Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash Podcasts. Sources tell Bloomberg
Speaker 1: that Special Counsel Robert Muller is getting ready to fast
Speaker 1: track his investigation into possible collusion between Donald Trump's presidential
Speaker 1: campaign and Russians, with indictments possible by the fall. Former
Speaker 1: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained the significance of
Speaker 1: that issue on Bloomberg earlier this month. What Bob Muller
Speaker 1: and his team are doing is extremely important for the country.
Speaker 1: There's a cloud I think that's over the nation, particularly
Speaker 1: with respect to the issue of collusion and the I
Speaker 1: think the only hope for actually resolving that one way
Speaker 1: or the other is through the Special Council investigation. My
Speaker 1: guest is Jimmy Grulier, professor at Notre Dame Law School. Jimmy,
Speaker 1: the reports are that Mueller is first going to resolve
Speaker 1: whether there was obstruction of justice. Why break up the
Speaker 1: investigation that way? Well, I think that the obstruction of
Speaker 1: justice charge. First of all, it's much more manageable. You know,
Speaker 1: involves a single statute or and and and incidents involving
Speaker 1: the president's conduct, and so I think it would be
Speaker 1: easier to charge rather than going into the collusion Russian
Speaker 1: coclusion issue, which by the way, could involve multiple UH
Speaker 1: former members of the of the Trump campaign. There's been
Speaker 1: at least thirteen individuals that have been identified with engaging
Speaker 1: and suspicious activities involving the Russian So so that's much broader,
Speaker 1: it's more, much more complex, and and therefore the obstruction
Speaker 1: I think it's just an easier charge to to allege
Speaker 1: and and to prove in the case. We know that
Speaker 1: Trump has said no collusion over and over again, but
Speaker 1: there have been no suspicious contacts that you mentioned, and
Speaker 1: enough to set off alarms among US intelligence officials earlier.
Speaker 1: What's the case for collusion, Well, again, there's no actual
Speaker 1: crime of collusion. Instead, it would be conspiracy would be
Speaker 1: the charge. And whether or not it's it's conspiracy under
Speaker 1: the general conspiracy Statute, So conspiring against the United States UH,
Speaker 1: conspiring to violate the federal campaign laws would be another example.
Speaker 1: Of the type of conspiracy or slash collusion collusion charge
Speaker 1: that the MULLA would be considering an investigating. But again
Speaker 1: it's important to note that there's no charge, there's no
Speaker 1: federal charge of collusion. Would be conspiracy to violate some
Speaker 1: other federal federal crime. And will you explain what it
Speaker 1: takes to prove that someone's involved in a conspiracy, Yes, conspiracy.
Speaker 1: The essential element is an agreement. There is to be
Speaker 1: an agreement between two or more people to engage in
Speaker 1: criminal conduct, to violate some some criminal statute, to commit
Speaker 1: a crime. And so again that the agreement can be
Speaker 1: proven through circumstantial evidence. I mean, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a proven through uh, let's say surveillance or electronic
Speaker 1: surveillance that indicates two people agree, you know, So it's
Speaker 1: not doesn't require proving yes, let's violate this statute. You
Speaker 1: and I, let's commit this crime. But it can be
Speaker 1: inferred from from the surrounding facts and circumstances of the case.
Speaker 1: We've discussed this before, but in April, Deputy A. G.
Speaker 1: Rod Rosenstein told Trump he was not a target of
Speaker 1: the Mueller investigation. How does that statement fit in here? Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's simply limited to that point in time. At
Speaker 1: that particular point in time, that was the case, that
Speaker 1: was the view of the former director of the of
Speaker 1: the FBI. But evidence, uh, that's been collected since then
Speaker 1: could have changed that that situation or that view, or
Speaker 1: perhaps it's still the same even today. But eventually it's
Speaker 1: going to be the evidence that has been recovered uncovered
Speaker 1: through this investigation that's gonna be that's gonna be telling.
Speaker 1: So it's certainly not binding on on the Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: It's simply a snapshot at that particular point in time.
Speaker 1: Now there are reports that Mueller has called in some
Speaker 1: new prosecutors to work on the part of the investigation,
Speaker 1: sort of spinning off the part of the investigation that
Speaker 1: pertains to the Russian firms that he previously indicted. What
Speaker 1: does that tell you if he's spinning that part off?
Speaker 1: Is that a difficult part? Well? I think it's it
Speaker 1: tells you a little bit about the focus of the
Speaker 1: investigation and uh, and that that particular aspect of the
Speaker 1: investigation may require a particular skill set, particular expertise that
Speaker 1: these particular investigators or lawyers have based upon their their
Speaker 1: their their prior practice, or perhaps when they were former
Speaker 1: federal prosecutors. So it is telling and in one sense
Speaker 1: as to the direction and focus of the investigation, and
Speaker 1: again the skills and the experience that's needed to develop
Speaker 1: that aspect of the investigation more fully. Now tell me
Speaker 1: if this is telling as well. Senator Mark Warner, a
Speaker 1: Democrat from Virginia, hosted a dinner party Friday and said
Speaker 1: apparently and and Trump has responded to this, um, if
Speaker 1: you get me one more glass of wine, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you stuff only Bob Muller and I know, and buckle up.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a wild couple of months. And
Speaker 1: Trump picked up on that in one of his his tweets, Well,
Speaker 1: what does it tell you that a U A senator
Speaker 1: saying something like that, and he's on the Intelligence Committee.
Speaker 1: It's it's difficult to ask to ask how much should
Speaker 1: be read into that. I mean that that again could
Speaker 1: be simply maybe some boastful, loose language again at a
Speaker 1: at a dinner party, and and and perhaps maybe there's
Speaker 1: not all that much to it, but perhaps it could
Speaker 1: also be an indication that that the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: has been keeping members of the of the Senate Intelligence
Speaker 1: Committee updated on the development and progress of the investigation,
Speaker 1: and that would of course require disclosing some of some
Speaker 1: of the the the information regarding the scope of the investigation,
Speaker 1: the focus of the investigation, the progress of the investigation.
Speaker 1: And so maybe the senator was was referring to that,
Speaker 1: but again it's very unfortunate that he would make that
Speaker 1: type of of a statement in public that that again
Speaker 1: might be prejudicial or might be you know, might tip
Speaker 1: off targets of the investigation. And uh, and probably a
Speaker 1: statement that should have been made. Now. Um, Michael Cohen,
Speaker 1: that the name you know of Trump's personal lawyer, former
Speaker 1: personal lawyer, keeps coming up, and there are all kinds
Speaker 1: of rumors that he is going to cooperate. Is that
Speaker 1: moving a little bit slowly? I don't think so. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's a recent report that's the first of all, that
Speaker 1: there was over three million items of evidence that were
Speaker 1: seized by federal investigators and when they conducted the executed
Speaker 1: the search warrant at Michael Cohen's office and and then
Speaker 1: of course they're the federal judge required that that those
Speaker 1: items be examined to determine if any of those involved
Speaker 1: attorney client or attorney client privileged information. And the latest
Speaker 1: is of that approximately three point seven million dollar million
Speaker 1: items sees only one d sixty one of those were
Speaker 1: recommended to the judge and the judge agreed that they
Speaker 1: were protected attorney client information. So again, well over three
Speaker 1: million items are not protected. And so the question and
Speaker 1: therefore they're going to be disclosed to the prosecution, and
Speaker 1: the question is of those items, do any of those
Speaker 1: items reveal any illegal activity between Michael Cohen and and
Speaker 1: President Trump? Thank you, Jimmy. That's Jimmy Garoule, professor at
Speaker 1: Notre Dame Law School. To be continued. A big win
Speaker 1: for the Trump administration and one of the highest profile
Speaker 1: cases of the year and one of the most contentious issues,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court of held Trump's travel ban against a
Speaker 1: broad legal attack. The vote was five to four along
Speaker 1: ideological grounds, with the conservative justices in the majority joining
Speaker 1: me Is Bloomberg. New Supreme Court reporter Greg Store Greg
Speaker 1: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority tell us
Speaker 1: about the essence of his opinion Hi June. The essence
Speaker 1: of his decision is notwithstanding claims that he made discriminatory
Speaker 1: comments toward towards Muslims in the campaign and after he
Speaker 1: became president. UH. He said, we generally afford the president
Speaker 1: very broad discretion in dealing with these questions about who
Speaker 1: can come into the country. This was a policy that
Speaker 1: went through multiple agencies, that has a lot of detail
Speaker 1: in it, and we are going to defer to the
Speaker 1: President UH in this area because it is generally an
Speaker 1: area where Congress wants the president to decide and we
Speaker 1: want to defer in terms of what he thinks about
Speaker 1: the national security interests of the country. Justice is Stephen
Speaker 1: Bryer and Sonya Soto Mayor read their descents from the bench,
Speaker 1: which is rare, and I understand that Justice Soto Mayor
Speaker 1: was some said furious. Yeah, she both in her words
Speaker 1: and the pens and UH in the opinion itself, she
Speaker 1: was very pointed. She she likened the decision to the
Speaker 1: nineteen Cormatsu decision where the Supreme Court upheld the government's
Speaker 1: policy of interning Japanese Americans during World War Two. Um,
Speaker 1: she Uh invoked talked about all the individual people that
Speaker 1: this will this policy will harm in her view. UH. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: it was a dissent that was joined only by one
Speaker 1: other justice that was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justices Briar and
Speaker 1: Kagan uh dissented on on different and and somewhat less
Speaker 1: pointed grounds. You mentioned the Karamaso decision and the dissenters
Speaker 1: comparing that to Trump's policy. Chief Justice Roberts took umbrage
Speaker 1: at that to say, the least tell us what he
Speaker 1: said about that. Yeah, so he said that there that
Speaker 1: the two things are not the same. Uh, the Chief Justice,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna I'm gonna find find the part in
Speaker 1: the opinion here so I can quote quote it directly
Speaker 1: for you. But essentially he said, uh, Kamatsu was a
Speaker 1: morally repugnant order to a facially new Uh. He called
Speaker 1: that a morally repugnant order. He said, it's not like this,
Speaker 1: which is a neutral policy that just desies some people
Speaker 1: the privilege of coming into the country. He also said,
Speaker 1: essentially said now that you mentioned Kamatsu, which has never
Speaker 1: formerly been overruled, he said that the decision was greatly
Speaker 1: wrong the day it was decided and have no place
Speaker 1: in the law under the Constitution. So he disavowed the
Speaker 1: Cormatzi decision and said this is different. Well, President Trump
Speaker 1: has called the Supreme Court decision a tremendous victory. We're
Speaker 1: going to hear his comments in a few moments and said,
Speaker 1: of course he'll go ahead with the travel ban. He
Speaker 1: also proclaimed that the Supreme Court has upheld the clear
Speaker 1: authority of the president to defend the national security of
Speaker 1: the United States. That was in a written statement. How
Speaker 1: far did the court go in upholding presidential authority? Well,
Speaker 1: pretty far, but but the court had already gone pretty far.
Speaker 1: This is an area where if you look at the
Speaker 1: immigration laws, Um, they're pretty clear that the president has
Speaker 1: very broad authority to decide who can come into the
Speaker 1: country and can exclude uh classes of people if the
Speaker 1: president deems it to be in the national security interests.
Speaker 1: I think the way to look at this case was, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, is there an exception to that general rule
Speaker 1: in this particular case where you have a president who
Speaker 1: has prohibited uh hundred and fifty million people from even
Speaker 1: qualifying for the possibility of entry into the country, and
Speaker 1: where he has made some comments that suggests that he
Speaker 1: was targeting Muslims with this order. The Supreme Court said, no,
Speaker 1: we're not going to make an exception. So the broad
Speaker 1: authority that presidents get over who comes into the country
Speaker 1: applies to President Trump as well. Now, this was, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned to five four split down ideological lines, and
Speaker 1: we've seen in these final cases of the term, which
Speaker 1: tend to be the most controversial, we've seen that same split.
Speaker 1: Does that tell you anything, Greg, Yeah, you know, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of cases this term June that could
Speaker 1: have been ideologically divisive. Some of them the courts sort
Speaker 1: of uh resolved on very narrow grounds and avoided the
Speaker 1: ideological split. So I'm thinking about the partisan Gerryman Dreen
Speaker 1: case and the case involving the baker who didn't want
Speaker 1: to make a cake for same sex weddings. Those were
Speaker 1: decided pretty narrowly and didn't end up with that sort
Speaker 1: of split. But yes, we're getting to the end of
Speaker 1: the term, and in the more recent cases, including this one,
Speaker 1: possibly including one we'll get tomorrow. Um. Also including the
Speaker 1: second second ruling today involving UH pregnancy clinics that that
Speaker 1: oppose abortion UH, the court have been divided five to
Speaker 1: four with the five conservatives on the victorious side. All right,
Speaker 1: thanks so much, Greg, Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcast, SoundCloud and on bloomberg dot com slash Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm June Bolso. This is Bloomberg