may recall well, Stephen K. Bannon is a former close aide to President Trump.
You may know well, you may recall well that Steve Bannon was previously convicted.
of failing to appear before that House committee on the January 6th insurrection.
He decided to go to trial and a jury convicted him of failing to honor the subpoena issued by that House committee.
He was convicted and was sentenced to four months in prison, which he served.
And in the wake of that, there have been attempts repeatedly to try to pull back on, reverse that criminal prosecution.
coming out of Steve Bannon's refusal to testify in front of the House Select Committee on the January 6th insurrection.
Well, it turns out that under the Blanche administration, that is probably going to happen.
That is the reversal, the vacation of that order.
The news actually comes from the Supreme Court up the street, but also has its genesis at Maine Justice, Supreme Court Justice, past week, agreeing to clear the way.
for the dismissal of the criminal conviction of Steve Bannon.
The court's action comes in response to a request from the Trump administration, which had asked the justices to help wipe out the conviction from Mr. Bannon's record.
This comes in particular from John Sauer.
We've talked a lot about him.
He is the solicitor general of the United States of America.
He has asked that the Supreme Court
Send the case back to the lower court, specifically the appeals court in the District of Columbia, and in support of that petition, that is, take this out of your docket where it's been pending, unresolved, send it back to the lower court because the interests of justice warrant that.
That's according to the statement of John Sauer, the Solicitor General to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has said, okay, we'll send this back, routine two sentence order,
that sends the case back to the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, quote, for further consideration in light of the pending motion to dismiss the indictment, almost certainly, almost certainly the appeals court will then send this back down to the lower court that was responsible for the initial criminal prosecution and conviction and sentencing Mr. Bannon.
And presumably that lower court,
upon the petition of this Department of Justice, the Sauer Department of Justice, the Blanche Department of Justice is going to dismiss the ban on conviction.
You might think, well, gee, what's the point of all of that?
He's already served.
And yes, indeed.
Yes, indeed.
That's the case.
But nonetheless, the dismissal brings an end to all of this and certainly sends the signal broadly.
That the especially when the solicitor general says that this is in the interest of justice that the initial prosecution was ill founded It was not a jury found ban and guilty of knowingly purposefully
denying and thwarting the capacity of the House committee to summon him to testify.
We know that that is the case because the official records show that now, very likely, based upon what the Blanche administration has done, Supreme Court sending the case back from its docket down to the lower courts, while almost certainly the conviction, the case still pending against Steve Bannon will be dismissed.
on the records of the federal courts.
That coming out of the Blanche administration just this past week.
And there's more.
The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Civil Rights Division, investigating someone whose name you also well know, investigating Cassidy Hutchinson.
And in particular, assigning this investigation somewhat curiously.
to the Civil Rights Division to investigate whether Cassidy Hutchinson, you recall her while she is the former White House aide who angered President Trump dramatically.
four years ago when she testified, when she did testify in front of that House January 6 committee and implicated him in the violence of January 6 and rendered other accounts of his behavior on that day.
The move to initiate an investigation, presumably a criminal investigation of Cassidy Hutchinson
For her testimony, presumably because we believe she watched, she perjured herself.
Is that the basis for this?
No indication that she did on the record.
all the corroboration at that time supported what she was saying, but it appears to involve accusations that she lied to Congress when this special committee reviewed what happened on January 6 and called her in front of the committee to testify in particular about the actions of the president at that time.
You may recall that Ms.
Hutchinson
said under oath that Donald Trump had encouraged the crowd that day to hear him speak near the White House and to march to the Capitol even though he knew that crowd was armed and he knew, she said, that it could very well turn violent, which it did.
Those were no small allegations.
She had a front row seat quite literally with the president as a top aide and assistant.
She also claimed that she had heard that Donald Trump lunged at one of his Secret Service agents
in a presidential limousine when he was told that he could not could not join his supporters on Capitol Hill.
That particular component of her testimony subject to a lot of controversy about whether that happened or not.
But the upshot is that once again Cassidy Hutchinson four years after her testimony after the committee's report now issued now apparently being investigated about whether or not she plainly a
new foe of the president should be held responsible for some form of perjury, some form of misstatements to the committee, at least under the Blanche administration, an investigation now underway of Cassidy Hutchinson, a hugely unusual move, not only because of doing it in itself, but also assigning it to the Civil Rights Division, which is an unusual assignment within the Department of Justice.
Speaking of the civil rights division, and in particular, the assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, more coming out of main justice under the administration of Todd Blanche and the assistant attorney general.
The Trump administration is terminating, terminating ending, bringing to a conclusion, many civil rights settlements aimed at ensuring that transgender students, that their rights to equal opportunities in education,
on campuses around this country are enforced previous understandings settlement agreements in place to support the rights of transgender students to an education in many cases compelling local officials to choose now but whether to comply with the government's interpretation of federal anti-discrimination laws
or to abide by conflicting state statutes.
All of this again throwing these agreements, these settlements agreements stemming from legitimate civil rights investigations in these schools with respect to the rights of transgender students throwing it all up in the air.
The actions again a part of the administration's attempt to erase any efforts to promote diversity and equity and inclusion, policies that are intended to root out specific civil rights problems and challenges in our nation's colleges and university.
The Trump administration has opened at least 40 civil rights investigations
in this term, under both Pam Bondi and now under Todd Blanche, into educational institutions that provide protections for transgender students.
And now, as a part of that, rescinding the already in place settlement agreements.
Cases closed a long time ago, reviewing those, rescinding those, and saying we're no longer going to follow those in connection with all this.
Going back and terminating the agreements,
and the policies and procedures intended to protect the legitimate civil rights interests of transgender students in education.
The determinations rescinded all or portions of six settlements that the Obama administration, the Biden administration negotiated through the Department of Education.
They revoked the federal government's support for deals with school districts in places like Delaware,
and Pennsylvania, and Washington State, and two school districts, and a community college in California.
It is fairly broad.
And so, for example, the Trump administration said it was striking portions of a 2023 settlement with Taft College, T-A-F-T, it's a two-year community college about 120 miles just outside of maybe north of Los Angeles.
The required training for faculty and staff members about abiding by a student's preferred name and pronouns, and how refusing could create a hostile academic environment under civil rights laws, now striking portions of that agreement.
The interim president of Taft College said in a statement that the school had settled the case with the Office of Civil Rights three years ago.
This is done.
This is concluded.
And no further action was required.
Now the Trump administration going back and saying we're going to rescind all of that.
Education Department officials said they're also overturning a 2023 agreement with the La Mesa Spring Valley School District just outside of San Diego, also involving complaints about harassment of a non-binary student.
That one is being withdrawn
under again the Blanche administration and yet another agreement targeted by the department that's been in place for more than a decade including all four years of the first Trump administration this one requiring a rural school district in northeastern Pennsylvania to provide what to provide training for its faculty about gender-based discrimination among other things the district is called Delaware Valley had agreed in 2016
to update some of its policies and procedures and practice.
After a transgender student complained,
about its repeated refusal to comply with a name change and preferred pronouns.
The student had also objected to being forced to use restrooms and locker rooms based on biological sex instead of gender identity.
The upshot of all of this is that the Trump administration, again, under Todd Blanche, just in recent days, not only, not only not pursuing civil rights in these areas, but actually going back, revisiting things in place for years and saying we're terminating all of those prior settlements.
That being done, of course, through the Todd Blanche administration, the Donald Trump White House, which he has now claimed in the administration, Department of Justice has claimed the White House as well.
They are one in the same, making these important moves inside the Civil Rights Division that previously was responsible for enforcing the civil rights of our nation.
And in that connection,
even before Todd Blanche became the acting attorney general.
While he was the deputy attorney general, the department is dropping charges against those remaining officers in that tragic death involving Breonna Taylor.
You may recall her well when we come back.
I'll tell you more about what the civil rights division under the assistant attorney general, Harmeet Dillon, has done in connection with that case under this administration.
All that coming up.
on amicus a law review.
My name is Jim Santel, and this is Amica Salava, here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.
As always, we are encouraging you to be a part of our discussion.
Call in, text in.
That number, once again, is 855-75248.
for two.
We are spending most of our time this weekend talking about the new administration of our acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the things that he has said historically and recently, and the issues related to both matters he inherits and new things on his docket, even in the first days of his tenure as the Attorney General.
We know that in recent weeks under his leadership as the deputy attorney general, the Department of Justice was dropping and is dropping some charges, some remaining charges against two Louisville, Kentucky police officers.
based upon their involvement in drafting and drafting, putting together the documents, writing the documents to support that no-knock search warrant that led to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor many years ago.
You recall this tragic story.
Brianna Taylor is watching movies in an apartment that she shared with her boyfriend after midnight in March of 2020.
Plain clothes officers battered down the front door, thus the no-knock warrant.
And Taylor's boyfriend, a fellow named Kenneth Walker, responds, he believes that they're intruders.
He fires a shot at them.
A melee happens as the officers fire into the apartment and Ms.
Taylor, Brianna Taylor, is killed.
is result of that involvement with law enforcement that day.
Turns out that the no knock warrant and the predicates, the location of that event were wrong.
And what happens in the wake of that is also a fairly sordid and very convoluted story.
Three officers were fired in the aftermath of that killing.
And the officer who fired the fatal shot, Brett Hankinson, who was also present at the raid,
Also, a number of officers charged in connection with that shooting.
State prosecutors charged Hankinson.
with wanton endangerment for firing 10 bullets through a covered window and a glass door.
None of the rounds actually hit anyone.
Another officer named Miles Cosgrove, who fired the fatal shot, fired and also a part of the investigation.
In 2025, Hankinson was acquitted.
Ian, the state forum for the allegations of wanton engagement, prompting some widespread calls for some justice.
A federal grand jury subsequently indicts Hankinson on one count of violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights by using excessive force.
And he is sentenced to 33 months in prison, released last year on bail pending appeal.
There's another.
There's another who worked fairly closely with the two officers who are the subject of these latest drop charges.
The additional officers named Kelly Goodlett.
And Kelly Goodlett worked closely with these other two officers.
She has pled guilty to federal conspiracy charges for falsifying and affidavit.
to obtain that warrant in the first place, lying to criminal investigators.
The two officers whose charges are now most recently, most recently under the Todd Blanche administration, likely to be dropped, are Kyle Meany, MEANY, and Joshua Janes.
They were not present at the scene of the shooting, but the allegations against them were that they participated again with others in putting together false statements.
that were presented to the federal judge in support of the warrant.
They were previously the focus of charges and investigations under the leadership of the present attorney general and the present assistant attorney general for civil rights.
Her name is Harmeet Dillon.
The investigation
Now, coming to an end, the prosecution, now coming to an end, as the Department of Justice drops those charges, those remaining charges against officers Kyle Meaney and Joshua Janes, bringing to a near end, not quite a complete end, but nearly to a complete end, the sorry and catastrophic investigation prosecutions
of law enforcement officers, some successful, some not, involving the tragic death of Breonna Taylor a number of years ago.
There is more in connection with federal law enforcement under the Blanche administration of justice past week.
FBI agents arrested an ex-army employee justice this past week
under the approval with the supervision and direction of the Department of Justice, that ex-Army employee allegedly detailed some harassment that she identified inside our United States military to a journalist who subsequently wrote about that.
The person who was arrested, the defendant in this case, her name is Cortley Williams.
She formerly worked at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
She's been accused of leaking classified information to a reporter.
She's now a former US Army employee, charged just this past week with leaking classified information to that journalist who published some of these disclosures in a book and an article.
and the article which was published by the Strudelist last year described some of the experiences of Courtney Williams in connection with sexual harassment and gender discrimination during her time in the United States military.
The FBI arresting her this past week
based upon charges, ultimately an indictment against her the following day on a charge of alleged transmission of classified national defense information to a journalist, that according to a department spokesperson of Justice past week, she faces 10 years in prison, formerly a top secret security clearance analyst.
She was working for the Army and between 2022 and 2025,
according to the allegations in the charges after she had left the army she communicated with his journalist the journalist not specifically identified but we know who that is based upon the article in the book including experiences from the former employee's time working in the military supposedly allegedly providing classified information according to prosecutors
to that journalist.
This is all a part of another prosecution coming out of the Blanche administration.
Just this past week and we've got more.
We come back after this break on Amicus, a law review.
This is Amicus, hello review.
My name is Jim Santel.
We are reviewing some of the things that the newly appointed acting attorney general of the United States of America has been doing in his first days as the chief federal law enforcement office for our nation, including this interesting, curious, and very convoluted important case in which the FBI has arrested an ex-army employee.
Her name is Courtney Williams using a support role for the Special Operations Unit Delta Force at Fort Bragg.
The allegations against her are that she provided information of a classified nature to a journalist and along the way disclosed information, classified national security secrets that prompted violations of the federal law.
In the article...
that comes out of this relationship with this journalist.
The journalist quotes Ms.
Williams as speaking about sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the unit during her tenure there.
Describing her time there as a living hell in one instance, Ms.
Williams said she was asked to undergo a dress code check and was told to turn around and bend over in front of senior officers to assess whether her underwear could be seen through the fabric.
That among the kinds of
terrible accounts that she provides about sexual harassment.
Her attorney, again, representing her in connection with the indictment now against her for alleged disclosure of national security secrets, maintains that Williams is in fact a courageous whistleblower who is helping to expose this rampant gender discrimination and sexual harassment inside the Delta Force unit.
He has accused the Department of Justice of prosecuting Williams
Based upon that word, we've used a lot here retaliation against her for her critical comments about the unit, adding that officials had not detailed, had not been specific about what the specific national defense information was that was leaked.
In the complaint, there are details of phone calls, text messages that Williams exchanged with the journalist and states that she revealed classified national information
not specified with great particularity, according to the allegations and the complaint, that she also mailed documents and photographs and notes and other materials to that journalist that likely contained classified information.
The question here, once again, is this a whistleblower who is bringing to the attention of the government harassment?
She's providing some specific details of it inside that Delta Force unit at Fort Bragg.
Or is this someone who has simply violated our national security rules and run afoul of the confidentiality imposed upon anyone who serves in that area?
This past week, she is arrested.
She is indicted.
And it prompts the director of the FBI.
You know him.
His name is Cash Patel.
He congratulates.
He celebrates.
with his colleagues on the arrest of Williams social media post.
That again, the kind of thing that we should not anticipate from any law enforcement officer at any level.
All of this, of course.
likely necessary, likely the subject of a lot of exposition going forward in the federal criminal courts, but it's all tragic.
It's all tragic, not at all the basis for congratulations or celebration about the arrest of this individual.
That happening, again, under the Blanche administration of just a few days old.
And then let's talk about immigration judges.
immigration judges and the fact that the administration reshaping the immigration bench based upon its efforts to get rid of some and hire
new immigration judges.
They wear robes and are required to exercise independent judgment.
But immigration judges, as opposed to all the other federal judges that we talk about routinely, are not, are not a part of the judicial branch.
They work for the Justice Department.
They are judges of the Justice Department as curious as that may sound.
And because of that, they're subject to firing and termination.
And yes, indeed, an awful lot of pressure from the White House.
One of their main duties is deciding whether undocumented immigrants should be deported or granted in their discretion, their application of the law to the facts and the facts to the law, some form of legal status like asylum, and be allowed to remain in the country.
The news report here is of the administration
ordering an unprecedented number of immigration judges tossed out dismissing them from those positions.
The Trump administration, again, under the new Blanche administration at Maine Justice, has dismissed more than 100 immigration judges out of a number of 750.
That's no small percentage of those.
And again, a lot of this based upon
reviews of the determinations made by these immigration judges.
In many of these cases, the White House, the Department of Justice, saying you're not, you're not deporting, you're not ordering deported enough people, you're granting asylum to too many people.
The administration, again, attempting to enforce its own immigration policies.
along the way to replace some of these judges is announcing the appointment of 143 permanent and temporary judges, including many who have previously served as immigration prosecutors at Homeland Security or as military lawyers.
The number of people as a part of this purge of the immigration judges
As a result of trying to remake and being successful in doing so, the cadre, the group of immigration judges, the number of people being ordered deported has risen sharply.
And judges have approved asylum claims in fewer than 10% of the cases this year.
That's the lowest rate for which data is available.
In interviews, significantly, more than about two dozen of these immigration judges who have served
In this second Trump administration described feeling a consistent sense of pressure to deport immigrants or risk losing their jobs.
That coming out of a lot of reporting just this past week, Stephen Miller, who as you know is a top White House advisor, has long tried to rewrite the entire immigration system and has made this effort to redefine this group of immigration judges as a central piece of that.
The effort stems from his view that many undocumented immigrants should no longer receive a constitutional right of due process as they seek some form of legal status in front of these immigration judges.
Miller has written last year, the only process invaders are due is deportation.
And indeed during this second term, White House and Justice Department officials have carefully been monitoring.
The rulings of these judges overseeing what they are and are not doing, they examine statistics showing how often they've granted asylum.
And the administration has instructed judges to stop granting bond, stop granting a monetary bail to immigrants who cross the border illegally.
And that's a significant change from decades of practice.
That new policy has required people to remain in detention, no bond, no release.
upon a placement of a bail or a bond for extended periods of times.
We've talked about this in the past in connection with legal challenges to that, even if those people in detention do not have a criminal record and have lived in this country for many years.
And so that happening, that happening once again at the hand of the message, the direction of our new attorney general to those immigration judges.
under his command and the command of the president.
And finally, with respect to things happening inside the Department of Justice, under the rule, under the governance of the new acting attorney general, there is this.
Justice Department is investigating the National Football League.
Of the top 50 most watched television telegas in 2025, 46 of them, 46 were NFL games led by Super Bowl.
that attracted about 127 million viewers and of the top 100 shows, 83 were NFL games.
So now the Justice Department is investigating the NFL to see if the league has engaged in anti-competitive tactics that affirmatively harm consumers.
The appropriate packages that are negotiated here
After due with TV rights, media companies, regulators are involved, members of Congress have raised legitimate concerns in recent months over how difficult it is for consumers to be able to watch their favorite sports games as a result of rights deals in which league officers and officials grant small packages of games to particular streaming entities.
The Department of Justice is trying to see how the NFL, having so many TV partners, might affect viewers.
And as reporting on this indicates, when the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 was passed, games were on, of course, broadcast TV.
That has changed dramatically.
And as a result of that, the change in the way that we now view NFL games, the Department of Justice and its Antitrust Division,
Now looking at all sorts of regulatory aspects of this, and this happens even while the NFL is in the midst of renegotiating its current media contracts, again under the administration of the new Attorney General.
the antitrust division undertaking a look at the NFL.
We'll see what comes of that investigation as well.
Many more things happening at Maine Justice in these very first days of the new Blanche administration.
And obviously the subject of a lot of focus as we go forward here on this broadcast, talking a lot about the United States Department of Justice, formerly the Bondi Justice Department now, at least for now,
the Todd Blanche administration.
No broadcast would be complete without her commenting upon some activities of our federal judges.
Again, a continuing theme of this and other broadcasts.
That is that the federal judges are in many ways the people who make the laws go in America.
We know that just this past week, there was a federal judge who ruled that the United States unlawfully canceled a Harvard Medical School researchers visa.
federal judge named Christina Reese, R-E-I-S-S, ruled that the government unlawfully canceled the visa of Harvard Medical School researcher Casena Petrova, P-E-T-R-O-V-A, arguing that Customs and Border Protection officers had overstepped their jurisdiction.
She said that the CPB exceeded its authority when it canceled Petrova's visa after she allegedly brought frog embryos into the United States.
From France last February the judge ruled that the agency's actions here having reviewed all the documents taking testimony and improper expansion of its enforcement powers Judge Reese rules that the cancellation of Petrova's visa was arbitrary and capricious and the federal government used the alleged customs violation as a pretext for revoking her visa that coming out of the federal district court
in Boston just this past week.
In a separate proceeding, a Massachusetts district judge granted Petrova the right to work last December, and her attorney said she has since resumed
research at Harvard.
She first moved to the United States in 2023.
Again, the involvement of federal district court judges in assuring that our federal agencies are doing their jobs properly.
Another federal district judge, this one named Randall Moss, he's in the district of Columbia.
This of a few days ago, ruling that the president had improperly entered this executive order that barred the federal funding of NPR.
And PBS, in violation of the First Amendment, once again, the statement from the federal judge, the U.S.
District Court judge, to the president is, you can't do this.
Unlawful, the judge says, because it instructed federal agencies, the executive order did.
to refrain from funding NPR and PBS because the president simply believed that their news coverage had a liberal viewpoint.
Judge Moss saying that's a not not a proper basis upon which to make that kind of an order of any kind and says the message is clear.
And as a result of that tells the administration can't do that going forward when they come back.
I'll tell you about the consequences of that.
and at least one other important federal district court ruling of just this past week.
All of that here on Amicus, a lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel, this is Amicus, a lot of you now talking about
Some things that our federal district court judges have been doing in recent days, including this judge, his name is Randolph Moss.
He is in the District of Columbia, and he has found that the president's earlier executive order.
Stopping funding to NPR and PBS is violative of the First Amendment.
He says in his order the message is clear NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the president disapproves of their left wing coverage of the news that's judge Moss writing says but the First Amendment does not tolerate
viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type.
Now the significance here is that the particular ruling, almost now a declaration as opposed to a directive, likely have minimal effect because the federal funding of public media through the Congress has been clawed back by roughly about $500 million in the annual budget, the annual funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, even so, even so,
that CPB distributes money to the NPR and PBS.
That's the connection.
Even so, even so, this is a statement of First Amendment right and principle.
In his opinion, Judge Moss tells us about that.
He says, the executive order of this president, along with other public statements from the White House,
criticizing NPR reporting, including about Russia's attempt to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, targets a disfavored viewpoint.
And he concludes, he says, it's difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the president does not like and seeks to squelch.
An opinion in order that may be helpful, may be helpful in enforcing.
the Constitution as future executive orders continue to enter into the field of journalism.
Other things coming off the pens and out of the courtrooms of federal district court judges in the District of Columbia, Judge Paul Freeman, we talked about him just last week, has smacked down the latest attempt by the Secretary of Defense to reimpose restrictions for journalists there.
credentials covering the military complex.
Once again, Paul Friedman looking at the second attempt to review and to implement restrictions for journalists.
They're saying not good enough.
Pentagon has failed to reinstate the press release passes of several New York Times reporters and the judge saying once again, not good enough of reaffirming his earlier order, finding that those restrictions, those limitations were unconstitutional again.
violations of the First Amendment across the Potomac River there at the Pentagon.
And then Janine Pirro, the U.S.
Attorney in the District of Columbia, right there in the District of Columbia, from the pens and the words of lots of federal district court judges, having to drop huge numbers of illegal gun possession cases in recent months.
Why?
Because the guns were found to have been unconstitutionally produced, seized,
and presented in court by federal and state officers.
Jeanine Pirro, again the U.S.
Attorney there having to dismiss many cases again after the federal district court judges identify the flawed nature of the prosecutions that her office is presenting bringing those cases to an end.
on a fairly regular basis that according to reporting coming out of the dockets of the District of Columbia and finally right back here in Wisconsin a major decision.
by a federal district court judge.
His name is Lynn Edelman in connection with the former of the conviction of former Wisconsin circuit court judge Hannah Dugan.
You may recall that she was found guilty by a jury of federal charge charges against her.
Judge Lynn Edelman just this past week issuing a 39 page order denying an appeal by Dugan's legal team in the wake of her conviction
on those charges and also rejecting a claim that she is immune from prosecution.
Judge Edelman noting that in denying this motion to dismiss, there was no basis for granting immunity simply because the indictment described conduct that would be considered part of a judge's job.
He's making reference to his previous order in that same vein.
He said that likewise there is nothing about the facts of this case the jury's verdict which many people saw as being Inconsistent that he is going to upset you may recall the federal jury found Dugan guilty of obstructing federal immigration agents That's a felony but the jury also found her not guilty on a misdemeanor charge of concealing an undocumented immigrant that the agents in the courthouse were seeking to arrest
This case, of course, getting not only an awful lot of local coverage, statewide coverage, but national coverage about the proper role of the Department of Justice, about the proper role of Wisconsin circuit court judges, of judges generally, when it comes to administering the law in and
in the hallways adjacent to their courtrooms.
The defense team for Hannah Duggan, in the wake of her convictions on those two counts, had filed a motion to overturn the verdict against her, arguing once again that those immigration judges were not allowed to make those arrests in the courthouse, and the judges are immune from those prosecutions.
They had submitted a 46-page motion.
Federal prosecutors in response had rejected that notion,
They said that the jury verdict should remain as it is.
And the judge, again, turning back on all of that, those motions denying any relief to Hannah Dugan, she since, of course, has resigned her position as a Wisconsin Circuit Court judge, and highly likely, highly likely, after a sentencing will appeal all of this to the United States Court of Appeals, including the instructions given by the judge,
on these two verdict issues and other matters related to his pretrial rulings, Judge Edelman has not yet set a sentencing date nor has he ordered specifically a pre-sense investigation, but those things will surely come.
and we can anticipate reporting here on this broadcast, plainly many other media outlets throughout this area reporting on the next step in this case before, before it is concluded in the district court and then likely, likely going off to the appeals court.
That's the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for further review.
We will continue, of course, to monitor that and other major decisions of federal district courts and trial courts throughout our land, including right here in Wisconsin.
For now, for now, again, pursuing the interests of justice and providing information in connection with our name, Amicus, a law review.
I wish everybody a good
weekend.
Take care.
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