Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: We're bringing back religion in our country, and we're bringing
Speaker 2: it back quickly and strongly. And President Trump has made
Speaker 2: efforts to appeal to his conservative Christian supporters. Trump created
Speaker 2: a White House Faith Office, a task force to eradicate
Speaker 2: anti Christian bias, and a Religious Liberty Commission. The Office
Speaker 2: of Personnel Management encouraged agencies to approve religious accommodations for
Speaker 2: remote work. The irs greenlit political endorsements from the pulpit.
Speaker 2: Perhaps the most striking example is a July twenty eighth
Speaker 2: administration memo encouraging federal government employees to show off their
Speaker 2: faith and even proselytize coworkers. Employees are permitted to display
Speaker 2: religious icons, pray in groups, and discuss religious topics with
Speaker 2: co workers, including quote attempt to persuade others of the
Speaker 2: correctness of their own religious views. My guest is Stephanie Barclay,
Speaker 2: a professor at Georgetown Law School and the faculty co
Speaker 2: director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Stephanie give
Speaker 2: us the broad overview of this memo.
Speaker 3: So like the Clinton era guidance, the more recent memo
Speaker 3: permits allowing workers in federal deployment situations to engage in
Speaker 3: discussion of their faith. It allows them to display religious symbols,
Speaker 3: and it just allows faith.
Speaker 1: To be a more normal part of the workplace.
Speaker 3: It does prohibit those sorts of expressions from rising to
Speaker 3: the level of harassment or constituting an undue burden, But
Speaker 3: the memo does say that people just merely having discomfort
Speaker 3: alone isn't enough to count as an under burden in
Speaker 3: a government workplace. And so I think it's just trying
Speaker 3: to normalize that. You know, people in the workplace are
Speaker 3: allowed to talk about their favorite sports teams or type
Speaker 3: of food that they'd like to cook, they should be
Speaker 3: able to talk about their religion too.
Speaker 2: Does it usify where the line is between a normal
Speaker 2: conversation about religion and one that's harassing to co workers.
Speaker 2: I mean, talking about sports and your favorite foods that's
Speaker 2: one thing. But having a conversation about why someone should
Speaker 2: rethink their religious beliefs that can get very personal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so religious speech could be considered harassment if it's
Speaker 3: sufficiently severe or pervasive, if it's creating a hostile work environment.
Speaker 3: According to this memo and some of the eeoc's Compliance
Speaker 3: manual's guidance about religious discriminations. So there are certainly boundaries
Speaker 3: like if there's a break in employees engaging another polite
Speaker 3: discussion about their faith and a non adherent request that
Speaker 3: to stop, then some sorts of requests like we need
Speaker 3: to be honored in order to not rise the level
Speaker 3: of creating a harassing sort of environment. So it's really
Speaker 3: meant to, I think protect and facilitate polite discussion, not
Speaker 3: religious evangelizing that's going to be overbearing.
Speaker 2: Are there any guard rails for supervisors having religious conversations
Speaker 2: with their employees?
Speaker 3: So for supervisors, they're also allowed to do some of
Speaker 3: the things we talked about at the beginning. They're allowed
Speaker 3: to have religious displays, They're allowed to engage in group
Speaker 3: activities like prayer during breaks or non duty hours, have
Speaker 3: religious conversations, have public expression about religion. So supervisors have
Speaker 3: all of those same religious expression rights as o their
Speaker 3: sorts of employees. The key issue, of course, is there
Speaker 3: are concerns about power imbalances with supervisors. So one key
Speaker 3: limitation is that menmos clear that unwillingness to engage in
Speaker 3: conversations can't be a basis for workplace discipline, so supervisors
Speaker 3: can't do anything with the position that they're in to
Speaker 3: try and put pressure on other employees and colleagues to
Speaker 3: participate in religious discussions or religious activities.
Speaker 2: Was the Clinton memo the same in every respect? Or
Speaker 2: were there differences?
Speaker 3: The Clinton Memo wasn't the same in every respect. It
Speaker 3: was similar in the way in which it was just
Speaker 3: trying to allow for fostering of polite conversations in the workplace.
Speaker 3: It dealt with religion and just to make it a
Speaker 3: more normal part of the workplace environment. I think the
Speaker 3: Trump memo is more specific to the other key differences
Speaker 3: between the Clinton Memo and this memo. We've had two
Speaker 3: Supreme Court cases at least that the Trump Memo sites
Speaker 3: that provide more guidance and both statutory and constitutional protections
Speaker 3: for religion in the workplace. One of those is the
Speaker 3: case of Graph we to Joy, and the other is
Speaker 3: Kennedy versus Bremerton, and Graph is a case that the
Speaker 3: Court is analyzing what it means under the Civil Rights
Speaker 3: Act to require religious accommodation in the workplace, and it
Speaker 3: takes a much more rigorous approach to what counts as
Speaker 3: an undue burden, and so the Trump Memo is following
Speaker 3: that sort of tax here and then in the Kennitty
Speaker 3: for SSUs Bremerton's Schoolisteric case, that's a free exercise case
Speaker 3: and a free speech case dealing with a high school
Speaker 3: football coach who, when he was off beuty, wanted to
Speaker 3: be able to pray in public, and the Supreme Court
Speaker 3: said that does not violate the establishment cause for the
Speaker 3: government to accommodate that sort of religious expression. Not only that,
Speaker 3: but religious exercise and free speech demand that government provide
Speaker 3: accommodations and contacts like that where they don't have good
Speaker 3: reason not to, where the coach for the employee would
Speaker 3: be allowed to do other personal things at that time,
Speaker 3: there's no reason to prohibit religious expression as long as
Speaker 3: that religious expression isn't pressuring or coercing others to participate.
Speaker 2: Quit encouraging religious expression like this create a hostile work
Speaker 2: environment under Title seven.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that if it did create hostile
Speaker 3: work environment, if say you could demonstrate that, then that
Speaker 3: would be something that's outside of the type of protection
Speaker 3: that the memo is trying to offer. That's consistent with
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court's decision in committee versus per Merchant School
Speaker 3: District because they're the Supreme Court said that the school
Speaker 3: district needed to accommodate the quote she wanted to pray,
Speaker 3: but was very clear to say it would be a
Speaker 3: different case if there was evident that the coach was
Speaker 3: pressuring students to participate in the prayers. There was some
Speaker 3: evidence of the record where some students that they had
Speaker 3: felt that sort of pressure earlier when the coach was
Speaker 3: praying within in the locker room or things like that.
Speaker 1: But once the.
Speaker 3: Coach had said I'm willing to stop, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to do that anymore, I'm no longer asking for that
Speaker 3: sort of accommodation, then the evidence shifted to was there
Speaker 3: any evidence that anyone had ever felt coerced to pray
Speaker 3: with him when he prayed alone on the fifty yard
Speaker 3: line And there was no evidence to the record of
Speaker 3: that's But what that indicates is that if you had
Speaker 3: a case where employees, even on an anonymous basis, even
Speaker 3: like a John Doe employee, had an AFFI David saying,
Speaker 3: I feel like if I don't participate in these religious
Speaker 3: sorts of gatherings or discussions that you know, I'm going
Speaker 3: to lose a promotion or not be able to participate
Speaker 3: fully in my job that that would fall outside of
Speaker 3: the protection of this sort of guidance. And I think
Speaker 3: that that's important because having a workplace that allows and
Speaker 3: protects religious expression also needs to protect non religious people
Speaker 3: who don't want to be pressured into religious expression that
Speaker 3: they disagree with or just don't find persuasive.
Speaker 2: The Council on American Islamic Relations said it's worried that
Speaker 2: the memo would be selectively enforced, potentially disadvantaging Muslim workers. Quote.
Speaker 2: It's concerning that the policy mentions numerous examples of permissible activity, discussion,
Speaker 2: and dress related to the Christian and Jewish faith, but
Speaker 2: never mentions a single example related to Muslims. Do you
Speaker 2: think that that's a valid concern.
Speaker 3: I think that if this memo is selectively enforced, that
Speaker 3: would absolutely be a valid concern. I'm optimistic that it
Speaker 3: will be enforced in an even handed way, but it
Speaker 3: would have been a better memo if they had provided
Speaker 3: an even broader range of religious expression from all sorts
Speaker 3: of different religious states. But certainly, just on the face
Speaker 3: of the text of the memo, there's nothing that would
Speaker 3: allow for that sort of selective enforcement, and I think
Speaker 3: it would be a violation of the memo and certainly
Speaker 3: problematic for constitutional reasons if there was selective enforcement such
Speaker 3: that only certain types of religious denominations for being given
Speaker 3: these protections and others.
Speaker 2: When on this applies only to federal workers, of course,
Speaker 2: could policies like this sort of bleed into the private workplace.
Speaker 3: I think that this MIMO does provide an example of
Speaker 3: the type of protections that could be offered in the
Speaker 3: private workplace. And I think that graph versus a Joy,
Speaker 3: that's the Supreme Court case where the Court was interpreting
Speaker 3: again Title seven and religious protections that applies in the
Speaker 3: private workplace, and that idea of what constitutes an undue
Speaker 3: burden is also relevant to religious employers. And so I
Speaker 3: think this sort of guidance in part is analyzing and
Speaker 3: building on some of those legal principles and taking a
Speaker 3: much more rigorous view of what can count as an
Speaker 3: undue burden, and saying mere discomfort with hearing about religion
Speaker 3: from time to time, or having a colleague express that
Speaker 3: isn't an a nast account as undo burdens. You could
Speaker 3: imagine that sort of interpretation being relevant for courts that
Speaker 3: are interpreting what an undo burden means in the context
Speaker 3: of private employers.
Speaker 2: This follows a broader push by the Trump administration to
Speaker 2: allow federal workers to express religious beliefs. Can you tell
Speaker 2: us about that oh PM guidance about religious accommodations.
Speaker 3: This is following a general trend of the Trump administration
Speaker 3: where the principle is that we should be as accommodating
Speaker 3: of religion as possible. And so basically, if there isn't
Speaker 3: a justification for not accommodating federal workers or not accommodating
Speaker 3: religious practice that has been demonstrated on some sort of
Speaker 3: evidentiary basis, religious accommodation should be allowed. And that's a
Speaker 3: practice that the Supreme Court has been emphasizing in some
Speaker 3: of its recent decisions and that the Trump's administration seems
Speaker 3: to be consistently implementing as well.
Speaker 2: What other things has the Trump administration done regarding faith initiatives?
Speaker 3: One thing that the Trump administration has done is through
Speaker 3: its faith initiatives is that has recently put together a
Speaker 3: Commission on Religious Liberty under the White House, and they
Speaker 3: held a hearing earlier the Fear to receive input about
Speaker 3: challenges that still exist for religious believers and for religious
Speaker 3: institutions in the country. I was actually asked to testify
Speaker 3: at that event. There were discussions of all sorts of
Speaker 3: different religious groups, including religious minorities like Native Americans, and
Speaker 3: challenges that they still face, protection that they did not
Speaker 3: receive under the Biden administration, for example, for Native Americans
Speaker 3: take to site. So I was optimistic to see that
Speaker 3: there was not just a focus on Judeo Christian group,
Speaker 3: which was a concern you expressed earlier that some religious
Speaker 3: minorities have voiced, but that there was a broader discussion
Speaker 3: about the need for religious sobrity protections across the board,
Speaker 3: and a number of the commissioners seemed really interested in
Speaker 3: ways to improve conditions for all sorts of religious groups
Speaker 3: in America.
Speaker 2: And I guess we'll have to see how this religion
Speaker 2: memo actually plays out in the federal workplace.
Speaker 3: It emphasized the need to balance religious freedom with operational needs.
Speaker 3: So it's just saying agencies need to reasonably accommodate employees
Speaker 3: really held religious beliefs, practices, or observances. So I think
Speaker 3: that it will be important to keep an eye on
Speaker 3: whether or not these policies are being enforced in an
Speaker 3: even handed way, and that they're being enforced in ways
Speaker 3: that don't allow for harassment or pressure for must Americans.
Speaker 3: But on the face of the guy that, I think
Speaker 3: there are some guardrails in place that allow for remedies
Speaker 3: if that does occur, and are hopefully just going to
Speaker 3: make it so that employees can discuss religion at work
Speaker 3: like they can discuss their favorite baseball team or you know,
Speaker 3: anything else that's important in their life, and that this
Speaker 3: is an important part of their identity that they should
Speaker 3: be able to bring to work, just like other employees
Speaker 3: can bring other aspects of their life to their work
Speaker 3: as well, And I think that makes for a better
Speaker 3: and more inclusive, more pluralistic workplace in our country.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me. That's Stephanie Barklay, a
Speaker 2: professor at Georgetown Law. This is Bloomberg. Associate positions at
Speaker 2: top law firms are prestigious and lucrative, with seniority based
Speaker 2: pay scales that range from two hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to four hundred and thirty five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: before bonuses. Imagine giving up that job because of your principles.
Speaker 2: That's what some young lawyers did in response to deals
Speaker 2: their law firms made with President Donald Trump. Joining me
Speaker 2: is Justin Henry, a reporter at Bloomberg Law who's written
Speaker 2: about these associates, justin explain why these young lawyers quit
Speaker 2: their jobs at these prestigious law firms.
Speaker 1: So I'll start off by saying just how unusual it
Speaker 1: is for lawyers in big law to loudly quit their
Speaker 1: jobs and make a big deal about their critiques against
Speaker 1: their law firms. The reason why they are quitting their
Speaker 1: jobs and issuing these public statements is because these law firms,
Speaker 1: some of the wealthiest law firms in the world, agreed
Speaker 1: to provide hundreds of million dollars in quote unquote pro
Speaker 1: bono legal services to the Trump administration in exchange for
Speaker 1: avoiding some kind of unitive executive action by the White House.
Speaker 1: These include investigations by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission into
Speaker 1: these firms diversity hiring practices. These include executive orders from
Speaker 1: the White House targeting firms and their lawyers' execurity clearances
Speaker 1: and ability to interact with government officials. And what these
Speaker 1: associates have said as well as a few partners also
Speaker 1: quitting over these deals. Is that this amounts to an
Speaker 1: unconstitutional shakedown, and these super well resourced law firms should
Speaker 1: have the backbone to challenge these punitive actions in court.
Speaker 1: And at this moment in time, we're looking at those
Speaker 1: deals in the context of the fact that four firms
Speaker 1: that were targeted by the Trump administration were vindicated and
Speaker 1: successful in their legal challenges against the Trump White House.
Speaker 1: And so I think there are a lot of lawyers,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of associates who are looking at
Speaker 1: their own firms saying, you know, we should have challenged
Speaker 1: these actions or threatened actions in court instead of preemptively folding.
Speaker 2: So some associates were vocal about leaving their firms, but
Speaker 2: others did it quietly.
Speaker 1: The reporting that I've done has been focusing on the
Speaker 1: associates who vocally quit. Now the sense I get just
Speaker 1: from talking to sources in the industries that there are
Speaker 1: many more people who are dissatisfied about these deals, and
Speaker 1: that is serving as at least one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why they're changing firms or why they're leaving their firms.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to take a look at the associates
Speaker 1: who took it upon themselves to vocally disapprove of their
Speaker 1: firms in a public setting and then leave and then
Speaker 1: ask the question, what are their prospects? What are their
Speaker 1: career prospects now that they've spoken up, because it is
Speaker 1: so rare. So that's the group of associates that I've
Speaker 1: been looking at and just trying to follow up with
Speaker 1: and see how they're viewing their career prospects right now
Speaker 1: and talking to recruiters and asking them the same question.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about some of the associates that you
Speaker 2: spoke to. Start with Sunic Maradian.
Speaker 1: He was a third year associate at Simpton Thatcher who
Speaker 1: was very outraged about the deal. Simpton Thatcher is one
Speaker 1: of the nine firms that cut a deal with the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. He sends out a firm wide email on
Speaker 1: April eleventh, the same day that Simpson's deal with Trump
Speaker 1: was announced, and on that same day he's exiting the firm,
Speaker 1: and so he's kind of plotting his next moves. And
Speaker 1: what he's telling me is that he's looking for a
Speaker 1: job as a public defender. And you know, the rationale
Speaker 1: for that is that it basically aligns more with his
Speaker 1: values as a lawyer. When you're working at a high
Speaker 1: powered law firm on Wall Street, you are serving the
Speaker 1: very wealthy. Now, everybody deserves a lawyer, But according to Sinoek,
Speaker 1: he's looking for a job where he can represent people
Speaker 1: who don't have the same access to legal representation. And
Speaker 1: that's what he would be doing as a public defender. Now,
Speaker 1: there aren't many twenty seven year olds who are you
Speaker 1: making the amount of money that you make as a
Speaker 1: third year associate in big law. So he's you know,
Speaker 1: accepting the fact that he's going to be making a
Speaker 1: lot less as a lawyer in whatever he decides to pursue.
Speaker 1: But you know, when I asked him about that, he said,
Speaker 1: it's worth it. You know, there's not an amount of
Speaker 1: money that can make me feel comfortable working at a
Speaker 1: firm that would engage in a deal as highly suspect
Speaker 1: as what Since the Thatcher agreed to put.
Speaker 2: Some numbers on this, tell us about you know what
Speaker 2: the salaries are like for you know, even associates just
Speaker 2: coming out of law school.
Speaker 1: So working at top law firms like some Ston Thatcher,
Speaker 1: like Kirkland and Ellis, like Leithan Milwaukins. These are the
Speaker 1: highest paying jobs that you can get as a junior
Speaker 1: lawyer coming out of law school. These are firms that
Speaker 1: pay their associates according to what's called the Cravat scale,
Speaker 1: the associate seniority based pay scale that is set by
Speaker 1: top firms. So imagine this your first year associate in
Speaker 1: your mid twenties coming out of law school, and your
Speaker 1: annual salary is two hundred and twenty five thousand, and
Speaker 1: that's before bonuses. You add bonuses onto that, and you're
Speaker 1: almost making a quarter of a million dollars as a
Speaker 1: lawyer in your mid twenties. I mean, there's just no
Speaker 1: job in the profession that's going to get you close
Speaker 1: to that, certainly not being a public defender. And by
Speaker 1: the time you're in your third year as an associate
Speaker 1: at one of these firms, you're getting I believe it's
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifteen thousand, and that's space salary including bonuses.
Speaker 1: The reason why we know how much these lawyers are
Speaker 1: making is because they all pay according to the Kravat scale,
Speaker 1: and that is a seniority based pay scale set by
Speaker 1: a very powerful Wall Street law firm called Cravats. Swain
Speaker 1: and Moore. And it's the top dollar that you can
Speaker 1: make as a junior lawyer in the profession that all
Speaker 1: the competitors need to match or else risk losing out
Speaker 1: on junior legal talent.
Speaker 2: Tell us about Ryan Powers, who didn't leave voluntarily. He
Speaker 2: was fired.
Speaker 1: So Ryan Powers didn't quit like the other people we
Speaker 1: looked at, but he was fired by another powerhouse law
Speaker 1: firm called Davis, Polk and Wardwell. He was fired because
Speaker 1: of the op ed pieces that he would get published
Speaker 1: in newspapers around the country where he would opine and
Speaker 1: analyze kind of the intersection of political issues and legal issues,
Speaker 1: and so he would weigh in about things like government surveillance,
Speaker 1: the Trump administration and Trump administration allies. And according to
Speaker 1: the people we've talked to, including Ryan, our understanding is
Speaker 1: that why he was fired was because he didn't get
Speaker 1: these op eds cleared or approved by his firm, and
Speaker 1: so you know, as a result, he breached some internal
Speaker 1: policy and had to be let go. But the reason
Speaker 1: why we took a look at him is because he
Speaker 1: still falls in this category as a vocal june your
Speaker 1: lawyer who's speaking out on hot button political issues and
Speaker 1: so he's in that category, and so we wondered, how
Speaker 1: is he viewing his career right now? Can you speak
Speaker 1: up on these issues and still have a career in
Speaker 1: big law?
Speaker 2: And can you can you go back to practicing in
Speaker 2: big law after speaking out like this? Some of the
Speaker 2: people you spoke to, like recruiters, thought you couldn't. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So my analysis of the situation, based on people we've
Speaker 1: talked to, is that you can still have a career
Speaker 1: in big law, but you are making it difficult for
Speaker 1: yourself by being vocal and speaking out against management decisions.
Speaker 1: You know, there are still some law firms that didn't
Speaker 1: speak up out against the Trump administration. There are a
Speaker 1: handful of law firms that signed on to a friend
Speaker 1: of the Court brief in a lawsuit brought by Perkins Cooey,
Speaker 1: one of these Trump targeted firms, where there does seem
Speaker 1: to be a value alignment between the associates who spoke
Speaker 1: up and the law firms who spoke up in support
Speaker 1: of Perkins Kooi. However, this is a limited number of
Speaker 1: law firms that was willing to speak up. There are
Speaker 1: only eight law firms in the top one hundred biggest
Speaker 1: law firms in the US who were willing to align
Speaker 1: themselves with Perkins KOOI, and not all of them are
Speaker 1: going to hire all the people who are quitting their
Speaker 1: firms in protest.
Speaker 2: Do you have an idea of how many people quit
Speaker 2: in protest?
Speaker 1: We counted twelve associates who posted on LinkedIn or spoke
Speaker 1: with the media saying I'm quitting and then left. That
Speaker 1: does not include a group of former Wilkie, far and
Speaker 1: Gallagher associates who spoke up after they had already secured
Speaker 1: a job at Cooley following a couple partners there. So
Speaker 1: in some ways they overlap with our sample size. In
Speaker 1: other ways they don't because they had already secured another
Speaker 1: job for kind of speaking out.
Speaker 2: So that's a drop in the bucket compared to the
Speaker 2: number of associates there are at these law firms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a drop in the bucket. I mean the
Speaker 1: law firms that they are leaving and speaking out against
Speaker 1: have the strongest buying power in the legal industry. Like
Speaker 1: I said before, they pay top dollar, So I don't
Speaker 1: think they're worried about their ability to recruit and routine
Speaker 1: associates and kind of replace the people who have left some.
Speaker 2: Have not found other jobs yet, and others are going
Speaker 2: in wildly different directions.
Speaker 1: Correct. Yeah, I think the person you're referring to Taylor Weddick.
Speaker 1: He's running to represent Iowa's first congressional district in the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives. And I also wrote about Rachel Cohen,
Speaker 1: who's maybe the most high profile person in this cohort
Speaker 1: because she was one of the first people to loudly
Speaker 1: quit and speak out against her firm, Scaton, for making
Speaker 1: its deal with the Trump administration. She's working at a
Speaker 1: boutique litigation firm founded by Abby Lowell, who said in
Speaker 1: his mission statement is he's formed this firm, he's a
Speaker 1: former Winston and Strawn partner, and his goal is to
Speaker 1: represent political targets of Donald Trump. What I think unite
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who have found post big
Speaker 1: law jobs is that they're in places that kind of
Speaker 1: align with their stated values or allow them to speak
Speaker 1: more vocally about their political views. Taylor Weddick, when you're
Speaker 1: running for Congress as a Democrat, you are going to
Speaker 1: be speaking up about political views that are against the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. When you're Rachel Cohen doing media relations for
Speaker 1: a law firm that was founded to challenge the Trump
Speaker 1: administration in court. You're going to be speaking in that way.
Speaker 2: Did anyone tell you I regret leaving the law firm.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of young lawyers have student loans
Speaker 2: to pay off.
Speaker 1: Yes, there are people who are in that position. Some
Speaker 1: of the people that I talked to found themselves to
Speaker 1: be in a lucky position, like ce you. Nick Moradian
Speaker 1: told me that he just finished paying off his student
Speaker 1: loans before he left. He was in kind of a
Speaker 1: lucky position that way. But other people do find themselves
Speaker 1: with debt, and you know, it kind of goes back
Speaker 1: to that sentiment I shared before, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: money is one thing, but there's this sort of feeling
Speaker 1: of guilt by proxy for practicing at a firm that
Speaker 1: cut this deal with the Trump administration. So yeah, they're
Speaker 1: in a position where they're having to find other ways
Speaker 1: of paying down their debt.
Speaker 2: Well, lawyers get a lot of criticism, so it's nice
Speaker 2: to see some standing up for their principles. Thanks for
Speaker 2: joining me, Justin. That's Bloomberg Law reporter Justin Henry, the
Speaker 2: prosecutor whom judges appointed to replace former Trump lawyer Alina
Speaker 2: Haba as New Jersey's US Attorney, Desiree Grace, has while
Speaker 2: the complaint challenging the Trump administration's decision to fire her.
Speaker 2: The Justice Department fired Grace hours after the state's federal
Speaker 2: judges voted for her to become the U S Attorney
Speaker 2: in New Jersey, appointing her to the role instead of
Speaker 2: extending Hobba's term. The Justice Department then used complex legal
Speaker 2: maneuvers to keep Haba on as acting US Attorney. Grace
Speaker 2: says her termination was completely unjustified and that she was
Speaker 2: fired in direct retaliation for the judges appointing her as
Speaker 2: the state's top federal prosecutor. She's filed an appeal with
Speaker 2: the US Merit System's Protection Board, the body that mediates
Speaker 2: challenges from federal workers over adverse employment decisions. The case
Speaker 2: carries broader implications because several defendants being prosecuted on criminal
Speaker 2: charges have argued that Haba was not lawfully appointed and
Speaker 2: that the indictments against them are invalid and should be dropped.
Speaker 2: Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter David Voriakis. David, to
Speaker 2: put this in perspective, tell us about Alena Habba's history
Speaker 2: or path at the US Attorney's Office in New Jersey.
Speaker 4: Alena Haba was appointed as the interim US Attorney in
Speaker 4: New Jersey by President Trump in March for one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty day term. She replaced another interim US attorney
Speaker 4: who was only in office for about two weeks. She
Speaker 4: had previously been Donald Trump's private attorney, and she had
Speaker 4: no proscutorial experience. She came in and soon announced that
Speaker 4: she was going to help turn New Jersey red, which
Speaker 4: raised some alarm bells for people because the job is
Speaker 4: supposed to be nonpartisan and the US Attorney is not
Speaker 4: to favor Democrats or Republicans. She furthered. Deepened her controversy
Speaker 4: by saying that she was going to investigate Governor Murphy,
Speaker 4: who's a Democrat, over comments he made about possibly having
Speaker 4: a migrant lived with him, and then she charged the
Speaker 4: Newark Mayor, Rods Baraka with trespassing over his conduct during
Speaker 4: a protest at a private immigration facility in Newark, and
Speaker 4: he later indicted a congresswoman from Newark over her conduct
Speaker 4: at the same protest, and a judge subsequently scolded the
Speaker 4: US Attorney's office quite severely for the way they investigated
Speaker 4: and brought charges against Rods Baraka, which Elena Habba had dropped,
Speaker 4: so the.
Speaker 2: New Jersey judges refused to appoint Happa when her term
Speaker 2: was expiring. Tell us what happened.
Speaker 4: Habba's term was going to expire after one hundred and
Speaker 4: twenty days. Under the law, if a four year permanent
Speaker 4: US Attorney has not been confirmed by the US Senate,
Speaker 4: then the federal judges in that district have the authority
Speaker 4: to appoint an acting US Attorney. They decided that they
Speaker 4: wanted Desiree Grace, who was Alena Hobba's number two, the
Speaker 4: first assistant US Attorney, to serve as the acting US
Speaker 4: Attorney in place of Elena Habba. And they met and
Speaker 4: they decided that she was going to be elevated to
Speaker 4: US Attorney. That did not sit well with Attorney General
Speaker 4: Pam Bondi, and hours later she fired Grace and she
Speaker 4: assailed what she described as the politically minded judges who
Speaker 4: appointed her. The administration then used a series of procedural
Speaker 4: maneuvers to elevate Habba to the job for the next
Speaker 4: two hundred and ten days. And what they did was
Speaker 4: they pulled Habba's nomination from the US Senate and they
Speaker 4: gave her a title of Special Assistant to the Attorney General,
Speaker 4: and then they named her first Assistant US Attorney, and
Speaker 4: from there they named her Acting US Attorney. All of
Speaker 4: this is possible under the Federal Vacancies Act, in which
Speaker 4: if someone is one of three positions, including the Deputy
Speaker 4: US Attorney, they can be named acting US Attorney. So
Speaker 4: it was through a fairly complex set of maneuvers that
Speaker 4: the Trump administration elevated Alena Haba to Act US Attorney,
Speaker 4: which is a position she can hold for the next
Speaker 4: two hundred and ten days.
Speaker 2: And tell us about Grace's appeal to the US Merit
Speaker 2: Systems Protection Board.
Speaker 4: She said that her July twenty second termination was completely
Speaker 4: unjustified and that it was in direct retaliation for the
Speaker 4: judges appointing her as the state's top federal prosecutor. The
Speaker 4: question is whether this board is going to have the
Speaker 4: authority to do anything about it, because they do not
Speaker 4: have a full board that can act in this matter
Speaker 4: or in other matters of fired federal workers.
Speaker 2: Grace was an assistant US Attorney, not a political appointee,
Speaker 2: So what are the implications of that.
Speaker 4: Well, that gives her jurisdiction to apply to the US
Speaker 4: Merit Systems Protection Board because she's effectively a civil servant.
Speaker 4: Even though the administration would argue that they have the
Speaker 4: authority to hire and fire any US Assistant attorney in
Speaker 4: the United States for any reason, she would say that
Speaker 4: she's also covered by the EMERITYSTEM Protection Board. So it's
Speaker 4: unclear how this might proceed and what sort of protection
Speaker 4: she might have for her job or for her ability
Speaker 4: to rise to become the US Attorney in New Jersey,
Speaker 4: which is what the judges in New Jersey appointed her
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 2: The controversy over Haba has led the New Jersey federal
Speaker 2: criminal proceedings to basically come to a halt except for
Speaker 2: bail hearings.
Speaker 4: There are many criminal cases that have paused because the
Speaker 4: judges want to see how the dispute will play out,
Speaker 4: and in particular, there is a case involving a father
Speaker 4: and son facing drug and weapons related charges in Camden,
Speaker 4: New Jersey. They have filed emotion challenging paba appointment and
Speaker 4: saying that Grace should be the lawfully appointed US Attorney
Speaker 4: in New Jersey and not Alena Haba. This matter was
Speaker 4: referred by the Chief Judge in the third Circuit Court
Speaker 4: of Appeals to Matthew Brand, who's the chief judge in
Speaker 4: the Middle District of Pennsylvania, who is considering arguments over
Speaker 4: whether Alena Haba is the properly appointed US attorney or
Speaker 4: whether it should be desiree grace, What has.
Speaker 2: Happened so far in that case with the Pennsylvania judge.
Speaker 2: What has he done so far?
Speaker 4: So far? The judge has ruled that the appointment of
Speaker 4: Haba has not adversely affected the ability of this father
Speaker 4: and son to receive justice in their case, that they
Speaker 4: cannot show that there's a harm to them individually by
Speaker 4: Elena Habba directing the case. But he's allowed them to
Speaker 4: make arguments questioning the legal and constitutional underpinnings of Habba's appointment.
Speaker 4: So he is going to hear arguments and take motions
Speaker 4: on the question of whether Alena Habba is legally appointed
Speaker 4: to run the attorney's office in New Jersey. There's going
Speaker 4: to be oral arguments on August fifteenth in the case
Speaker 4: in Williamsports, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: To give this a little more context, both Democratic senators
Speaker 2: in New Jersey have called Haba unfit to serve, so
Speaker 2: with the blue Slip tradition requiring approval from home state senators.
Speaker 2: Habba couldn't even get at a Senate hearing, let alone.
Speaker 1: A confirmation that's correct.
Speaker 4: So as it stands now, she's going to serve for
Speaker 4: the next two hundred and ten days without Senate confirmation.
Speaker 4: The process is designed so that US attorneys have advice
Speaker 4: and consent of the US Senate. In this case, she
Speaker 4: will be an appointment of Attorney General cam Bondi, to
Speaker 4: whom she directly reports, but the Senate won't have had
Speaker 4: input into her appointment.
Speaker 2: And the Trump administration is using these acting titles to
Speaker 2: keep people they want in charge of other US attorneys' offices,
Speaker 2: like the one in Los Angeles and Albity. So there
Speaker 2: are a lot of unconfirmed US attorneys. Thanks so much, David.
Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg Legal reporter David Voriakis. Another legal news today,
Speaker 2: Texas Senator John Cornyn says he's gotten an assurance from
Speaker 2: FBI Director Cash Pattel that federal agents will help to
Speaker 2: locate the Democratic state lawmakers from Texas who've left the state.
Speaker 2: The lawmakers are protesting against a special session in which
Speaker 2: Republicans want to drastically redraw that state's congressional map to
Speaker 2: give Republicans up to five more seats for the midterm elections.
Speaker 2: House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries says it's an alarming use
Speaker 2: of law enforcement.
Speaker 5: The FBI should be spending its time chasing down violent criminals, terrorists,
Speaker 5: drug traffickers, and child predators, not targeting political adversaries in
Speaker 5: a democracy here in America.
Speaker 2: Preventing a quorum back in the Texas House is costing
Speaker 2: each state representative five hundred dollars a day in fines,
Speaker 2: not to mention the out of state lodging and food food.
Speaker 2: But they're getting help. Former Congressman Beto O'Rourke led a
Speaker 2: fundraiser at a campaign style event in Omaha, Nebraska. All right,
Speaker 2: thanks everybody, three thousand dollars raise for the Texas Democrats.
Speaker 2: Powered by People, The political group led by O'Rourke has
Speaker 2: been holding events in red states to fire up Democrats
Speaker 2: and encourage donations. Back home in Texas, Republican Attorney General
Speaker 2: Ken Paxton is promising to investigate quote any Democrat coward
Speaker 2: breaking the law by taking a Beto bribe. And that's
Speaker 2: it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember
Speaker 2: You can always get the latest legal news on our
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 2: and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast slash Law,
Speaker 2: and remember to tune into the Bloomberg Law Show every
Speaker 2: weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grassou
Speaker 2: and you're listening to Bloomberg