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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.
I'm your host here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media, both this hour and next hour as well.
This, of course, is our weekly weekend review, our analysis, our description of the geography,
Of all things related to the rule of law, the administration of justice, and yes, indeed, the operation of government in our state, in our nation, and even across our planet.
As always, I am delighted that you have chosen to spend some portion of this Memorial Day weekend with my producer, Mix and me, in discussion, in review of these major issues.
We are thoughtful this weekend.
We are pensive this weekend.
about the ultimate sacrifices made by Americans in defending the things that we talk about on a regular basis on this broadcast and others.
That is the rights we have as Americans.
We thank them not only for the service, the ultimate sacrifices that they have given, but on this Memorial Day, 2026, we are especially thoughtful about the results of their defense of our nation.
and the ways in which they have indeed protected the things that we talk about on a regular basis those include the rule of law and the administration of justice and the operation of government as we think this weekend about those losses the sacrifices of those military members we are thankful we are appreciative not only for them
but also for the families, the generations that have come after them who have lived to see the results of their losses and the contributions that they made through their deaths.
to the nation that we know today.
We are going to be honoring those losses and the sacrifices this broadcast, as we always do, by talking about the consequences of a nation that has put together a system of rule of law, justice, courts, adversarial processes, attorneys, jurors,
judges making decisions that advance the interests of the rule of law.
The syllabus this weekend is much like that of past broadcasts.
It is ambitious.
It is highly ambitious, but it's also achievable, and we have a lot to talk about.
As always, we encourage you to be a part of our discussion, our examination here on Amicus Law Review by calling in to the broadcast station's
of Civic Media, you can be in touch with Max, my producer, and we will solicit, we will encourage your questions, your inquiries about any of these important subject matters.
That phone number is 855-752-4842.
That phone number, once again, is 855-752-4842.
4842, Max always reminds me that you can also drop your question, your comment, those things that prompt you to scratch your head, those things that require more clarification.
Into our chat box, be a part of our discussion, our engagement on these rule of law issues this weekend as always.
What is on our ambitious but achievable agenda this weekend?
Again, extensive.
taken from the headlines of the just the past several days, we necessarily need to begin by talking and revisiting something that we began to talk about at the end of our broadcast last weekend.
It has blossomed.
It has grown into a much bigger story than even we anticipated last week.
Although noting at that time, the curiosity of the establishment by this administration of something called a weaponization reimbursement fund.
We noted that at the end of our last broadcast, beginning to identify some of the rank curiosities, the rank problems, the huge inconsistencies, and problems with understanding this system inside a rule of law regime.
It turns out that there's more.
And virtually every day this week, another news item has dropped to further not only clarify, but also concern us about this particular initiative inside the Department of Justice, inside the Department of Treasury, inside the White House, and yes, inside the United States of America, a weaponization reimbursement fund.
We're going to tell you what it means.
We're going to tell you what the administration is talking about, or at least try to capture that.
reasonably accurately, although once again, the Attorney General, Todd Blanche, has balked at questions from members of the Congress who have also got lots of questions for him.
We'll describe some of the history, how we got here, including that curious and unsupported, that frivolous lawsuit brought by our president for $10 billion based upon his spat with the Internal Revenue Service.
We'll talk about how that
seemingly, perhaps, although not really, evolved into the creation of this very curious and illegal initiative called the Weaponization Reimbursement Fund, following the Weaponization Task Force that the president and the former attorney general had created inside the Department of Justice.
What is the concept here?
It is this unsupported notion that somehow past investigations, past prosecutions,
brought by yes past administrations but prompted by indictments coming out of grand juries have been unfounded unreasonable unsupported by facts and therefore therefore not only not only should be the subject of review but they should be the subject of compensation for these past wrongs these past things that the government has done
inappropriately, illegally to people who, in fact, have not committed any laws.
Of course, I say all that with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek.
None of that is true.
But that is the justification being given by this president who himself has claimed about the weaponization of the Department of Justice in connection with the lawsuits the criminal prosecutions brought against him, not only for taking and retaining those documents at Mar-
some of them classified national security secrets, but also also for his activities, his encouragement, his engagement in the events that led up to the insurrection.
at the United States Capitol on January 6th.
Neither one of those cases went to trial.
He remains unconvicted for them, although we know what would have been presented in at least one of them.
We know the president has been convicted and remains a felon for his violations of New York law.
Another jurisdiction, another case involving his failure to properly follow New York law in developing and keeping records of his accounts
His monies, his transfers of funds, what?
To keep people quiet about his affair.
All of that, all of that in the wake of the president's
prior activities in these areas in his businesses and in his taxes.
And that's going to give us the first step into some of the history of this.
We're going to talk about what thing called the judgment fund, not much talked about in the media, which is going to be presumably the source of this $1.8 billion weaponization reimbursement fund.
We'll talk about the judgment fund.
Keep that in mind.
What that is, where it comes from, why it is a creation
of the Congress and not the president and that gives rise of course to the failure of this president to properly understand what that is using that fund for this inappropriate purpose.
We'll talk about the response of a labor of a treasury secretary council who decided to leave his position.
Rather than continue to work under a regime that would promote this weaponization reimbursement fund, we'll talk about the response of the Congress.
It's not going well for the President.
the Congress, the Senate, suspending its action, its votes on one of the President's major initiatives when it comes to immigration, and instead, instead expressing outrage about not only the failure of the President to tell the Congress about this major new illegal initiative, but also, also to do so in a way that has not been transparent.
all of that coming up when we talk about this weaponization reimbursement fund and importantly we'll talk about what can be done about it.
That's your question.
That's the reason why Americans are so upset about this.
It is arguably one of the most outrageous things and there have been a lot of them that this president has done.
Americans this weekend and in days prior and certainly the weeks ahead asking questions about what can be done to reverse this.
Members of Congress
Congress on both sides of the political aisle doing the same, suspending their own legislative work in an attempt to try to figure out what's going on here.
It is another mess created by an administration that does not do these things well.
This one, again, illegal, not consistent with the separation of powers.
Another failure to pursue a check and a balance between branches of government
all of it, all of its subject, not only to our discussion here on this broadcast, but also to your questions, your inquiries further about all of that.
We've got more on our agenda, of course, and that is going to include the Supreme Court, a couple of big cases coming out of the Supreme Court just this past week, one of them having to do with the death penalty, and whether or not under what circumstances the death penalty can be imposed
upon a defendant, a convicted defendant of limited or reduced intellectual capacities.
We'll talk about a case in which the Supreme Court decided not to decide this past week, that happening at virtually the same time at the state of Tennessee, failing, failing properly.
in its own focus and effort to administer the death penalty in a particular case.
We'll talk about the reason why Tennessee pulled back on that, failing to go ahead with its own plans to execute a prisoner there on death row.
We'll move to a couple of other cases involving the Supreme Court in particular, a case based upon a decades old claim coming out of Havana and the Havana port in Cuba.
will describe again what the Supreme Court has done and not done in connection with claims of a former company of Cuba, located in Cuba, an American company that is now seeking the remuneration, recovery, restitution of funds from some cruise liners who have been using its former docks there in Havana, nationalized by Fidel Castro way back in 1960,
It's a lot of facts, it's a lot of history, but it's fascinating in terms of what the Supreme Court said about the capacity of this American company to go after, to seek recompensation and reimbursement from these cruise liners for their use of its nationalized, its surrendered, its abandoned docks in Havana.
And then of course, in that connection, all things related to the nation of Cuba, we will talk.
even briefly about the indictment by our nation, by a grand jury of Raul Castro, the younger brother of Fidel Castro, also the former president of that Cuban nation just to the south of our country.
Lots of things having to do with the death penalty and also Cuba on the docket.
of this installment of amicus a law review a couple of significant cases coming out of our federal district courts one of them right here in wisconsin a federal judge in madison saying the government the federal government the department of justice no you cannot get the voter rolls and related information
under a civil rights act of 1960, denying the request of the Department of Justice, joining many other states, many other federal courts, saying, nope, you can't get that.
We'll talk about the decision of another federal judge in Nashville who has dismissed the case, dismissed the case outright of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
You recall he is the individual.
was unlawfully deported first to El Salvador, brought back to this country ultimately, indicted here.
That case now dismissed.
That and other issues coming up here on the broadcast.
Stay with us as we talk about all of those rule of law issues and more here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
As always, my producer and I, Max and I, invite you to be a part of our discussion by calling in with your questions or your inquiries.
Those things have prompted you to need more information from me.
You can call in at 855-752-4842 about any of those topics on our diverse
and extensive syllabus this weekend on amicus a la review be a part of our discussion our part of our discussion that includes at the top as we start this major rule of law story it's a major constitutional story it's a major story involving the department of justice the department of the treasury the white house your tax dollars the way things should work the way things are not working the response and non responses
of the legislature the response of an attorney inside the department of treasury who is left rather than to be a part of this process we'll talk about a thing called the judgment fund and we will start all of that discussion right now with some history
that we also reported on not too long ago here on this broadcast.
You remember that earlier this year, the president of the United States of America, his name is Donald Trump, and his sons, their names are Donald, Jr.
and Eric, brought this, what can only be called a curious and yes indeed, a frivolous, we'll get back to that, a frivolous lawsuit against what?
Against the Internal Revenue Service.
Yes, that's right, the Internal Revenue Service, which of course is an entity
a part of the Department of the Treasury.
And who appoints the Secretary of the Treasury?
That's the President of the United States of America.
So that means, yes, indeed, the President suing himself, suing his own government, suing the entity for which he himself is responsible, seeking $10 billion, with a B, $10 billion in damages, supposed damages that he incurred a figure pulled out of the sky.
for a leak of some tax information way back in 2020.
We'll get back to that in just a moment or two.
That lawsuit highly problematic for many, many reasons, frivolous in nature, but nonetheless he brings it.
And we all rolled our eyes and we said, okay, here is the president once again,
pursuing and attempting to invoke the rule of law in a way that he does not understand or at least prompting his lawyers to file unfounded lawsuits.
The suit, of course, among other things problematic for the fact that it was well beyond the statute of limitations.
That was perhaps the easiest thing to address.
It was also based upon the wrongdoing of an individual
over whom the president arguably had supervisory authority.
The person was named as Charles Little John, L-I-T-T-L-E-J-O-H-N.
He's now a former IRS contractor, not a formal employee, not a permanent employee of the IRS, but contracted by the Internal Revenue Service to do some work there.
That person, that person allegedly acting without authorization and releases some pages
of the president's tax returns now we can go down that rabbit hole as well you may recall well that the president has promised previously to release all of his tax returns has never ever done that going back to 2015 and 2016 on the basis that he could not do it that is a misstatement of law every one of us has
property ownerships over our own tax returns.
And if we choose to do so, we can release those into whatever public we like.
The president finding this reason not to do it and doesn't release ever his tax returns and fails to do so to this day, alleging that he is being audited by the internal revenue service.
And it turns out that perhaps that is true.
We don't know the complete extent of that audit, but along the way, some disclosures made unauthorized by this contractor inside the Internal Revenue Service, prompting Donald Trump, who's promised to release these documents to become angry, and yes, sue himself, sue the Department of the Treasury, sue the Department for which he is responsible for $10 billion in damages.
Well, what happens is, of course, that that lawsuit gets to a
federal district court judge.
Her name is Kathleen Williams.
Kathleen Williams.
She is in the southern district of Florida.
That's where the president's principal residence is behind, beyond the White House, of course.
And she is assigned this case.
And when she gets it, she takes a look at it and she says, you know, I've got a concern about what lawyers called adversarialness.
Now that's a
silly word, but it basically means where's the adversarial nature of this?
Where's the case or where's the controversy?
Normally, always, necessarily in lawsuits, whether they're state or federal, even local, you have parties on either side that are opposing each other.
And that's the system that produces, presumably, a decent result, maybe not a perfect result.
Our entire system of justice is premised upon the notion of an adversarial system where we fight, not physically, but we fight in court about the merits of a case and we create what's called a case, a controversy, and it's
through that process that the truth, the facts, the evidence, percolates up to triers of fact, whether it's a jury or a judge, and we derive a judgment from that.
Well, Kathleen Williams looks at this curious lawsuit and she says, what's going on here?
The very person who's brought this lawsuit is also presumably defending this lawsuit.
through the Department of Justice, the person who brought this lawsuit is arguably suing himself.
Where is the adversarialness in all of this?
She is finding no case or controversy, and she is plainly heading toward the dismissal outright of this silly, frivolous lawsuit that the President has brought there in South Florida.
Well, before that happens, and perhaps upon the...
for once taken, he's taken the advice of his attorneys, the good advice of his attorneys saying, this is going to go away.
What happens is that the attorneys for the president were also the attorneys for the government.
Look at all this and they sit down together because they're the same people and they say, let's dismiss this before the judge can do so.
And by the way, we'll create something else.
Let's use this as the springboard.
unrelated, except in the most attenuated ways, let's create something called the Weaponization Reimbursement Fund.
If that sounds curious to you, it should.
It makes no sense, but that's what they did.
Even as Kathleen Williams dismissed the case, the fund is created and we come back.
I'll tell you about the next piece in this history of the development of this illegal, unconstitutional, unsupported system here on Amicus.
A lot of you.
This is Amicus, a law review.
My name is Jim Santel.
We are beginning this first hour of our tour broadcast by talking about this blockbuster story that does not go away.
We talked about it at the end of our last broadcast last weekend.
It has grown and metastasized into something terrible.
It's called the weaponization reimbursant task force.
And we know that it perhaps arguably springs from this curious
piece of litigation brought by the president in which he sought $10 billion from his own government based upon a disclosure by a contractor of some pages of his tax returns in the anticipation that the lawsuit would be dismissed by the judge.
Her name is Kathleen Williams in South Florida.
The lawyers and the president decide to abandon that and instead curiously
articulate two other components of this new initiative.
Let's talk about the first one before we go on to the second one, which is no less problematic.
First, first, as a part of this overall package,
the Department of Justice, the Department of Treasury, the government will somehow create a $1.776 billion fund, this anti-weaponization fund.
It's to compensate victims of what the settlement in all of this calls lawfare and the weaponization of government
principally, of course, by prior administrations against the president and his allies, the language of the attorney general's announcement setting aside this $1.776 billion fund from the Congressional Authorized Judgment Fund, keep that in mind, is to provide a systematic process, according to the release, to hear and redress claims of people who have suffered weaponization and lawfare.
under the Biden administration.
Now, Todd Blanchett announcing this says anybody can apply, but it's highly unlikely that the intended recipients of these monies are people like James Comey or Latisha James or the lawyers on those many lawsuits, those law firms that have been targeted by this president, people like Jay Powell, Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, Christopher Wray, other people arguably still under investigation by this administration and
and by its functionaries, the people responsible for that, for those investigations, plainly not intended to provide them money, but instead people allied with the president, including as many have demonstrated and articulated interests of those January six writers, the insurrectionists, about 1600 people pardoned by the president on his first day of office, now facing the likely.
prospect of being able not only to enjoy a post-conviction, post-pardon life, but also to be compensated actually for the harms that they suffered as a result of the things that were done to them.
The world turned upside down in all of this, and yet many of them are already saying publicly, yes, this is the fun that I'm going to apply to, to get compensation for the wrongs done to me.
in the wake of my attack upon the Capitol, my damage to the Capitol building, my involvement in injuries and deaths of people that day, the prosecutions that followed, the incarceration that followed for a handful of them, the damages suffered, now providing compensation, monetary compensation for them or anyone else.
that the president and his functionaries believe have been the victims of inappropriate investigation.
and prosecution.
That's the focus of this anti-weaponization fund significantly and keep this in mind as well.
It's going to be administered not by the Department of Justice, not by the court, not by the Congress, not by any other entity that is in place to make these adjudicative decisions, but instead by a five-member board, a group of people, a committee,
appointed by whom by the attorney general plainly upon the advice and consent of the president who will make decisions about who gets these monies and who doesn't keep that in mind when I describe how this process should work if at all under a proper application of
the judgment fund which we'll get to next.
In the unlikely event that a member of this board mistakenly believes that Trump will somehow tolerate dispensing funds to Trump's own victims or that funds should be denied to any of his recipients, the settlement of this overall package stipulates that the president can remove any member of this board without cause.
In other words, I don't like your decisions.
I can get rid of you.
That is not an independent agency.
That's not an independent entity.
And yet that is the decision.
That's the decision making process by which these monies will be doled out to the president's allies and his associates.
It gets worse.
It gets worse because again, tied up in all of this curiously, it is difficult to identify the tendril from one to the next is another piece of it.
And Mark from Prairie Due Sack, thank you already for your comment in anticipation of this.
Mark has already written in into our chat box, bemoaning the fact that a part of this fund, this initiative announced by the Attorney General late last week and this past week, announcing that in a separate document assigned by the acting Attorney General, his name is Todd Blanche, the government agrees that the President, his family, his sons,
His other family members any of his entities any of his companies will be forever barred by the way forever and barred all in capital letters forever barred from being exposed to any sort of further tax audits most importantly any further tax liability for anything that they have done past present or future.
Currently pending or that could be pending, including the tax returns filed before the effective date of this agreement.
Anything, anything involving the pending audits, those are shut down.
No liability for any taxes that may have been the products identified by those audits.
a basically a complete forgiveness that's also a part of this overall plan don't ask me how that's tied into all of this it is not it is an addendum interestingly that's stapled on to the a larger piece of initiative
After the Attorney General made a first appearance in front of the Congress we know we know that the president of course was always unlikely to be issued at least during this term any notice of tax deficiency by the IRS that he controls through the Department of the Treasury through his secretary of the Treasury but the language of this agreement basically means that in any future administration Republic or Republican or Democratic the IRS would be barred from
from collecting under-reported taxes from the president, from his family, from his entities, and people associated with those.
It is a huge pardon, if you will, with a small p. This is not a criminal matter, so it's not a pardon, the sense of the constitutional understanding of what a pardon is, but it certainly is a forgiveness.
assigned effectively by the Attorney General of the United States of America, assigned effectively by the President of the United States of America.
He has granted himself a pardon, release from the very liability that he is now exposed to, question out loud whether anything of that sort is legal, constitutional, I would offer to it is not.
It raises those issues once again about the powers of the presidency.
Can a president
This all-powerful president, as identified by the Supreme Court, also forgive himself for any crimes that he has committed or she one day in the conduct of his or her office.
Even beyond that, the president seems to believe yes, and he seems to believe that by virtue of his Attorney General executing the documents that create this fund, he has done just that.
He has released himself and the people around him from liability for taxes,
past, present, and future.
That is a significant giveaway because for everybody else, all the rest of us, an understatement of gross income on a tax return of 25% or more can result in liability of up to six years after the return was filed.
And because Donald Trump and his family are obtaining this enormous wealth through all these other things that are going on.
corrupt and opaque means this provision alone could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in avoided tax payments the consequences of this presently are huge in the future are huge and yet and yet all of this not the major constitutional issue
Because we need to talk then about where this fund comes from, what it means, and the other institutional structural problems with all of this.
Let's talk about a thing called the Judgment Fund, out of which, out of which this 1.77 billion dollar amount will be carved and created.
What is the Judgment Fund?
Well, Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, as you know.
forbids the payment of funds out of the Treasury, and here's the key part of this.
Unless Congress has passed a law, we all get that, right?
A law authorizing an appropriation.
Prior to 1956, it's been a long time, if a money judgment is issued in a federal district court, in a court, a proper court after the adjudication of a claim,
by a private citizen if a money judgment is issued as a result of a proper lawsuit subject to the adversarial process subject to evidentiary presentations jury trials court trials reviews by judges the adversarialness of
the system involving attorneys who are sparring with each other, and the government is found ultimately to be responsible for a payment to the party, the plaintiff that's successful in that.
The point was always that the Congress had to go back before 1956, an issue was called a private bill, basically giving that particular person the amount of money from government funds that the Congress alone controls to pay that person off.
And so, for example, on a regular basis throughout my 30 years with the Department of Justice on a routine basis, especially when I served as the Civil Division Chief in the U.S.
Attorney's Office in
the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and the Western District of Michigan.
Routinely, we would defend lawsuits under something called the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Other claims, other statutory bases upon which you can indeed sue the government.
Sometimes we take those to trial, sometimes we settle those cases, sometimes those cases are dismissed.
But if they do result in a judgment of a certain dollar amount, the answer is the government, the Department of Justice, the Department of Treasury, the federal government is responsible for paying those judgments.
What happens?
Well, the Civil Division chief
the U.S.
Attorney, the Department of Justice certifies that that properly entered judgment coming out of a federal court, a jury result, a court result, coming out of this judicial process is legitimate and directing then the Department of the Treasury to go into this judgment fund and pay that amount off, no longer requiring a particular private bill.
In 1956, the Congress created this judgment fund, a standing appropriation, a huge pool of money.
And it eliminated a cap of $100,000 basically to ensure that people should be paid out of this fund so Congress does not have to go back consistently and enter these private bills.
And that's the mechanism.
through which people are paid legitimately when there is a legitimate piece of litigation going through the courts, resulting in a judgment in their favor.
The current version of this judgment fund, the standing appropriation statute, does not contain a limit of the fund to pay what?
Final judgments, awards, compromise settlements coming out of the courts.
coming out of systems that we know and recognize.
When we come back, I'll explain why that is problematic.
It's relevant to understanding this, why it's so problematic for the president's plan as Amicus Alaraview continues.
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We are talking in this the first hour of our weekly weekend broadcast about the outrage of this reposition reimbursement task force the president has created, not only with the support, but apparently with the full endorsement and encouragement of your attorney general, Todd Blanche, doing at least two things, other things, a violative of the Constitution establishing a $1.8 billion amount of money.
that can be accessed for the purpose of providing compensation for the harms, the wrongs done to people, inappropriately, again, according to the president, who have been targeted, weaponized against the interests of their, the government weaponizing the government to attack people, inappropriately attacked.
That's the government's, that is the president's theory in all of this.
creating this fund so that they can be compensated for the harms they have suffered and second and second as Mark has noted appreciate once again mark your comment about all this noting that the president has also basically given himself and his family and his entities forgiveness for their own tax liability maybe somehow curiously in exchange for his releasing his own 10 billion dollar frivolous lawsuit it's all very curious but the upshot is
that the president is acting in violation again of the separation of powers the ways in which these things work by tapping into by carving out from this judgment fund which is not his to control it is a creation of the united states congress meant to compensate people with legitimate claims unlike these others who presumably might make claim to this amount people have gone through the process in the federal courts
who have tried cases, maybe who've settled cases, who are entitled now in the wake of our system of rule of law and justice to be compensated for the government.
by the government for the offenses for the wrongs committed as to them.
That's how this works.
That's where the, frankly, billions of dollars go traditionally.
That's the judgment fund.
It is sitting inside the Department of Treasury, but it is administered upon the direction, if you will, of U.S.
attorneys and the Attorney General in the wake of litigation.
It is the mechanism through which people legitimately are made whole if they have indeed suffered wrongs of some sort.
And the system has proven that that is the case, not here.
The president has unilaterally sought.
to invoke that fund, carving out some monies from that fund for his own purpose, and it has not established that the claimants to it will go through the normal process, but instead, as I indicated in our previous segments, administered by a board appointed by the Attorney General, subject to removal by the President if he doesn't like what they're doing, not at all an independent judicial process,
all of those things hugely problematic.
And so what do we do?
Well, in part, apparently if you are the general counsel for the U.S.
Department of Treasury, you resign.
His name is Brian Morrissey.
Within hours after the announcement of this, he plainly cannot tolerate any bit of this.
He knows that he is going to have to put his own bar license and his own reputation on the line to administer the judgment fund under his at least counsel direction in an inappropriate and illegal manner, unconstitutionally.
doing this kind of thing.
And so he resigns seven hours after this is announced and he is gone.
Presumably there are other people inside the Department of the Treasury, certainly inside the Department of Justice who are equally outraged by this, this attempt and apparently moving towards successful perhaps attempt by the president to seize monies from this fund to which he has no entitlement, a congressional fund authorized and funded by
the House and the Senate, he resigns, he is gone, and one of the other results, of course, are lawsuits.
We've got two officers who were involved in defending the Capitol on January 6th.
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, Daniel Hodges have sued the Attorney General and the Treasury Secretary claiming the administration, as they say, has created a slush fund to finance the insurrection.
and paramilitary groups that commit violence in the president's name, exceeding any statutory authority without congressional authorization.
They have capsulized that well in their lawsuit.
Now there's a significant issue about whether they have standing.
They certainly have claims against the people who beat upon them, who injured them on that day.
Question whether they have standing, that's something that the courts will address as they go forward, but it articulates this fundamental problem in this lawsuit already filed by the officers who defended America, defended the Republic, defended the process of counting electoral votes.
They have sued, alleging that this thing the President has established the Attorney General has endorsed and put
attempted to put in place is unconstitutional.
It's a violation of the understanding about how the Congress alone can and should do this, and that gets us back to the other aspect of this, which is where is the United States Congress?
Can anything be done?
to address this well if we had a congress with integrity and maybe just maybe there are already some signs of that it would and it could act swiftly and on a bipartisan non-political basis to appeal the authority of the president and the attorney general to abuse the judgment fund in this way this is ours this is not yours mr president you are using this for an inappropriate allocation stop it and they can pass legislation
a resolution, they can pass legislation should be anonymous and the Congress could override a veto by the president to stop him from doing this and adding on to the judgment fund legislation, adding on to other legislation that establishes, for example, the federal tort claims act saying, no, no, this is only for the purpose of compensating legitimate litigants who have had their claims tested in courts.
not people, not people who happen to be on the good list on the receiving end of Alec Acolytes by this president, a fund administered by the president's own people.
That's what the Congress should do.
That's what we call upon them to do.
When we come back at the top of our second hour, I'll tell you what may be happening in the Congress right now, maybe in a movement to that direction as our broadcast here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media continues.
Welcome to Amokist, 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,
Santel.
I thank you for spending some portion of this your Memorial Day weekend in engagement with me on some of the major issues in the area of rule of law, administration of justice, and the operation of government.
All of that tied into what has been and continues to be the principal focus of our discussion, our exposition this weekend, and that is the outrage
on both sides of the political aisle, as it should be, about the President's, the Attorney General's creation of this anti-weaponization task force and the reimbursement fund that goes along with it.
Again, as we described in great detail in our first hour, the creation, actually the carving out from the judgment fund.
not intended for this purpose of about $1.8 billion to compensate people, allegedly the victims of weaponization by the Biden administration, by previous administrations, or even perhaps by the current administration, depending upon how broadly you interpret this, creating a fund to compensate people, as the president indicates, inappropriately.
investigated and prosecuted a second portion of this no less curious no less illegal is the decision apparently by the attorney general unilateral decision by the attorney general by the department of the treasury to forgive the president and any of his members of his family his entities for any present past or future tax liability
Barring forever, any tax audits by the IRS as to the president.
It is a curious set of things stapled together.
Nonetheless, there it is.
Huge problems with it in terms of where the money comes from, the authority of the president to do this.
There is none.
And indeed, we have begun to see in the halls of Congress
pushback on this, members of Congress on both sides of the political eye, Republicans and Democrats alike, saying, what are we doing here?
We know that as late as this past week, the Congress suspended its work, its movement toward a major piece of the administration's legislative agenda, a $72 billion immigration enforcement measure, suspended at least for now on voting, while members of Congress say, before we go down this road, we want more information.
about this crazy new fund.
You seem to be creating, Mr. President.
We're also concerned about the ballroom that you also want money for.
Interestingly, these things are connected.
The ballroom, of course, intended to be constructed just adjacent to the White House, not too far from the South Lawn.
That is, of course, a hop, skip, and a jump.
Right across the parking lot from the Treasury Department, where presumably a good deal of this new initiative will be administered, they no longer have a general counsel because he quit and discussed.
We've got members of Congress, Republicans, and Democrats alike who are looking to what they can do.
to stop this, and this is the reason why, across partisan views, across political perspectives, this is problematic and this is wrong.
What can Congress do?
It can do a lot, as I indicated.
It can take legislative action.
It can forbid the use of the judgment fund for this purpose to create some separately administrative entity, whatever you call it, like the anti-weaponization fund, without specific congressional authors.
this once again goes back to that fundamental notion you can't do it if in fact you're playing around with monies and funds and budgets and appropriations that Congress not the president is the one that does that the the president the executive branch
executes on those budgets, but it's the Congress that establishes these funds and sets the terms and conditions of their use.
Congress could forbid the use of this judgment fund overtly.
Say Mr. President, you can't use it to make payments to anyone other than plaintiffs, litigants in the federal courts who filed claims with the government, who went through the process,
got a judgment as a result of a legitimate process in which they engaged.
Nobody disputing now the fact that they have a claim to this only, only accessible for those kinds of people, not the group that you've identified.
Perhaps even beyond that could forbid the use of the judgment fund to make any payments.
people who have not filed those lawsuits and forbid the use of the fund to make payments in settlement of any dismissed claims without judicial approval.
In other words, keep all of this out of the hands of people who have not invoked the process that has been in place for 238 years, the Judgment Fund, much more recently since 1956, but people who have played by the rules unlike this president.
All of those things are things that the Congress can and should do, even as they express their dismay about what's happening, what's going on right now with all of this, with the ballroom, with
this fund suspending legislative action on it.
Members of Congress now headed home in principle measure because, of course, the president doesn't want any action on this.
And other things that would not be consistent with his agenda, it is hugely problematic.
We appreciate not only the comment previously by Mark from Prairie du Sac talking about this failure of the Trump administration to understand tax liability generally and this attempt.
by the president to shield himself from tax liability by signing off, if you will, by his own pardon.
forgiving himself for his tax liability.
But most appropriately, Len from Madison appreciates so much, your very good comment.
Len says those that seek to avoid tax audits are the ones that should be audited.
Len, we appreciate that comment.
That is exactly the point of what the Department of the Treasury has also said in the past about this very kind of thing.
The Department of the Treasury
Through its former counsel said this, federal law prohibits the internal revenue service from halting any tax audit, which is exactly what the president and the attorney general and presumably the treasury secretary are doing right now.
IRS law, federal law prohibits the agency from halting any tax audit at the direction of the president or his aides.
There it is.
stated as simply as possible.
It is imperative, the Treasury has said, that the only considerations the agency are considering are the facts and the evidence with respect to taxpayers and not any political or other factors.
There it is.
That's exactly what Len is also saying here.
In bemoaning the fact that the audits
Apparently continuing of the president now suspended internal to the Internal Revenue Service because the president through the Attorney General has directed that they do so that a document Contrary to federal law that says that the president has no ability to suspend those audits has said that they now will be That is an authoritarian government That is a president who is not following the law who has decided to take the law in his own hands not only to shield himself
from his own personal liability and that of his family and as of his related business entities, but also to do that in a way that demonstrates who he is.
He is an authoritarian in this way also and in all the other ways that we have discussed, including pursuing himself, weaponizing himself, his own government.
to go after people who are his political enemies.
So many problems with all of this.
So many concerns.
The legislature, the first step in addressing this, they need to act now.
And you need to call your legislators on all sides of the political aisle.
They are concerned about this as much as you are.
It is arguably one of the most outrageous things that this president has done, and he has done a lot.
to test the limits of the rule of law, the checks and balances by which our Constitution has been established, the ways in which our government is supposed to operate.
He has not only thrown us into a constitutional crisis by refusing,
to abide by the directives of federal court judges.
He has engaged in so many unilateral actions that are legislative in nature through his executive orders that are simply unconstitutional and illegal that only the Congress can do.
This is yet another instance
arguably at the top of that list.
And the American public should be outraged by it.
It is not just another financial matter.
It is a violation of who we are as a nation.
It is a violation of our constitution.
And the president needs to be stopped.
Perhaps also, if the legislature does not do it by itself, by this litigation underway,
Perhaps it's on behalf of and through the officers themselves protecting this nation on January 6th, but perhaps identifying others who might have standing.
to file those lawsuits.
We know in prior administrations that members of Congress, especially when it came to those challenges to the president's violations of the emoluments clause, they themselves filed lawsuits.
They didn't end up in judgments against the president, but they filed lawsuits saying that we as legislators have a right to defend the actions
of our own bodies in establishing laws and upholding the Constitution.
And they said, Mr. President, you can't violate the Emelluments Clause.
They brought those claims into federal court.
Maybe this is another opportunity for members of Congress across political aisles to go into court and say, once again, this has to be enforced in a better world, in a better place, in a better Department of Justice.
This is the kind of thing that a department
Department of Justice through its tax division, through the directive of the Deputy Attorney General and others should be bringing into court if indeed there is an entity that's engaging in this kind of unconstitutional behavior, unprecedented of course by the fact that it's now the President of the United States of America and the very leader of the Department of Justice who's engaging in this very conduct that is contrary to the mission of the Justice Department,
And of the constitutional ways in which our government is established, it is hugely not just problematic.
but it is violative of who we are.
And so, and so it is important to spend some time not only thinking about the institutional ways, the structural ways, the constitutional ways, the legislative structures that are being violated here, all of that, all those ways in which this should be condemned across the board.
It cannot go forward.
It should not go forward.
And like those other areas in which the president is beginning to see some pushback by his own party members,
This is one.
This is one where a stand can be taken and the rule of law and justice can be upheld.
This will not be the last time that we're going to be reporting on this and commenting on it because, of course, it continues to go forward every day this week.
More information about this very curious illegal fund.
beginning about 10 days or so ago, continuing into the days ahead as we try to get a hold of our government and the things at the executive branch that are being done to create this out of whole cloth and to do it in a way that's violative of our laws and our Constitution.
We know that that Constitution also establishes a United States Supreme Court So let us turn once again as we often do to the United States Supreme Court We are entering that period of time the next five weeks or so between the Memorial Day time of memory and of recollection of these ultimate sacrifices made for The purposes are our government made for the purposes of the rule of law including
It's articulation of the Supreme Court between Memorial Day and the 4th of July, when, yes, we'll celebrate the 250th anniversary of the creation of this thing that ultimately became the United States of America.
The next five weeks, this period of time, when the Supreme Court is going to be decided, almost half of its docket, somewhere around 30 cases yet to be decided,
all kinds of matters still on its docket.
A huge period of time, a flurry of activity coming up here.
When we come back, I'll tell you about two cases that it decided just this past week here on Amicus, a law review.
This is Amica Salaro here.
My name is Jim Santel.
You're host this hour as well as we do every weekend addressing issues related to the rule of law, administration, government, and the administration of the ways in which things should work, sometimes the ways in which they're not working, spending virtually all of our first hour and some of the second hour talking about the problems with this weaponization reimbursement fund.
Now talking about the United States Supreme Court as we often do, two cases decided this past week of significant note, one involving the death penalty and the other involving Cuba.
Let's talk about the first of those right now.
A splintered Supreme Court late this past week declining to rule.
declining, deciding not to rule on a case involving how states should assess the intellectual disabilities of defendants, convicted defendants who are on death row, and if they should be spared the death penalty.
We know well from our past discussions on this broadcast that the Supreme Court has said, not without controversy, not without dissent from members of the Supreme Court, that under the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, it is not, not a violation of the Eighth Amendment if the states so choose to pass legislation and impose the death penalty upon people who deserve it.
depending upon how that is described in the particular states.
And so the death penalty is legal in America.
The states make decisions based upon their own legislatures about whether that will be something embraced in their particular jurisdiction.
And so, for example, in places like Alabama, the death penalty exists.
In a place like Wisconsin, it does not.
Two decades ago, however, in a ruling called Atkins versus Virginia, the Supreme Court also went going on to say, you got to do this just right.
This is a hugely, hugely significant thing.
The single most significant thing that a government can do to any one of its citizens or residents is to impose the death penalty you've got to abide by all sorts of principles and guidelines.
And so the court barred the execution by any state.
of people with what they called mental disabilities, the incapacity intellectually to appreciate what they've done.
to appreciate even the punitive nature of what they're being subjected to, that would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment, depending upon an assessment of the mental capacity or incapacity of the defendant.
The name of the case is Atkins v. Virginia, leeway to determine inside the states how that should be determined, and that leads us to the case of Joseph.
Clinton Smith.
He's an Alabama man.
He was sentenced to death before, after being convicted of murdering a man.
He planned to rob way back in 1997 and significantly in the years before that and after that, he took various IQ tests and he fell in a range of anywhere between 72 and 78.
a relatively low number, as you can all determine.
The state, Alabama, wants to execute him, noting that the key part of Alabama's law, under Atkins, under the Eighth Amendment, under all the authorization given to it, turns on where the defendants had scored 70 or lower.
That's the line they established.
If you are at a 70 or lower standard,
then you do not have the capacity to understand any of this, and we will forgo the death penalty if you're at 70 or above.
Then you are deemed to be intellectually capable of appreciating this, capable of having the understanding of what is going on.
A lower court looking at all of this, determined that Clinton Smith, Joseph Clinton Smith was in fact intellectually disabled.
Why?
Because his scores are in both sides.
They straddle that 70 number and basically are close enough, close enough to be within the margin of error.
for the 70 amount.
Alabama then asked the Supreme Court to weigh in when the lower court said no, you cannot execute Mr. Smith when you're this close to determining that maybe he does not have the capacity to understand this.
A brief unsigned order from the court dismissed the case, the Supreme Court, this past week as improvidently granted.
basically the Supreme Court saying we don't have enough information here.
We made a mistake the first time around in granting certiorari in saying S. Alabama will review this case.
We'll give you some direction on what you do in these cases.
What happens is Justice Sonia Sotomayor says on the record that the case involving Mr. Smith's is incomplete.
The court cannot use it to provide any meaningful guidance, she says, on how lower courts should assess these multiple IQ scores and how you should figure out whether defendants who are close to the border on these things, whether they have the capacity to understand what's going on, she went on to say that all of this is problematic.
when the record is not as sufficiently clear as it should be.
She said, proceeding without a more developed record or lower court opinions is essentially perilous.
She recognizes there that we are dealing with the most significant thing on the docket.
That is because she says the difference between methods used to assess multiple IQ scores raise complicated questions on which even experts may disagree.
She is joined in that by others on the court.
And for that reason, the court says we cannot, cannot possibly review all of this.
They sent it back down to the lower court without any agreement on exactly what should happen with Mr. Smith.
What it does mean for him, however, is that he has spared the death penalty and the lower court opinion stopping that from happening.
is in fact a part of the record now, and that there may be a resentencing of him down the road.
But that, of course, is a major decision when it comes to death penalty jurisprudence.
The decision of the Supreme Court declined to rule here when the record is incomplete, nonetheless indicating that they will take those cases that further give direction.
when the record is complete, to the states on how they can and cannot do this, this happens to do with intellectual capacity, other situations where the terms and conditions, the ways in which the states administer the death penalty, also significant.
And in that capacity, the death penalty on the docket of the rule of law.
My name is Jim Santel and this is Amicus, a lot of you.
We are talking in our remaining segments of the second hour of the broadcast about the Supreme Court beginning to issue more of its opinions.
One of those cases involving the death penalty, the Supreme Court, in a case called Ham versus Smith, declining to...
adjudicate the ultimate facts and determine what the standards would be for the imposition of the death penalty upon someone who undeniably has intellectual incapacities the question is what are the standards for doing that assessing that all important decision the supreme court saying in this particular case we do not have enough from alabama and the case before us to make a determination sending it back down
presumably going to be issuing some other opinions down the road as the jurisprudence of death penalty cases continues in our nation and before the Supreme Court under the Eighth Amendment.
And then we get some news in that same week about an attempted execution in Tennessee.
Yes, Tennessee, one of those states where the legislature has determined that the death penalty is accessible.
Again, upon findings, upon a determination in the judicial process that that is an appropriate imposition of sentence.
Tennessee this past week calling off the execution of one of its death row inmates after the staff cannot find the prisoner's vein.
Tennessee calling off the execution of a death row prisoner, his name is Tony Carruthers.
He was convicted in connection with three 1994 murders because the Department of Corrections says in a statement that the medical staff members there prepared to administer the lethal injection to accomplish the execution are unable to find a suitable vein to administer the drugs after a series of attempts.
Lawyers for Carothers had asked an emergency filing for the execution to be delayed.
The governor, Bill Lee, we've spoken about him in another context recently, which is the new line drawing going on there in Tennessee for congressional districts.
Bill Lee issued a reprieve on Thursday delaying any execution in the wake of this incapacity to administer the drugs properly.
The governor delaying any execution for a year.
And along the way, of course, it raises issues, again, about the death penalty and the administration of it.
The Supreme Court has also said, of course, that even the way in which you execute the death penalty can be subject to review and examination.
Crowder's case had already drawn attention as his allies and his lawyers had argued that he was wrongly convicted.
Aside from the fact that we had this particular physical issue,
this past week in the administration of the drugs.
He was convicted with the murders of his mother and others in an event again in the mid 1990s.
In a 1996 trial, Carothers had represented himself.
Despite the American Civil Liberties Union attempting to represent him,
They are writing in a clemency petition that he plainly neither was competent to stand trial nor competent to defend himself.
If Mr. Carruthers was executed this past week, he would have been the first person in more than a century in our nation to be executed after representing himself at trial.
Lawyers who have represented in the past have said their great, great difficulty
in dealing with his incapacity of his ability to assist in his own defense, he continues to impair his understanding of what's going on by virtue of his incapacity and to understand Eva's impending execution.
Issues also raised in that other matter.
The reality is, however, that even the terms and conditions and the circumstances under which the death penalty is administered, those themselves, including the drugs used, have become very controversial.
Tennessee, this is not new to them.
They've faced a series of problems with these lethal injections.
Back in a number of years ago, back in 2022, it paused its executions for more than two years after it acknowledged publicly that the state's drugs had not been properly tested.
Yes, you have to do this properly.
A group of inmates have sued Tennessee
over its new procedure, and the state has also faced scrutiny over the execution of a prisoner who had a heart device that functioned as both a pacemaker and a defibrillator.
Several states, again, in this general area, have canceled executions in recent years because of the very thing that happened in Tennessee this past week.
Their incapacity to find a suitable vein to administer the drugs.
Alabama itself has suspended executions for several months in 2022 and 2023.
That was in the wake of several executions in which officials also
could not find veins in which to do this.
Those cases, as well as some cases in Arizona and elsewhere, have led the death penalty information center
describe these recent years as the time of the botched execution.
It is grisly, but it is a common problem.
States have also recently begun authorizing alternative methods because of these difficulties, including the firing squad, largely because of the problems in obtaining adequate and lethal drugs.
South Carolina executed three people
just last year by firing a squad.
Those were the first executions in the United States in that nature since 2010.
Three more people are set to be executed in Tennessee this year, plainly in the wake of what happened this past week.
Tennessee and other states, a lot of work to do, a lot of very important attention, even in the execution, the way in which you go about.
pursuing the death penalty.
Death penalty litigation and death penalty focus on the minds of the Supreme Court and on the minds of those states that have adopted it as a part of its rule of law system.
Let's talk about another case in front of the Supreme Court, also reverberating in our international news, and that is Cuba.
You probably have heard about the big news coming out of Cuba, and that is the indictment plainly of Raul Castro,
the 94-year-old former president, accusing him, the federal government, of murder and conspiracy for killing some Americans, all that stemming from the fatal drowning about 30 years ago of two planes over waters off the coast of Cuba.
We'll get back to that in just a moment or so, but in connection with that, seemingly on almost the same day,
unrelated, we think, in terms of government action, the Supreme Court issued a case that involved Cuba and Cuban interests and Cuban properties and American properties as well.
What does the Supreme Court do on Thursday of this past week?
It sides with a U.S.-owned and American-owned port business, a company U.S.-owned
who owned some dockfront property there in Havana that was seized in 1960.
Now, what happened in 1960 in Cuba?
You know this.
Fidel Castro came to power and he nationalizes many of the properties there, basically saying these are now owned by the government.
Along the way, along the way, he nationalizes some of the dock properties, the buildings, the machinery, the appurtences of this particular company called the
Vanna Docks Corporation and he says they're all mine.
They're now a part of the government.
The Vanna Docks Corporation, once again, a U.S.
company, basically out of business and it is told to pack up and leave.
This property is now the property of the...
Cuban government under the administration of Fidel Castro.
Well, what happens over time is that there are a number of fleets, a number of cruise ships in particular, four in particular, that are using these abandoned docks, formerly owned, arguably still owned by Havana docks, and they're using them for various cruise ship
dockings there in Havana as Cuban tourism has opened up in recent weeks.
And Havana Docks Corporation comes back and says, those properties are still ours.
You owe us money, cruise lines, for using the property that was seized from us, taken from us, give us money, compensate us for your, frankly, illegal use of our property.
In an eight to one ruling this past week,
The Supreme Court says yes indeed, Havana Docks Corporation, you can in fact sue these cruise lines on those commercial bases.
And the Supreme Court basically determines that this is a lawsuit that can go ahead.
They do not decide on the merits of the case, but they do decide that the lawsuit itself is not barred.
that Havana Docks Corporation, the federal courts of this country, can indeed sue these cruise lines for their use.
They're inappropriate.
They're illegal, according to the Docks Company.
Their use of this property significantly.
The one dissenter is Elena Kagan.
And she says the docks have belonged to the Cuban government ever since then, and the company's interest, the plaintiff here, in the property has basically expired.
Too much time has passed before the cruise lines have ever used it.
She would have gone in the opposite direction.
She is the lone associate justice.
Nonetheless, the majority says, no Havana docks, you can sue.
These commercial cruise lining cup lose cruise liner companies and play this an important case because it may well clear a path for other similar lawsuits Impact beyond the particular claims here is certainly unclear the justices have not yet ruled on a second sort of similar case involving Exxon mobiles claims over its confiscated oil and gas also on Cuba all of this happening obviously 60 years ago
A lot of interest there coming out of Cuba, obviously raised also by this indictment that I just mentioned, coming out of the Federal District Court in South Florida.
It's an extraordinary event happening again long after, long after the event itself.
The charges are against again Raul, Cuba, Castro, who is the brother of Fidel.
And of course, once again, raising these issues about international focus.
Plainly, plainly, this is reminiscent of what we have seen before, maybe, of what happened in Venezuela.
the indictment of, he is still living, he's 94 years old, he's now the former president, he is there in Cuba, but the indictment of the former president of Cuba raises the possibility, the specter, a lot of people talking about the possibility that it is a precursor, that the United States could be paving the way for some military operation.
to remove him from the country, to go in, seize him from the country through a means similar to the same thing that we did, those U.S.
Special Operations Forces using an indictment, a charge here in the federal government, to go in to a foreign country, in that case Venezuela, to apprehend and bring back to this country, you know his name, it's Nicolas Maduro.
He was the president, recently elected, although not without controversy, to be the president of Venezuela.
We went in, we seized him in that military effort, and he is now back in the United States facing American justice on an indictment here along with his wife.
That happened back in January.
A lot of people looking at this and saying, is this the precursor who are going back into Cuba?
much on the agenda of the administration at this particular time in our history.
Along with the former president, the indictment also accuses five fighter pilots involved in the attack on planes.
All of this, all of this happening again in 1996, February of 1996, the planes were operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile group that often scoured the seas for Cubans who were fleeing the country.
That prompted the doubting of these planes and now the indictment of Raul for his involvement in that decision.
When we come back, I'll tell you about other things going on in the rule of law in America as we continue our discussion.
here on amicus a law review.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is Amica Solaroview.
And in this, the final segment of our weekend broadcast, talking as we often do about the decisions of federal district court judges, two of them in particular, both of them losses, losses defeats in the federal courts of our nation for the administration, for the Department of Justice.
Let's talk about the first of those.
Right here in the state of Wisconsin, U.S.
District Court Judge James Peterson.
He is in Madison in the western district of Wisconsin.
Dealing a blow to the administration's continued attempt to obtain voter registration lists and other documents from states around the country being asked to produce that information by the Attorney General, the judge this past week saying no.
And in particular, in a 10 page order, it is worth reading, it's worth digesting, saying that the request of the government
cannot be granted in particular because the records that the government seeks these voter registration lists are not ones which are identified under the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
He says in particular that the request for the Wisconsin's unredacted voter registration list, while it's not unique,
He notes along the way that the government has requested similar things from 48 states in Washington, DC.
And it's initiated lawsuits of the sort that are pending in front of the judge to compel production in 30 of those states.
Nonetheless, he says this one cannot go ahead.
He identifies again, the various reasons why.
this case may be problematic.
He seizes upon one of them, but along the way he says that among the things that the state of Wisconsin in defending against this request, they say a voter registration list is not a record subject production.
And that is the thing that the judge seizes upon.
to deny the request of the government for the production.
But the judge also notes that there are other problems with this.
He says the government has not provided an adequate statement of the basis and purpose for its request.
Government has not explained why it needs an unredacted copy as opposed to some publicly available redacted versions.
Government's request is barred by state and federal privacy laws.
Other things that might be problematic, Judge Peterson says, I don't have to rule on any of that because you've identified
wrong statute here.
This is not a record under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
So you lose government go away significantly on the same day that Judge Peterson did that.
Another judge in Maine, his name is Lance Walker, did the same thing.
He describes the government's claim there as half-hearted and he grants a similar motion to dismiss the case there.
likewise handing a defeat to the government, rulings the latest in a series of defeats for the Trump administration in these continuing attempts to force states to tune over its voter rolls.
In addition to Maine and Wisconsin, the latest entries in this long list, we've got federal district court judges in places like Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, and Rhode Island, all of them saying to the same end,
No, you can't have them.
And all of this, of course, a part of the governments, the administrations, the justice departments, continuing to attempt to bring litigation behind all of this, of course, this notion that somehow the 2020 election was the product of fraud.
and that if only we can get the voter registration rolls we can show that of course there's no such thing never happened and for that reason again it should be a source of satisfaction that the judges are saying no to this not for that political reason but because the law itself
does not permit the federal government to get these kinds of state records at least not on the basis that the government has incompetently illegally asked and so that coming out of the western district of wisconsin just this past week and then we finish up our broadcast with some of the biggest news which we'll talk about again in the future and that is the dismissal the dismissal of the criminal case
against Abrago Garcia, Kilmar Abrago Garcia, no longer subject to a criminal prosecution in Tennessee.
A federal judge, his name is Waverly Crenshaw.
He has long been skeptical about the ways in which the government returned Kilmar Abrago Garcia to this country, from that prison in El Salvador, to which he was sent without due process, long been subject to the judge's concern.
After the government, we will call this well, returned an indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia for human trafficking.
The judge now, just this past week, in a 32-page order, highly critical of the government and basically saying, you have brought these charges, you have indicted Mr. Abrego Garcia,
based not upon the merits of the case, based not upon some legitimate rule of law contention, but because you are pursuing vindictive motives.
You're doing this because you have been unhappy about the results of the immigration proceedings and the results there in another court, including a court in Maryland presided over by
a district court judge named Paula Zinnis.
You have been unhappy about that.
You've been unhappy about the fact that Abraigo Garcia, among all of those deportees, has become a sort of cause-celebrity.
And because of that, you wanted to send a message to him and to others.
The judge finding that the prosecution of Abraigo Garcia is the product of a vindictive prosecutorial intent.
and that it should not have happened, and that the remedy for that inappropriate action is dismissal.
Judge Crenshaw opens his ruling by quoting Robert Jackson, a former attorney general and Supreme Court justice whose reputation for probity and integrity cannot be questioned.
He's kind of the patron saint of federal prosecutors.
The judge today this past week says, then attorney general Robert Jackson warned his fellow prosecutors long ago
of the danger of picking the person first and finding the crime second.
And Judge Crenshaw, in dismissing the criminal case against Abrigo Garcia, says, therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor, that he will pick people that he thinks he should get rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.
That, the judge concluded, is the situation here.
Rule of law.
accomplished in the district there in Tennessee.
We'll talk more about that in future installments of this broadcast for now.
Have a pensive, a thoughtful and a memorial day in which we think about all the blessings of this.
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