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SCOTUS Lifts Restrictions on ICE Stops in LA · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law, with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 2: We know that this is simply un American, but as
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Speaker 2: enraging as the news is for Minny Angelinos and people
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Speaker 2: across the country, let me make this very clear for
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Speaker 2: the press and to our country that we will not
0:24
Speaker 2: allow the Supreme Court or anyone to divide us.
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Speaker 1: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass slammed the Supreme Court's emergency
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Speaker 1: ruling on Monday that lifted a federal judge's order that
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Speaker 1: barred ice agents from stomping people solely on the basis
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Speaker 1: of their race, language, job, or location. The ruling was
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Speaker 1: six to three down ideological lines, and the conservative majority
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Speaker 1: didn't provide an explanation for their decision, but immigration advocates
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Speaker 1: say it means the court has basically legalized racial profiling.
1:01
Speaker 3: Emigration agents are now being given the power to profile, stop, detain,
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Speaker 3: and arrest people because of the color of their skin,
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Speaker 3: the language they speak, or the work that they do.
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Speaker 4: We should not have to live in a country where
1:17
Speaker 4: the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish,
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Speaker 4: and appears to work a low wage job, wrote Justice
1:27
Speaker 4: to the mayor.
1:29
Speaker 1: Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote a blistering descent for the Court's liberals,
1:34
Speaker 1: writing that she would not stand idly by while our
1:37
Speaker 1: constitutional freedoms are lost and pointing out that the reasoning
1:42
Speaker 1: behind the Court's entirely unexplained order is anyone's guests. My
1:48
Speaker 1: guest is David Harris, a professor at the University of
1:51
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Law School and an expert in racial profiling. David,
1:56
Speaker 1: under the Fourth Amendment, when can law enforcement agents stop someone?
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Speaker 5: People can be stopped by the police under the Fourth
2:04
Speaker 5: Amendment when there is reasonable suspicion that a crime is
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Speaker 5: afoot and they may be involved in the crime, and
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Speaker 5: reasonable suspicion is less than probable cause, but it is
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Speaker 5: based on facts and reasons. Now, when we transition from
2:20
Speaker 5: detecting crime to looking at immigration issues, the standard is
2:24
Speaker 5: still reasonable suspicion. There must be facts and there must
2:28
Speaker 5: be proper inferences. But what we're looking for, of course,
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Speaker 5: is whether a person is in immigration status or not.
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Speaker 5: And you're still looking at reasonable suspicion. So what would
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Speaker 5: those factors be for immigration? The standard is the same.
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Speaker 5: You just have to reference facts.
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Speaker 1: What exactly did the Supreme Court do in its decision
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Speaker 1: on Monday.
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Speaker 5: Well, what they did was to stop the decision of
2:58
Speaker 5: the lower court stay it. The lower court in Los
3:01
Speaker 5: Angeles had decided that ICE and its law enforcement allies
3:07
Speaker 5: were using factors to stop people that inevitably led to
3:13
Speaker 5: unconstitutional stops. And the lower court had said, you may
3:18
Speaker 5: not use, either alone or in combination, the factors of
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Speaker 5: somebody's Hispanic or Latino appearance, speaking Spanish or having an
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Speaker 5: accent to speak Spanish appearance, that you are engaged in
3:34
Speaker 5: low wage work and being at a location associated with
3:39
Speaker 5: day labor. And the Court said, you can't do this
3:43
Speaker 5: anymore because I can see from the evidence that I took.
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Speaker 5: The judge said that this is being done in ways
3:51
Speaker 5: that violate the Constitution. And what the Supreme Court did
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Speaker 5: on its emergency docket was to say, no, no, this
4:00
Speaker 5: order will not go into effect. We're holding it for
4:04
Speaker 5: now until we have more time to look at it.
4:06
Speaker 5: And Justice Kavanaugh wrote an opinion that is not a
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Speaker 5: full opinion, it is not for the court, saying that
4:14
Speaker 5: he believed that the administration of Trump and his allies
4:19
Speaker 5: who want to be able to use those factors will
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Speaker 5: succeed when they get to a full hearing that they'll win,
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Speaker 5: and therefore Ice and the police allies can go back
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Speaker 5: to using those factors when they stop people to see
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Speaker 5: if they are in violation of the immigration laws. And
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Speaker 5: this called forth some opinions from the other justices, notably
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Speaker 5: Justice Sonia Sotomayer, who said that this was going to
4:49
Speaker 5: lead us in the wrong direction. You'd have people being
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Speaker 5: stopped just for their Hispanic appearance, just for speaking Spanish.
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Speaker 1: So is what the courts do. Though the court conveniently,
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Speaker 1: as you mentioned, did not issue a majority opinion, so
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Speaker 1: we don't know why they said this. But are they
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Speaker 1: basically saying, well, racial profiling's okay.
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Speaker 5: Then what they're doing is they're looking back and this
5:15
Speaker 5: is the best we can tell. We're not really sure because,
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Speaker 5: like you said, there is no opinion, there's been no
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Speaker 5: briefing on this, there's been no argument, there's no full opinion,
5:23
Speaker 5: so we're having to speculate to some extent. But what
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Speaker 5: they seem to be saying, based on the fact that
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Speaker 5: they stopped the lower court's ruling, which would have put
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Speaker 5: a stop to all of this, and Justice Kavanaugh's opinion
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Speaker 5: for himself is it's okay. To use some combination of
5:41
Speaker 5: those four factors, ethnic appearance, Spanish speaking or accent, appearance
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Speaker 5: of being a low wage worker in these particular locations. Now,
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Speaker 5: Kavanaugh was clear on saying, you can't just say, well,
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Speaker 5: this person looks Mexican and that's enough. That wouldn't be
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Speaker 5: alone by itself. But it's a very slippery slope down
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Speaker 5: to exactly that point. Our experience with this sort of
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Speaker 5: thing goes back many years now. I've been studying racial
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Speaker 5: and ethnic profiling for well over thirty years, and we've
6:12
Speaker 5: seen it. We've seen exactly this kind of thing before.
6:15
Speaker 5: We saw it when Arizona enacted they show your paper
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Speaker 5: statue back in about two thousand and eight or so,
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Speaker 5: and Sheriff Joe Arpaio went to town on that and
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Speaker 5: it was just picking up people because of how they
6:28
Speaker 5: looked and their Spanish speaking or their accent. And that
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Speaker 5: is racial profiling by any other name. I mean, we
6:36
Speaker 5: don't want to call it that, fine, but that's what happened.
6:39
Speaker 5: Law enforcement begins to lean on the most obvious factors,
6:44
Speaker 5: and that's what the judge saw in Los Angeles, and
6:46
Speaker 5: that's why the judge stopped them from doing this in
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Speaker 5: the first place. So all of this will move immigration
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Speaker 5: enforcement efforts right up to that very same line, and
6:56
Speaker 5: we will have people getting picked up just for how
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Speaker 5: they look, weather they're Spanish speaking. It's going to happen
7:03
Speaker 5: as night follows day.
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Speaker 1: And I mean, the only way you'll get to see
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Speaker 1: what the officers relied on is if a case is
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Speaker 1: brought right.
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Speaker 5: Exactly, and there will be some cases broad chances there,
7:17
Speaker 5: because one of the other effects of this is going
7:20
Speaker 5: to be that lots of people will be interrogated and
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Speaker 5: even picked up and arrested who are in good order
7:28
Speaker 5: as far as immigration law. That's another thing that we see.
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Speaker 5: Whenever there is widespread sort of dragnet pulling people in
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Speaker 5: on these very basic factors, they end up making mistakes
7:41
Speaker 5: law enforcement folks do when they're allowed to lean on
7:44
Speaker 5: those kind of factors, and we will get a few
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Speaker 5: people who end up in custody, maybe for a few days,
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Speaker 5: maybe for a long time, maybe even getting deported before
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Speaker 5: it can be reversed and they can bring a case.
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Speaker 5: Justice Kavanaugh says in his opinion, well, look, if everything's
8:00
Speaker 5: in order, they'll just let you go. And he says
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Speaker 5: it's an important problem in Los Angeles, because there's an
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Speaker 5: estimate of stake two million people who are undocumented in
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Speaker 5: Los Angeles. But what he does say is that there
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Speaker 5: are millions more who share those characteristics, who have ethnic
8:20
Speaker 5: features of people from Latin America, who speak Spanish, who
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Speaker 5: have a Spanish accent, and they're going to be swept
8:26
Speaker 5: up in this too, and that's where the cases will
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Speaker 5: probably come from.
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Speaker 1: Just as Kavanaugh said, as for stops of those individuals
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Speaker 1: who are legally in the country, the questioning in those
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Speaker 1: circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go
8:41
Speaker 1: free after making clear to the immigration officers that they
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Speaker 1: are US citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't mention that one of the plaintiffs here, Jason
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Speaker 1: Brian Gavidia, who's an American citizen, was stopped by immigration agents,
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Speaker 1: shoved into a metal fence and his arm was twisted
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Speaker 1: behind his back, all the while that he's shouting, I'm American,
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Speaker 1: I was born in East LA And there's video of
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Speaker 1: it that anyone can see on the internet.
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Speaker 6: Look literally based off with skin color.
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Speaker 1: Gavidia says that he was frightened and the agents took
9:22
Speaker 1: his phone and ID. He was released, but he never
9:25
Speaker 1: did get his ID card back.
9:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean this is going to happen. This is
9:31
Speaker 5: going to happen more now that everybody can see, including
9:36
Speaker 5: the ICE agents and the police are helping them, that
9:38
Speaker 5: they've been given the green light. So we will have
9:42
Speaker 5: that happen. It's a certainty. And for Justice Cavanaugh to say, hey,
9:46
Speaker 5: it's all fine as long as you carrying your papers
9:49
Speaker 5: with it, well, I mean, do you carry your birth
9:50
Speaker 5: certificate to work? I mean does everybody do that? And
9:53
Speaker 5: even if you do, you might not get those things back.
9:56
Speaker 5: You can be in big trouble even if you have
10:00
Speaker 5: crushed every t and dited every eye and you were
10:02
Speaker 5: born here. So I just really took offense at that.
10:06
Speaker 5: I think it's somebody who never has to confront these
10:09
Speaker 5: problems making a pronouncement he knows nothing about.
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Speaker 1: So Justice Sodomayo wrote a stinging descent quote, we should
10:17
Speaker 1: not have to live in a country where the government
10:19
Speaker 1: can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears
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Speaker 1: to work a low wage job. She quoted a nineteen
10:27
Speaker 1: seventy five case that said it was unconstitutional for the
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Speaker 1: border patrol to stop a car and question its occupants
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Speaker 1: when the only ground for suspicion was that they appeared
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Speaker 1: to be of Mexican ancestry. Does this shadow docket decision
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Speaker 1: contradict that decision or is it broader.
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Speaker 5: It's a little broader, But again we're less to speculate
10:49
Speaker 5: because it's just on the shadow docket and there's been
10:52
Speaker 5: no full opinion. There was no briefing for the court,
10:55
Speaker 5: there was no argument. But that's a live question.
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Speaker 6: For sure.
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Speaker 5: There is an older case that says things like that
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Speaker 5: you have to go beyond just ethnic appearance, but certainly
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Speaker 5: it does also say that same case, ethnic appearance counts.
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Speaker 5: And my experience, in the experience of those who study
11:15
Speaker 5: this as I have, is that when that's a factor
11:19
Speaker 5: that is relied on, even with others in the mix,
11:23
Speaker 5: law enforcement leans heavily on. It discounts the other factors
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Speaker 5: that may go in the other direction, and you get
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Speaker 5: mistakes and the enforcement itself becomes less efficient. But more
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Speaker 5: than that, people who are in good order will have
11:39
Speaker 5: this imposed on them, and it'll be up to them
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Speaker 5: to prove no, no, I'm here legally, I was born here,
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Speaker 5: whatever it is. Instead of the other way around.
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Speaker 1: Coming up is Chicago. Next, this is Bloomberg. I've been
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Speaker 1: talking to Professor David Harris of the University of Pittsburgh
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Speaker 1: Law School about the Supreme Court in a six to
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Speaker 1: three decision and lifting a restraining order from a judge
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Speaker 1: who found that roving patrols were conducting indiscriminate stomps in
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Speaker 1: and around LA. The order had barred immigration agents from
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Speaker 1: stomping people solely based on their race, language, job, or location.
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Speaker 1: So Ice has promised in an online post to quote
12:21
Speaker 1: continue to flood the zone in Los Angeles. So they
12:24
Speaker 1: seem to be taking this as an okay from the
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Speaker 1: Supreme Court.
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Speaker 5: Absolutely, it's the green light. They can all see it.
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Speaker 5: Everybody can read it. And when they say flood the zone,
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Speaker 5: they mean lots and lots of people from our force
12:37
Speaker 5: will be out there doing this. And you know, like
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Speaker 5: I said before, this is just so unfortunate because when
12:44
Speaker 5: we pour people into a problem like this and we
12:47
Speaker 5: give them, give them the green light and the thumbs up,
12:50
Speaker 5: we know that some people are going to be impacted
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Speaker 5: negatively who have done nothing wrong and shouldn't have to
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Speaker 5: be imposed upon. And long range, what you care about
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Speaker 5: is public safety. If that's on your agenda, you are
13:05
Speaker 5: doing the wrong thing. You're cutting off your nose despite
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Speaker 5: your face. Because public safety depends on public support. You
13:11
Speaker 5: need the public to give the police information about what's
13:14
Speaker 5: what in the neighborhoods. If this is happening not just
13:18
Speaker 5: to people who might be deported legitimately, let's say, but
13:22
Speaker 5: to other members of their family who are here legally,
13:26
Speaker 5: to people who are just in the neighborhood and who
13:29
Speaker 5: have been born here because they look a certain way.
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Speaker 5: That is going to alienate people, not just from ice
13:35
Speaker 5: but from police generally. And that is a terrible message
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Speaker 5: to send out, and it makes them less likely to
13:43
Speaker 5: cooperate with any policing of any type, and that will
13:46
Speaker 5: leave predators on our streets. So this immigration policy of
13:50
Speaker 5: flooding the zone with forces with these low accuracy factors,
13:55
Speaker 5: this is going to make it more dangerous for us
13:59
Speaker 5: just on the level of regular crime.
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Speaker 1: The way they're stopping based on these factors, I mean,
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Speaker 1: is that proving to be a good way to find
14:08
Speaker 1: people who are here illegally. Are they making a lot
14:11
Speaker 1: of arrest because of that?
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Speaker 5: Undoubtedly they are making some arrest of people who are deportable.
14:16
Speaker 5: There's no doubt about that. It works. Sometimes the question
14:20
Speaker 5: is isn't there a better way that doesn't also sweep in
14:24
Speaker 5: lots of people who have nothing to do with this,
14:27
Speaker 5: who are not part of whatever you consider the immigration problem.
14:31
Speaker 5: If you simply rely on this sort of blunt instrument,
14:34
Speaker 5: you're going to be doing damage along with whatever you
14:38
Speaker 5: see as moving toward your goals. So it will work,
14:42
Speaker 5: There's no question that sometimes it will work. Can I
14:45
Speaker 5: give you a number? No? Is it nine out of
14:47
Speaker 5: ten times? Is it one out of two times? Nobody knows?
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Speaker 5: And this stuff isn't being tracked. But when you lean
14:54
Speaker 5: on ethnic or racial appearance even as one factor along,
15:00
Speaker 5: the data for years and years has been clear that
15:03
Speaker 5: this kind of approach is far less accurate than others
15:08
Speaker 5: you might use, and it alienates the public that you
15:12
Speaker 5: really need to support you.
15:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was reading that in some neighborhoods in Los Angeles,
15:18
Speaker 1: when they see those vans with tinted windows, the neighbors
15:22
Speaker 1: who are here legally go out and warn people.
15:26
Speaker 5: And absolutely, and we can't be surprised by that given
15:29
Speaker 5: what we've seen, given the way that force has been
15:32
Speaker 5: used on people, and that has been sort of publicized,
15:36
Speaker 5: pushed out. Look, this is a good thing. Is it surprising?
15:40
Speaker 5: Not at all? People have been put in fear by this,
15:43
Speaker 5: and quite deliberately put in fear. So you can't be
15:47
Speaker 5: shocked when members of the public turn around and say,
15:52
Speaker 5: this isn't the kind of thing I want going on,
15:55
Speaker 5: and they start warning people. You know, they're not on
15:58
Speaker 5: the enforcement team, they're on the non enforcement team. Think
16:03
Speaker 5: of it like.
16:03
Speaker 1: That immigration advocates say and fear that this is going
16:08
Speaker 1: to open the door to racial profiling of Hispanic people
16:12
Speaker 1: across the United States. Do you think now that the
16:14
Speaker 1: Supreme Court has said this is okay in Los Angeles,
16:17
Speaker 1: it'll be okay in Chicago or New York or other cities.
16:22
Speaker 5: Well, again, we're left without full knowledge of what the
16:25
Speaker 5: Supreme Court has done or will do, because they have
16:29
Speaker 5: made this statement, put out this stay of the lower
16:32
Speaker 5: court's order, and then you have Justice Kavanaugh's opinion, which
16:36
Speaker 5: doesn't represent the whole court. We don't know how far
16:39
Speaker 5: they will go or what they will say in the end.
16:42
Speaker 5: But people who know just the headline, if they're in
16:47
Speaker 5: the enforcement business, that's how they're going to take it
16:49
Speaker 5: Supreme Court says it's okay to use racial or ethnic appearance.
16:55
Speaker 5: They're not even going to make the distinction that Justice
16:59
Speaker 5: Kavanaugh does, which is that wouldn't be enough by itself.
17:03
Speaker 5: They're going to take it as racial profiling is okay.
17:06
Speaker 5: And if it's okay in LA, why wouldn't it be
17:08
Speaker 5: okay in Chicago or New York. So this has the
17:12
Speaker 5: potential to do a lot of damage in ways that
17:15
Speaker 5: we would probably want to avoid. But with this decision,
17:19
Speaker 5: the way it's come out and the insufficient explanation, I
17:22
Speaker 5: think there's no avoiding it.
17:24
Speaker 1: And just as so Demayor pointed out that there's no
17:27
Speaker 1: way of knowing what the reasoning of the Court was.
17:31
Speaker 1: That it's anybody's guess what they based this on. I mean,
17:35
Speaker 1: is it possible that they didn't base it on what
17:37
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh says?
17:39
Speaker 5: No, he's probably got most of it in the sense
17:42
Speaker 5: that there is a legitimate legal issue about issuing an
17:46
Speaker 5: injunction under the current standards of the court to stop
17:50
Speaker 5: activity like this, and there's a legitimate legal issue about
17:54
Speaker 5: whether you can have ethnic or racial appearance being a factor.
17:59
Speaker 5: And he suggests that he thinks the law is clear
18:02
Speaker 5: on that, and that's going to be debated if there's
18:05
Speaker 5: ever a full argument and a full briefing of this
18:07
Speaker 5: for the court, and we'll see where the court comes out.
18:09
Speaker 5: But if he's an indication, that's how many of the
18:13
Speaker 5: justices on the right we'll see it.
18:15
Speaker 1: The judge below made some specific findings. Now the case
18:20
Speaker 1: is going to go forward. I mean, is there any
18:23
Speaker 1: chance that there'll be some different kind of findings that
18:27
Speaker 1: will change the Supreme Court's mind? It seemed like the
18:30
Speaker 1: court below is pretty thorough.
18:33
Speaker 5: It was, and no matter what the Supreme Court does,
18:37
Speaker 5: let's say that they follow what we have on the
18:40
Speaker 5: books now, which leaves us guessing with a full opinion
18:44
Speaker 5: that basically follows up and down with what Justice Kavanas said.
18:49
Speaker 5: If that's the case, you will have lower courts still
18:52
Speaker 5: confronted with lawsuits by people who are citizens or legal
18:56
Speaker 5: permanent presidents. You will have lower courts receiving information about
19:01
Speaker 5: what ice is done. Have they only relied, for instance,
19:04
Speaker 5: on racial appearance, ethnic appearance without considering other factors, and
19:09
Speaker 5: cases will continue to come. What tells me that is
19:13
Speaker 5: prior experience when this kind of an order comes out. Hey,
19:17
Speaker 5: let's flood the zone. Let's get in there, let's get everybody,
19:20
Speaker 5: vacuum them up. Mistakes are going to be made, and
19:22
Speaker 5: those will end up in a record, and a lower
19:25
Speaker 5: court will walk along the lines dictated by the Supreme
19:28
Speaker 5: Court whatever it decides. But I don't think these cases
19:31
Speaker 5: will stop coming, just given the volume of activity and
19:35
Speaker 5: the way the people from ICE are being urged to
19:38
Speaker 5: proceed by those in charge.
19:40
Speaker 1: There's a preliminary injunction hearing schedule for September twenty fourth,
19:45
Speaker 1: But in light of this Supreme Court decision, can a
19:49
Speaker 1: judge is your preliminary injunction at this point?
19:52
Speaker 5: And whatever it was that the lower court did is stayed,
19:55
Speaker 5: So proceedings will not go forward on that level until
20:00
Speaker 5: there's clarity.
20:01
Speaker 1: And when will their reclarity?
20:03
Speaker 5: Your guess is as good as mine. I don't think
20:05
Speaker 5: anybody knows. And the more of these emergency shadow docket
20:09
Speaker 5: cases we get with the half opinions that aren't supposed
20:13
Speaker 5: to be precedents, but then Justice Gorsuch tells us no,
20:17
Speaker 5: the lower court should be looking at them as authoritative.
20:20
Speaker 5: In the National Student Health case, I mean, confusion is
20:24
Speaker 5: really sprouting here. It's really really hard for lower courts
20:27
Speaker 5: and for anybody to know what's happening when and when
20:31
Speaker 5: we might have some real clarity on any of these issues.
20:34
Speaker 1: Yes, Justice gor such did not like that in the
20:38
Speaker 1: space of a few weeks, all these different courts were
20:41
Speaker 1: not following the Supreme Court's obvious guidance.
20:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. And yet that quote obvious guidance is
20:49
Speaker 5: coming in a form which has always been regarded as
20:53
Speaker 5: without presidential value. So for him to say that, I
20:57
Speaker 5: really think was just out of line. The lower Court
21:00
Speaker 5: in that instance apologized that he did not mean to
21:03
Speaker 5: ignore them. But what are you supposed to do? I mean,
21:07
Speaker 5: I wouldn't want that job right now of trying to
21:09
Speaker 5: figure out what the Supreme Court is telling me to do.
21:11
Speaker 1: And now, apparently in Chicago, local activists said that, you know,
21:16
Speaker 1: ICE agents had been targeted in their tactics presenting warrants
21:21
Speaker 1: at specific homes or detaining people an immigration court. But
21:24
Speaker 1: now they're stopping people on the streets in what seems
21:28
Speaker 1: to be a fairly random fashion. So it seems to
21:31
Speaker 1: be copying what they did in La.
21:34
Speaker 5: Well, exactly random stops, that kind of roving, random stops,
21:39
Speaker 5: that's exactly what the lower court judge had in mind.
21:43
Speaker 5: Those don't have to be unconstitutional in the legal sense,
21:48
Speaker 5: but they lead to that behavior. That's essentially what the
21:51
Speaker 5: judge in the Los Angeles case found. And you know,
21:55
Speaker 5: when you basically tell them it's all up to you.
21:58
Speaker 5: All you have to do is see somebody who looks
22:01
Speaker 5: hispanic and is dressed for low wage work. You know
22:05
Speaker 5: they're just going to go to town with that. You know
22:07
Speaker 5: they're going to follow the direction that the Supreme Court
22:10
Speaker 5: has pointed them. So I hope nobody is surprised to
22:13
Speaker 5: see that.
22:13
Speaker 1: So, David, how big a win is this for the
22:16
Speaker 1: Trump administration.
22:18
Speaker 5: Well, it's a win in the sense that a judge
22:21
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles on the ground ordered this activity stopped
22:26
Speaker 5: in the form that it was taking, and now the
22:27
Speaker 5: Supreme Court has said no, it can go forward. It's
22:30
Speaker 5: not a permanent win, even if we have good indications
22:33
Speaker 5: that this is the direction that the Supreme Court is
22:35
Speaker 5: going to go. But again, we're less in a little
22:39
Speaker 5: confusion about that. What we do know is that now
22:43
Speaker 5: Ice and whatever law enforcement allies have signed up to
22:47
Speaker 5: help will go ahead and keep doing things the way
22:50
Speaker 5: they were in Los Angeles, with these kind of randomized
22:53
Speaker 5: activities sweeping in lots of people, some of whom are
22:58
Speaker 5: undocumented and some of whom are not. And I would predict,
23:03
Speaker 5: without knowing how people think in the White House, that
23:06
Speaker 5: they're going to applaud that and remind me.
23:09
Speaker 1: What happened with the show me your papers in Arizona.
23:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, what happened there is the law passed. It was
23:14
Speaker 5: a state law, and police started going with that, and
23:19
Speaker 5: Sheriff Joe, you know, chief among them, and it was
23:23
Speaker 5: pretty quickly found that he was using ethnic appearance, focusing
23:28
Speaker 5: on Latino people in ways that violated the Fourth Amendment
23:33
Speaker 5: and violated the Equal Protection claw. A judge ordered it stopped,
23:37
Speaker 5: and he went ahead and did it anyway, and he
23:39
Speaker 5: ended up in criminal contempt. That's why Trump eventually had
23:43
Speaker 5: to pardon him.
23:44
Speaker 1: Now it's coming back to me. Thanks so much, David,
23:46
Speaker 1: It's always great to talk to you. That's Professor David
23:49
Speaker 1: Harris of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Coming
23:53
Speaker 1: up next on The Bloomberg Law Show. President Trump calls
23:57
Speaker 1: a birthday note he allegedly sent to Joffree Epstein a
24:01
Speaker 1: dead issue, but many Democrats and Republicans I'm June Grosso
24:06
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Bloomberg. House Democrats on the committee
24:12
Speaker 1: that's looking into the Jeffrey Epstein case have released a
24:15
Speaker 1: photo they say is from a compilation of the fiftieth
24:19
Speaker 1: birthday messages for Epstein. It's allegedly written and signed by
24:24
Speaker 1: President Trump, something the White House has consistently denied. President
24:29
Speaker 1: did not write this letter. He did not sign this letter,
24:32
Speaker 1: and that's why the President's external legal team is aggressively
24:35
Speaker 1: pursuing litigation against the Wall Street Journal and they will
24:37
Speaker 1: continue to The compilation, also known as the Birthday Book,
24:41
Speaker 1: is from two thousand and three. Trump has said in
24:44
Speaker 1: the past that he had a falling out with Epstein
24:46
Speaker 1: in the mid two thousands. This comes as lawmakers on
24:50
Speaker 1: both sides of the isle are calling for the entirety
24:53
Speaker 1: of the files on Jeffrey Epstein's case to be released
24:56
Speaker 1: to the public. Joining me is Laura Davison, Washington Deputy
25:01
Speaker 1: Bureau Chief. You know, the talk today has been about
25:04
Speaker 1: this birthday card to Epstein, allegedly from Trump. Tell us
25:09
Speaker 1: how we got here? Yes.
25:10
Speaker 6: So, this was something that The Wall Street Journal originally
25:13
Speaker 6: reported on over the summer back in July, and they,
25:17
Speaker 6: you know, referenced a birthday card where Trump was referring
25:21
Speaker 6: to a wonderful secret and it included sort of a
25:25
Speaker 6: suggestive drawing and was signed by the President to Jeffrey
25:29
Speaker 6: Epstein and given to him for his fiftieth birthday. At
25:34
Speaker 6: the time, you know, Trump vehemently denied this. All know,
25:37
Speaker 6: He's team still denies that this is an authentic document
25:40
Speaker 6: that he that he sent, but we've never had the
25:42
Speaker 6: image of it. So what's happened over the past couple
25:45
Speaker 6: of months as the the Epstein story has really become
25:48
Speaker 6: a wedge issue for Republicans that you know, you have
25:51
Speaker 6: a group of Republicans including some you know, people who
25:53
Speaker 6: have been known to be very staunch Trump allies. People
25:56
Speaker 6: are like Marjorie Taylor Green and James Comer at the
26:00
Speaker 6: Resite Committee in the House, they have been pushing to
26:03
Speaker 6: release more documents from Epstein's estate. This actually came to
26:07
Speaker 6: a head at the at the very end of July
26:09
Speaker 6: in the House, Mike Johnson sent his members home early
26:14
Speaker 6: because this is becoming such a hot button political issue.
26:17
Speaker 6: It did not die over the August recess, and as
26:19
Speaker 6: lawmakers have come back to Washington this week. They have
26:24
Speaker 6: subpoenaed and then received documents from Epstein's estate. So this
26:28
Speaker 6: includes not only this birthday card that they released Democrats
26:31
Speaker 6: will not released the image of it, but it also
26:34
Speaker 6: include other papers from his estate, things like entries from
26:38
Speaker 6: his contact books spanning a couple of decades, and you know,
26:41
Speaker 6: information about his bank accounts, as well as his last
26:45
Speaker 6: will and testament. So there was a lot of papers
26:48
Speaker 6: that have been released. You know, this has been the
26:50
Speaker 6: piece of information that has you know, certainly gotten the
26:52
Speaker 6: most buzz. You know, it was released yesterday afternoon and immediately,
26:57
Speaker 6: i mean Trump's team came out and said that, you know,
26:59
Speaker 6: it couldn't possible. They say that the signatures don't match.
27:02
Speaker 6: You know, Trump has said that he doesn't draw, and
27:04
Speaker 6: so therefore this couldn't be, you know, something he would
27:07
Speaker 6: have created. I'll note that there are several other drawings
27:09
Speaker 6: out there in the public domain that he's donated to
27:12
Speaker 6: various groups. But this has been you know, a sort
27:14
Speaker 6: of Trump Denny Deny strategy is clearly what his team
27:18
Speaker 6: is employing here.
27:19
Speaker 1: And he said today that this is a dead issue.
27:22
Speaker 1: What makes him think that it doesn't.
27:24
Speaker 6: Seem dead it's certainly not a dead issue if you
27:26
Speaker 6: ask both Democrats as well as Republicans on the hill
27:30
Speaker 6: and also you know, out on you know, kind of
27:32
Speaker 6: among his base. This is something that has also animated
27:35
Speaker 6: a lot of voters as well. But this is something
27:37
Speaker 6: that that Trump wants.
27:38
Speaker 1: To go away.
27:39
Speaker 6: And so by branding it a dead issue, he is,
27:41
Speaker 6: you know, signaling that he does not want to talk
27:43
Speaker 6: about this. But of course this because he continues to
27:45
Speaker 6: be a political issue that is dogging him and splitting
27:48
Speaker 6: the Republican Party.
27:49
Speaker 1: I know, I had to look twice or three times
27:51
Speaker 1: when I saw the picture of Marjorie Taylor Green being
27:54
Speaker 1: hugged by Rocanna. So, I mean that goes to the
27:57
Speaker 1: fact that there are Republicans pushing for the release of
28:02
Speaker 1: the Epstein, all the Epstein documents.
28:05
Speaker 4: Reck.
28:05
Speaker 6: Yes, I mean, so Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, who
28:07
Speaker 6: is you know, among one of the most vocal and
28:10
Speaker 6: conservative voices in the House of Representatives, has joined forces
28:14
Speaker 6: with Rocanna, who is a Democrat from California, you know,
28:17
Speaker 6: someone who's also thought to sort of be a rising
28:19
Speaker 6: star within the Democratic Party, you know, seeking higher office
28:22
Speaker 6: and higher ambitions. They have joined together in this effort
28:25
Speaker 6: to get the people Epstein abused to come forward. Marjorie
28:30
Speaker 6: Taylor Green has said she would come forward and you know,
28:33
Speaker 6: release more information on the House floor. This is a
28:36
Speaker 6: very unlikely duo and on perhaps any other issue they
28:40
Speaker 6: would not agree. But this just shows that one, this
28:43
Speaker 6: is something that is really ignited a fire among some Republicans,
28:47
Speaker 6: and you know, has also been an issue for Democrats,
28:49
Speaker 6: you know, cynically, you know, some Republicans are saying Democrats
28:52
Speaker 6: are just using this as a way to embarrass the
28:54
Speaker 6: president or as a way to you know, kind of
28:55
Speaker 6: further sew division among the Republican party. But there's no
28:59
Speaker 6: denying that this has become a political issue, whether or
29:02
Speaker 6: not Trump wants it to be.
29:03
Speaker 1: Explain what's happening with this discharge petition.
29:07
Speaker 6: So essentially what Thomas Massey, again a Republican who has
29:10
Speaker 6: actually had sort of his own uh splits with Trump
29:13
Speaker 6: on on other issues relating tax policy and and government spending,
29:17
Speaker 6: they had been pushing for this discharge position petition, which
29:21
Speaker 6: is essentially a way to force a vote on the
29:24
Speaker 6: House floor. Generally, it is the majority party, you have
29:27
Speaker 6: the speaker and the majority leader who's determining what things
29:31
Speaker 6: come up for a vote. But there is a way
29:33
Speaker 6: that if you get enough support from from fellow UH
29:37
Speaker 6: House members, that you can force an issue up.
29:39
Speaker 5: For a vote.
29:40
Speaker 6: They have so far not gotten enough support to make
29:43
Speaker 6: this happen, but if they could, they could, you know,
29:45
Speaker 6: one put some Republicans in a very tricky situation where
29:49
Speaker 6: they may you know, politically, uh, you know, sort of
29:52
Speaker 6: be of two minds of whether they should break with
29:53
Speaker 6: Trump and vote to release more of these Epstein documents
29:57
Speaker 6: or uh, if they side with Trump, with the potent
30:00
Speaker 6: actually you know, anger their own voters by you know,
30:02
Speaker 6: sort of asking to quell some of these documents from
30:05
Speaker 6: being released.
30:05
Speaker 1: They have something like more than thirty thousand documents. How
30:10
Speaker 1: many more are there?
30:11
Speaker 6: You know, I don't know the total number of documents
30:14
Speaker 6: that exist, though the House Republicans, you know, they started
30:19
Speaker 6: releasing these as they've been getting them. There's more to come,
30:22
Speaker 6: and they you know, a lot of what has been
30:24
Speaker 6: out there at least and last week that they started
30:27
Speaker 6: releasing was already in the public domain or was heavily redacted. Essentially,
30:30
Speaker 6: they want, you know, sort of the full bounty of
30:33
Speaker 6: documents released without reactions so they can finally, you know,
30:37
Speaker 6: they say, if they have these kind of get to
30:39
Speaker 6: the bottom of you know, who Jeffrey Epstein was in
30:42
Speaker 6: contact and who else might have been implicated, you know,
30:45
Speaker 6: in you know, his activities with the underage girls.
30:47
Speaker 1: So when does this end? I just I see no
30:50
Speaker 1: end in sight here.
30:52
Speaker 6: What is really difficult here is that, you know, Republicans,
30:56
Speaker 6: at least before Trump was in office, really primed their
31:00
Speaker 6: base their supporters that there would be some sort of
31:02
Speaker 6: smoking gun, some answer just as long as they could
31:05
Speaker 6: get their hands on these documents, that there was a
31:07
Speaker 6: client list. Pam Bondi said out there that she would
31:10
Speaker 6: be releasing what is you know, frequently the case in
31:13
Speaker 6: some of these very messy situations where you have, you know,
31:16
Speaker 6: you know, someone who is now deceased and you're trying
31:19
Speaker 6: to piece together a very complicated and you know, perhaps
31:22
Speaker 6: sordid affair is that there aren't solid and specific answers
31:25
Speaker 6: that you can get posthumously. So as long as both
31:31
Speaker 6: Republicans and Democrats continue to be this drum, it will
31:33
Speaker 6: be an issue whether this continues to be an issue
31:35
Speaker 6: into the midterms or in twenty twenty eighties that's a
31:38
Speaker 6: very long way away. Hard to know if that will
31:40
Speaker 6: continue to be out there, but it's clear that there's
31:43
Speaker 6: probably not going to be some very decisive answer that's
31:45
Speaker 6: just going to pop up in a document that will
31:47
Speaker 6: put this matter to rest.
31:48
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Laura. That's Washington Deputy Bureau Chief Flora Davison,
31:53
Speaker 1: and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
31:56
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32:03
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32:11
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32:15
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