On today’s BradCast: Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Friday, banning immigrants and even some permanent U.S. residents from seven majority-Muslim countries, has sparked chaos, confusion and a blizzard of lawsuits in its wake. [Audio link to show follows below.]
Along with Trump’s order — which was largely a surprise to most of the federal agencies tasked with enforcing and vetting it, including the Dept. of Homeland Security, the Dept. of Justice and the State Dept. — protests continue at airports and elsewhere across the country. Federal agents are reportedly ignoring multiple federal court orders, and elected officials and legal scholars (even some on the Right) are condemning the order as unlawful and/or unconstitutional. ISIS-supporters, however, are “celebrating” Trump’s order, which they reportedly regard as a “blessed” victory for their cause.
Some observers suggest the order — which is separating families from loved ones, and undermining the efforts of many who have supported American efforts for years in the countries on the ban list — may well develop into a full blown Constitutional crisis. All of which Trump described over the weekend as “working out very nicely”.
And, as today’s show wrapped up, the Acting U.S. Attorney General, a hold-over from the Obama Administration, announced the DoJ would not defend the order in court.
One of the lawsuits she says the department will not defend against was filed this afternoon by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and is being described as “the biggest lawsuit yet filed against Donald Trump’s immigration order”.
CAIR’s National Litigation Director, Lena F. Masri, Esq., joins us on today’s show, just hours after the suit [PDF] was filed with the aim of completely blocking what the group describes as an unlawful and unconstitutional “Muslim Exclusion Order” meant to result in Trump’s campaign promise for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.
“This Executive Order very clearly targets the Muslim community,” Masri explains in describing the complaint and its 20 or so plaintiffs, some of which are anonymous because they “will likely face persecution, torture and even execution” if they are sent back to their home countries. “This impacts us all as Americans,” she tells me, “and that is the reason why this this order is so dangerous and why, as Americans, we need to stand up and oppose this order.”
Also today: California threatens to push back against Trump’s order concerning “sanctuary cities”, and they’ve got the pocketbook to do so if they wanted to…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_ChaosTrumpMuslimBan_LenaMasri_CAIRLawsuit_013017.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III questioned Sally Yates during her confirmation hearing.
“You have to watch out, because people will be asking you to do things that you just need to say no about. Do you think the Attorney General has a responsibility to say ‘No’ to the President if he asks for something that’s improper?… if the views a President wants to execute are unlawful, should the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General say no?”
So we can all rest knowing that man, who comes from Alabama with the banjo on his knee, has character.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/31/1627900/-Sessions-pressing-Yates-on-the-independence-of-the-AG-shows-why-there-must-be-another-hearing
It is a testament to the swift moving insanity that is the Trump administration that the widespread condemnation of an obviously unconstitutional executive order was so swiftly superseded by what many now refer to as the Monday Night Massacre. Last night, Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates because she determined that there was no legitimate means to defend the constitutionality of the order in federal court.
There’s a troubling feature that goes beyond the illegality of this specific order. As I, and others, recognized when Trump said he would instruct the Attorney General to prosecute Hillary Clinton, Trump sports a frightening ignorance about both the limits of executive power and the fact that the Attorney General’s legal obligation is to support and defend the constitution as opposed to the political whims of a President.
As outlined by the Supreme Court in the Youngstown Steel case, there are limits to executive power — a power that is at its lowest ebb when it conflicts with the will of Congress.
In Youngstown, the Supreme Court invalidated an executive order issued by President Truman directing the Secretary of Commerce to seize and operate steel mills in order to head off a nationwide steelworker strike during the Korean War — an action that was at odds with an Act of Congress.
In this instance, Trump’s effort to ban people with green cards and valid visas flies in the face of the statutes that authorized their entry. He is asserting the rights of a tyrant to rule by fiat. Like Nixon’s actions during the Saturday Night Massacre*, the firing of the Assistant AG creates a constitutional crisis — one that amounts to an abuse of power that should but will not result in impeachment so long as the GOP controls both houses of Congress.
*During the Saturday Night Massacre, Nixon fired Attorney General Elliott Richardson and then Assistant Attorney General William Ruckleshaus after they refused to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had succeeded in obtaining a court order for Nixon to produce the oval office tapes that contained direct evidence of Nixon’s complicity in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal.
Nixon turned to Solicitor General Robert Bork who had no qualms about sacking Cox. As I’ve previously explained, Bork went on to found the radical right-wing Federalist Society. Trump will soon nominate a Federalist Society jurist to the Supreme Court — no doubt one who, like Bork, will be prepared to bow to the whims of this would be tyrant.
To this day, almost nobody knows why the Democrats wouldn’t approve of Bork for the supreme court. Even going back that far, the Democrats just couldn’t seem to get their message out.
For years, the right demonized the Democrats for not approving their activist appointments by saying they were “Borked”, and people were left thinking they had been unfair. Why don’t the Democrats ever defend themselves?
Now look where we are!
Larry Bergan @3 writes:
The reasons for rejecting Bork were clearly articulated in Senator Edward (“Ted”) Kennedy’s remarks during the floor debate over Bork’s unsuccessful 1987 nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan:
In choosing Robert Bork, President Reagan has selected a nominee who is unique in fulminating opposition to fundamental constitutional principles as they are broadly understood in our society.
He has expressed opposition time and again, in a long line of attacks on landmark Supreme Court decisions protecting civil rights, the rights of women, the right to privacy and other individual rights and liberties. Judge Bork may be President Reagan’s ideal ideological choice…but that choice is not acceptable to Congress and the country, and it is not acceptable in a Justice of the nation’s highest court.
It comes as no surprise that the Robert Bork founded, Koch Brothers funded Federalist Society advanced the selection of Judge Neil Gorsuch as Trump’s SCOTUS nominee.
Thanks for the history Earnest.
The circles are very small in politics, aren’t they?
February 2, 2017: Day 14 of the gentleman from New York being in violation of the Constitution