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Can Blanche Become AG & Deadly ICE Traffic Stops · Bloomberg Law

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 2: And what I don't understand Todd Blanche? What happened to
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Speaker 2: the Todd Blanche who was a prosper in the Southern
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Speaker 2: District of New York. What happened to the prosecutor people
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Speaker 2: had respect for. What happened to the prosecutor who once
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Speaker 2: respected the rule of law. What happened to the prosecutor
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Speaker 2: who said that there wouldn't be a whiff of political
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Speaker 2: partisanship and then prosecutes the president's enemies over seashells cases
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Speaker 2: over making a video stating the plane law and Constitution.
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Speaker 2: What happened to the Todd Blanche of the Southern District
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Speaker 2: of New York that could convert him into you?
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Speaker 3: You asked me, what happened to Todd Blanche? I am
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Speaker 3: still here. I am the same exact person I was
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Speaker 3: when I was a federal proscer in the SDMY, which
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Speaker 3: is do the right thing and do everything you can
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Speaker 3: to keep a community safe. So when I was a
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Speaker 3: lion prosecutor, when I was a supervisor, when I was
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Speaker 3: the head of a division, my motivation and my goal
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Speaker 3: was the same thing.
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Speaker 4: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faced some tough questions at
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Speaker 4: his confirmation hearings from Democratic senators like Adam Schiff over
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Speaker 4: his brief but tumultuous tenure over the Justice Department. The
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Speaker 4: questions focused on whether Blanche could be independent of President Trump,
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Speaker 4: his former client, the one point eight billion dollar anti
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Speaker 4: weaponization fund he created, the bungal release of the Epstein files,
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Speaker 4: and the prosecution of the President's political enemies. With Democrats
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Speaker 4: on the Judiciary Committee united against Blanche, he can't afford
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Speaker 4: to lose even one Republican vote. Republican Senator John Cornin
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Speaker 4: says he hasn't decided how to vote yet, and Republican
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Speaker 4: Senator Tom Tillis gave Blanche an ultimatum today meet with
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Speaker 4: the Epstein survivors or you won't get my vote.
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Speaker 5: I expect that meeting to occur before. I'm willing to
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Speaker 5: be out of this committee, and I'm trying to get
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Speaker 5: to yes. But this is a very important part of
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Speaker 5: getting to yes. There should not be any reason why,
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Speaker 5: based on what mister Blanche said yesterday. If he said
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Speaker 5: that he would do it today, then he can certainly
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Speaker 5: do it over the next two weeks.
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Speaker 4: Joining me is Amy Powell, litigation director at Lawyers for
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Speaker 4: Good Government. She's a former senior trial counsel at the
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Speaker 4: Justice Department. I'll start with the broad question, Amy, what
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Speaker 4: did Blanche demonstrate to you in this five hour, contentious hearing.
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Speaker 1: Well, not much changed in my view.
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Speaker 6: Right. He is trying to present himself as a serious
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Speaker 6: career professional, but his actions belie that. He assured the
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Speaker 6: Senators under oath this time that the Weaponization Fund is dead,
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Speaker 6: but he would not explain the mechanism for that. He
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Speaker 6: didn't say he has rescinded it by order. He did
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Speaker 6: not say the settlement agreement is dead and unenforceable because
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Speaker 6: I never had authority to enter it. In fact, when
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Speaker 6: he was specifically asked that question by Senator Cornyan what
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Speaker 6: the status of the settlement agreement was, he failed to
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Speaker 6: disclaim it entirely, which means, as far as I'm concerned,
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Speaker 6: that the Weaponization Fund is not necessarily dead, the plaintiffs
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Speaker 6: in that case, Donald Trump and his family and associates
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Speaker 6: could sue to enforce the settlement agreement. Now, I don't
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Speaker 6: think the settlement Agreement is enforceable or a valid settlement
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Speaker 6: agreement or that he had authority to enter it. Neither
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Speaker 6: he nor Stanley Woodward did. But that doesn't mean someone
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Speaker 6: won't try to enforce it, and that doesn't mean this
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Speaker 6: Justice Department wouldn't attempt.
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Speaker 1: To settle it in the future.
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Speaker 6: To my mind, that means the Weaponization Fund is not
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Speaker 6: dead and they haven't put for Herward any proof to
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Speaker 6: the contrary.
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Speaker 4: I think more questions were asked about the Weaponization Fund
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Speaker 4: than anything else, when there were so many other things
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Speaker 4: to ask him about. Why has that become such a
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Speaker 4: focus for the senator.
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Speaker 6: That's a good question to which I don't necessarily have
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Speaker 6: the answer. My sense, as armchair psychologist is that that
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Speaker 6: level of corruption strikes a nerve with Republican senators and
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Speaker 6: others among their constituents who might be sympathetic to Trump.
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Speaker 6: That Todd Blanche and the administration are using the Justice
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Speaker 6: Department to pay out unearned money to the Trump family
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Speaker 6: and to friends and associates.
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Speaker 1: The level of corruption is.
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Speaker 6: Something that is hard to square with their public responsibilities. Certainly,
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Speaker 6: senators like Tillis and Cornin have been extremely critical of
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Speaker 6: the Weaponization Fund from the outset. While I understand Tillis
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Speaker 6: has said he is at least partially satisfied he hadn't
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Speaker 6: formally made up his mind.
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Speaker 1: Senator Cornyn seems not to be and I'm glad to hear.
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Speaker 4: That while a lot of time was spent on the
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Speaker 4: weaponization Fund, not that much time was spent on the
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Speaker 4: tax agreement that we've talked about before, which he defended,
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Speaker 4: and he said, you know it's going forward, but he
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Speaker 4: said it's part of any settlement.
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Speaker 6: It doesn't appear to be part of the settlement, right,
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Speaker 6: it's not mentioned in the settlement agreement.
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Speaker 1: What is the status of this document?
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Speaker 6: So certainly Blanche seemed to confirm that he views it
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Speaker 6: as part of the settlement, and therefore that he viewsed
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Speaker 6: the settlement as an enforceable contract, and that this piece
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Speaker 6: of it is still alive. I think that should outrage
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Speaker 6: anyone who's paying attention that they have offered this sort
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Speaker 6: of blanket immunity to Trump and associates, just potentially a
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Speaker 6: very broad category, not just his family members, in ways
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Speaker 6: that are certainly not consistent with DOJ policy or long
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Speaker 6: standing practice, but also just not consistent with ordinary conceptions
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Speaker 6: of justice. What the Justice Department ought to be up
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Speaker 6: to protecting the rule of law and the American taxpayer
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Speaker 6: and the public fisk things they.
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Speaker 1: Ought to be up to.
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Speaker 6: Not like granting blanket immunity to the president and his
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Speaker 6: family member, especially for things that weren't hard of the
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Speaker 6: underlying lawsuit. Even if one had some outrage towards the
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Speaker 6: government for some contractor's leak of Trump's tax returns, right,
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Speaker 6: that would not justify in any sense like blanket immunity
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Speaker 6: for the president and his family members for anything that
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Speaker 6: they may have done wrong in the past. And I
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Speaker 6: hesitate to call it agreement because it's not actually mentioned
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Speaker 6: in the agreement.
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Speaker 1: This waiver language.
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Speaker 6: Appears to attempt to confer immunity for things wholly unrelated
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Speaker 6: to the dispute over the leak of his tax returns
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Speaker 6: or the alleged leak of his tax returns. It grants
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Speaker 6: immunity for anything he or a family member may be
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Speaker 6: investigated for, whether that is, you know, improper tax returns
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Speaker 6: anytime in the past several years, or it is a
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Speaker 6: parking ticket from the National Park Service, or some dispute
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Speaker 6: with the Postal Service about what postages do. The sort
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Speaker 6: of blanket immunity for him and his family members is
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Speaker 6: wild wildly disconnected to the underlying dispute.
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Speaker 4: His hearing on Tuesday came after on Monday, a Florida
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Speaker 4: judge issued a scathing opinion on the Weaponization Fund and
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Speaker 4: his role in it, saying he abdicated his responsibility to
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Speaker 4: zealously defend the interests of the United States. There was
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Speaker 4: a conflict of interest because he had been Trump's personal attorney,
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Speaker 4: and she sent her decision to the Bar association in
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Speaker 4: New York, which Blanche kind of fluffed off. He said,
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Speaker 4: it's not really a referral.
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Speaker 6: So it's probably correct that it is not technically a referral.
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Speaker 6: It's not technically sanctions against him, and that is because
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Speaker 6: I think, as the court noted, neither he nor any
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Speaker 6: other government attorney ever actually entered an appearance in the case.
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Speaker 6: The only filanes on the docket are from the plaintiff's attorneys,
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Speaker 6: who are also Trump's attorneys. Right, But Todd Blanch used
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Speaker 6: to be his attorney in stan Woodward is not his attorney,
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Speaker 6: but is effectively acting as one in this case by
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Speaker 6: all appearances. So because there are active investigations of their
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Speaker 6: contact in their respective bar associations, she sit along her
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Speaker 6: order as an FYI to those investigators, even though they
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Speaker 6: were not technically subject to her jurisdiction because they were
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Speaker 6: not in court in front of her and never made
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Speaker 6: an appearance. I mean, that's a fairly strong indicator of
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Speaker 6: what this particular judge thinks on the matter, and sort
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Speaker 6: of stays within the lines I think of what she
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Speaker 6: thinks she is permitted to do. It will be interesting
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Speaker 6: to see what the Justice Department does with this order.
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Speaker 6: Otherwise it doesn't do a whole lot right Like, it
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Speaker 6: refers to the bar or one of the plaintiff's attorneys.
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Speaker 1: One's referred to the bar.
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Speaker 6: One is prevented from being admitted pro hoc vieja in
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Speaker 6: the future because it's not currently admitted in Florida.
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Speaker 1: He was just appearing by permission.
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Speaker 6: It proposes some monetary sanctions but doesn't actually impose them,
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Speaker 6: and it's unclear whether there will be any. And it
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Speaker 6: has this language about preventing referring to the agreement as
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Speaker 6: a settlement agreement. Well, I certainly agree with that. It's
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Speaker 6: unclear to me if that binds the Justice Department.
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Speaker 1: If it does, they'd almost certainly appeal.
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Speaker 6: That made some questions about whether she had the authority
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Speaker 6: to do that. The plaintiff's attorneys might appeal it regardless,
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Speaker 6: because they're certainly subject to orders since they appeared in
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Speaker 6: the case, and might claim some ethical obligation or at
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Speaker 6: least some free speech rights to refer to the agreement
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Speaker 6: agreement in quotes in whatever way they please.
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Speaker 1: That part might be tough to hold up. I guess
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Speaker 1: we'll find out.
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Speaker 6: There is also ongoing litigation in the Eastern District of Virginia,
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Speaker 6: and I guess potentially elsewhere about the Weaponization Fund and
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Speaker 6: whether or not it is really over.
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Speaker 4: Well, that's where he refused to submit a sworn statement
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Speaker 4: that the Weaponization film was dead. So the Epstein files
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Speaker 4: were another big topic, and the Justice Department's bungled release
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Speaker 4: of the Epstein files that exposed some victims' identities criticized
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Speaker 4: by lawmakers on both sides. He defended the release but
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Speaker 4: took responsible ability that there were errors, and he apologized.
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Speaker 4: I mean, do you think he handled that part well?
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Speaker 6: I mean appreciate at some level that he felt they
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Speaker 6: need to take some responsibility right that that was bungled,
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Speaker 6: especially the release of the victim's identities, which is just
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Speaker 6: gross and inexcusable. It's the only thing they.
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Speaker 1: Were explicitly allowed to redact.
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Speaker 6: In the statue, right, I think it was victims' names
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Speaker 6: and any classified information what they're explicitly allowed to redact.
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Speaker 6: I didn't really hear him take responsibility for how slow
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Speaker 6: the process has been, right, Like the idea of that
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Speaker 6: the excuse, such as it is for having accidentally released
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Speaker 6: these victims' identities was how quickly they had to move,
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Speaker 6: And yet they haven't moved all that quickly. There are
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Speaker 6: still unreleased files, and much of what they have released
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Speaker 6: appears to be over redacted to people. That's in litigation
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Speaker 6: and in several places, whether or not they can redact
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Speaker 6: things where redaction is permitted under other statutes, or I
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Speaker 6: think the Justice Department would say it's required under a
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Speaker 6: other statutes. And I don't presume to know the answer
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Speaker 6: to those questions. But the fact is there are a
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Speaker 6: lot of documents, and they have not committed the resources
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Speaker 6: necessary to get those documents out, and it sure looks
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Speaker 6: like just an attempt to protect the president's interest he wistress,
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Speaker 6: not some interest of the presidency or the office.
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Speaker 4: Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation with Amy Powell
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Speaker 4: of Lawyers for Good Government. Has the Justice Department really
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Speaker 4: lost the confidence of federal judges. I'm June Grosso and
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Speaker 4: you're listening to Bloomberg. Whether or not Todd Blanch will
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Speaker 4: be confirmed as the next Attorney General remains uncertain after
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Speaker 4: two days of confirmation hearings. I've been talking to Amy Powell,
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Speaker 4: litigation director at Lawyers for Good Government. Amy Blanche needs
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Speaker 4: every Republican Senator to vote for him to get his
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Speaker 4: confirmation out of the Judiciary Committee, and Republican Senator Tom
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Speaker 4: Tillis gave him an ultimatum, meet with the Epstein survivors
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Speaker 4: or you don't get my vote. Is it unusual for
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Speaker 4: an attorney general or an acting Attorney general in this
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Speaker 4: case to meet with victims?
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Speaker 1: A good question.
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Speaker 6: I don't know if it's unusual, to be honest, I
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Speaker 6: assume it is unusual for her attorney generals to be
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Speaker 6: involved in the nitty gritty of cases like this and
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Speaker 6: meeting with witnesses and victims. But he's already done so,
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Speaker 6: right like he met with Justlaine Maxwell, which.
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Speaker 1: Was also extremely unusual.
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Speaker 6: To meet with her her and not her victims is
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Speaker 6: something that certainly publicly looks very bad. I gotta say,
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Speaker 6: till Us, this demand that he meet with the victims
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Speaker 6: seems like an extremely low bar.
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Speaker 1: For becoming Attorney General.
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Speaker 6: And if he can't manage that, like I hope Senator
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Speaker 6: Tillis is unimpressed, but we shall see.
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Speaker 4: Blanche was also questioned about the fact that after he
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Speaker 4: met with Glainne Maxwell at a Florida prison, about a
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Speaker 4: week later, is transferred to a prison camp. Blanche claimed
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Speaker 4: it was because she was getting threats. But here's what
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Speaker 4: Senator Booker said about that.
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Speaker 7: When people are under threats in a Bureau of Prison facility,
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Speaker 7: they're put into solitary confinement or protective They're not moved
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Speaker 7: to a camp.
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Speaker 8: That's not always true.
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Speaker 7: What is what is true is someone that is accused
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Speaker 7: of child sex trafficking under the Bureau of Prison's own policies,
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Speaker 7: is not put in a facility like this. That seems
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Speaker 7: clearly like a reward.
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Speaker 6: It sure smacks of a special deal because she didn't
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Speaker 6: incriminate the president. But I don't have any more knowledge
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Speaker 6: about that than anyone else.
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Speaker 1: It's unusual.
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Speaker 6: It seems like he cut her a sweetheart deal in
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Speaker 6: exchange for not incriminating the president. That's what it looks
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Speaker 6: like to everyone. Just the appearance of impropriety, especially given
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Speaker 6: his former role as Trump's personal lawyer, just keeps escalating.
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Speaker 4: And that was a part that the Democrats were pressing
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Speaker 4: him up, whether he was able to be independent from
14:03
Speaker 4: the White House, whether he was still Trump's personal lawyer.
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Speaker 4: He said, President Trump trusts me to give him counsel.
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Speaker 4: Counsel doesn't mean I'm a yes man. But then when
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Speaker 4: he was pressed about it by Senator Koons, he said
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Speaker 4: that the Justice Department is part of the executive branch.
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Speaker 4: If confirmed, he'll be a member of the cabinet who
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Speaker 4: serves at the pleasure of the president. The Justice Department
14:24
Speaker 4: traditionally has been different from other departments.
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Speaker 6: It has there's a tradition of independence to ensure that
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Speaker 6: while they are subject to political control, they are also
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Speaker 6: exercising independent judgment, that they aren't subject to the political
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Speaker 6: whims of the White House. They aren't trying to advance
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Speaker 6: anyone's partisan political interests.
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Speaker 1: And while I realize.
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Speaker 6: People will point to this instance or that where the
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Speaker 6: Justice they think the Justice Department didn't do that perfectly,
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Speaker 6: it has, at least until now, always been the ideal
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Speaker 6: of the Justice Department, and I think that's important that
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Speaker 6: that be an ideal that people are at least aspiring
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Speaker 6: to subscribe to. It is not under this administration, right,
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Speaker 6: And I'm not speaking about the rank and file career attorneys,
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Speaker 6: many of whom are trying to continue to do their
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Speaker 6: best work and provide their best counsel. I'm saying that
15:15
Speaker 6: the political officials at the Justice Department, including Todd Blanche
15:19
Speaker 6: have repeatedly explained that they don't think the Justice Department
15:22
Speaker 6: should be independent. The reason he is not claiming to
15:26
Speaker 6: be defending himself as independent from the president is that
15:29
Speaker 6: he's not, and he has argued that he shouldn't be.
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Speaker 6: He thinks the Justice Department should be subject to the
15:34
Speaker 6: political whims of the presidency. Of course, the Justice Department
15:38
Speaker 6: has argued in court repeatedly across this administration the independent
15:41
Speaker 6: agencies are a thing that everything is supposed to be
15:44
Speaker 6: subject to the political whims of the White House, which
15:47
Speaker 6: historically has not been true. But I think they take
15:51
Speaker 6: that sort of theoretical idea of the unitary executive as
15:55
Speaker 6: a serious one in how the Justice Department works as
15:58
Speaker 6: well that they want President Trump calling the shots, and
16:02
Speaker 6: Todd Blanche has said, and I'm forgetting the quote exactly,
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Speaker 6: but something like Americans should be thankful that the president
16:08
Speaker 6: is involved in the day to day operations of the
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Speaker 6: Justice Department. I, for one, am not. I don't think
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Speaker 6: Senators till Us recorded should be either.
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Speaker 4: And then there was this slip of the tongue Freudian
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Speaker 4: slip during friendly questioning by Republican Senator John Kennedy.
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Speaker 7: Are you in President Trump?
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Speaker 6: French?
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Speaker 3: I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, and now I'm the
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Speaker 3: deputy attorney general.
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Speaker 4: I'm not sure how much we should make of that,
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Speaker 4: but it's hard to ignore it, is it?
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Speaker 1: Freudi Man?
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Speaker 6: It's easy to pile on, right, But he says he's
16:43
Speaker 6: the president's lawyer. He means he's Donald Trump's lawyer, and
16:47
Speaker 6: he acts that way in any case. You know that
16:49
Speaker 6: is his view, and he has repeatedly expressed it. It's
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Speaker 6: that in practice he has not acted as independent or
16:56
Speaker 6: like he's even providing independent counsel in any meaningful way.
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Speaker 4: I thought they didn't spend enough time on the state
17:03
Speaker 4: of the Justice Department under Blanche and Bondy before him.
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Speaker 4: Here's Senator Sheldon Whitehouse questioning Blanche about the fact that
17:14
Speaker 4: judges have criticized the Department and its lawyers over their
17:20
Speaker 4: behavior in court cases.
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Speaker 8: Or it's like pretext mean a lot coming from a
17:25
Speaker 8: judge about a government argument, usually enjoying the presumption of regularity.
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Speaker 8: We need answers. I need you to be able to
17:35
Speaker 8: tell me that this kind of misconduct is going to
17:37
Speaker 8: stop if you're confirmed as Attorney general. Can you say
17:41
Speaker 8: that the.
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Speaker 9: Department of Justice works hard, the prosecutors work hard every day,
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Speaker 9: and I appreciate the handpicked words that you have behind
17:51
Speaker 9: you right now, but that's not reflective of the one
17:53
Speaker 9: hundred thousand indictments and informations that have been filed to
17:59
Speaker 9: do the work that I talked about earlier today.
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Speaker 4: I mean, there's case after case of federal judges complaining
18:07
Speaker 4: about the actions of Justice Department attorneys or Justice Department
18:12
Speaker 4: attorneys not following their orders, even allegations of misconduct before
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Speaker 4: grand juries, and the Justice Department may be losing that
18:23
Speaker 4: presumption of regularity.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, there are repeated instances of judges finding that the
18:31
Speaker 6: presumption of regularity didn't apply or should be overcome.
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Speaker 1: For those not familiar listening. The presumption of.
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Speaker 6: Regularity is the idea that the court will presume that
18:41
Speaker 6: the government is acting in good faith, in the ordinary
18:44
Speaker 6: course and carrying out.
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Speaker 1: Its duties as it is supposed to.
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Speaker 6: Just the sort of thing we as Americans, most of us,
18:51
Speaker 6: tend to assume that the government officials are attempting to
18:54
Speaker 6: do their job in good faith and attempting to comply
18:56
Speaker 6: with the rules. The presumption just meant that, absent some
18:59
Speaker 6: evidence to the contrary, they're going to assume that these
19:01
Speaker 6: officials are acting in good faith and consistent with the rules.
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Speaker 6: Courts are repeatedly finding that overcome. There is a website
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Speaker 6: I think managed by Just Security which is collecting instances
19:14
Speaker 6: where courts have explicitly rejected the presumption of regularity under
19:17
Speaker 6: the circumstances, which is I don't know if it's up
19:20
Speaker 6: to date, but for a former government attorneyment like myself,
19:24
Speaker 6: it is.
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Speaker 1: A daunting list.
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Speaker 6: That is a presumption that has been overcome before. Right,
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Speaker 6: it is only a presumption, but rarely not with such regularity,
19:34
Speaker 6: not with such vehemence. Courts are angry and it's not
19:38
Speaker 6: what I mean. I'm not really sure there are all
19:40
Speaker 6: that many woke, radical.
19:41
Speaker 1: Leftist judges out there.
19:43
Speaker 6: I'm not sure that's a category that exists. But many
19:46
Speaker 6: of the people who are finding against the government in
19:49
Speaker 6: these instances are Republican appointees, even Trump appointees, who are
19:53
Speaker 6: finding that the government has acted improperly. And you know,
19:56
Speaker 6: some of that comes down to the Trumpet administration's mass
20:01
Speaker 6: deportation efforts. The attempt to deport as many people as possible,
20:05
Speaker 6: as fast as possible, with very little planning or forethought,
20:08
Speaker 6: and unleashing untrained agents to carry that out has just
20:13
Speaker 6: led to an overwhelming number of cases, especially habeas petitions,
20:18
Speaker 6: and the government is frankly probably unable to comply with
20:23
Speaker 6: the law, and some instead, this is unable to comply
20:25
Speaker 6: with core orders because they're just not organized or together
20:29
Speaker 6: enough even if they had enough attorneys, which they don't,
20:31
Speaker 6: and they've taken so many efforts to frankly drive attorneys
20:35
Speaker 6: out of the department. And I don't say that to
20:38
Speaker 6: say that the attorneys there are all terrible or doing
20:41
Speaker 6: the wrong thing, quite the opposite. Was a career attorney
20:44
Speaker 6: for a very long time, and I firmly believe for
20:47
Speaker 6: the most part that the folks still.
20:49
Speaker 1: There are as.
20:50
Speaker 6: Career attorneys are attempting to do the right thing, to
20:53
Speaker 6: comply with the law and court's orders as best as possible,
20:56
Speaker 6: but their clients in the administration and people like Todd Blanch,
21:00
Speaker 6: you're making that extremely difficult.
21:02
Speaker 4: So we had Pam Bondy before Todd Blanche, who was
21:06
Speaker 4: similar to him in trying to please President Trump. If
21:09
Speaker 4: Blanche doesn't get confirmed, won't Trump just find someone else
21:15
Speaker 4: who'll do what he wants? Does it really matter who
21:18
Speaker 4: it is.
21:19
Speaker 6: Well, it might be even worse than you're going to
21:21
Speaker 6: suggesss right. He might actually be able to keep Todd
21:24
Speaker 6: Blanche in as acting right if he has not confirmed,
21:27
Speaker 6: doesn't even have to replace him with someone orse. I
21:30
Speaker 6: certainly would prefer that the Senate put its foot down
21:34
Speaker 6: and suggest to the Trump administration that there are limits
21:37
Speaker 6: on what they will accept, which might prompt the administration
21:40
Speaker 6: to try to replace a Blanche with someone who will
21:43
Speaker 6: be taken more seriously as a representative of the Justice Department.
21:47
Speaker 6: I don't know that, but it seems to be better
21:49
Speaker 6: than the alternative of confirming him and pretending that he
21:52
Speaker 6: is a normal nominee.
21:53
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for joining me, Amy, I appreciate your insights.
21:57
Speaker 4: That's Amy Powell, litigation director at Lloyd for Good Government,
22:01
Speaker 4: coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show. At least
22:04
Speaker 4: ten people have died in encounters with immigration agents since
22:09
Speaker 4: President Trump launched his mass deportation campaign last year. Five
22:15
Speaker 4: have died from being shot by ICE agents during traffic stops.
22:19
Speaker 4: Yet the White House has overturned a decision by the
22:22
Speaker 4: Department of Homeland Security to suspend ICE traffic stops. I'm
22:27
Speaker 4: June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. The Department of
22:33
Speaker 4: Homeland Security has abandoned a day old decision to suspend
22:37
Speaker 4: most immigration traffic stops after President Trump demanded the tactic continue.
22:44
Speaker 4: Despite two recent fatal shootings of immigrants by ICE officers
22:49
Speaker 4: during traffic stops. One man was shot in Maine on Monday,
22:53
Speaker 4: the other was shot in Houston last Tuesday. A DHS
22:58
Speaker 4: official set on Wednesday that, in line with the President's directive,
23:02
Speaker 4: the practice will resume, effectively scrapping a policy announced on
23:07
Speaker 4: Tuesday that had suspended most vehicle stops except in serious
23:12
Speaker 4: criminal cases, while the agency reviewed its policies and new
23:16
Speaker 4: officer training. The decision to scrap the pause underscores Trump's
23:21
Speaker 4: drive to ramp up immigration arrests and deportations, the centerpiece
23:26
Speaker 4: of his hardline enforcement policies. My guest is immigration attorney
23:31
Speaker 4: Leon Fresco of Holland and Knight. He was the head
23:34
Speaker 4: of the Office of Civil Immigration Litigation during the Obama administration. Leon,
23:39
Speaker 4: take us through what happened here.
23:42
Speaker 10: We had two incidents. We had one in July seventh
23:45
Speaker 10: and Houston, Texas, where ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado
23:49
Speaker 10: Araujo during a vehicle stop operation and BHS says he
23:54
Speaker 10: used his vehicle as a weapon, and witnesses and family
23:57
Speaker 10: members dispute that account. Then we had another incident July
24:02
Speaker 10: thirteenth and Biddeford, Maine, where ICE agent fatally shot a
24:06
Speaker 10: Columbia national named Johann Sebashtan Duran Guerrero during a vehicle
24:10
Speaker 10: stop and VHS said that the driver was posing a threat,
24:14
Speaker 10: whereas other witnesses say that that version is not true.
24:19
Speaker 10: And you have multiple investigations that were open. So on
24:23
Speaker 10: July fourteenth, you had ICE and DHS officials, mainly through
24:27
Speaker 10: Tom Holman, tell officers to pause most of their non
24:32
Speaker 10: urgent vehicle stops used in immigration enforcement, with the exceptions
24:37
Speaker 10: if they knew that the person that was being stopped
24:41
Speaker 10: was a violent criminal or if there was a warrant
24:44
Speaker 10: for that person's arrest, then they could continue. And ostensibly
24:48
Speaker 10: the reason for this was according to Tom Holman, who's
24:51
Speaker 10: The Borders Are said that these officers needed more training
24:55
Speaker 10: in how to do these vehicle stops. And in fact,
25:00
Speaker 10: I have now been anecdotally through my immigration practice, learning
25:04
Speaker 10: about more of these stops. And what's been happening is
25:08
Speaker 10: the agent what they're doing is rather than going into
25:11
Speaker 10: the home, which requires a lot of band power and
25:16
Speaker 10: perhaps unturnty about what's inside that home, etc. It appears now,
25:20
Speaker 10: especially if someone lives inside of an apartment complex, that
25:24
Speaker 10: what they're doing is they're waiting for the person to
25:26
Speaker 10: go into their car to go to work, and then
25:29
Speaker 10: they're stopping them right outside of the apartment complex, so
25:33
Speaker 10: that they're sort of more of a sitting duck in
25:35
Speaker 10: the sense that they're not at home where they can
25:38
Speaker 10: have access to god knows what weapons, etc. And they
25:42
Speaker 10: don't have to barge the door down or anything. They're
25:44
Speaker 10: just in the car. And then what they do is
25:46
Speaker 10: they apprehend the person, they arrest them, and a second
25:49
Speaker 10: ICE agent takes their car back to their apartment parking
25:53
Speaker 10: lot and then that's the end of it. So there
25:55
Speaker 10: is a lot more of that because I think ICE
25:57
Speaker 10: has determined that that operation requires less manpower. But the
26:04
Speaker 10: problem is, once you apprehend someone in their car, you
26:09
Speaker 10: will get you know, you can say one out of
26:11
Speaker 10: one hundred, I don't know one out of two hundred
26:13
Speaker 10: situations where someone who's in their car will have a
26:17
Speaker 10: completely paranoid reaction as to, oh my god, now, what's
26:21
Speaker 10: going to happen with my kids? What's gonna happen with
26:24
Speaker 10: my spouse? And they'll try to drive away, and that's
26:28
Speaker 10: something that's gonna happen. And then the question is what
26:31
Speaker 10: do the agents do? And if the answer is they
26:33
Speaker 10: shoot people or you know, what happens when the witnesses
26:38
Speaker 10: to this decide to get involved with the ICE agents
26:41
Speaker 10: and say, hey, what are you doing arresting this person?
26:44
Speaker 10: Et cetera. You know what basically is the training and
26:48
Speaker 10: the protocol for these new traffic operations that are happening.
26:52
Speaker 10: So that's the genesis of this, is that this is
26:55
Speaker 10: the new type of operation that's happening and so ICE
26:58
Speaker 10: does want to roll out a lot more of this
27:00
Speaker 10: instead of going inside the person's home. But when they
27:03
Speaker 10: do this, they have these more public facing operations that
27:08
Speaker 10: can lead to death.
27:10
Speaker 4: So police officers are only allowed to shoot into a
27:13
Speaker 4: car if the driver poses an immediate deadly threat to
27:18
Speaker 4: the officer or others. They're not allowed to shoot if
27:21
Speaker 4: someone is driving away from a traffic stop. So why
27:25
Speaker 4: are an ICE officers following that as well? Why are
27:29
Speaker 4: they shooting into cars even if the person they want
27:32
Speaker 4: to catch is fleeing the scene. They shouldn't be shooting
27:36
Speaker 4: into a car.
27:37
Speaker 10: I think the main problem is that when you go
27:41
Speaker 10: into work become an ICE agent, you are not trained
27:45
Speaker 10: in the same manner as a local police law enforcement official.
27:48
Speaker 10: I mean, the bread and butter of someone in a
27:51
Speaker 10: local police office is a traffic stop, and so that's
27:54
Speaker 10: the number one thing they're going to be trained as,
27:57
Speaker 10: whereas at ICE that's not the bread and butter. The
27:59
Speaker 10: bread and butter is you have to look at immigration
28:03
Speaker 10: documents and decide whether the person is undocumented or not,
28:06
Speaker 10: whether the person has legal status or not, And then
28:09
Speaker 10: you get trained for certain operations like going into a
28:12
Speaker 10: home or workplace. Very rarely is especially with the sort
28:17
Speaker 10: of tight compressed time periods that ICE is trying to
28:21
Speaker 10: roll out with agents on the street. Very rarely do
28:25
Speaker 10: you actually see a situation where people can be trained
28:29
Speaker 10: so quickly to handle in a professional and sophisticate a
28:33
Speaker 10: manner these traffic stops. The other thing is that the
28:36
Speaker 10: traffic stop for the local police officer is all about context.
28:42
Speaker 10: You know, is it a speeding ticket, Is it that
28:44
Speaker 10: I observe the person robbing a store? So the level
28:47
Speaker 10: of force and intervention is going to be different. In
28:50
Speaker 10: the ICE context, it's always about I'm trying to apprehend
28:54
Speaker 10: someone to place them in removal proceedings, And so the
28:58
Speaker 10: question is, well, what are you that off of? You know,
29:01
Speaker 10: are you basing that off of how they look or
29:03
Speaker 10: did you have a warrant to go apprehend them? And
29:06
Speaker 10: so you may not be observing a crime that's leading
29:10
Speaker 10: to this stop. And so those two things are what
29:13
Speaker 10: make these situations more combustible than a normal police stop
29:17
Speaker 10: is that the genesis for why the stop is occurring
29:20
Speaker 10: may have some problem. Number one and number two, the
29:25
Speaker 10: training as to what the officer is doing isn't targeted
29:29
Speaker 10: for this specific type of law enforcement. If ICE wants
29:32
Speaker 10: to do these traffic stops, they're going to have to
29:34
Speaker 10: implement the same kind of training that the NYPD or
29:38
Speaker 10: the LAPD or the Chicago PD has on how to
29:41
Speaker 10: do traffic stops. And those are not short term trainings.
29:45
Speaker 10: Those are very long term trainings in their police academies
29:48
Speaker 10: to try to resolve those issues.
29:50
Speaker 4: So what happened. President Trump didn't like the coverage.
29:54
Speaker 10: Yeah, there was a lot of social media criticism of
29:56
Speaker 10: Secretary Mullen that happened immediately after this announcement was made
30:01
Speaker 10: that traffic stops would be curtailed. And President Trump saw
30:06
Speaker 10: all of the social media criticism and said, wait a second,
30:09
Speaker 10: I don't want to get criticized. Because the social media
30:12
Speaker 10: criticism was very strong, saying that he had abandoned his
30:15
Speaker 10: pledge to have immigration enforcement. There was no more immigration
30:19
Speaker 10: enforcement in America, you know, the amnesty people won. It
30:23
Speaker 10: was very harsh criticism, and so President Trump said, do
30:26
Speaker 10: not limit the amount of traffic stops that you're doing.
30:30
Speaker 10: Take away this policy. And so immediately the policy was
30:34
Speaker 10: taken away. Now the question is what does it mean
30:37
Speaker 10: that the policy was taken away versus what's actually going
30:40
Speaker 10: to be happening on the ground. And so I do
30:43
Speaker 10: think the sort of suspension was taken away so that then,
30:47
Speaker 10: putatively the Trump administration can say, hey, the suspension was
30:52
Speaker 10: taken away. But as a factual matter, I think the
30:55
Speaker 10: leadership at ICE recognizes that everyone could benefit more from
31:00
Speaker 10: a closer look at what is being done in traffic
31:05
Speaker 10: stops and how it's being done, and how it's being taught,
31:08
Speaker 10: and how it's being drained, so that if these traffic
31:11
Speaker 10: stops are going to happen, they have the least likelihood
31:15
Speaker 10: of leading to a death as possible. And so I
31:18
Speaker 10: do think as a practical matter, you will see changes
31:22
Speaker 10: to how these are done, because they were really trying
31:25
Speaker 10: to roll them out in sort of a pilot program
31:29
Speaker 10: to replace the house arrest, and I think there may
31:32
Speaker 10: be reconsidering that to say, I don't think we can
31:34
Speaker 10: do that in all circumstances.
31:37
Speaker 4: President Trump called the traffic stop one of ICE's most
31:41
Speaker 4: important and effective crime fighting tools. Of course, they're not
31:46
Speaker 4: fighting crime, really, they're making immigration arrests. And we know
31:50
Speaker 4: there's this self imposed goal of two thousand immigration arrests
31:55
Speaker 4: a day. How important are the traffic stops, because as
31:59
Speaker 4: I under stand, the two people who were killed in
32:02
Speaker 4: the latest traffic stops weren't even the targets of the operation, right.
32:08
Speaker 10: I think the problem is it's going to depend on
32:11
Speaker 10: whether the purpose of the traffic stop is to increase
32:15
Speaker 10: the number of arrests or to replace an arrest that
32:18
Speaker 10: would have already occurred inside of a home. So if
32:21
Speaker 10: it's to replace an arrest that was already going to
32:23
Speaker 10: occur inside of a home, then absolutely that the number
32:27
Speaker 10: isn't going to be increased too much. I mean, maybe
32:30
Speaker 10: you just need a slightly lower number of people to
32:32
Speaker 10: accomplish the arrests, So you can have slightly more arrests
32:36
Speaker 10: by replacing home arrests with traffic arrests. But what will
32:40
Speaker 10: really ratchet up the number of arrests is if you
32:43
Speaker 10: go back to the mode where we were at in
32:46
Speaker 10: twenty twenty five, when there were some real conflagrations in
32:49
Speaker 10: Los Angeles and in Chicago and in some other places
32:53
Speaker 10: where what you tell ice is if you see people
32:56
Speaker 10: coming out of a home depot, just arrest then and
32:59
Speaker 10: pull them out of their you see people coming out
33:01
Speaker 10: of some sort of construction side or whatever else, and
33:06
Speaker 10: you think they look suspicious, go ahead and arrest them.
33:10
Speaker 10: That's the kind of operation where again you'll see more
33:15
Speaker 10: public facing criticism of the ICE officers. You'll see people
33:20
Speaker 10: who were not prepared to get arrested, who may act
33:24
Speaker 10: in manners that show that non preparedness in terms of
33:27
Speaker 10: trying to escape, and those are going to be the
33:30
Speaker 10: places where Iceland has these security challenges about how to
33:33
Speaker 10: prevent these deaths from occurring during their operations.
33:37
Speaker 4: There have been ten deaths in encounters with immigration agents
33:42
Speaker 4: since CHUMP launched this mass deportation campaign last year. By
33:48
Speaker 4: my count, five of them involved an ICE officer shooting
33:53
Speaker 4: into a car, and we've had the high profile ones
33:57
Speaker 4: like Renee Goods in Minnesota. The first one was in
34:02
Speaker 4: March of twenty twenty five, where a twenty three year
34:05
Speaker 4: old US citizen was shot during an immigration stop. And
34:11
Speaker 4: yet none of the ICE officers have been charged with
34:14
Speaker 4: anything in any of these incidents.
34:18
Speaker 10: That's an issue because again you have two different problems.
34:21
Speaker 10: You have one that in order for a state or
34:24
Speaker 10: local prosecutor to charge them, they basically have to be
34:27
Speaker 10: able to say that they've acted so far outside the
34:30
Speaker 10: scope of their employment that they're basically murderer, so it'd
34:33
Speaker 10: be that someone got killed during an ICE action, But
34:37
Speaker 10: essentially imagining an ICE agent just going and getting into
34:41
Speaker 10: a bar fight and murdering someone while they were on
34:43
Speaker 10: duty just because they didn't like the person they met
34:46
Speaker 10: at the bar fight, then the state or local prosecutor
34:49
Speaker 10: could arrest them. But if they were in an ICE stop,
34:52
Speaker 10: then it's going to be much harder. There's going to
34:54
Speaker 10: be a higher immunity that attaches to their actions that
34:58
Speaker 10: will prevent the state or low prosecutor for prosecuting them.
35:02
Speaker 10: So what are you left with. You're left with the
35:03
Speaker 10: Department of Justice having to be the prosecuting authority, and
35:08
Speaker 10: they would only do that if either they received a
35:10
Speaker 10: criminal referral from the ICE or the Department of Homeland
35:14
Speaker 10: Security saying this agent acted improperly they should be prosecuted,
35:18
Speaker 10: which we've seen no investigation that has yielded that outcome
35:22
Speaker 10: that has said that an agent has acted improperly, or
35:25
Speaker 10: that the Department of Justice just takes matters into their
35:28
Speaker 10: own hands and says that an agent acted improperly and
35:31
Speaker 10: prosecutes them, and we just have not seen that happen.
35:36
Speaker 10: I think this administration has made it very clear that
35:38
Speaker 10: it believes the ICE agents are acting appropriately and they
35:43
Speaker 10: do not want to send the message that ICE agents
35:45
Speaker 10: can be prosecuted for the actions they are undertaking on duty.
35:49
Speaker 6: You know.
35:50
Speaker 10: The upside of that is that the agents feel protected,
35:52
Speaker 10: their morale is higher. The downside of that is that
35:55
Speaker 10: you could have incidents where the ICE agent certainly did
35:58
Speaker 10: violate the law happens so that they're not held accountable.
36:02
Speaker 4: I think there's a serious problem with the immunity that
36:05
Speaker 4: federal agents get. Thanks so much, Leon. That's Leon Fresco
36:10
Speaker 4: of Hollanden Knight and that's it for this edition of
36:12
Speaker 4: the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the
36:15
Speaker 4: latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can
36:18
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36:23
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36:30
Speaker 4: pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening
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Speaker 4: to Bloomberg