Yesterday, in our weekly conversation about what’s going on in the courts, Adam Klasfeld of All Rise News walked me through yet more of the Trump administration’s unprecedented and sometimes terrifying tests of our legal system, especially around immigration.
Exhibit A is the dramatic arrest of New York mayoral candidate Brad Lander, who, as Adam points out, wields not-a-tremendous amount of power as New York City’s top accountant. But thanks to the aggressive actions of a couple of ICE agents who yanked his neck and then cuffed him in the corridor of a New York immigration court, (claiming he assaulted one of them, but possibly because he was walking out with an immigrant who had just appeared before a judge and whom they wanted to arrest), Lander could become the latest political martyr created by Trump. (Of course, Republicans claim that’s exactly what he wants, given the upcoming mayoral election in which he’s polling third, and that the whole thing was a stunt. Lander was released with no charges after a few hours, but, astonishingly, DHS made sure to troll him on X, writing: No Man Is Above The Law).
Lander is the latest on a growing list of high-profile officials including Senator Alex Padilla and Rep. LaMonica McIver, and, as Adam discusses at the ten minute mark of our interview, Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan, who have been penalized for standing up to representatives of DHS. In the case of Judge Dugan, she showed an immigrant and his lawyer a back exit out of her courtroom, annoyed that ICE agents were hanging around her court waiting for the guy, after she’d asked them not to. She is now charged with concealing the immigrant, who was subsequently arrested. Adam explains that Judge Dugan has asked for the charges against her to be dismissed on grounds that she was running her courtroom and therefore what she did comes under the umbrella of an official act. It’s thanks to President Trump that she is able to make such an argument. In 2024 the Supreme Court ruled that official acts are immune from prosecution because of questions around the legality of Trump’s own actions while in office.
Adam will be in court in Milwaukee whenever the presiding judge in the case rules. But it will be deeply ironic if in fact Trump’s own quest for “justice” comes back to bite him here.
Around the fourteen minute mark we move on to discuss the huge stakes of the legal battles around protests in Los Angeles. (If you’ll recall the State of California is suing the Trump administration for sending in the National Guard in response to the protests around immigration. Judge Breyer ruled, in a scathing opinion, that the federalization of the National Guard was illegal, but his ruling has been stayed by the Ninth Circuit Appeals court.)
The three judge panel on the Ninth Circuit, comprised of two Trump appointees and one Biden appointee, have behaved surprisingly, says Adam. The tough questions for the Trump administration lawyers are coming from Judge Bennett, one of the Trump appointees. Adam reminds us the enormity of what’s at stake here: the Trump Administration’s lawyers are arguing that the President has the right to send troops all over the country, without review from a court, regardless of where in the country a “rebellion” - the key word in the statute - is.
Adam reminds us that Judge Breyer wrote that should this notion prevail, then, essentially the US is now less of a democracy than England under King George III.
At the twenty minute mark we get to Adam’s take on what happened in court on Friday in Nashville, Tennessee for the hearing around the illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia (who goes by simply Abrego, according to his lawyer). A reminder: Abrego, who, the government says, is a member of the gang MS-13, had been sent to El Salvador, a country where has fear of persecution, without due process. He is now back in prison in Nashville, on charges that he’s been transporting illegal aliens through the US for years.
Adam explains that he learned in court that the government is relying on the testimony of two cooperating witnesses whose history is colorful to put it mildly, and whose reliability is not necessarily a sure thing. Having said that, the judge did not rule to take Abrego out of detention, but, it turns out there are complicated reasons for that, so we’ll see where this lands.
At the end we touch on the latest news from the Diddy trial (it should be over by July 4); the not guilty verdict in the trial of Karen Read; And, finally we get to where we are with the proceedings in the run-up to the trial of Bryan Kohberger in Boise, Idaho.
Kohberger, a former criminology PhD student, is accused of knifing four University of Idaho students: Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in their beds. The big mystery for most true crime followers, is the possible motive.
A reminder that James Patterson and I have a new book, The Idaho Four, out on July 14 which tells you everything you need to know about this case.
You can order your copy HERE!
Thank you to everyone who tuned into yesterday! See you next week!
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