WEBVTT - Ilhan Omar Raid & Public Execution 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:07.040 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:07.060 --> 0:00:11.430 By doing it, maybe other people won't be doing what 0:00:11.470 --> 0:00:11.809 he did. 0:00:12.190 --> 0:00:14.270 So I'll make a decision ultimately. 0:00:14.790 --> 0:00:17.050 I know what the military would like to do, but 0:00:17.150 --> 0:00:18.130 we'll make a decision. 0:00:18.390 --> 0:00:22.329 President Donald Trump says he hasn't made a decision on 0:00:22.390 --> 0:00:26.940 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's plan to live stream the December 0:00:27.180 --> 0:00:32.480 3rd execution of Nidal Hassan. the former U.S. Army physician 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.860 who's been sentenced to death over the 2009 Fort Hood 0:00:36.940 --> 0:00:41.600 mass shooting that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others. 0:00:42.140 --> 0:00:46.059 The last public execution in our country took place almost 0:00:46.060 --> 0:00:51.250 100 years ago in the 1930s, and Hassan's execution would 0:00:51.290 --> 0:00:56.710 be the first by the U.S. military since 1961. Vice 0:00:56.770 --> 0:01:00.030 President J.D. Vance says he won't be watching. 0:01:00.470 --> 0:01:02.730 I hope that people don't forget that this is a 0:01:02.750 --> 0:01:05.890 guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people. Now, 0:01:05.930 --> 0:01:08.160 that said, I mean, look, if it's ultimately live streamed, 0:01:08.580 --> 0:01:09.500 I'm not going to be watching it. 0:01:09.730 --> 0:01:12.860 My guest is Richard Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame 0:01:12.890 --> 0:01:16.140 Law School and director of the school's program on church, 0:01:16.260 --> 0:01:20.480 state and society. Rick, first, give us your reaction to 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:26.039 this plan to live stream this execution by firing squad. 0:01:26.930 --> 0:01:30.630 Well, as you know, certainly there's a long history of 0:01:30.790 --> 0:01:34.470 public executions. We can think back to high school when 0:01:34.510 --> 0:01:37.440 we were reading Tale of Two Cities and the gleeful 0:01:37.470 --> 0:01:40.800 people knitting, watching people go to the guillotine. But that's 0:01:40.819 --> 0:01:44.300 something that we've moved away from pretty decisively in the 0:01:44.340 --> 0:01:47.360 last century or so. I think the international law consensus 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:51.490 is against public executions. Every state that has the death 0:01:51.550 --> 0:01:57.700 penalty has pretty elaborate protocols that limit access to these executions. procedures. 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.900 I think there are good reasons for that. There are 0:02:01.100 --> 0:02:05.480 broadcasting rules that would limit the depiction of any execution 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.280 over broadcast media. And I think there's a general sense, 0:02:08.340 --> 0:02:11.260 it's a sense that I would share that to make 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:15.530 something like this a public spectacle is not only demeaning 0:02:15.590 --> 0:02:19.310 to the person being punished, but it's coarsening of the culture. 0:02:19.790 --> 0:02:23.070 It's not good for the viewers, in my view. Now, 0:02:23.110 --> 0:02:25.470 some people would say, and there's something to this, that 0:02:25.690 --> 0:02:28.920 the modern regime of capital punishment has, in a sense, 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.980 been dishonest. We've hidden it away and we've given it 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:38.600 this kind of illusory form. coding of doctors and medicine 0:02:38.660 --> 0:02:40.200 and protocols and so on. 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.240 And that tends to obscure what's actually happening, of course. 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:46.700 But even with that said, I think the policy and 0:02:46.740 --> 0:02:51.810 the moral arguments against any proposal to televise or live 0:02:51.850 --> 0:02:54.750 stream the execution are by far the stronger ones. And 0:02:54.770 --> 0:02:56.630 if you want to add one more thing to the mix, 0:02:57.090 --> 0:02:59.549 it strikes me that it's just a very bad. 0:02:59.350 --> 0:03:00.710 Idea, given the. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:08.429 Publicly depict this person's execution, which would only have the effect, 0:03:08.510 --> 0:03:11.370 I think, of inflaming people around the world who might 0:03:11.450 --> 0:03:15.230 share his ideological hostility to America. So I see a 0:03:15.270 --> 0:03:18.080 lot of arguments against it and no good arguments for it. 0:03:18.130 --> 0:03:19.820 And then just because I'm a lawyer, let me add 0:03:19.900 --> 0:03:20.399 one more thing. 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.500 I think it's probably illegal. Well, that's important. 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:25.060 So explain why you think it's illegal. 0:03:25.580 --> 0:03:28.560 Probably. Well, we have state governments, we have the federal government, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.889 and this is a special case because, you know, it's 0:03:30.930 --> 0:03:34.600 coming out of the military context. Obviously, the The military 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.180 context is one that courts defer to a fair bit. 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.560 I think it's really clear that state law and federal 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.720 law do not permit live streaming. There's a question about 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:49.280 whether the relevant military regulations permit it. My understanding is 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.080 that Secretary Hegseth is of the view that because it's 0:03:53.140 --> 0:03:57.650 not explicitly prohibited, that means that it's permitted. But I 0:03:57.690 --> 0:04:01.030 think it's pretty clear in the regulations, which set out 0:04:01.070 --> 0:04:04.670 a very limited definition list of people who are going 0:04:04.710 --> 0:04:08.050 to be permitted to observe, that that list is clearly 0:04:08.110 --> 0:04:11.390 intended to be exclusive, and it was intended to keep 0:04:11.450 --> 0:04:16.609 the proceedings private. So if this matter were to be litigated, again, 0:04:16.630 --> 0:04:18.989 there often is going to be deference to the military, 0:04:19.029 --> 0:04:23.370 but I would expect courts to say that this isn't authorized. 0:04:24.089 --> 0:04:28.339 In other words, if this were in a So basically, 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.290 you couldn't live stream an execution in one of the states, 0:04:32.610 --> 0:04:35.490 but because it's the military, there's a different set of rules? 0:04:36.750 --> 0:04:40.110 Yeah, there's some regulations in place that are different from 0:04:40.130 --> 0:04:42.790 the ones that particular states that have the death penalty. 0:04:42.810 --> 0:04:44.789 So we're not going to be looking to, you know, 0:04:44.850 --> 0:04:47.610 Texas's protocols. We're going to be looking to the military ones. 0:04:48.450 --> 0:04:52.590 And like I said, Secretary Hegseth has suggested that there 0:04:52.630 --> 0:04:56.470 might be a loophole available in those regulations, but I'm 0:04:56.510 --> 0:05:00.070 not convinced that that's correct. And, you know, one could 0:05:00.110 --> 0:05:04.270 imagine from the president's perspective, and he is ultimately the 0:05:04.350 --> 0:05:06.529 one who gets to make the call about these things 0:05:06.570 --> 0:05:08.970 going forward, he might not want to add a wrinkle 0:05:09.010 --> 0:05:11.810 that could potentially delay this and draw it out in litigation. 0:05:12.130 --> 0:05:16.680 Hassan told a panel of military experts in 2010 that 0:05:16.700 --> 0:05:19.550 he wished he'd been killed during the attack. And he 0:05:19.610 --> 0:05:21.870 hasn't exhausted all his legal options. 0:05:21.990 --> 0:05:22.190 So. 0:05:22.770 --> 0:05:24.610 One wonders if he'll even oppose this. 0:05:25.010 --> 0:05:27.250 He did say that, and it's possible that he wouldn't 0:05:27.470 --> 0:05:29.770 oppose it. But if he did want to oppose it, 0:05:30.300 --> 0:05:33.640 there would be avenues still available because this decision would 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:34.719 create new. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.360 Issues that haven't been litigated yet. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.340 And even though it's the military context, I believe that 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.300 there would be avenues available to Hassan. 0:05:41.100 --> 0:05:41.739 If he chose. 0:05:42.220 --> 0:05:45.060 If he doesn't choose, you might have some third parties 0:05:45.100 --> 0:05:48.200 trying to intervene. That's often pretty difficult to do. You know, 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.580 third party standing is pretty rare. But the potential for delay... 0:05:52.990 --> 0:05:55.650 If the secretary were to really try to push forward 0:05:55.670 --> 0:05:57.690 with this idea, I think it's pretty high. 0:05:58.100 --> 0:06:01.740 President Trump said on Saturday, there are two thoughts. Don't 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.170 show it and show it because, you know, by showing it, 0:06:04.220 --> 0:06:06.820 maybe other people won't be doing what he did. So 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.670 I'll make a decision. Ultimately, I know what the military 0:06:09.710 --> 0:06:11.450 would like to do, but I'll make a decision. 0:06:11.860 --> 0:06:14.740 I'm no expert on this, but I suspect that what 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:16.960 a lot of our men and women in uniform would 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.710 prefer is maybe different from what the Secretary is talking about. Because, again, 0:06:20.770 --> 0:06:23.130 if this were to go forward publicly, I could imagine 0:06:23.170 --> 0:06:26.630 it putting a lot of our service members at risk 0:06:26.670 --> 0:06:27.390 in various places. 0:06:27.910 --> 0:06:32.980 Under international law, the UN has said that this violates 0:06:33.140 --> 0:06:36.979 an international human rights treaty, the Convention Against Torture. 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:41.050 Yeah, that is the view. And of course, it's not 0:06:41.110 --> 0:06:43.450 the case that all countries observe that. I mean, we 0:06:43.470 --> 0:06:46.010 know that there are countries that carry out public executions. 0:06:46.330 --> 0:06:50.290 I suspect that the international law rule wouldn't be the 0:06:50.410 --> 0:06:53.270 one that would carry the day for the secretary. But 0:06:53.470 --> 0:06:55.270 if they ended up in the same place, that would 0:06:55.290 --> 0:06:56.849 probably be, from my perspective, a good thing. 0:06:57.230 --> 0:07:00.250 It's kind of odd that you have, you know, two 0:07:00.730 --> 0:07:04.360 high-profile executions here. within such a short period of time 0:07:04.380 --> 0:07:07.920 in the news, because you had that botched execution in 0:07:07.980 --> 0:07:12.300 Tennessee of Krista Pike, who is back in prison. She's 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.100 recovered from that botched execution. 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.060 Yeah. Now, I don't know whether we know that she's recovered. 0:07:18.250 --> 0:07:20.390 I think we know that she's survived. 0:07:20.570 --> 0:07:20.810 You're right. 0:07:20.830 --> 0:07:22.230 This raises really interesting questions. 0:07:22.250 --> 0:07:24.610 You know, we have, there's a lot of constitutional law 0:07:24.650 --> 0:07:27.250 on this point, which might sound a little morbid, but 0:07:27.290 --> 0:07:30.750 it's still the law that a person cannot be executed 0:07:30.770 --> 0:07:34.290 without unless they are in a condition where they can 0:07:34.430 --> 0:07:38.350 understand what's happening to them and its significance. So sometimes 0:07:38.370 --> 0:07:41.390 we use the term competent to be executed, which, again, 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:43.620 I realize has a strange ring to it. I don't 0:07:43.660 --> 0:07:46.260 know enough to know whether there might well be reasons 0:07:46.300 --> 0:07:49.540 to think that, in this case, the damage that was 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.940 done by virtue of the failed execution attempt would make 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.610 it impermissible to go forward. Another issue is that the 0:07:57.670 --> 0:08:02.360 fact that this failed so badly might well provide the 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:06.800 basis for a challenge to this method of execution in Tennessee. 0:08:06.860 --> 0:08:10.390 That is, you can imagine arguing that even though lethal 0:08:10.430 --> 0:08:13.030 injection has been a permissible method for a while now, 0:08:13.630 --> 0:08:16.710 that Tennessee has shown that it can't carry out that 0:08:16.910 --> 0:08:22.580 execution consistent with the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Now, 0:08:22.620 --> 0:08:26.850 my understanding is that at one point, she requested execution 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.710 by firing squad and that did not go forward. I 0:08:29.730 --> 0:08:32.929 suppose it's possible that Tennessee would permit that method this 0:08:32.970 --> 0:08:36.630 time rather than avoid trying yet again with the lethal injection, 0:08:36.670 --> 0:08:38.470 which they haven't been able to carry out. 0:08:39.010 --> 0:08:41.069 I mean, this is the second time this year that 0:08:41.170 --> 0:08:44.970 they had a botched But it's also brought to light 0:08:45.230 --> 0:08:48.550 things that I didn't realize, which is the ways that 0:08:48.750 --> 0:08:52.840 states are obtaining these drugs. I mean, sometimes paying in 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.780 cash because they can't get them and the people who 0:08:55.820 --> 0:09:01.050 are administering them are not necessarily trained to do what 0:09:01.110 --> 0:09:01.630 they're doing. 0:09:01.650 --> 0:09:01.890 Right. 0:09:02.050 --> 0:09:03.150 Yeah, you're totally right. 0:09:03.170 --> 0:09:04.809 I mean, for a number of reasons, some of it 0:09:04.870 --> 0:09:07.970 is the pharmaceutical companies, you know, won't permit their products 0:09:08.010 --> 0:09:11.720 to be used. You know, the professional associations of various 0:09:12.150 --> 0:09:14.840 medical personnel won't permit their people to participate. 0:09:15.540 --> 0:09:16.340 So you do end. 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:18.819 Up with weaknesses, both in terms of the training of 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.020 the people who are carrying it out and in terms 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.939 of the kind of reliability of what's being used in 0:09:23.980 --> 0:09:26.660 these so-called cocktails that are put together to try to 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.300 bring about the execution. And sometimes people will complain, well, 0:09:30.340 --> 0:09:32.580 this is the fault of the drug companies or the 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:34.500 American Medical Association or what have you. 0:09:34.540 --> 0:09:36.720 But in a sense, that doesn't really matter. 0:09:36.780 --> 0:09:38.860 I mean, if you can't get the drugs, then a 0:09:38.900 --> 0:09:41.660 state has to come up with another method rather than 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.880 using these cocktails that are unreliable and have the serious 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.000 potential for causing excessive suffering. 0:09:48.410 --> 0:09:50.000 I mean, I take it the Supreme Court has never 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:54.220 considered having someone basically executed twice. 0:09:54.900 --> 0:09:57.010 There have been executions where, you know, it sort of 0:09:57.590 --> 0:09:59.530 didn't work and the person's executed again later. 0:09:59.550 --> 0:10:01.860 That has... happened. I think the way to think. 0:10:01.740 --> 0:10:03.839 About it is not so much like, is there a 0:10:03.940 --> 0:10:09.170 constitutional barrier to the state trying twice? I mean, you know, 0:10:09.210 --> 0:10:12.630 there were these traditions centuries ago where if you survived 0:10:12.690 --> 0:10:15.270 a hanging, you might be set free because the thinking 0:10:15.330 --> 0:10:17.870 was that God had spoken, which might well be true. 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.620 But in American law, I think the way to think 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.339 about it is not so much is there some kind 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.570 of a prohibition on a second try, but rather, does 0:10:27.620 --> 0:10:31.250 the failed first try tell us anything about the ability 0:10:31.290 --> 0:10:34.490 of the state to competently do the second try? 0:10:35.030 --> 0:10:37.429 And if we think the state can't competently do the. 0:10:37.390 --> 0:10:39.689 Second try, then it seems to me that you might 0:10:39.730 --> 0:10:41.699 well have a basis for saying, well, then this method 0:10:41.740 --> 0:10:43.260 can't be used constitutionally. 0:10:43.820 --> 0:10:45.820 And I believe her lawyers are trying to get the 0:10:45.900 --> 0:10:49.520 governor to commute her sentence to life in prison. 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.330 That's completely available. That's always available to a governor. And again, 0:10:53.500 --> 0:10:56.730 you can imagine the governor invoking traditions, again, going back 0:10:56.790 --> 0:10:59.170 centuries of saying that someone who has been through this, 0:10:59.450 --> 0:11:01.270 you know, in a sense has suffered enough. 0:11:01.350 --> 0:11:02.820 The governor is not required to do that. 0:11:03.030 --> 0:11:05.260 Clemency is very much something that we've given to the 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:06.560 discretion of the executive branch. 0:11:07.020 --> 0:11:09.819 But I suspect, given all the media. 0:11:09.540 --> 0:11:12.640 Attention on this, there might well be, maybe pressure is 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:14.740 the wrong word, but there might well be persuasion that's 0:11:14.780 --> 0:11:16.579 brought to bear on the governor to do that. 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.120 And in the meantime, the governor has ordered a state 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.900 investigation into the botched execution. Thanks so much, Rick. That's 0:11:25.940 --> 0:11:30.160 Professor Richard Garnett of Notre Dame Law School. I'm June Grosso, 0:11:30.210 --> 0:11:35.800 and you're listening to Bloomberg. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is an 0:11:35.990 --> 0:11:39.760 outspoken critic of President Trump and has been the target 0:11:39.780 --> 0:11:43.670 of his attacks for years. Trump has even accused the 0:11:43.710 --> 0:11:46.250 Somalia-born congresswoman of crimes. 0:11:47.330 --> 0:11:51.250 When you look at the Minnesota scam, a lot of 0:11:51.290 --> 0:11:54.210 it has to do with Somalia. Nobody's calling out anybody, 0:11:54.230 --> 0:11:55.670 but a lot of it has to do, but it's 0:11:55.690 --> 0:12:00.130 Somalia and plenty of others. And I believe the governor 0:12:00.230 --> 0:12:05.840 is I believe Ilhan Omar is complicit. 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.599 Trump has called her crooked and repeatedly suggested she should 0:12:10.660 --> 0:12:14.949 leave the U.S. But today there was a startling escalation 0:12:14.970 --> 0:12:18.950 in those attacks as federal agents searched her home in 0:12:18.970 --> 0:12:22.890 the final weeks of her re-election bid. The congresswoman has 0:12:22.990 --> 0:12:28.840 repeatedly denied allegations of wrongdoing, calling them false and politically motivated. 0:12:29.340 --> 0:12:33.199 Joining me is immigration law expert Leon Fresco, a partner 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.200 at Holland & Knight and the former head of the 0:12:35.340 --> 0:12:40.280 Office of Immigration Litigation during the Obama administration. So, Leon, 0:12:40.300 --> 0:12:46.210 the DHS secretary cited an ongoing investigation last month that 0:12:46.250 --> 0:12:52.290 he suggested was examining potential fraud on her family's immigration paperwork. 0:12:52.690 --> 0:12:55.950 But this is a real escalation to execute a search 0:12:56.010 --> 0:12:59.550 warrant on her house just 22 days before the election. 0:13:00.070 --> 0:13:04.309 Yeah, it is certainly unconventional in many, many ways. First, 0:13:04.650 --> 0:13:06.990 you have the election issue, not the immigration issue, which 0:13:07.070 --> 0:13:10.550 is can you actually do something like this within 60 0:13:10.550 --> 0:13:13.910 days of an election? That used to be DOJ's longstanding, 0:13:14.350 --> 0:13:18.980 although non-binding practice, which was to avoid overt investigative steps 0:13:19.010 --> 0:13:22.199 that could affect an election. Now, having said that, it 0:13:22.260 --> 0:13:25.910 wasn't that Ilhan Omar necessarily was in a competitive election, 0:13:26.370 --> 0:13:29.390 and maybe they have some really compelling reason that they 0:13:29.429 --> 0:13:32.949 need to do this immediately, but that is certainly odd. 0:13:33.030 --> 0:13:36.400 Then the next question becomes, what are they looking for? 0:13:36.540 --> 0:13:42.099 Because if they're looking for claims related to the supposed 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.390 sham marriage that she might have had with someone that 0:13:45.410 --> 0:13:47.610 may or may not have been her brother, that wouldn't 0:13:47.690 --> 0:13:51.050 actually affect her citizenship because that happened after she became 0:13:51.110 --> 0:13:54.220 a citizen. She became a citizen at age 17. And 0:13:54.270 --> 0:13:58.420 if they're looking for, instead of that, information that her 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.720 father lied on his citizenship application, which meant that he 0:14:02.780 --> 0:14:07.140 couldn't get citizenship and that she couldn't derivatively become a 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.219 citizen as a result of her father's citizenship application. Well, 0:14:11.260 --> 0:14:14.520 the problem there is the father is dead now and 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:19.290 There's going to be massive constitutional litigation about whether the 0:14:19.310 --> 0:14:23.110 mens rea is there for a child who became a 0:14:23.150 --> 0:14:27.050 citizen when there's a deceased father. And whether, A, was 0:14:27.070 --> 0:14:29.790 there any mens rea that you can punish the daughter with? 0:14:30.170 --> 0:14:33.280 But also, does it violate the due process clause? Because 0:14:33.660 --> 0:14:37.500 here's a person who didn't make any misrepresentation. And 30 0:14:37.500 --> 0:14:41.080 years later, you're trying to denaturalize them. Will there be 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.680 some constitutional limits about what you can do there? to 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:49.000 strip someone of citizenship once their parent is dead and 0:14:49.230 --> 0:14:52.250 when the misrepresentation was only made by the parent and 0:14:52.290 --> 0:14:54.930 not them. So all of that will need to be tested. 0:14:55.350 --> 0:14:57.590 There are no precedents on any of that. So we 0:14:57.630 --> 0:14:59.950 will have to see. But I don't know if there's 0:14:59.990 --> 0:15:03.570 an actual crime. Any crime would seem to me... to 0:15:03.630 --> 0:15:07.090 be something where it would probably be barred by the 0:15:07.130 --> 0:15:10.390 statute of limitations because all of these things happened far 0:15:10.450 --> 0:15:13.090 more than five years ago and all of these crimes 0:15:13.210 --> 0:15:16.090 are longer than five years ago, unless they say she 0:15:16.110 --> 0:15:20.370 gave some false statement recently to somebody. But other than that, 0:15:20.450 --> 0:15:23.290 I don't know. So it will be very, very interesting 0:15:23.330 --> 0:15:27.030 to see once there's an actual piece of paper, what 0:15:27.310 --> 0:15:30.390 is the actual piece of paper say about what she 0:15:30.490 --> 0:15:31.410 actually did wrong? 0:15:32.030 --> 0:15:36.870 The search warrant, lists of potential immigration crimes, including false 0:15:36.900 --> 0:15:41.040 statements and fraud and immigration paperwork, as well as a 0:15:41.110 --> 0:15:45.370 general conspiracy charge, according to the New York Times. It 0:15:45.430 --> 0:15:49.630 seems like the potential immigration paperwork that they're talking about 0:15:49.890 --> 0:15:55.250 is the paperwork that her father submitted when she was 17. 0:15:55.250 --> 0:15:55.470 Right. 0:15:55.530 --> 0:15:57.890 And that's the question that's not litigated that we're going 0:15:57.910 --> 0:15:59.729 to need to figure out is if the father, one 0:16:00.270 --> 0:16:02.050 of the versions of the story of the father lied 0:16:02.090 --> 0:16:04.680 about his name is, And another is that the father 0:16:04.740 --> 0:16:07.900 lied about being a refugee. But in either case, the 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:09.780 father is dead now, and he's been dead for a 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.520 long time. And she became a citizen in 2000, so 0:16:12.540 --> 0:16:17.040 that was 26 years ago, at age 17. And so 0:16:17.060 --> 0:16:20.260 the question is going to be whether there are some 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:26.500 constitutional constraints upon denaturalizing someone who didn't make any misrepresentations 0:16:26.580 --> 0:16:28.800 on their own, who didn't have any mens rea to 0:16:28.820 --> 0:16:32.450 make any misrepresentations. but you're still doing it on the 0:16:32.490 --> 0:16:36.400 basis of what their father did. And so all of 0:16:36.460 --> 0:16:40.760 that's going to be very interesting to litigate. And I 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:42.740 think they will have to litigate it unless they have 0:16:43.060 --> 0:16:45.580 something completely different that we just don't know about. 0:16:46.180 --> 0:16:49.050 Leon, can you have an immigration crime without intent? 0:16:49.670 --> 0:16:52.610 I mean, the problem is on these naturalization forms, you 0:16:52.630 --> 0:16:56.930 have to make a knowing fraudulent misstatement. And so they're 0:16:56.950 --> 0:16:58.870 going to have to say that the father did that 0:16:58.970 --> 0:17:01.110 and the father is dead and So they're going to 0:17:01.130 --> 0:17:04.450 have to have some very sound documentary proof about what 0:17:04.510 --> 0:17:08.130 the father's intent was because her intent is irrelevant. She 0:17:08.170 --> 0:17:11.790 was just a derivative applicant, meaning she was riding on 0:17:11.830 --> 0:17:15.370 the coattails of her father. And so I don't know 0:17:15.450 --> 0:17:17.149 if it's going to be that or are they going 0:17:17.170 --> 0:17:20.129 to have something completely different that we're just not aware 0:17:20.210 --> 0:17:21.200 about at this time. 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.420 Have you ever seen someone's U.S. citizenship taken away because 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:27.560 of lies by another person? 0:17:27.780 --> 0:17:31.570 I've never seen it in a case. where the actual 0:17:31.790 --> 0:17:36.550 primary person is dead. I've never seen a naturalization go 0:17:36.990 --> 0:17:40.540 after the derivative of the primary person as the main 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.820 person that the denaturalization is going after. I have seen 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.580 cases where you want to denaturalize some very evil person, 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.000 and yes, they have relatives that then unfortunately get swept 0:17:52.100 --> 0:17:55.930 into the denaturalization, so they have to leave too. But 0:17:56.070 --> 0:17:59.730 they're not the target of this. They're just the derivatives 0:17:59.790 --> 0:18:03.450 of this. But this is completely different because the applicant 0:18:03.490 --> 0:18:07.620 themselves is dead now. And so they're not the subject 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.460 of denaturalization. You'd be saying only Ilhan Omar is the subject, 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.060 but you're trying to prove a case against her dead father. 0:18:14.619 --> 0:18:16.679 And that I've never seen before. And there's going to 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.950 be a lot of due law that's established there about 0:18:20.990 --> 0:18:24.770 whether there are any constitutional constraints preventing the government from 0:18:24.830 --> 0:18:25.350 doing this. 0:18:25.950 --> 0:18:28.330 Trump has been talking about going after her for so long. 0:18:28.850 --> 0:18:32.660 So can you raise in an immigration case, a case 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:37.720 about immigration crimes? that this is a targeted prosecution. 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:38.160 Sure. 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.420 You can always raise that in any context and ask 0:18:41.460 --> 0:18:45.239 for a dismissal, and that's always at the discretion of 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.000 the district court judge, although the appellate court can say 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.320 that the district court judge abused their discretion by finding 0:18:51.340 --> 0:18:54.959 that to be a politically motivated charge. But at the 0:18:54.980 --> 0:18:57.230 end of the day, what's really going to matter is, 0:18:57.910 --> 0:18:59.750 I think if you were a judge and you were 0:18:59.790 --> 0:19:02.389 predisposed to grant a case like that, it'd be easier 0:19:02.410 --> 0:19:06.820 to just say, that the misrepresentation was not material, whichever 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.399 one that the father did in that situation. But I 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:12.399 don't know. In the end, we're going to have to 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:14.659 wait and see the paperwork and see what is the 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.280 material misrepresentation that they claim existed at the time of 0:19:19.340 --> 0:19:23.110 the father's citizenship application because she wouldn't have made any 0:19:23.210 --> 0:19:26.750 representations of any kind because she was just riding along 0:19:26.830 --> 0:19:29.669 as a minor who was a derivative applicant on her 0:19:29.710 --> 0:19:31.230 father's citizenship. 0:19:31.700 --> 0:19:34.720 Are there allegations that she wasn't really 17 at the time? 0:19:35.740 --> 0:19:38.350 Well, that may be also. And if that's true, then 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.030 that's a whole different ball of wax. But we're going 0:19:41.050 --> 0:19:42.330 to have to wait and see on that. 0:19:43.250 --> 0:19:49.970 So many unanswered questions. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is an outspoken. 0:19:50.290 --> 0:19:53.330 critic of president trump and has been the target of 0:19:53.369 --> 0:19:58.080 his attacks for years trump has even accused the somalia-born 0:19:58.160 --> 0:19:59.180 congresswoman of. 0:19:59.220 --> 0:20:04.409 Crimes when you look at the minnesota scan uh A 0:20:04.430 --> 0:20:07.050 lot of it has to do with Somalia. Nobody's calling 0:20:07.070 --> 0:20:08.850 out anybody, but a lot of it has to do, 0:20:08.890 --> 0:20:12.800 but it's Somalia and plenty of others. And I believe 0:20:12.820 --> 0:20:19.300 the governor is complicit. I believe Ilhan Omar is complicit. 0:20:20.180 --> 0:20:24.080 Trump has called her crooked and repeatedly suggested she should 0:20:24.140 --> 0:20:28.390 leave the U.S. But today, there was a startling escalation 0:20:28.430 --> 0:20:32.419 in those attacks as federal agents searched her home in 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:36.340 the final weeks of her re-election bid. The congresswoman has 0:20:36.460 --> 0:20:42.350 repeatedly denied allegations of wrongdoing, calling them false and politically motivated. 0:20:42.930 --> 0:20:46.129 I've been talking to immigration law expert Leon Fresco of 0:20:46.190 --> 0:20:50.600 Holland & Knight. So Leon, the DHS secretary cited an 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:56.700 ongoing investigation last month that he suggested was examining potential 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:01.220 fraud on her family's immigration paperwork. But this is a 0:21:01.260 --> 0:21:05.100 real escalation to execute a search warrant on her house 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:07.800 just 22 days before the election. 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.540 Yeah, it is certainly unconventional in many, many ways. First, 0:21:12.900 --> 0:21:15.220 you have the election issue, not the immigration issue, which 0:21:15.330 --> 0:21:18.810 is can you actually do something like this within 60 0:21:18.810 --> 0:21:22.160 days of an election? That used to be DOJ's longstanding, 0:21:22.619 --> 0:21:27.240 although non-binding practice, which was to avoid overt investigative steps 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.460 that could affect an election. Now, having said that, it 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:34.170 wasn't that Ilhan Omar necessarily was in a competitive election, 0:21:34.609 --> 0:21:37.649 and maybe they have some really compelling reason that they 0:21:37.690 --> 0:21:41.210 need to do this immediately, but that is certainly odd. 0:21:41.290 --> 0:21:44.650 Then the next question becomes, what are they looking for? 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:50.340 Because if they're looking for claims related to the supposed 0:21:50.820 --> 0:21:53.639 sham marriage that she might have had with someone that 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:55.850 may or may not have been her brother, that wouldn't 0:21:55.940 --> 0:21:59.310 actually affect her citizenship because that happened after she became 0:21:59.369 --> 0:22:02.469 a citizen. She became a citizen at age 17. And 0:22:02.550 --> 0:22:06.670 if they're looking for, instead of that, information that her 0:22:06.770 --> 0:22:10.969 father lied on his citizenship application, which meant that he 0:22:11.010 --> 0:22:15.379 couldn't get citizenship and that she couldn't derivatively become a 0:22:15.460 --> 0:22:19.460 citizen as a result of her father's citizenship application. Well, 0:22:19.500 --> 0:22:22.840 the problem there is the father is dead now, and 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:27.530 there's going to be massive constitutional litigation about whether the 0:22:27.570 --> 0:22:31.369