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Weekend Law: Elections, Pardons & Endangered Species · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
0:08
Speaker 2: A serious software error in New Jersey's motor vehicle system
0:13
Speaker 2: led to the improper voter registration of what we believe
0:17
Speaker 2: to be roughly sixty six hundred people in our state.
0:21
Speaker 3: New Jersey Governor Mickey Cheryl blamed a software glitch for
0:25
Speaker 3: the state mistakenly adding sixty six hundred non citizens to
0:30
Speaker 3: its voter rolls, leading to around four hundred of them
0:34
Speaker 3: improperly voting since twenty twenty three. Although Cheryl said there's
0:39
Speaker 3: no evidence those votes swayed the outcome of any election. Still,
0:43
Speaker 3: President Trump seized on the disclosure to support his unproven
0:48
Speaker 3: claims of widespread voter fraud and the need to pass
0:52
Speaker 3: the Save America Act. And Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne
0:56
Speaker 3: Mullen says DHS has identified hundreds of thousands of non
1:01
Speaker 3: citizens on voter rolls in four states.
1:05
Speaker 4: We've identified two hundred and fifty thousand non citizens registered
1:11
Speaker 4: to vote in California and Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada.
1:18
Speaker 3: And Mullen went further threatening state officials who don't go
1:23
Speaker 3: along with the administration's election security demands.
1:27
Speaker 4: If the election officials. Once we gave them the information
1:31
Speaker 4: they need to secure their elections and they chose not to,
1:35
Speaker 4: then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines,
1:40
Speaker 4: by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes,
1:43
Speaker 4: prison time.
1:45
Speaker 3: My guest is Jonathan Diaz, director of voting Advocacy and
1:49
Speaker 3: Partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center. Jonathan explained what happened
1:54
Speaker 3: in New Jersey.
1:55
Speaker 5: So it appears that there was some sort of technological
1:58
Speaker 5: error in New jrobk Jerseys DMV system where about six
2:03
Speaker 5: thousand or so individuals who correctly identified themselves as non citizens,
2:08
Speaker 5: you know, they weren't trying to register to vote, nevertheless,
2:11
Speaker 5: were erroneously registered. New Jersey's election officials and governor made
2:16
Speaker 5: this announcement. They identified this problem, They've directed officials to
2:19
Speaker 5: remove them from the roles. They are fixing the glitch
2:23
Speaker 5: in their driver's license system. And this is I think
2:27
Speaker 5: an example of how the system is supposed to work.
2:30
Speaker 5: The state and local officials who are responsible for overseeing
2:33
Speaker 5: voter registration, identified a problem, made it clear to the public,
2:37
Speaker 5: and announced steps to mitigate the problem. You know, they
2:40
Speaker 5: don't need the federal government to step in and do
2:43
Speaker 5: it for them.
2:44
Speaker 3: But that does mean that as many as four hundred
2:46
Speaker 3: non citizens ended up voting illegally.
2:50
Speaker 5: So well, I think it's important to remember that more
2:52
Speaker 5: than four point one million ballots were cast in New
2:56
Speaker 5: Jersey in twenty twenty four. So that number, you know,
2:59
Speaker 5: even if it was four hundred in total, that's less
3:02
Speaker 5: than one percent to one percent. It's point zero zero
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Speaker 5: nine percent of the total votes cast in New Jersey
3:08
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four, which is nowhere near affecting the
3:13
Speaker 5: outcome of any federal election that took place in New
3:15
Speaker 5: Jersey in that year.
3:17
Speaker 3: Trump and other Republicans are using this to boost claims
3:21
Speaker 3: of widespread voter fraud and the need for the Save Act.
3:27
Speaker 5: There's nothing in any of the proposals that the federal
3:30
Speaker 5: government has put forward that would have addressed this scenario.
3:35
Speaker 5: This was a simple case of human error, of technological error.
3:39
Speaker 5: Somebody misprogrammed the system, and so you know, requiring as
3:44
Speaker 5: the Trump administration wants, requiring voters to provide additional proof
3:49
Speaker 5: of citizenship to show a passport or a birth certificate
3:51
Speaker 5: to register to vote, wouldn't have stopped this because these
3:54
Speaker 5: people said that they were not citizens. They weren't trying
3:56
Speaker 5: to register to vote. But you know, elections are run
3:59
Speaker 5: by people. People make mistakes. Sometimes there is a glitch
4:02
Speaker 5: in the system, and you know, that's why we have
4:04
Speaker 5: safeguards built in to ensure that it can be caught
4:09
Speaker 5: and fixed for the next time. And even in a
4:11
Speaker 5: scenario like this where there was a technological problem that
4:14
Speaker 5: did result in some people being erroneously registered, it's not
4:18
Speaker 5: happening anywhere near in numbers on the scale that the
4:22
Speaker 5: President and the White House are suggesting that it is.
4:24
Speaker 5: You know, this is a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of
4:29
Speaker 5: the votes, so small that it doesn't affect the outcome.
4:32
Speaker 5: And so, you know, in my view, this technological error,
4:36
Speaker 5: which is really all that it is, does not justify
4:39
Speaker 5: the kind of draconian restrictions that the Trump administration is
4:45
Speaker 5: proposing for voter registration, because those things a wouldn't have
4:50
Speaker 5: solved this problem, and b would have prevented many more
4:53
Speaker 5: people than this who are eligible from actually registering and voting.
4:56
Speaker 3: Barkwayne Mullen, DHS Secretary, said that in New Jersey, reviews
5:02
Speaker 3: found thirty five, one hundred and fifty two non citizens registered.
5:08
Speaker 3: The governor said that We've asked them for any evidence
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Speaker 3: of this where they got that number, who this is.
5:15
Speaker 3: We've received nothing back yet.
5:17
Speaker 5: I don't know where DHS's numbers came from, nor does
5:21
Speaker 5: New Jersey. If you look at the numbers Secretary Mullen
5:24
Speaker 5: released and you compare not just these New Jersey numbers,
5:28
Speaker 5: but you know, DHS and the White House released data
5:31
Speaker 5: about a number of states who have voluntarily shared their
5:34
Speaker 5: data with the federal government and the White House, and
5:37
Speaker 5: DHS's numbers for states like Texas and Louisiana are incredibly
5:42
Speaker 5: inflated compared to what those states themselves are reporting. And
5:45
Speaker 5: Texas reported lower numbers than the White House did about
5:48
Speaker 5: you know, suspected non citizens on their roles and then
5:51
Speaker 5: had to backtrack because they had wrongfully identified naturalized citizens
5:56
Speaker 5: as being ineligible. So whenever a federal or state agency
6:02
Speaker 5: makes you know, inflated claims about huge numbers and the
6:06
Speaker 5: tens of thousands of you know, ineligible registrants, I think
6:10
Speaker 5: we have to look at those with some skepticism because
6:12
Speaker 5: almost inevitably they get walked back, And especially in the
6:17
Speaker 5: case of DHS, there's just nothing that they have given
6:21
Speaker 5: us in terms of where they got their data, what
6:23
Speaker 5: methodology they used. We don't know where those numbers came from.
6:26
Speaker 5: They could have pulled them out of a hat. So
6:27
Speaker 5: if we're going to take those numbers seriously, I think
6:30
Speaker 5: we need a lot more information from DHS about how
6:33
Speaker 5: they came up with them.
6:34
Speaker 3: Do you think this disclosure by New Jersey has any
6:37
Speaker 3: connection to the Trump administration's recent push.
6:42
Speaker 5: You know, the announcement from New Jersey's governor seems to
6:44
Speaker 5: me to be completely unrelated from what DOJ sent them.
6:47
Speaker 5: This was their own investigation into their own system, which
6:50
Speaker 5: every state is doing all the time, And I think
6:52
Speaker 5: that's the key takeaway here is that state governments, who
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Speaker 5: are the ones legally responsible for running our elections, are
7:00
Speaker 5: constantly going through their voter registration rules and their election
7:03
Speaker 5: systems to fix errors and to make sure that they
7:07
Speaker 5: are as accurate as is humanly possible. And what they
7:10
Speaker 5: don't need is wild accusations from the federal government based
7:15
Speaker 5: on no evidence that they're doing it wrong. You know,
7:18
Speaker 5: I think this incident in New Jersey shows that states
7:22
Speaker 5: are more than capable of maintaining clean voter roles and
7:26
Speaker 5: addressing the problems as they arise. Because you know, we
7:30
Speaker 5: have a very complicated election system and it's totally decentralized.
7:33
Speaker 5: It's run by states and in most important ways, by
7:37
Speaker 5: counties and municipalities. You know, one of the things that
7:40
Speaker 5: makes it so resilient is that we don't have a
7:42
Speaker 5: single national election infrastructure that could be compromised or you know,
7:46
Speaker 5: have some problem with it that would affect everybody.
7:49
Speaker 3: Are you concerned that if the Trump administration doesn't like
7:53
Speaker 3: the results in New Jersey in the midterms, that they'll
7:57
Speaker 3: use this disclosure to try to attack those results.
8:00
Speaker 5: I'm sure that no matter what New Jersey officials say
8:03
Speaker 5: or do, that the Trump administration is going to point
8:06
Speaker 5: to this incident and you know, claim that New Jersey's
8:10
Speaker 5: results can't be trusted. But that's why New Jersey, like
8:13
Speaker 5: every state, has audits and recounts and hand marked paper
8:18
Speaker 5: ballots that can be checked after the fact. And you know,
8:20
Speaker 5: that's why they're making this announcement now and removing these
8:23
Speaker 5: ineligible individuals from the roles so that this can't happen
8:27
Speaker 5: again in November. But regardless of what New Jersey does,
8:30
Speaker 5: I expect the White House to use this as ammunition,
8:34
Speaker 5: not just in you know, any claims that they make
8:36
Speaker 5: about the results in November, but also in their push
8:38
Speaker 5: to pass the Save America Act and to enable federal
8:42
Speaker 5: agencies to have a bigger role or take control of
8:46
Speaker 5: certain election administration functions despite their lack of legal authority
8:50
Speaker 5: to do that.
8:51
Speaker 3: DHS Secretary Mullin has made threats against election officials. But
8:56
Speaker 3: what exactly is he asking them to do.
8:59
Speaker 5: That's a good question. DHS sent letters to these four states,
9:03
Speaker 5: and those letters were pretty tame. They said, you know,
9:07
Speaker 5: DHS had done an analysis and identified suspected, you know,
9:10
Speaker 5: potential non citizens on the rules. Reminded the states that
9:14
Speaker 5: you know, federal law requires them to maintain accurate voter
9:17
Speaker 5: rules and that non citizens are prohibited from voting in
9:19
Speaker 5: US elections. But then otherwise just kind of said, you know,
9:22
Speaker 5: DHS is ready to help you if you need it.
9:25
Speaker 5: The letters were very, very tame. His remarks on Friday
9:28
Speaker 5: were not, and you know, in his speech he did
9:32
Speaker 5: both say that DHS is directing the states to remove
9:36
Speaker 5: all of those individuals from the rules, which number one,
9:39
Speaker 5: DHS doesn't have the authority to direct states to do
9:41
Speaker 5: anything with their voter rules. And number two, the states
9:44
Speaker 5: can't just take thousands of people off the rules because
9:47
Speaker 5: somebody in the federal government tells them to. There's a
9:49
Speaker 5: process that they have to go through under both state
9:51
Speaker 5: and federal laws to verify those claims. They have to
9:55
Speaker 5: do their due diligence, they have to check. I imagine
9:58
Speaker 5: that the states will they will take this serious. But
10:01
Speaker 5: Secretary Mullen also, much like Assistant Attorney General Harmy Dillon did,
10:05
Speaker 5: a couple of weeks ago, threatened election officials and said
10:09
Speaker 5: that they'll be prosecuted if they don't cooperate with the
10:11
Speaker 5: federal government. And I don't think that's an empty threat.
10:14
Speaker 5: I think that this administration is very willing to lean
10:20
Speaker 5: on its criminal enforcement authority and go after election officials
10:23
Speaker 5: if they don't go along with the administration's policy priorities
10:28
Speaker 5: when it comes to elections. Fortunately, I don't think that
10:31
Speaker 5: those charges would hold up, and election officials have very
10:35
Speaker 5: good counsel kind of across the board have litigated against
10:37
Speaker 5: a lot of them. They know what they're doing. But
10:39
Speaker 5: it is alarming when senior officials in the federal government
10:43
Speaker 5: are threatening state and local election officials with criminal prosecution.
10:47
Speaker 5: You know, it's almost like it's like watching a mob
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Speaker 5: movie to do what we want or else. And that's
10:53
Speaker 5: just not the relationship that we have seen between the
10:56
Speaker 5: federal government and the states in the past. When it
10:58
Speaker 5: comes to elections and the federal goverm it typically provides
11:01
Speaker 5: resources and support and assistance to state and local election
11:05
Speaker 5: officials and carrying out their responsibilities. But this kind of
11:08
Speaker 5: aggressive posture towards election officials is really something new.
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Speaker 3: But election officials have the winning record in federal court
11:16
Speaker 3: against the Trump administration over the administration's quest to get
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Speaker 3: unredacted voter rolls. I believe the states are sixteen to Oh,
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Speaker 3: thanks so much for joining me, Jonathan. That's Jonathan Diaz
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Speaker 3: of the Campaign Legal Center. Coming up next on the
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Speaker 3: Bloomberg Law Show. The Trump administration is gutting the Endangered
11:37
Speaker 3: Species Act and environmental groups are taking them to court.
11:42
Speaker 3: I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg.
11:47
Speaker 6: It's really quite troubling to see that monarch populations are declining.
11:50
Speaker 6: And if there aren't enough flowers to feed monarchs, imagine
11:53
Speaker 6: all the lesser known pollinators that aren't getting the things
11:55
Speaker 6: that they need.
11:56
Speaker 3: The iconic orange and black monarch butterfly is one of
12:01
Speaker 3: the most recognizable species, but eighty percent of the butterflies
12:06
Speaker 3: have been wiped out since the nineteen nineties. It's because
12:10
Speaker 3: of the destruction of their habitat, the main reason that
12:13
Speaker 3: species become extinct.
12:15
Speaker 6: By helping monarchs and restoring those diverse native habitat that's
12:20
Speaker 6: pesticide free, we can really help a whole speed of
12:22
Speaker 6: other species.
12:23
Speaker 3: But now the Trump administration has decided that destroying the
12:27
Speaker 3: habitats of endangered species is not harmful. It's rescinded the
12:33
Speaker 3: so called harm Rule, a fifty year old rule that's
12:37
Speaker 3: protected endangered wildlife from losing millions of acres of habitat.
12:42
Speaker 3: Thirteen environmental groups are suing the administration in federal courts
12:46
Speaker 3: in California and Washington State, challenging the decision that allows
12:51
Speaker 3: developers and private landowners to destroy the habitat of endangered
12:56
Speaker 3: species without it being considered harmed to the speed. Joining
13:01
Speaker 3: me is an expert environmental law, Pat Parento, a professor
13:05
Speaker 3: at the Vermont Law and Graduate School. Pat start by
13:09
Speaker 3: explaining what the Trump administration has done here to the
13:12
Speaker 3: Endangered Species Act.
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Speaker 1: Well, they have just published a final rule rescinding what's
13:19
Speaker 1: called the harm rule under the Endangered Species Act, which
13:24
Speaker 1: has been on the books for over fifty years, was
13:27
Speaker 1: first enacted in nineteen seventy five in the gerald Ford administration,
13:32
Speaker 1: and it's been upheld by the US Supreme Court in
13:36
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five in the case Sweet Home versus Babbitt.
13:40
Speaker 1: So now the Trump administration is saying, forget about all that.
13:45
Speaker 1: We hereby rescind the harm rule, and oh, by the way,
13:50
Speaker 1: we're not going to propose a replacement. We're just going
13:53
Speaker 1: to say we don't need a harm rule at all.
13:56
Speaker 1: We don't need to define the word harm which is
13:58
Speaker 1: in the statue, don't even need to do that. So
14:01
Speaker 1: we're just going to repeal it. We're not going to
14:04
Speaker 1: comply with NEIPA, We're not going to do an environmental
14:07
Speaker 1: impact statement, we're not going to comply with the Endangered
14:10
Speaker 1: Species Act itself, which requires consultation before you take an
14:15
Speaker 1: action like this and produce what's called a biological opinion
14:20
Speaker 1: to demonstrate that the action that you're taking will not
14:25
Speaker 1: jeopardize endangered species or result in the adverse modification of
14:33
Speaker 1: their critical habitat. So it's crazy on stilts what we're
14:38
Speaker 1: talking about. If you can boil it down to this,
14:41
Speaker 1: the Trump administration has hereby decreed that destroying the habitat
14:47
Speaker 1: of endangered species is not harmful.
14:51
Speaker 3: The administration said this move would reduce permitting and compliance
14:57
Speaker 3: costs for farmers, landowners, and energy producers.
15:01
Speaker 1: Right without producing real data to show that this rule
15:06
Speaker 1: is responsible for us. I guess you would call it
15:09
Speaker 1: unreasonable costs. I mean, it's certainly true that every law
15:13
Speaker 1: that Congress enacts is going to impose certain obligations on
15:18
Speaker 1: people that will in turn require the expenditure of some money.
15:22
Speaker 1: That's what regulation is all about. The money being spent
15:27
Speaker 1: is for a good purpose, a public purpose. Right. You
15:30
Speaker 1: can argue about how important saving endangered species is. If
15:34
Speaker 1: you ask the American people, they will tell you it's
15:38
Speaker 1: really important. That has been a consistent polling result over
15:43
Speaker 1: the life of the Endangered Species Act from nineteen seventy
15:47
Speaker 1: three to today. The amount of public support for this
15:50
Speaker 1: law is in the ninety percent range. So, yeah, does
15:55
Speaker 1: compliance with laws require money? Sure they do.
16:00
Speaker 3: And the loss of habitat causes more species to go
16:04
Speaker 3: extinct than any other single factor.
16:07
Speaker 1: Yes, it is the leading cause of species extinction in
16:10
Speaker 1: the US and globally. The other thing about it is
16:13
Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act is all about habitat. I mean,
16:17
Speaker 1: the very stated purpose of the law is to conserve
16:21
Speaker 1: the ecosystems upon which these species depend. So right from
16:26
Speaker 1: the get go in nineteen seventy three, this is really
16:29
Speaker 1: kind of amazing for Congress to be this ecologically literate.
16:33
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, they were talking about ecosystems. They
16:37
Speaker 1: were talking about habitat. That was the whole point of
16:41
Speaker 1: the law. Congress recognized that loss of habitat was driving
16:46
Speaker 1: species to extinction, and unless it was both stopped or
16:50
Speaker 1: arrested and mitigated, more and more of the species would
16:54
Speaker 1: go extinct.
16:55
Speaker 3: Tell us about the basis of the lawsuits by the
16:59
Speaker 3: environmental groups over the recision of this rule multiple grounds.
17:04
Speaker 1: They start by saying, the sweet Home decision in nineteen
17:09
Speaker 1: ninety five is still the law of the land. It
17:12
Speaker 1: has not been overturned. The Trump administration is clearly aiming
17:18
Speaker 1: to get this issue back in front of the Supreme Court.
17:21
Speaker 1: In their pope that the Supreme Court will reverse its
17:25
Speaker 1: decision in Sweet Home and basically adopt the dissent in
17:29
Speaker 1: Sweet Home written by the late Justice antonin Scalia. You
17:34
Speaker 1: know there's an echo here because this is the same
17:36
Speaker 1: strategy that Lee Zelden is pursuing under the Clean Air
17:41
Speaker 1: Act to repeal the endangerment finding once again EPA. The
17:45
Speaker 1: Trump administration is saying, the Supreme Court got it wrong
17:49
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts versus EPA, we don't have authority to regulate
17:54
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases, and we're going to get that issue back
17:57
Speaker 1: in front of the court so they can overturn versus CPA.
18:01
Speaker 1: Same thing is happening here with the Harm Rule. They
18:04
Speaker 1: want to get this case back to the court and
18:07
Speaker 1: the hopes that they can get a decision overturning the
18:10
Speaker 1: Sweet Home decision. The reason they believe they have a
18:13
Speaker 1: shot at this, of course, is because the Supreme Court
18:17
Speaker 1: has now overturned the Chevron doctrine with deference to agency interpretations.
18:23
Speaker 3: If Sweet Home was based on Chevron, which the Court
18:26
Speaker 3: has eliminated, and you also have a Supreme Court that
18:30
Speaker 3: just less term reversed to long standing precedents, do you
18:34
Speaker 3: have any confidence that the Court will respect the precedent
18:38
Speaker 3: of Sweet Home and uphold the Harm rule.
18:41
Speaker 1: Well, we know, of course that the Court will do
18:44
Speaker 1: what the Court will do with five votes. I think
18:48
Speaker 1: this one will be a closer call. I don't rule out,
18:52
Speaker 1: of course, the prospect or the danger that the Supreme
18:55
Speaker 1: Court might do what Trump is asking it to do.
18:58
Speaker 1: You can't rule that out. But here's the thing. Justice Roberts,
19:02
Speaker 1: in the Loper Bright case, which overturned the Chevron doctrine,
19:07
Speaker 1: said very clearly, our overturning Chevron does not mean that
19:14
Speaker 1: prior decisions of this Court that relied on Chevron are
19:19
Speaker 1: not still the law. They are still the law unless
19:24
Speaker 1: and until, of course, the Supreme Court changes the law.
19:28
Speaker 1: So the argument that Loper Bright automatically means Trump wins
19:35
Speaker 1: is wrong. It's just flat wrong. On the face of
19:38
Speaker 1: the Loper Bright decision, it's certainly true that if this
19:42
Speaker 1: case gets to the Supreme Court, there's a risk that
19:45
Speaker 1: it'll do the wrong thing from the standpoint of protecting
19:48
Speaker 1: endangered species. I would be naiven to the extreme to
19:52
Speaker 1: think that, you know, the Supreme Court is bleeding over
19:55
Speaker 1: the fate of endangered species. But on the other hand,
19:58
Speaker 1: this principle, which is called statutory starry decisives when the
20:04
Speaker 1: Supreme Court has said that a statute means something specifically
20:09
Speaker 1: that is a strong precedent so it doesn't get overruled
20:12
Speaker 1: with the snap of a finger, or the fact that
20:15
Speaker 1: there's a new administration in town who doesn't like the
20:18
Speaker 1: prior ruling. So that's not enough to get that victory
20:23
Speaker 1: that Trump is hoping for in this case.
20:25
Speaker 3: I'll ask you the question I usually ask you, which is, so,
20:29
Speaker 3: let's say that there's a democratic administration that comes in
20:32
Speaker 3: next and overturns the overturning of the Harm rule. How
20:37
Speaker 3: much damage can be done in the remaining two years
20:40
Speaker 3: of the Trump administration if there's not an injunction put
20:44
Speaker 3: in place.
20:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there is going to be a request for
20:48
Speaker 1: a preliminary injunction and maybe even a temporary restraining order
20:51
Speaker 1: right out of the box. The Earth Justice is handling
20:54
Speaker 1: one of the major cases, and that's the most formidable
20:56
Speaker 1: environmental litigating group in the country. They will leave no
21:00
Speaker 1: stone unturned. So the problem is by saying that the
21:06
Speaker 1: harm Rule is no longer in effect, that influences all
21:11
Speaker 1: kinds of activities that are ongoing. It means that the
21:14
Speaker 1: Forest Service, now the Trump administration, wants to ramp up
21:18
Speaker 1: timber harvest in the habitat of many endangered species, spotted
21:22
Speaker 1: owl's marble mural ats. You go down the list a
21:24
Speaker 1: whole bunch. So what happens now in that context of
21:28
Speaker 1: when agencies still have the obligation to ensure that their
21:32
Speaker 1: actions do not result in jeopardy or adverse modification of
21:36
Speaker 1: critical habitat. If the Fish and Wildlife Service and Noah
21:40
Speaker 1: with regard to marine species, if they are no longer
21:44
Speaker 1: engaged in analyzing whether the destruction of the habitat is
21:49
Speaker 1: going to result in harm to the species. That's going
21:52
Speaker 1: to affect a lot of the decision making that multiple
21:56
Speaker 1: agencies are doing. The Fish and Wilelife Service won't be
22:00
Speaker 1: providing them with the kind of biological information they need
22:04
Speaker 1: to meet the demand of the Endangered Species Act, so
22:07
Speaker 1: they'll be subject to more litigation over that. Now, the
22:10
Speaker 1: Trump administration doesn't really care about that. They're happy to
22:14
Speaker 1: see chaos in litigation that seems to make their day,
22:18
Speaker 1: But the regulated community is not going to be happy
22:20
Speaker 1: about that. Timber companies that are relying on Forest Service
22:24
Speaker 1: decisions or BLM decisions for grazing or mining or any
22:28
Speaker 1: number of things. You know, if you start tearing out
22:32
Speaker 1: the foundation of how the Endangered Species Act is supposed
22:36
Speaker 1: to work, including looking at the effects of habitat loss.
22:41
Speaker 1: You're going to destabilize the whole regulatory framework. So some
22:46
Speaker 1: of this is being laid out already. I've seen it
22:48
Speaker 1: in the complaint that Earth Justice has filed. They've called
22:52
Speaker 1: out specific projects that will be affected by this decision
22:56
Speaker 1: right now today, I predict we will see for at
23:00
Speaker 1: least a preliminary injunction very soon.
23:03
Speaker 3: And that factor into all this that a recent poll
23:07
Speaker 3: shows that eighty four percent of Americans support the Endangered
23:12
Speaker 3: Species Act.
23:13
Speaker 1: I think in time you're going to see more and
23:16
Speaker 1: more maybe backlashes the word I don't know, more reaction
23:20
Speaker 1: from the public over this, and communities that have seen
23:23
Speaker 1: the value of the restoration of endangered species. If you
23:27
Speaker 1: think about the wolf reintroduction or the fact that the
23:30
Speaker 1: grizzly bear population has improved. Whether it's been fully recovered
23:34
Speaker 1: is another question, but they certainly have improved. And what
23:38
Speaker 1: has that created. It's created a really robust ecotourism industry,
23:44
Speaker 1: if you will, recreation based. Those gateway communities around Yellowstone
23:49
Speaker 1: are there to see the wolves, and that's money in
23:52
Speaker 1: the pocket of local businesses, local communities and schools and
23:56
Speaker 1: all the rest. So it's not true that restoring and species,
24:01
Speaker 1: you know, is a cost without taking account of the
24:04
Speaker 1: benefits that it creates. So I don't think you can
24:07
Speaker 1: make a case, frankly, that the investment in recovering these
24:11
Speaker 1: species isn't worth it. Quite the contrary.
24:14
Speaker 3: We'll watch to see if the environmental groups get a
24:16
Speaker 3: preliminary injunction here. Thanks so much, Pat. That's Professor Pat
24:21
Speaker 3: Parento of the Vermont Law and Graduate School. Coming up next.
24:24
Speaker 3: President Trump is pardoning companies like a seventeenth century English king.
24:30
Speaker 3: I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg.
24:33
Speaker 7: So this is January sixth. These are the hostages, approximately
24:39
Speaker 7: fifteen hundred for a pardon, ye full pardoner.
24:43
Speaker 3: Just hours after his inauguration, President Trump granted full pardons
24:48
Speaker 3: to fifteen hundred people convicted of storming the capital on
24:52
Speaker 3: January sixth.
24:54
Speaker 7: I see murderers in this country get two years, one year,
24:56
Speaker 7: and maybe no time. So they've already been in jail
24:59
Speaker 7: for a long time.
25:00
Speaker 1: These people have.
25:01
Speaker 3: Been destroyed, and his pardon spree hasn't slowed down. Trump
25:05
Speaker 3: has granted clemency to almost seventeen hundred people in the
25:10
Speaker 3: past eighteen months, far outpacing his predecessors and often benefiting allies, donors,
25:17
Speaker 3: and loyalists. And Trump has taken a step no other
25:21
Speaker 3: president has taken. He's granting pardons to companies. The president
25:26
Speaker 3: for this apparently it's English King Charles the Second pardoning
25:31
Speaker 3: a company more than three hundred years ago. And Trump's
25:35
Speaker 3: grants of clemency to nine companies have wiped out about
25:39
Speaker 3: two hundred million dollars in financial penalties, some of which
25:43
Speaker 3: would have gone to victims of crime. Joining me is
25:46
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Legal reporter Ava Benny Morrison. Ava. Trump is the
25:50
Speaker 3: first president to pardon companies, and with a flourish on
25:54
Speaker 3: July third, he pardoned nine men and half a dozen
25:58
Speaker 3: auto businesses.
26:00
Speaker 8: That's right. What's particularly unusual about the most recent state
26:03
Speaker 8: of pardons is it included pardons for companies. Each of
26:07
Speaker 8: these autopaths suppliers their companies were prosecuted as well for
26:12
Speaker 8: this conduct, and Trumps signed a bunch of these clemency
26:16
Speaker 8: grants which white claimed the convictions against the companies, any individuals,
26:21
Speaker 8: and any outstanding financial penalties for the companies. And this
26:25
Speaker 8: is the first time a president, certainly in modern times,
26:29
Speaker 8: has used the clemency authority in that way.
26:33
Speaker 3: Is it legal? Because former President Jimmy Carter considered it
26:38
Speaker 3: before deciding against pardoning a business that had conspired with
26:43
Speaker 3: the mob to buy a Las Vegas casino because there
26:47
Speaker 3: was a disagreement within his administration about whether the constitution
26:52
Speaker 3: allowed it.
26:53
Speaker 8: It is legal, and the White House and told us
26:56
Speaker 8: that there is nothing in the Constitution that says pardons
27:00
Speaker 8: can only be for people. But I think in the
27:03
Speaker 8: past presidents have seed away from it because it's not
27:07
Speaker 8: good from an optics perspective. I've spoken to a number
27:11
Speaker 8: of academics who've delved into this issue, and one in
27:14
Speaker 8: particular said, there is no way our past president would
27:17
Speaker 8: have touched this with the barge poll. It's one thing
27:20
Speaker 8: to harden someone who you believe is innocent or has
27:24
Speaker 8: rehabilitated or is remorseful, but it's another thing entirely to
27:28
Speaker 8: get rid of criminal liability of major financial crime. So yes,
27:33
Speaker 8: other presidents in modern times had boy with the idea,
27:36
Speaker 8: but no one's actually done it.
27:37
Speaker 3: So to find precedent, they had to go back more
27:40
Speaker 3: than three hundred years to England. And King Charles the Second.
27:46
Speaker 6: Yes.
27:46
Speaker 8: One of the interesting parts of this reporting process was
27:50
Speaker 8: looking at how this debate even started in the White
27:54
Speaker 8: House after Trump came to power in early twenty twenty five.
27:57
Speaker 8: And we've heard that the parent company crypto platform Bitmex
28:01
Speaker 8: was discreetly angling for a pardon from President Trump at
28:05
Speaker 8: the time, not only for the individuals who worked there,
28:08
Speaker 8: but for the company itself, which was facing one hundred
28:10
Speaker 8: million dollar fine. And as they were lobbying the administration,
28:14
Speaker 8: advisors at the White House started asking the question, you know,
28:17
Speaker 8: can we even pardon a company, And some advisors they
28:21
Speaker 8: saw precedent in King Charles the Second of England pardoning
28:26
Speaker 8: a corporation some three hundred years ago, and that was
28:31
Speaker 8: included in some of the discussion and consideration that went
28:34
Speaker 8: into eventually pardoning the parent company of Bitmex.
28:37
Speaker 3: That was the first time that Trump pardoned a company.
28:40
Speaker 3: So tell us about that Bitmex case.
28:43
Speaker 8: The first company pardon that Trump issued in early twenty
28:46
Speaker 8: twenty five was to HDR Global Trading, which is the
28:50
Speaker 8: parent company of crypto platform Bitmex and bitmes was in
28:55
Speaker 8: strife for violating anti money laundering laws and the compan
29:00
Speaker 8: he was facing a one hundred million dollar five. Bitmex
29:03
Speaker 8: is an interesting one because one of its co founders
29:06
Speaker 8: was embracing Trump's softening stance around crypto. The platform was
29:12
Speaker 8: a early launcher of a derivative swap associated with the
29:16
Speaker 8: Trump Mean coin. The Trump Mean coin has ended up
29:19
Speaker 8: earning the president millions of dollars, as we've seen in
29:22
Speaker 8: some recent reporting, and the co founder, Arthur Hayes, wrote
29:26
Speaker 8: a essay that was widely read by those in the
29:28
Speaker 8: industry calling Trump's embrace of mean coins, framing it as
29:33
Speaker 8: a move towards political accountability. And he'd also in early
29:37
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five he'd been spotted at Mara Lago at
29:40
Speaker 8: an event there talking about the need for crypto deregulation.
29:44
Speaker 3: And with the pardon of bitmex, ae hundred million dollar
29:48
Speaker 3: fine was wiped out. And in the last eighteen months,
29:52
Speaker 3: Trump's grants of clemency have wiped out about two hundred
29:55
Speaker 3: million dollars in financial penalties which could have gone to
29:59
Speaker 3: victims of crime.
30:01
Speaker 8: Yes, and that's a mix of restitution forfeiture financial penalties,
30:06
Speaker 8: much of which would have been available through different avenues
30:10
Speaker 8: to victims of crime, particularly the restitution and the forfeiture.
30:14
Speaker 8: And something that's particularly unique about Trump's commutations is that
30:19
Speaker 8: they have also wiped out outstanding financial penalties. So we
30:24
Speaker 8: saw that in the case involving media startup Aussie Media,
30:28
Speaker 8: that company and its founder, Carlos Watson were on the
30:31
Speaker 8: hook for about ninety six million dollars in financial penalties,
30:35
Speaker 8: and Trump commuted the sentence of both Watson and the
30:38
Speaker 8: company and included in that language of that commutation was
30:42
Speaker 8: that this applies to any outstanding penalties, and we just
30:46
Speaker 8: haven't seen that under previous presidencies.
30:49
Speaker 3: And Carlos Watson really worked this to get it before
30:53
Speaker 3: Trump and in the way he wanted so that his
30:55
Speaker 3: company would be pardoned as well.
30:57
Speaker 8: Yes, Watson was really working the far in the lead
31:01
Speaker 8: up to the date that he was meant to begin
31:03
Speaker 8: his ten year prison sentence, and he was reaching out
31:06
Speaker 8: to anyone and everyone that he thought could help push
31:09
Speaker 8: his case for clemency. We know that he thought it
31:12
Speaker 8: was possible that he could get a pardon for Ossie
31:14
Speaker 8: Media and not just himself. And in these conversations where
31:17
Speaker 8: he's talking to people to try and get them on
31:19
Speaker 8: board with his clemency push, again, and again he's reiterating
31:22
Speaker 8: Ozzie and me, Ozzie and me. Clemency needs to be
31:25
Speaker 8: for both himself and the company. Also, in his arguments
31:29
Speaker 8: to the administration about why he deserved clemency, he framed
31:33
Speaker 8: the prosecution of his company as just an extra pushed
31:37
Speaker 8: by the Justice Department to crush everything that he believed in.
31:41
Speaker 8: Those arguments obviously resonated with the White House, and President
31:45
Speaker 8: Trump issued a commutation for Watson and Ossimedia on the
31:50
Speaker 8: morning he was due to report to prison.
31:52
Speaker 3: Are the clemency applicants going through the normal process through
31:56
Speaker 3: the Justice Department's Office of the Pardonerturn or are they
32:01
Speaker 3: going around the office and straight to the White House.
32:04
Speaker 8: These company pardons in particular, it's been a bit of
32:08
Speaker 8: a mix. We can tell from the Partner Attorney Office
32:12
Speaker 8: website that Bitmecs, for example, didn't apply through the formal
32:17
Speaker 8: channels for a pardon, But the nine diesel mechanics who
32:21
Speaker 8: received pardons, their name pops up in the database, and
32:24
Speaker 8: that shows us that they at least went through one
32:27
Speaker 8: of the traditional channels in applying for a pardon, which
32:30
Speaker 8: is coming out with that application and filing a bunch
32:33
Speaker 8: of supporting material to the DOJ. So it's definitely been
32:36
Speaker 8: a bit of a mix, which is a pattern that
32:38
Speaker 8: we've also seen with a number of these high profile
32:41
Speaker 8: individual clemencies.
32:43
Speaker 3: And it's a new little business of lawyers and lobbyists
32:46
Speaker 3: with connections who work to try to get these pardons through.
32:51
Speaker 8: Absolutely one unique thing we've seen pop up during this
32:55
Speaker 8: Trump administration is this industry of lawyers and lobbyists and
33:00
Speaker 8: sultants and fixes who hold themselves out as having connections
33:05
Speaker 8: and access to people that matter in the White House,
33:08
Speaker 8: and they're marketing those connections to on board clients who
33:11
Speaker 8: want clem and see saying I can get your case
33:14
Speaker 8: in front of the decision makers, in front of the
33:16
Speaker 8: people that matter. But that representation is coming with extraordinary fees.
33:21
Speaker 8: You know, we've heard stories of some lawyers charging at
33:24
Speaker 8: a base level a million dollars, and there are plenty
33:27
Speaker 8: of rumors about the fees being much higher than that.
33:31
Speaker 3: And talking about rumors and word of mouth among those
33:34
Speaker 3: seeking clemency, tell us about Ryan Lalone, who was one
33:39
Speaker 3: of those who got the July third pardons, where President
33:44
Speaker 3: Trump said they were persecuted by the Biden administration for
33:48
Speaker 3: fixing their cars.
33:50
Speaker 8: Yes, that's one way to put it. Ryan the Loone
33:53
Speaker 8: is a auto parts dealer from Michigan, and he was
33:59
Speaker 8: charged years ago with camping with emissions controls devices on vehicles.
34:04
Speaker 8: So these controls, you need to have them on trucks,
34:08
Speaker 8: especially ambulance vehicles, school buses, and it's meant to control
34:13
Speaker 8: the amount of emissions that go out of the vehicle
34:15
Speaker 8: and into the air. People in the trucking industry say
34:19
Speaker 8: that they are really cumbersome and they break down a
34:22
Speaker 8: lot and it leads to them having to carry out
34:24
Speaker 8: costly repairs. Of course, environmental advocates don't see it that way,
34:28
Speaker 8: and they say, you know, when you don't have these
34:30
Speaker 8: it leads to greater air pollution. So Ryan, along with
34:32
Speaker 8: many other mechanics around the country, had helped a number
34:36
Speaker 8: of heavy vehicle owners tamper with these controls, essentially so
34:40
Speaker 8: turning them off in a certain way, and he was
34:43
Speaker 8: charged over this behavior a few years ago. His business,
34:47
Speaker 8: his company these were Freak, was also charged and together
34:50
Speaker 8: they were facing a fine of about seven hundred and
34:53
Speaker 8: fifty thousand dollars. He pleaded guilty, but he always maintained
34:57
Speaker 8: that he didn't do anything wrong, and he sentence to probation.
35:01
Speaker 8: And then at the end of last year, he heard
35:05
Speaker 8: about President Donald Trump pardoning a fellow diedel mechanic in
35:09
Speaker 8: Wyoming Free Lake, and like Ryan, he had a company
35:13
Speaker 8: that worked on diesel engines and he was also charged
35:16
Speaker 8: for carrying out similar behavior and Trump pardoned him, and
35:20
Speaker 8: Ryan thought, wow, you know, I might have a chance
35:23
Speaker 8: here as well. So Ryan got in contact with Troy.
35:26
Speaker 8: He actually went to his pardon party in Wyoming over
35:29
Speaker 8: the winter and ended up teaming up with the same
35:31
Speaker 8: lawyer and lobbyist who helped push for Troy's clemency. And
35:36
Speaker 8: then a day before July four this year, Ryan, along
35:39
Speaker 8: with five other individuals who were charged with similar conduct
35:44
Speaker 8: or received pardons.
35:46
Speaker 3: And where does Trump stand compared to his predecessors as
35:49
Speaker 3: far as these grants of clemency.
35:52
Speaker 8: Well, we had a close look at how many clemency
35:55
Speaker 8: grants Trump has issued in those eighteen months, and he
35:59
Speaker 8: far outstript any president during that same period. If we
36:03
Speaker 8: look back at the Biden administration, President Biden issued four
36:07
Speaker 8: thousand on clemency grants by the end of his term,
36:11
Speaker 8: and that was certainly a record but no president has
36:15
Speaker 8: issued as many grants as Trump has in the first
36:19
Speaker 8: eighteen months of their term. Rom certainly set the pace
36:22
Speaker 8: on the first day of his term when he issued
36:25
Speaker 8: mass pardons to people charged in connection with the January
36:29
Speaker 8: sixth riots on Capitol Hill. So that takes up the
36:32
Speaker 8: bulk of his clemency grants. But aside from that, we
36:36
Speaker 8: have seen him issue pardons and communications to a number
36:41
Speaker 8: of wealthy, well connected, well resourced defendants for white collar crimes.
36:46
Speaker 8: Trevor Milton, for example, donated millions of dollars to his
36:50
Speaker 8: political action committees and also supporters of his political allies
36:55
Speaker 8: of his.
36:56
Speaker 3: It's a great story, Eva, a lot of research went
36:58
Speaker 3: into it. Thanks so much. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Ava
37:02
Speaker 3: Benny Morrison. And that's it for this edition of The
37:04
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest
37:08
Speaker 3: legal news by listening to our Bloomberg Law Podcast wherever
37:11
Speaker 3: you get your favorite podcasts. I'm June Grosso. Stay with us.
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