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