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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. The Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: has cleared President Trump's administration to start barring most transgender

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Speaker 1: people from serving in the armed forces. The vote was

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Speaker 1: five to four down Ideological Lines Joining me is Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: New Supreme Court reporter Greg's store. Well, Greg, we've been

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Speaker 1: waiting for this one. Tell us more about it. We have, June.

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Speaker 1: The lower courts had blocked the administration from putting the

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Speaker 1: ban in place, and the Supreme Court today stayed those

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Speaker 1: lower court rulings, which means Trump administration can go ahead

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Speaker 1: and start banning most transgender people from serving in the military.

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Speaker 1: While this litigation plays out big one for the administration.

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Speaker 1: We don't have any explanation for what the court did,

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Speaker 1: so it's hard to say too much, but it certainly

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Speaker 1: at least suggests that ultimately the court will hear the

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Speaker 1: administration's appeal at some point and uphold the transgender ban.

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Speaker 1: Might the case have been decided differently if Justice Anthony

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Speaker 1: Kennedy were still on the corridor. Is that too speculative

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Speaker 1: a question, Well, it's definitely speculative, but I think we

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Speaker 1: could say that there's a reasonable chance that would have happened.

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Speaker 1: Justice Kennedy, of course, was a champion of gay rights

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Speaker 1: for much of his time on the court, and that,

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Speaker 1: you know, we can think that perhaps that would have

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Speaker 1: made a difference for him. The Justice Kavanaugh, who succeeded

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Speaker 1: Justice Kennedy, was in the majority here. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: in Justice Kennedy's last term, we saw him do a

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Speaker 1: couple of things that might have suggested he would have

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Speaker 1: agreed with Justice Kavanaugh. First of all, he upheld voted

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Speaker 1: to uphold Donald Trump's travel band, showing that he was

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Speaker 1: very sympathetic to claim from this administration that national security

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Speaker 1: interests drive a particular policy. And then there was the

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Speaker 1: other case involving the gay couple who went into a

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Speaker 1: Colorado bakery to try to get a cake to celebrate

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Speaker 1: their wedding, and Justice Kennedy in that case did not

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Speaker 1: side with the gay couple, instead set aside in order

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Speaker 1: from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission that had favored the couple,

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Speaker 1: saying that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had been hostile

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Speaker 1: to the religious views of the bakery on our So

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Speaker 1: there are some mixed signals there. Might well have made

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Speaker 1: a difference. We just can't say. So let's move on

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Speaker 1: to the mystery case tied to the Muller investigation and

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Speaker 1: involving an unidentified foreign owned company. What happened there? The

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court said, we will allow this company to file

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Speaker 1: a field petition for review. You know, there's a certain

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Speaker 1: petition with a redacted copy available for the public, and

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Speaker 1: then the court released that redacted copy of the appeal.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't shed a whole lot of new light on it.

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Speaker 1: We do understand that this case involves a grand jury

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Speaker 1: subpoena by the Special Council's Office. We know it involves

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Speaker 1: an unidentified company that is owned by a foreign country.

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Speaker 1: The legal issue involves the scope of the Foreign Sovereign

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Speaker 1: Immunities Act. The filing that we got it doesn't provide

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of additional information with the parts we

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Speaker 1: can see are mostly about the legal issues, but we

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Speaker 1: know it's it's now here. The Court called for a

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Speaker 1: response in the matter of a few weeks. So it's

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Speaker 1: at least possible that the Court will at some point

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Speaker 1: here a case involving Robert Mueller. How rare is it

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Speaker 1: for the Court to hear cases under seal? Almost never.

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Speaker 1: I am not aware of any time the Court has

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Speaker 1: decided a case completely under seal on One of the

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Speaker 1: best examples is the case involving the Pentagon papers in

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Speaker 1: in one Uh. In that case, the government asked the

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Speaker 1: court to hold part of the arguments behind closed doors,

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Speaker 1: and the Court said no, A divided court said no,

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Speaker 1: We're going to do this in public. The court did

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Speaker 1: let the parties file some brief under seal, but they

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Speaker 1: at least wanted the bulk of the case to be

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Speaker 1: on the public record. That involved the secret history of

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Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. So the Court has also agreed to

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Speaker 1: hear a case challenging New York City's gun transportation rules.

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Speaker 1: Tell us about that. That's gonna be the first Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court of argument on the scope of the second and

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Speaker 1: then in almost a decade, if you can believe that

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Speaker 1: the Court has been repeatedly saying no, we don't want

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Speaker 1: to get involved in this case. This is a challenge

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Speaker 1: to rules in New York City that sharply limit where

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Speaker 1: people can take their license handguns. It essentially says, you

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Speaker 1: can take them unloaded and locked to practice range within

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Speaker 1: the city limits, but you can't take them even if

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Speaker 1: they're locked and unloaded outside the city limits. You can't

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Speaker 1: take them to a second home outside the city. You

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Speaker 1: can't take them to a practice range elsewhere. The Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court is going to decide whether that violates the Second

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Speaker 1: Amendment and the rights of license gun owners to have

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Speaker 1: guns with them at places outside of their home. So, Greg,

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Speaker 1: since it's been almost a since the Court took up

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Speaker 1: a Second Amendment case, do you see the reason as

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Speaker 1: being that there's something about this case that's drawing the

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Speaker 1: attention of at least for justices, or is it the

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Speaker 1: change in the justices on the court. I think there's

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Speaker 1: certainly some pretty strong grounds to say it's the latter.

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Speaker 1: That Justice Havanant joining the Court. We've seen from his

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Speaker 1: record on the Appeals Court that he is a pretty

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Speaker 1: strong advocate of Second Amendment rights, and he replaced somebody who,

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Speaker 1: while he went along with the decisions back in that

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Speaker 1: that said the Constitution does protect individual gun rights. Justice

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Speaker 1: Kennedy never showed any indication that he was especially enthusiastic

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Speaker 1: about being aggressive. And in fact, there are some indications

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Speaker 1: that we've gotten in the year since of decision that

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Speaker 1: Justice Kennedy insisted on some language in those earlier opinions

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Speaker 1: that limited the reach of that individual rights said that,

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Speaker 1: you know, the government still retains the right to say

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Speaker 1: of our convicted films from from carrying firearms. So we

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Speaker 1: may see a more aggressive Supreme Court with Justice Kavanaugh

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Speaker 1: in enforcing Second Amendment rights. Now, let's get an update

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Speaker 1: on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Is she back at the

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Speaker 1: court this week? She is not back at the court

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Speaker 1: this week. The last word that we've heard is that

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Speaker 1: her recovery is on track. The Court is now about

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Speaker 1: to go into a four week recess. She has has

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Speaker 1: a few public appearances that she has canceled in the

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Speaker 1: next several weeks. But the real next point we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be looking at is when the Court comes back on

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Speaker 1: February nineteenth, or possibly February the year, their next arguments

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Speaker 1: and possibly issue opinions will be looking to see whether

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Speaker 1: she has returned to the court and gone on the

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Speaker 1: bench for those cases. All right, thanks so much, Greg.

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Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg New Supreme Court reporter Greg Store. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and

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Speaker 1: listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Bralso this is

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Speaker 1: bloom burdon the D d G D