Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: A broad legal challenge to President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs
Speaker 2: comes from five small businesses, an online fishing gear company,
Speaker 2: a New York wine importer, a toy kitmaker, a plumbing
Speaker 2: manufacturer in Utah, and a women cycling apparel brand in Vermont.
Speaker 2: The suit argues that the tariffs will harm the businesses
Speaker 2: by increasing costs, reducing demand, and disrupting supply chains, potentially
Speaker 2: leading to bankruptcy. My guest is Iliah Suhman, a law
Speaker 2: professor at George Mason University who's co counsel in the case.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the International Economic Emergency Powers Act that
Speaker 2: President Trump invoked in imposing these tariffs.
Speaker 3: It's an act and action in nineteen seventy seven intended
Speaker 3: to enable the President to use various types of economic
Speaker 3: sanctions in the event of some kind of emergency or crisis.
Speaker 3: In particular, the Act says it can only be used
Speaker 3: when the President declares a national emergency, and even then,
Speaker 3: the emergency has to be with respect to an extraordinary
Speaker 3: and unusual threat to US economy, security, and the white
Speaker 3: disseminating from abroad. So it's intended to be used in
Speaker 3: response to some sort of crisis that suddenly arises. And
Speaker 3: I would note the Act nowhere mentions tariffs as one
Speaker 3: of the powers that the President is able to exercise
Speaker 3: under it.
Speaker 2: So in your lawsuit, you say this court should declare
Speaker 2: the president's unprecedented power grab illegal. Explain the reasons why.
Speaker 3: We have a whole bunch of reasons. Why start off
Speaker 3: from the fact that this statute doesn't even mention tariffs,
Speaker 3: and therefore we argue it doesn't authorize the use of tariffs.
Speaker 3: It may authorize the use of other kinds of economic
Speaker 3: sanctions in some situations, but not terriff. But let's assume
Speaker 3: for a second it does authrize prap. Still, those tariffs
Speaker 3: can only be used in the event of a national emergency.
Speaker 3: An emergency is a sudden, unexpected crisis, like, for example,
Speaker 3: the COVID pandemic that was an emergency. However, bilateral trade
Speaker 3: deficits for various countries they're not a crisis. They're not
Speaker 3: an unexpected problem given that they have existed for many decades,
Speaker 3: and they're not even really a problem at all, because
Speaker 3: having a bilateral deficit with a particular a country is
Speaker 3: no more a crisis or a problem than me having
Speaker 3: a trade deficit with my local supermarket. I buy from
Speaker 3: them all the time, but sadly they virtually never buy
Speaker 3: any of my books. I wish they would buy more
Speaker 3: of them, but it's not a crisis or a problem.
Speaker 3: And similarly, if, for instance, Canada or Mexico or some
Speaker 3: other country, we buy more from them than vice versa,
Speaker 3: that's not any kind of economic crisis or problem. Anyway,
Speaker 3: then it's certainly not an emergency. But let's assume courts
Speaker 3: say we're going to defert in the president's declaring an emergency.
Speaker 3: Still there has to be an extraordinary and unusual threat.
Speaker 3: It's very obvious that there's nothing extraordinary and unusual about
Speaker 3: bilateral trade deficits of various countries. We've had them for
Speaker 3: many decades. They're an inevitable aspect of international commerce to
Speaker 3: some degree, and they're not a thread at all, much
Speaker 3: less being an extraordinary or unusual threat. Then the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court has said in several important decisions over the last
Speaker 3: few years that when the executive says it has the
Speaker 3: power to decide a major economic for a social or
Speaker 3: political question, that they have to show the Congress clearly
Speaker 3: delegated that power to them. It's not enough to have
Speaker 3: an ambiguous statute here. It's very obvious that this is
Speaker 3: a major question. Indeed, it's the biggest major question I've
Speaker 3: ever seen in all my years of studying this doctrine,
Speaker 3: because we're talking about the biggest tax increase on Americans
Speaker 3: decades and the biggest trade war since the Great Depression.
Speaker 3: If that is not a major question, I honestly do
Speaker 3: not know what is. And it's also obvious that at
Speaker 3: the very least it's not at all clear the Congress
Speaker 3: is delegated under the statute the sweeping power to impose tariffs.
Speaker 4: Finally, if you.
Speaker 3: Do interpret the statute as delegating the power to impose
Speaker 3: tariffs in this situation, which would essentially mean the president
Speaker 3: could impose any tariff at any rate on any country
Speaker 3: that he wants, for any reason, at any time, that
Speaker 3: would bylight constitutional rules against excessive delegation of legislative power
Speaker 3: to the executive. Those rules are not completely clear, and
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court's president. But if you believe there are
Speaker 3: any limits on congress visibility to delegate power to the
Speaker 3: executive at all, then you've got to say those limits
Speaker 3: are breached here, where again you see virtually total user
Speaker 3: pations of the power over tariffs. So if we were
Speaker 3: to lose on these other previous points that I made,
Speaker 3: then the court, I think, would have to rule that
Speaker 3: this is unconstitutional unless they want to say there are
Speaker 3: no limits whatsoever to Congress's power to delegate its authority
Speaker 3: to the executive Because if they can just say, as
Speaker 3: the administration claims, they have said that the president could
Speaker 3: just enact any tariffs he wants at any time, for
Speaker 3: any reason, in any magnitude, then you might as well
Speaker 3: just say that, you know, Congress could similarly completely delegate
Speaker 3: them the power to impose income taxes or virtually any
Speaker 3: other powers.
Speaker 2: Does it fit in anywhere that Trump's methodology in calculating
Speaker 2: these tariffs seems odd.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the methodology is completely ridiculous. And this further underscores
Speaker 3: the fact that there is no emergency and no extraordinary
Speaker 3: and unusual threats, because what these tariffs are doing is
Speaker 3: totally unrelated, even in many cases, to whether there really
Speaker 3: is a deficit or not, or any kind of reciprocity.
Speaker 3: Even countries would wish we have a trade surplus still
Speaker 3: are included within these very high tariffs, and even countries
Speaker 3: like Switzerland and Israel, which imposed no tariffs whatsoever on
Speaker 3: US goods, they are still hit with high tariffs under
Speaker 3: Trump's formula thirty one percent in the case of Switzerland
Speaker 3: seventeen percent when it comes to Israel.
Speaker 2: Congress doesn't seem inclined to stop Trump and the tariffs.
Speaker 3: There is a bypartisan movement in Congress to try to
Speaker 3: do that. I fear those that even if that effort
Speaker 3: were to result in the passage of a law, Trump
Speaker 3: would be to it. And at this point I do
Speaker 3: not believe there are veto proof majorities to override that.
Speaker 2: So a lot of times with these lawsuits over Trump's
Speaker 2: executive actions, some of which courts have found unconstitutional or
Speaker 2: illegal for whatever reason, the courts can't act fast enough
Speaker 2: to stop the harm from occurring. So a lot of
Speaker 2: harm as are ready occurred according to the plaintiffs in
Speaker 2: your case, How fast do you think you can get
Speaker 2: a court to rule on this?
Speaker 3: So I think the court has considerable discretion over that.
Speaker 3: But we will be speaking a preliminary injunction and a
Speaker 3: temporary training order, which if we get it with blocks
Speaker 3: the tariffs from being implemented while the case is litigated
Speaker 3: to a final decision, and similar CROs techemporary's training orders
Speaker 3: and preliminary injunctions have been granted in a number of
Speaker 3: other cases challenging Trump's action. The birth rights citizenship cases
Speaker 3: are a pretty clearly notable example.
Speaker 2: So do you think you can meet the high standard
Speaker 2: for getting a tro or preliminary injunction.
Speaker 3: We believe we can. Obviously, it'll be up to the
Speaker 3: court to this side.
Speaker 2: There have been a few other lawsuits over Trump's tariffs,
Speaker 2: one over the Canada tariffs and one over the first
Speaker 2: China tariffs. Is your lawsuit broader than any of those
Speaker 2: other suits?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this lawsuit is much broader in that, as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: one of those lawsuits, brought by members the Black Seat
Speaker 3: Nation Indian tribes, is specifically focused on Canada traffs, which
Speaker 3: affect members of that Native American nation. The other one
Speaker 3: is focused on the tariffs imposed on China in a
Speaker 3: separate emergency decoration justified by the supposed FNS no imports
Speaker 3: from China. Ours, on the other hand, targets the so
Speaker 3: called Liberation Day tariffs, which imposed trade restrictions on almost
Speaker 3: every nation in the world, and therefore the target we're
Speaker 3: shooting at is much larger and also much more damaging
Speaker 3: to the US economy and a bigger abuse of power. So
Speaker 3: I believe that those other two watsuits also have merit,
Speaker 3: because it's still the case that those other two watsuits
Speaker 3: are aimed the tariffs under AEPA, the same laws, which
Speaker 3: doesn't authorize those tariffs either. And I believe that those
Speaker 3: other emergency decorations are also focused and also are about
Speaker 3: things which are not an extraordinary and unusual threads. But
Speaker 3: in our case, the government's position is even more ridiculous
Speaker 3: than it is in those other two cases. And also
Speaker 3: our case deals with a bigger issue because the magnitude
Speaker 3: of these tariffs and a number of countries affected is
Speaker 3: much larger.
Speaker 2: And can you tell us a little about the plaintiffs.
Speaker 2: The small businesses that are plaintiffs in.
Speaker 3: This case, The plaintiffs' trill small to medium sized businesses
Speaker 3: that import from a wide range of countries. They range
Speaker 3: in different industries from wineries to cycling, apparel and items
Speaker 3: for children, And what they have in common is that
Speaker 3: they import from countries that are tariffs severely under the
Speaker 3: President's policy, and their businesses will be severely damaged unless
Speaker 3: the tariffs are withed. And obviously their customers also suffer
Speaker 3: from having higher prices. And if these businesses go under,
Speaker 3: which could happen as a results of tariffs, obviously the
Speaker 3: products that they sell will no longer be available in
Speaker 3: the same way to the customers. So these five businesses,
Speaker 3: whose situation is described in more detail at the Liberty
Speaker 3: Justice Central website where we posted this information, they're a
Speaker 3: microcosm of the broader, enormous damage that these tariffs will
Speaker 3: due to our economy and less we are.
Speaker 2: Able to stop them and tell us about some of
Speaker 2: the practical implications of allowing the president to impose these tariffs.
Speaker 3: So, I think, in addition to the purely legal issues,
Speaker 3: it is just extremely dangerous to allow one man to
Speaker 3: have essentially total control of tariffs and be able to
Speaker 3: rip up at a US trade agreement at each time
Speaker 3: he wants and destroy the world in US economy at
Speaker 3: each time he wants. That makes this virtually impossible to
Speaker 3: have meaningful trade agreements between the US and other countries,
Speaker 3: because the President to just violate them at any time
Speaker 3: as he's now dealing with the USMPA agreements that he
Speaker 3: himself negotiated with Canada and Mexico. And also it destroys
Speaker 3: the certainty and predictability the businesses, investors and consumers needs.
Speaker 3: Why to invest in a factory or sign a contract
Speaker 3: to the liver goods if you know that, you know
Speaker 3: the arrangement can be destroyed at any time by you know,
Speaker 3: the President waking up on the wrong side of his
Speaker 3: bed and imposing massive tariffs that you make your arrangement unworkable.
Speaker 3: And you know that is the kind of thing that
Speaker 3: businesses in all kinds of industries have been telling us,
Speaker 3: and economists across the political spectrum.
Speaker 2: Also agreed, why did you decide to take part in
Speaker 2: this particular litigation?
Speaker 3: So I'm a law professor. I teach constitutional laws, and
Speaker 3: in particular I've had an interest in issues related to
Speaker 3: non delegation and major questions. So what I saw in February,
Speaker 3: these initial attempts to use AIPA the same statute against
Speaker 3: Canada and Mexico and China, I wrote a piece online
Speaker 3: explaining some of the kinds of arguments that I just
Speaker 3: outlined to you lawyers at the Liberty Justice Center of
Speaker 3: Public Interest law firms bomb I Piece. They contacted me
Speaker 3: and they said the arrengement potentially bringing along on this basis,
Speaker 3: and when the Liberation Day tariffs happened, we saw that,
Speaker 3: you know, now is the time to do this, and
Speaker 3: they invited me to work with them on the case,
Speaker 3: which Chili was more than happy to do.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much for joining us today to talk
Speaker 2: about it. That's law. Professor Ilia Sohman of George Mason
Speaker 2: University and the State of California filed a suit today
Speaker 2: over the tariffs, with arguments echoing those in the suit
Speaker 2: by the small businesses. I'm June grossoh and you're listening
Speaker 2: to Bloomberg. The nation's oldest and wealthiest university is digging
Speaker 2: in for a fight with the Trump administration as it
Speaker 2: attempts to reshape American higher education. This week, Harvard became
Speaker 2: the first university to openly defy the Trump administration as
Speaker 2: it demands sweeping changes to comply with Trump's political agenda.
Speaker 2: In response, the federal government says it's freezing more than
Speaker 2: two point two billion dollars in grants and sixty million
Speaker 2: dollars in contract to Harvard. The hold on funding marks
Speaker 2: the seventh time the Trump administration has taken such a
Speaker 2: step at one of the nation's most elite colleges. Harvard's
Speaker 2: professors already sued the administration on Friday over its demands,
Speaker 2: and joining me is one of those professors, Ryan Enos,
Speaker 2: a professor of government at Harvard. Ryan, can you tell
Speaker 2: us about the latest demands that Trump administration made for
Speaker 2: changes at Harvard?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, you know, these were demands that the federal
Speaker 4: government and the actually, I shouldn't even say the federal government.
Speaker 4: These are demands that the Trump administration and his loyalists
Speaker 4: in there have a direct role in the political ideology
Speaker 4: of faculty and students. And that is something that should
Speaker 4: really shock people because, you know, it's reminiscent of the
Speaker 4: type of demands that would come out of for example,
Speaker 4: MAOIs China, where they were a check on loyalty to
Speaker 4: the regime among their intellectuals. And not only that, also
Speaker 4: reminiscent of Maoice China. What it asked for was that
Speaker 4: there essentially be a system of reporting where people could
Speaker 4: report whether or not, you know, Harvard was staying loyal
Speaker 4: to these demands made by the Trump administration and if
Speaker 4: their reporting was unsatisfied, that there'd be consequences for that.
Speaker 4: So in many ways, those were the most shocking parts
Speaker 4: of those demands from the administration.
Speaker 2: And this has all been couched in the accusations of
Speaker 2: Harvard mishandling anti semitism on the campus. The orders went
Speaker 2: far beyond that.
Speaker 4: They did go far beyond it, and I think that
Speaker 4: that is an important question for the following reason. What
Speaker 4: it does is that reveals that what the Trump administration
Speaker 4: was doing was not actually anything that actually addressed any
Speaker 4: posed concerns with anti semitism, but was rather a pretext
Speaker 4: for taking away power from universities. And that is what
Speaker 4: authoritarians have done all across the world. Is when they
Speaker 4: want to attack civil society and take power away from it,
Speaker 4: what they do is they attack universities first under some
Speaker 4: kind of pretext. And I can talk about lots of
Speaker 4: examples of that. So Vladimir Putin attacked universities in Russia,
Speaker 4: Erduban attacked universities in Turkey, Victor Orbon attacked universities in Hungary,
Speaker 4: Hugo Chavez attacked them in Venezuela. And when we look
Speaker 4: at these examples in every case, they have some kind
Speaker 4: of a pretext, you know. Edrigan said it was because
Speaker 4: of support for terrorism among professors, which maybe shows down
Speaker 4: familiar to you when you hear some of the rhetoric
Speaker 4: coming out of the Trump administration. And this was simply
Speaker 4: because professors have signed petitions condemning the Turkish government's war
Speaker 4: on kurts and then he eventually spread that to a
Speaker 4: purging of all the universities. So that should sound familiar
Speaker 4: to you where the Trump administration is the saying things
Speaker 4: like support for terrorists on these campuses that is anti
Speaker 4: Semitic or something like that, and then we are going
Speaker 4: to come in and take control over who can be
Speaker 4: the faculty at a university in Hungary, Orabon's complained about
Speaker 4: foreign influence on the universities where he said there was
Speaker 4: dangerous foreign influence, and then he used that as a
Speaker 4: reason for the government to seize control of the universities
Speaker 4: and eventually fire faculty and remake the faculty in those
Speaker 4: universities as well. So there's always the pretext for these
Speaker 4: kinds of things. And many of us have been saying
Speaker 4: for quite some time that that was just a pretext
Speaker 4: that the Trump administration did not actually care about any
Speaker 4: kind of policy, and it most certainly does not care
Speaker 4: about anti Semitism, and that should be plainly obvious to everybody,
Speaker 4: because of course the Trump administration seems to coddle and
Speaker 4: sometimes even platform anti Semites, and so if you know,
Speaker 4: obviously it doesn't care about those things, and that of
Speaker 4: course was played out, was shown to be true when
Speaker 4: they set these list of demands. It had nothing to
Speaker 4: do with anti Semitism. It was rather just excuses to
Speaker 4: bring universities under his power.
Speaker 2: So you have billions of dollars in federal funds and
Speaker 2: hanging in the balance. How do you weigh that against
Speaker 2: what you're trying to protect as an institution.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I think it's important to emphasize just what
Speaker 4: crucial moment this is for American society, and not just
Speaker 4: higher education, but American society more generally. And what I
Speaker 4: mean by that is, I don't think you will find
Speaker 4: an American anywhere that is going to say we are
Speaker 4: willing to trade our freedom for you know, saving some
Speaker 4: kind of money. You can't put a price on freedom.
Speaker 4: You can't put a price on freedom speech, you can't
Speaker 4: put a price on freedom of conscience. You can't put
Speaker 4: a price on the freedom to think and write what
Speaker 4: we want. And it should be very clear to everybody
Speaker 4: that that is what the Trump administration is doing. You know,
Speaker 4: they have picked up students off the streets for things
Speaker 4: they wrote in student newspapers, and you know, there cannot
Speaker 4: be a clearer attack on free speech. There cannot be
Speaker 4: a clearer attack on free speech and trying to control
Speaker 4: the ideology of university professors. And so ultimately, you know,
Speaker 4: I would rather Harvard give away, you know, billions and
Speaker 4: billions of dollars rather than bow to a regime that
Speaker 4: is trying to curtail our liberties. And I think most
Speaker 4: Americans would agree with that. But I think it's also
Speaker 4: worth saying that the long term economic health of these universities,
Speaker 4: of course, does mean that they stand up for the
Speaker 4: rule of law now, because things like federal grants and
Speaker 4: the relationship between federal scientific funding and universities require that
Speaker 4: that is set by the rule of law. That you know,
Speaker 4: that money that is appropriated by Congress eventually gets to
Speaker 4: those universities, not that it can be controlled on the
Speaker 4: whim of a president who tries to punish his political enemies,
Speaker 4: and so you know, Harvard could choose to save two
Speaker 4: billion dollars now, but what happens the next time it
Speaker 4: does something that upsets the Trump administration, They're just going
Speaker 4: to try to take that money away again. So, you know,
Speaker 4: just like with a schoolyard bully that just keeps coming
Speaker 4: back for your lunch money, you know, you have to
Speaker 4: put your foot down and say, you know, you're essentially
Speaker 4: gonna have to fight me over that. And I think
Speaker 4: that's what Harvard has done, and it's of course the
Speaker 4: right move in the long term.
Speaker 2: From an outside view, it seems like Trump is holding
Speaker 2: all the cards. So now he's escalating the fight by
Speaker 2: threatening Harvard's tax exempt status.
Speaker 4: Right. Well, one thing to keep in mind, of course,
Speaker 4: is that Trump has no legal authority to do that. Right.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm not a lawyer, but I know some
Speaker 4: very good lawyers at Harvard Law School, and they say,
Speaker 4: you know this is you know clear as day that
Speaker 4: first of all, you know, these original claims to withhold
Speaker 4: are illegal, even setting aside the First Amendment, they're illegal
Speaker 4: by statutory law, and claims to take away tax exempt
Speaker 4: status is against statutory law as well, because those things
Speaker 4: are supposed to be decided by a review of the facts,
Speaker 4: not by order the president of the United States. And
Speaker 4: so the point in all this is that Harvard in
Speaker 4: many ways is holding the cards because it can fight
Speaker 4: these things in court and will probably win. Now, the danger,
Speaker 4: of course, is that you know, the Trump administration can
Speaker 4: just find reasons to keep coming and that's going to
Speaker 4: be expensive for Harvard, there's no doubt. But Harvard also
Speaker 4: needs to fight this thing in the court of public opinion,
Speaker 4: you know, And that's one way you defeat authoritarians is
Speaker 4: you prove what they're doing is very unpopular. There's a
Speaker 4: lot of political science on this, for example, and in
Speaker 4: the long run, I think that Harvard has win an
Speaker 4: argument on this, which is that in the United States,
Speaker 4: we don't tell universities what they can and can't do.
Speaker 4: We don't tell people what they can and can't think,
Speaker 4: and we don't tell them what they can and can't say.
Speaker 4: That is not what freedom of speech is about here.
Speaker 2: Do you think that when other universities capitulate and try
Speaker 2: to meet his demands like Columbia did, do you think
Speaker 2: it hurts Harvard's position?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, it definitely does. I mean but I think there,
Speaker 4: of course, can be a domino effect on these things.
Speaker 4: And you know, a lot of people have been arguing
Speaker 4: that when universities start to fall, it makes it harder
Speaker 4: for other ones to stand up and fight back. But
Speaker 4: you know, of course, what we also see is the
Speaker 4: opposite that can occur too, that when one university stands up,
Speaker 4: that other universities can stand up and fight back as well.
Speaker 4: And you know, one of the reasons that so many
Speaker 4: people had been urging Harvard to do the right thing
Speaker 4: was because Harvard had the resources to stand up to
Speaker 4: take these punches, if you will, for other universities that
Speaker 4: also wanted to stand up. And you know, in many ways,
Speaker 4: it's sort of fulfilling a duty that comes with it
Speaker 4: being the richest and most famous university in the world,
Speaker 4: is to fulfill his duty to society.
Speaker 2: And jellibet the lawsuit by the university's professors, so you.
Speaker 4: Know, the AUP, which I'm a member of, filed a
Speaker 4: lawsuit against the Trump administration, saying that it had violated
Speaker 4: not only the free speech of protections that all Americans enjoy,
Speaker 4: but also that it had violated statutory law by not
Speaker 4: going through the proper process of withholding funds through Title
Speaker 4: STIX of the Civil Rights Law, which is what the
Speaker 4: Trump administration is pointing to, because those require that if
Speaker 4: there is a violation, which a Trump administration didn't show,
Speaker 4: but that those be targeted to the specific units where
Speaker 4: that violation had occurred, not that they're held over or
Speaker 4: an institution more generally. And so the newly formed AUPA
Speaker 4: chapter that was just formed last year filed suit against
Speaker 4: the Trump administration based on that.
Speaker 2: And AAUP standing for American Association of University Professors for
Speaker 2: those not in.
Speaker 4: The know, but you know, I should say that what
Speaker 4: I do here from many many other professors across the
Speaker 4: country is people that were waiting for Harvard to stand
Speaker 4: up and join it. And of course what we see
Speaker 4: now is we've seen a lot of faculty, in fact,
Speaker 4: we're getting ready to release some information on this tomorrow
Speaker 4: where faculty from across the country at least at seventeen
Speaker 4: different universities have signed letters to their leadership like we
Speaker 4: signed here at Harvard, asking them to essentially join the
Speaker 4: fight against these sort of attacks.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you think this is Trump waging a
Speaker 2: war on the elite or it's something different.
Speaker 4: It's not just a war on the elite. You know,
Speaker 4: attacking elites is part of that, of course, because you
Speaker 4: know that's what populists do, and Trump's trying to sell
Speaker 4: himself even though he is the most you know, elite
Speaker 4: of people you could possibly imagine, and so like many
Speaker 4: things Trump does, it rings hollow. But part of it
Speaker 4: is this kind of populist attack on elites. But it
Speaker 4: goes deeper than that, because what Trump is trying to
Speaker 4: do is to attack pillars of civil society that allow
Speaker 4: for descent. And the reason we know that is because
Speaker 4: if you look at every authoritarian, including ones that Trump
Speaker 4: openly admires, like Arabon and Pudin, what they do is
Speaker 4: they attack three pillars of civil society that can push
Speaker 4: back against the government. They attack lawyers, they attack the press,
Speaker 4: and they attack universities. And that is exactly what Trump
Speaker 4: is doing. That fits the pattern exactly. And so it's
Speaker 4: not about someplace being elite, but it's about a place
Speaker 4: being a home of free thought that could provide descent
Speaker 4: to what the regime is trying to do.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the conversation, Ryan. That's Harvard professor Ryan Enos.
Speaker 1: He was deported. They needed one additional step in paperwork,
Speaker 1: but now MS thirteen is characterized as they should be,
Speaker 1: as an FTO, as a foreign terrorist organization, so he
Speaker 1: is not coming back to our country.
Speaker 2: Attorney General Pam Bondi is doubling down on the Trump
Speaker 2: administration's assertion that Kilmore Abrego Garcia, who is deported to L.
Speaker 2: Salvador in violation of a court order, will not be
Speaker 2: returning to the United States, placing the blame on L.
Speaker 2: Salvador's president.
Speaker 1: He is not coming back to our country. President Buquele
Speaker 1: said he was not sending him back. That's the end
Speaker 1: of the story.
Speaker 2: But it appears to be far from the end of
Speaker 2: the story. Just last Friday, the Supreme Court ordered the
Speaker 2: government to quote facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in L.
Speaker 2: Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as
Speaker 2: it would have been had he not been improperly sent
Speaker 2: to L. Salvador, and the federal judge overseeing Garcia's case
Speaker 2: has threatened to find the government in contempt of court
Speaker 2: and ordered depositions of administration officials, citing a lack of
Speaker 2: evidence that steps have been taken to return him. Joining
Speaker 2: me is David Voriakiz Bloomberg Legal reporter David tell us
Speaker 2: about the hearing yesterday about Garcia.
Speaker 5: The Federal District judge in Greenbelt, Maryland, Paulaxinis, questioned a
Speaker 5: Justice Department lawyer closely about why they had not given
Speaker 5: details to her about what they're doing to return mister
Speaker 5: Abrego Garcia. As you recall, he was wrongly deported last
Speaker 5: month to a megaprison in Al Salvador, and a judge
Speaker 5: in twenty nineteen said in an immigration court that he
Speaker 5: could not be deported to El Salador. The US later
Speaker 5: admitted that he was wrongly deported. The judge now wants
Speaker 5: to know why the US has not given her answers
Speaker 5: about what they're doing to facilitate his return. And this
Speaker 5: case has gone to the Supreme Court, which ordered the
Speaker 5: United States to work to facilitate his return. She's trying
Speaker 5: to execute that order and she's growing frustrated because the
Speaker 5: Justice Department is not giving her answers. So at the
Speaker 5: hearing yesterday, Judge Zenas said the US has two weeks
Speaker 5: to provide answers and that officials from the Trump administration
Speaker 5: would have to answer questions under oath about what they've
Speaker 5: done or not done.
Speaker 2: I mean, did the Trump administration lawyers say, yes, your honor,
Speaker 2: we'll comply with that.
Speaker 5: They, as they have in the past, disagreed with the
Speaker 5: judge's interpretation of the law in this case. That led
Speaker 5: to her further frustration. She felt there was no reason
Speaker 5: for disagreement, but the Justice Department lawyer repeatedly said that
Speaker 5: we need to figure out what facilitate means here, what
Speaker 5: the legal meaning of facilitation is, and she believes that
Speaker 5: it's quite clear and the Supreme Court made it clear.
Speaker 5: But the Trump administration's position is that there's room for
Speaker 5: interpretation about just what the Supreme Court said.
Speaker 2: So we've talked before about that extraordinary Oval Office meeting
Speaker 2: with Bukele, the president of El Salvador, where basically he
Speaker 2: said he's not going to return Garcia, and the Attorney
Speaker 2: General said, well, it's up to l Salvador whether to
Speaker 2: return Garcia.
Speaker 5: Was that mentioned in this There was a discussion of
Speaker 5: that Oval Office meeting. The Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign
Speaker 5: raised it, and the judge essentially cut him off and said,
Speaker 5: I don't care what he said. I don't care about
Speaker 5: your press releases. It's not in a sworn court statement.
Speaker 5: I've asked you to give me filings that are under
Speaker 5: oath that you'll attest to, and you have not done that.
Speaker 2: So for right now, there's absolutely no movement to get
Speaker 2: Garcia out.
Speaker 5: That's correct. The movement is in the judge trying to
Speaker 5: nudge the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 5: for answers about why they have not acted to facilitate
Speaker 5: his release.
Speaker 2: I think this case is going back to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: It's just a question of how fast. And Today Marilynd
Speaker 2: Senator Chris van Holland traveled to l Salvador and met
Speaker 2: with the country's vice president to push for the release
Speaker 2: of Garcia.
Speaker 3: I told his wife and his family I would do
Speaker 3: everything possible to bring him home, and we're going to
Speaker 3: keep working at this until we're successful.
Speaker 2: Van Holland said the Vice president wouldn't even let him
Speaker 2: visit this notorious gang prison where Garcia is being held,
Speaker 2: and said that his government could not return Garcia to
Speaker 2: the United States. Let's turn to another case involving the
Speaker 2: deportations to El Salvador. Today, DC Federal Judge James Boseberg
Speaker 2: found probable cause to hold Trump administration officials in criminal
Speaker 2: contempt of court because of their actions in the deportations.
Speaker 2: Remind us how we got to this point, David.
Speaker 5: On March fifteenth, the US flew three flights to El
Speaker 5: Salvador with about two hundred and fifty suspected gang members,
Speaker 5: and about half of those were people who were deported
Speaker 5: under the Alien Enemies Act. And that afternoon, Judge Boseburg
Speaker 5: in Washington had a hearing in which he explicitly told
Speaker 5: the Justice Department lawyer that if there are flights in
Speaker 5: the air, I want them turned around and I want
Speaker 5: those planes back in the United States. He took a break,
Speaker 5: the Justice Department lawyer consulted with his superiors and said
Speaker 5: essentially he had no information to report to the judge.
Speaker 5: Of course, as it turned out, the planes landed and
Speaker 5: all of those people are in this megaprison in l Salvador.
Speaker 5: The judge then, in early April, had a hearing to
Speaker 5: consider whether he should bring contempt charges against the Trump
Speaker 5: administration for defying his oral order that day on March fifteenth,
Speaker 5: and today he issued in order that said there's probable
Speaker 5: cause to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for
Speaker 5: defying his order. He's given them an opportunity to correct
Speaker 5: whatever problems they committed, and we're waiting now to see
Speaker 5: what the Trump administration's response will be. He said that
Speaker 5: depending on that response, he may refer specific individuals who
Speaker 5: he has not identified yet, for criminal prosecution. If the
Speaker 5: Justice Department decides they will not pursue a prosecution of
Speaker 5: those individuals, which seems unlikely, Judge Bosburg would appoint his
Speaker 5: own lawyer to pursue it.
Speaker 2: The planes have already landed in El Salvador. The Venezuelans
Speaker 2: are in prison there. What could the Trump administration do
Speaker 2: to correct their mistake? Does he expect them to fly
Speaker 2: the more than two hundred people back, I mean, what
Speaker 2: could correct their mistake?
Speaker 5: Well, the judge has said essentially that potentially they could
Speaker 5: have the people returned to the US to make their
Speaker 5: case to a federal judge in the United States because
Speaker 5: they were deported without due process. That's the issue here
Speaker 5: is they had no opportunity to dispute whether they are
Speaker 5: gang members of Trenda Arragua, which the United States and
Speaker 5: President Trump cited in a March fifteenth proclamation that said
Speaker 5: they were subject to deportation as alien enemies.
Speaker 2: A complication is that the Supreme Court ruled that Judge
Speaker 2: Bosburg basically didn't have jurisdiction over the Venezuelans, that they
Speaker 2: had to try to get released through habeas corpus petitions
Speaker 2: in the place where they were being held. But he's
Speaker 2: acting as if he has jurisdiction over the Venezuelans in
Speaker 2: El Salvador.
Speaker 5: The judge said in his order today that even though
Speaker 5: the case was essentially transferred out from under him, he
Speaker 5: still retains jurisdiction to bring a contempt case because that
Speaker 5: would be a violation of the Constitution. He cited an
Speaker 5: eighteen nine Supreme Court opinion that said it would make
Speaker 5: a solemn mockery of the Constitution itself if administration officials
Speaker 5: willfully disobeyed judicial orders.
Speaker 2: And the Trump administration has already said that it's going
Speaker 2: to seek immediate appellate relief. No surprise there. Thanks so
Speaker 2: much for keeping us up to date on these cases. David.
Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg Legal reporter David Voriakis, and that's it for
Speaker 2: this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can
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