Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, June 22

[Intro]

Natalie Orpett: It's Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration. I'm Nathalie Orpett, executive editor of Lawfare, and it is 4:00 PM Eastern Time on June 22nd. I'm here with my colleagues, all senior editors here at Lawfare, Roger Parloff, Eric Columbus, and Molly Roberts. So, thanks all for joining.

We will start off with some breaking news as of, I think, about half an hour ago, which relates to the J.G.G. case, another acronym for immigration case which we have been tracking, I have to say, since the very beginning, back before it was cool and the Supreme Court took it up and everyone started paying attention. So, Roger, can I start with you and just give a, a quick refresher of what this case is and tell us the breaking news?

Roger Parloff: Yeah, this goes back to really March 15th, 2025. So I think that's 15 months. That's when the Trump administration had just revealed the fact that it- Trump had signed this Alien Enemies Act proclamation and was trying to ship at least 137 Venezuelans to CECOT.

Judge Boasberg seemed to order them not to, but the 137 were sent to CECOT anyway. A mo- about a month later, after some hearings, he found probable cause to believe that there was criminal contempt involved. At that point, the government took up a mandamus and a three-judge panel issued an administrative stay. I put it in air quotes 'cause it lasted 112 days. It was a two-to-one ruling on the administrative stay. Obviously, there's no ruling at all. There's no explanation. It was Judge Katsas and Rao and then Judge Pillard. Eventually, they issued a an opinion and Katsas and Rao had different theories for granting the mandamus. They did not join each other's. Pillard dissented.

And by the way, while that was pending Erez Reuveni came forward. He's the former DOJ lawyer, former immigration lawyer and revealed, and this was after Judge Boasberg had already preliminarily found probable cause, revealed that according to him there was a meeting the day before this thing happened on March 14th. And then Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, now the Honorable Emil Bove told DOJ attorneys they might have to say, quote, "fuck you," unquote, to a federal judge in order to make sure that these people were deported under the Alien Enemies Act.

And so eventually the petition for rehearing was denied in November, but six of the judges wrote separately to say that, which was six of 11, the majority wrote in different ways to say that Boasberg could go forward with his hearing now because the basis for Rao's mandamus had become inoperable. We don't have to get into why.

So he scheduled the hearing. And as soon as he scheduled it, the government took a second mandamus. And another panel which also included Judge Rao, but also Judge Walker this time, then entered another administrative stay with this time Judge Childs dissenting. And that administrative stay lasted 123 days. And by the way, look up administrative stay. You'll, you won't find any theory under which they're supposed to last four months.

And then they issued a ruling in April 14th. Two of them granted the mandamus mainly theorizing that the judge's order was ambiguous on an objective level, even though the government conceded that it understood it on a subjective level, at least the lawyers present that day.

Anyway, that was the, the petitioners took a petition for rehearing, and today, about 45 minutes ago, at least according to the alert, rehearing en banc was granted. So, it's not gonna be a rush job. We, we... the oral argument will be September 29th, so it'll be fully briefed and we will finally get a, a ruling en banc on whether Judge Boasberg can try to get to the bottom of what happened on March 15th, 2025.

Natalie Orpett: Yeah, it is quite the extended adventure through civil and appellate procedure, all for the purpose of identifying this other theme that we've been tracking in Lawfare, which relates to the extent to which the government may or may not be defying court orders. So we will, as always, continue to keep a very close eye on J.G.G.

All right. And we will return to other immigration cases a bit later. But let us shift gears now to our general bucket of politicization of the Justice Department. I am going to actually come back to you, Roger. We have news out of Minnesota relating to some grand jury subpoenas. So what is going on there?

Roger Parloff: Yeah. This was news that was apparently unsealed today, just a couple hours ago. It actually seems to have happened June 17th. If you remember there were grand jury subpoenas sent out in January by the government, well, formally by the grand jury, but really by the government, to six top political figures in Minnesota: the offices of Governor Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey in Minneapolis, Mayor Cauley Herr in St. Paul, Keith Ellison, the attorney general, state attorney general, and the board of commissioners for Ramsey County and Hennepin County, which are St. Paul and Minneapolis, seeking all of their records relating to immigration enforcement since the Trump administration took over.

And today the Judge Patrick Schiltz, who's the chief judge, and he's a George W. Bush appointee and a Scalia clerk, quashed all six. So it's a very significant thing. And he marches through the timeline. Basically, the conclusion is this:

"To be clear, the Court agrees with the Department that a grand-jury subpoena need not be supported by probable cause. At the same time, a grand-jury subpoena cannot be issued for an improper purpose. The fact that connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation range from extremely weak to nonexistent only adds to the overwhelming evidence that these subpoenas were not issued to investigate, but to harass, coerce, and retaliate. In sum, because the Court finds that the dominant purpose of the challenged subpoenas is to coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration law and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so, the Court grants the motions to quash.”

He quoted several times Judge Boasberg's ruling quashing the subpoenas, the two sub-grand jury subpoenas relating to Jerome Powell. So it's a, it's a pretty powerful ruling coming from who it came from. And actually, the basis was he did say he thought that what they were doing amounted to what's called commandeering in violation of the Tenth Amendment. He was, they were trying to force Minnesota to devote their state resources to enforcing federal immigration law, and that key ruling was Printz v. United States, which I believe was a, a Scalia ruling. Anyway, that's, that's the gist of that ruling.

Natalie Orpett: And for folks who are interested in some of the legal issues embedded in that we've, we've published a couple of pieces that do some very good analysis on the question of the, the interaction between state and federal authority on immigration enforcement and, in particular, in the limits on the federal government's ability to commandeer or otherwise coerce state officials to undertake certain enforcement actions. So, those of you interested in the weeds, check out the website.

Eric Columbus: And for those, if I may say, for those of you who are interested in Judge Schiltz, Anna Bower and L.T. Edwards and I wrote a piece about the Don Lemon case in Minnesota. We wrote two pieces, but one of the pieces actually discusses Judge Schiltz’s role in that as the chief judge of the Minnesota district. He was very angry with the prosecutors in that case.

Natalie Orpett: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's actually another good example of the, the bench in the District of Minnesota really being on the, the cutting edge of judges engaging with in various forms the possibility that the government lawyers are, perhaps defying orders, perhaps acting in bad faith. Some interesting judicial strategies being used there to just address this issue that keeps appar- appearing in various forms in their courtrooms.

So Eric, while we're on you and on Minnesota, I will come over to you to talk about an indictment of some protesters. Tell us what's going on there.

Eric Columbus: Yeah. So there was a, there was a indictment dropped last week, or it was handed up by a grand jury last week in the District of Minnesota. 15 people were indicted on charges of violating Section 372 of Title 18, which is the same charge that was used against the Broadview Six, the prosecution that fell apart in eventually in spectacular fashion in Chicago. And-

Natalie Orpett: About which a certain Eric Columbus wrote an excellent piece to which I commend all of you.

Eric Columbus: And that statute basically prohibits impeding officers by force intimidation or threat or threatening to injure them. It, it's not used very often in, in, apparently in Chicago it had not been used in the history of the U.S. Attorney's office there—I can't speak to Minnesota. And this involves actions taken by people who are opposed to the ICE surge during the earlier part of this year in the- sorry, in the Twin Cities.

And it's in, in some ways very different from the Broadview Six case in which in that case, all protesters had was a video that showed a, a car trying to approach an ICE facility turning onto a street where protesters were. There was no evidence of planning. It was, it was clear what the ultimate actions were, kind of more or less, in the, in the video. Whereas here it's a 94-page indictment of which like 90 pages are taken up with largely with messages back and forth among these, many of these 15 people, planning and going to meetings and engaging in, in all sorts of talk. And it's not always clear what they are planning but there's a lot of angry rhetoric and some tough talk.

These are, the government has tons of Signal messages. It's unclear whether they got them through a subpoena or whether they had someone on the inside. And there's references to Antifa sprinkled throughout, some of which the government says, you know, all these people were Antifa without necessarily having supporting quotes for that.

But then there's one guy, one defendant who literally says, "I'm Antifa." And he, I can imagine how hap- delighted the government was when they saw that. And he, he was actually already in custody. He's a guy named Kyle Wagner. He was, he was, had been charged with threatening a, a conservative influencer who had traveled from Michigan to Minnesota. And, and now he's also charged with soliciting a crime of violence and, and threatening to, to kill an officer. There are a couple of people who are charged with interstate stalking. Two are charged with assaulting an officer. One is charged with kicking the officer's car.

But the heart of the indictment is a lot of just talking about, about ways to combat ICE and people kind of saying we need to do more than what we've been doing. One person says it's time to leave non-violent actions behind. But the bulk of it, and it's not entirely clear what the evidence is going to show at trial if they get there it, it involves just kind of talking about how to monitor ICE agents and follow them and find ways to basically impede their work, but not necessarily doing so in any way that involves force or intimidation or threat or, or, or conspiring to injure them.

So, and we don't know for, in large part, what the end result of all this talk was. Of course, for a conspiracy, you don't, you don't necessarily need to have an end result, but you may need to have something more than what they're than what they have here. So we will monitor this as the case develops.

Natalie Orpett: And Eric, is your sense that the references to Antifa are going to intersect with the purported designation of Antifa in a non-legal designation, 'cause no such thing exists as a domestic terrorist organization, that the government's gonna try to make use of that concept in its prosecuting of this case?

Eric Columbus: I would doubt it because they're not... They, they don't have, unlike in that Texas case that was a few months ago, I forget what we were calling that, there is not a a support of, of, of, a material support of terrorism here, charge in here, so I don't, I don't think that would- I, I haven't seen the word terror used in connection with this.

It does, however, connect to what is called and we've talked about it, NS-NSPM7, I think it's what it is, National I think it's National Security Presidential Memorandum is what NSPM stands for, which was something that was issued with much fanfare by the president in the wake of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the murder of Charlie Kirk, and it purported to unleash the whole of government on Antifa and related organizations and ramp up efforts to go after them.

And this according to the U.S. attorney, is, is the fruit of that. And, you know, of course critics of the administration will say that they- This is just a way to look for a way to kind of make the president and Stephen Miller happy by, by pursuing a big indictment that can be, where you can bl- emblazon Antifa in the headlines and that the facts will, you know, hopefully give us, a trial, give us more insight as to whether those criticisms are, are warranted.

Natalie Orpett: I am staying with you, Eric to shift a little bit eastward to the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago where we've also been tracking some happenings among government lawyers. What is the latest there?

Eric Columbus: Yeah, so we have, we have two items this week in which the the U.S. Attorney's office kind of con- continues to back down. And one of them is in the Broadview Six case and one is in a, a new case. And let's, I guess, start with the new case.

The U.S. Attorney's office arrested a few people in a case alleging the attacks on undercover ATF officers. And then, I think, days after they filed a complaint and, and arrested the suspects, they backed down and dismissed the case without prejudice, saying that they had received- the front office had received a video from ATF agents that had not been disclosed to the frontline prosecutors that indicated that the, the people who had been arrested in the video were not, in fact, doing what they were accused of doing.

And the magistrate judge basically hit the roof when she heard about this, and she, she held a hearing and said basically that she was very concerned that she couldn't rely on information that was being provided to her from the office. And she, she, she questioned the, the phrase that we've, we've used a lot over the past few months—she questioned the presumption of regularity that is generally accorded to government officers that what they are doing is done in good faith and that their I's are, are dotted and T's are crossed unless there is specific evidence to the contrary. And so she's announced a, a hearing on July second to decide whether she should impose sanctions here.

So this is completely different from the, the stuff involved in the, in the, in the Broadview Six case. It is, there's no evidence of politicization, but we think it's important to talk about these things to, in part because it helps shine a light on whether you just have a U.S. Attorney's office that is out of control/incompetent, or whether you have evidence of politicization in, in broader sense than the Broadview Six case.

And details continue to seep out. Turning now to the Broadview Six case, the latest development is that the government has said that it will not contest the entitlement of, the defendants to attorney's fees under something that's known as the Hyde Amendment. Now, it's this very different Hyde Amendment from the Hyde Amendment that has restricted payments, use of federal funds to pay for abortions. I, I believe it is the same Representative Hyde, though. This was kind of during a, a, a brief period of time where, where there is a very anti-federal law enforcement sentiment in the among the Republicans in Congress in the 1990s, and it's a, a statute that allows an award of attorney's fees where the court finds that “the position of the United States was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.”

And this was the, the defendants filed such a motion for fees with regard to the opposition by the government to their request for grand jury transcripts and, and disclosure of what was going on, but before the grand jury because it was ... The defendants suspected that something was afoot, and the prosecutors who, kind of by definition, had all the evidence of what happened before the grand jury said to the, the defendants were, were being ridiculous.

And the government I think as part of their, their continuing quest to appease the district judge there to the extent possible and not have sanctions issued against them, are, are trying to appear reasonable and saying, "Okay, we, we agree you're entitled to fees. Let's, let's negotiate over it. We- let's see how much you, you're suggesting, and we will come to a solution," rather than you know, head-on contesting the allegation that they acted in bad faith.

Natalie Orpett: Yeah. That's h- that's helpful. And I'll just to build on something that Eric just mentioned. You know, the, the other way to think about this, in addition to looking into and thinking about the extent to which some of the oddities in prosecuting cases and/or bringing civil suits is reflective of politicization. We're also thinking about them from the perspective of what does this say about the state of the rule of law in the United States right now. And, and sometimes the reality is that indicators of that happen in the extreme weeds of procedure as, as Roger was talking about, or in evaluations of conduct of government lawyers. And that tends to not make the headlines in the same way, but in my humble opinion, is really can really be the canary in the coal mine about where things stand with respect to the presumption of regularity and also just the, the general sense of the stability of the rule of law.

So that little, that little statement out of the way. Eric, I'll give you a little break since you have done several in a row and come back to you in a second. But Roger, can you tell us about a different way in which DOJ is doing unusual things, this time in the civil litigation sphere, and that is in the NAACP v. xAI case.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. And there is now construction work in the apartment above me, so I hope, hope I can get this across.

So back in April of this year the NAACP sued xAI and one of its subsidiaries, MZX Tech, in the Northern District of Mis- Mississippi. It's a Clean Air Act case, and it's called a citizen suit. Under the Clean Air Act, the, the government can sue to enforce the federal laws, the requirements of the Clean Air Act. I think the state can sue too. But if the government chooses not to, citizens can sue, and this has been going on for 50 years.

And here the a- xAI was building an enormous data center. In fact, it's called “Colossus II,” and it's in Southaven Mississippi, which is really part of Greater Memphis, but it's across the border from Tennessee. And there were 27 gas-fired turbines being used to support this data center at the time it was sued. There's now at least 57 and, and it seems to be going up to close to 60 gas-fired turbines produce nitrogen oxide. I think this is undisputed. Fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, all of these have long, or, or together these have long been associated with heart disease, lung disease, premature death.

Each turbine is apparently the size of a single family home. And this neighborhood is primarily a Black or a heavily Black community, and that's I guess why the NAACP is bringing the suit. And so, the unusual, and they were seeking preliminary injunction and, and daily civil penalties. And there's no dispute apparently that the defendants skipped the permit process. They did not do the federal permitting. If you do federal permitting, you have to show that you have the best available control, pollution control technology. Apparently, the basis for not doing it is that Mississippi regulators let them. They said that, they argued, companies argued that the turbines are mobile and temporary and didn't ap- the regs didn't apply, and the Mississippi regulators said fine. And of course that's strange 'cause they don't, they can't waive federal law.

But anyway, on June 15th, DOJ intervened. And they have an absolute right to intervene. That part's written into the statute. But what they're claiming is something that nobody has claimed in 50 years, which is they also have an absolute right to dismiss the suit. They're saying "It's up to us w- whether to enforce federal law, and if we don't want it enforced we tr- we, we, we preempt you, and you-- and the judge has-" This is not in the statute.

Now there are two theories. One is national security because the military does use xAI's Grok government model. So they say that it supports mission critical operations. You know, it could be used in Iran. They also mention economic and energy security in the DOJ brief.

So that's one theory, but the more alarming theory is simply this one I sort of mentioned, that, the theory that the Clean Air Act gives the U.S. this absolute right of dismissal, and that it does so, because if it didn't, there would be weighty constitutional issues that, that the vests, this power of enforcing federal law in the executive branch. And so if the citizens are gonna enforce it in a way that they don't agree with, that's a constitutional problem.

xAI has actually made the strongest, I mean, the most extreme constitutional argument of all, it says that citizen lawsuits are per se unconstitutional. Which of course- this is apparently a theory that's been percolating in conservative circles for some time, but it's- I don't think it's ever been argued before, certainly not by the government.

So that is a huge deal. Citizen suits are not just limited to the Clean Air Act. There's also the Clean Water Act, RCRA, which is the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, Safe Drinking Water Act. And by extension, you know, if, if the xAI argument is right and, and citizen suits are unconstitutional, then you get, there's a lot of citizen, there's a lot of statutes that give both the government and citizens the right to sue, like the civil rights laws.

So, there's no telling how broadly this could cut. This is in- it's before Deborah... I forget her last name now. She's an Obama appointee. But it's, this is in the Fifth Circuit, so it's going to the Fifth Circuit after her. And so we have an idea where that's going. And so, this is a very this is a very big case.

And I guess the last thing to mention is there's sort of a, a corruption aspect. I mean, I, I don't know but if, if this theory is accepted, I mean, xAI is, of course, a, an Elon Musk company, and at the moment, he seems to be a friend of the Trumps. And does this mean that in any pollution suit the government can go in and, and if the guy is a supporter of the president, they can call off any pollution suit against that friend's company? So, yeah, this is a big deal

Natalie Orpett: And the, the plaintiffs, the NAACP et al. has not yet briefed the request for intervention, right?

Roger Parloff: That's right.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. So that'll be interesting to see what sorts of arguments they, they raise there. Okay, Eric, back to you into Judge Brinkema's courtroom and her questioning of the- which I have to say was my question too- is, was the agreement to create a fund for, quote-unquote, anti-weaponization a settlement of a lawsuit, or was it something else? So what is, what is happening in her courtroom as the continued fallout from that question?

Eric Columbus: So, we, we talked about- And on, on our last Lawfare Live, I was actually fresh out of Judge Brinkema's courtroom where she had held that the suit was not, in fact moot. Now this is because Todd Blanche had testified before Congress that the slush fund was not, in fact, going to go forward, and the government had said that in its briefing as well. And Judge Leon two days earlier in a, a separate suit in the, in D.C., had accepted that argument and, and said that it was, it was in fact moot and dismissed the case.

In, however, across the river in Alexandria, Judge Brinkema noted that she did not have before her anything, any s- evidence, any sworn evidence. There was nothing under oath. There was just statements in, in the brief and by lawyers not by their clients. And there was testimony under penalty of per- rather, sorry. There's, there was unsworn testimony in Congress. Now, of course, it's a crime to lie before Congress whether or not you're under, under oath, but Judge Brinkema found the distinction relevant for purposes of for evidentiary purposes and whether she could take judicial notice of it.

And so, she said, "Well, you know what? I, I'm not sure where-- I, I think that I, I'm, I'm inclined to possibly dismiss this case as moot if the defendants, Blanche and Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, file a, a declaration sworn declaration saying that they won't take any action to create the anti-weaponization fund, which we've been calling colloquially “the slush fund.”

And the, the plaintiffs weren't- didn't concede that they would agree that it would be moot under those circumstances, and Judge Brinkema didn't ultimately reach that, but she said, "I will consider it mootness. I will reopen the mootness inquiry if the defendants are willing to do that, and I'll give them a week to do it, but for now, the preliminary injunction remains in force." And or I think it would've been a, a, an administrative stay of some sort, but she entered at that last hearing a preliminary injunction, though somewhat oddly, without specifying which of the plaintiffs had standing or which of the various claims she felt had, had merit.

So, today, or not today, but last Friday the government, as expected, filed something saying that they were not going to submit these declarations, and they took offense to it, they said it would be a violation of separation of, of powers. You know, "We've already said we're not gonna go forward with it, and you, you don't need this additional document for it."And, and I, I suspect it might be that they don't want to have Judge- you look kind of weak by having Blanche and Bessent kind of, you know, prostrate themselves before the court and say that they're not going to go through this especially given that Trump has occasionally been making noises about how he may kind of resurrect the fund.

And it, it might also be that they kind of welcome this, this fight and to have litigation with where they can point to Judge Brinkma as a, a villainous and unreasonable judge. And, and in fact, I, I, I don't recall the precise wording, but Trump had, had railed against her using some language which she then quoted on, on June 12th at, at the hearing, which was always kind of, amusing to see a judge kind of quoting the president's own attack on her.

I will then also put another plug for, for my work. Anna Bower and I have written two pieces on the, on the slush fund. In our second piece, we wrote about the, the very real possibility that the administration can, can still accomplish most, if not all of its goals that it had for the slush fund by individually settling cases under, one by one, that are brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act which, they can use the same, in essence, unlimited pot of money coming from the Federal Judgment Fund and would still not really be subject to judicial review.

Natalie Orpett: Yes. Can confirm that those are excellent pieces. And I, I think it's a really important point. It, it does sort of remind everyone that the other reason to think about this case is just judicial oversight of things that effectively the, the government is trying to moot out. And when there have been legal questions that as, as folks recall, Judge Brinkema had some specific legal questions about the propriety of this so-called settlement underway, or I'm sorry, of the suit underway when the settlement was announced. The, the decision to sort of keep jurisdiction over it and investigate whether there is something worth continuing to adjudicate is an interesting one.

All right. Next up is some more from you, Eric. And that is relating to a FOIA litigation out of the Heritage Foundation. Tell us about that.

Eric Columbus: So this is a, a case involving, Former President Biden and recordings that he made when talking to his, in effect, ghostwriter for a book that he published while he was vice president and or maybe shortly after he left the vice presidency. And the Special Counsel Rob Hur, who had been investigating Biden's retention of classified documents after he left the vice presidency had subpoenaed transcripts and, and recordings of his conver- of Biden's conversations with his, his ghostwriter.

And one of the reasons that Hur... And then Hur wrote a massive report about this whole thing, and he says, "Look, you know, I know the DOJ doesn't have- doesn't allow the prosecution of a sitting president," because by this point Biden was president, and, "But I'm not gonna pr- I wouldn't prosecute him anyway, even if he were not president for all these reasons."

And among the reasons, the report mentioned that Biden's quote, "diminished faculties and faulty memory," as exhibited in his interviews with Hur's office and in the recorded interviews with, with the ghostwriter. And so the, the Heritage Foundation filed a FOIA report seeking all records relied upon by the special counsel, Bob Hur- Rob Hur, to write among other things, that portion of the report. And The Department of Justice said no with regard to most of the transcripts and the audio tapes and relying on, among other things, the Biden's right to privacy, the privacy exemptions in, in FOIA.

This year, earlier this year in 2026, the Department of Justice flipped on this issue, and it's not clear why, but the House Judiciary Committee apparently had requested the documents as well. And they could have just turned them over to the Judiciary Committee, which is not subject to the same privacy strictures as FOIA requests are. But for some reason, they wanted to do it, they wanted to flip their position in this, in this litigation.

So Biden cried foul and, and intervened in the lawsuit and says, "Look, this is ridiculous. They've changed their mind for purely political purposes, and they're wrong on the merits." And it's before Judge Dabney Friedrich in D.C. She is a Trump appointee but is not a particularly Trumpy Trump appointee. She's, I think she has a good reputation not particularly ideological, ideological in any direction.

So she look- looked at, at, at, at the case, and, and she has a bit of an advantage over me and us in that she has seen the unredacted materials and listened to the tapes, and we have to in some sense take her word or, or, or not take her word for, for what they contain, but we don't have any independent way of evaluating it at this point unless and until they are in, in fact released.

And she ruled against Biden at, at this point, and, and she said that, you know, "Look, I've, I've listened to the tapes and I, and, and, and read the transcripts and I see, and, and DOJ is proposing to redact somewhat more than they had wr- than, than what they had proposed, than what the Heritage Foundation had wanted to obtain. And basically there is little here that is really private that it's largely about things that are policy oriented.”

And one of Biden's arguments, which she accepted, was that he has a privacy interest in his voice and how his voice sounded and what was at the time a private conversation. She says that these things are, are kind of outweighed by the significant public interest in in materials underlying a, a public report by a special counsel.

And then she also responded to his argument that the, that DOJ is, is behaving politically by saying that that is basically beside the point. That the, the, the ultimate question is not in, in interview is not whether the, whether DOJ was acting politically in deciding to flip its position in the litigation, but rather whether it, its new position was an abuse of discretion. She also noted that DOJ did note at the time when it changed its position, it did provide legal analysis supporting it, so it was not like a wholly arbitrary reversal.

And look, I, you know, again, I know I haven't seen, haven't listened to the tapes, but it is certainly possible that the decision to withhold them in 2024 may have been political in, in the opposite direction. So it’s, it's really hard to evaluate without knowing what's in there. She then, Judge Friedrich then stayed her own order giving Biden a chance to appeal to the D.C. Circuit.

Roger Parloff: If I could just reinforce what Eric said about Judge Friedrich is a very good judge in my humble opinion. I think she's a very down the middle judge.

Natalie Orpett: Yeah, that'll be an interesting one to, to watch. Okay, we are going to shift gears to architecture, monuments revising the aesthetics of the Washington D.C. area. Molly, tell us about a lawsuit about the West Potomac Park area.

Molly Roberts: Yes, revising the aesthetics of the D.C. area is a nice way to put it, or making D.C. beautiful is another way that I've heard it put. So a coalition of D.C. area preservation and cultural heritage organizations last week sued, or I suppose it was week before last, it was June 12th, which is a while back now sued to stop Trump's planned “National Garden of American Heroes.”

The National Garden of American Heroes is something that Trump has been trying to get built for a while, although it has become, as many of his projects tend to do, larger in scale, in planned scale over time. But he is hoping for it to be built in West Potomac Park, which is right along the Potomac near the National Mall. It's different from East Potomac Park, which is where he was trying to take over the golf course. This is West Potomac Park, and his plan for the National Garden of American Heroes is for it to feature life-size statues, although by some other accounts they'll be each at least eight feet tall, so that's slightly larger than life-size, of roughly 250 Americans to include possibly Kobe Bryant, Whitney Houston, and Antonin Scalia, just an assortment of American heroes, mostly heroes to President Trump.

And one of the president's top fundraisers, The Washington Post reported a month or two back, had begun soliciting donations for this project, showing how it would change the current landscape, which is really open, a lot of recreational fields, into this area with dining facilities and fountains and an amphitheater.

And it's kind of funny to hear how the plaintiffs here describe the park, which is pretty idyllic. They say people are playing volley- volleyball, ultimate frisbee, walking their dogs, running, and how Trump has described it, which is as a totally barren field of prime waterfront real estate.

So what the plaintiffs are alleging here is actually very similar to what the plaintiffs alleged in the ballroom case, which is that the construction of this park would be non-compliant with a number of laws that dictate what you can and can't build and with what approvals you can build it on federal lands in D.C.. So in this case, those laws are the Commemorative Works Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the National Park Service Organic Act. And the Commemorative Works Act is probably the key one here. It says that no new commemorative work in the great cross axis of the Mall can happen without express congressional authorization.

And so then you kind of have to look, as they do in the ballroom case, to, well, is there anything that authorizes this? And my guess is the administration would end up argue—we haven't gotten to that point yet—but would end up arguing something along the lines of, "Oh, the National Park Service Organic Act," 'cause this is what they're doing in the ballroom case, "says that you can construct things to advance the purposes of the parks, and this is doing that." And then, of course, the people bringing the lawsuit would say, "This doesn't advance the purposes of the parks, which are this recreational area for everyone. It's instead becoming this vanity project for the president."

I would anticipate there'd be also similar issues to the ones that the plaintiffs are facing in the ballroom case when it comes to standing, because this is this league of cultural heritage organizations, and I think one named plaintiff who likes to enjoy the park, and kind of the question of whether that's enough.

And also, of course, this project has money set aside for it through the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. And I think the government would probably argue that that is, in some way, authorization, and the plaintiffs will argue that it's not. So we will see how it progresses. It is with Judge Sullivan.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. And I will just note, because I realize that our monuments and beautification of D.C. section has seemed to stray perhaps a little bit from immediate national security framing. I will just explain that the reason that I, and, I think, we, continue to think this is relevant even if the intention is not to, for example, build a drone facility on West Potomac Parkway, which I believe has not been indicated yet, is because this is just another instance of the testing of boundaries of executive power vis-a-vis statutes, vis-a-vis processes. And it is again, a sort of, can be, I think, a, a real indicator of the theory behind and the attitude toward constraints on executive power, which has broad relevance to the national security space, obviously.

So in the continued theme of cultural institutions, now that I have reminded everyone of their national security rele-relevance Roger, over to you for the Kennedy Center.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. Just a couple updates. On June 19th, there was a, I think it was June 19th, there was a joint status report, and in it, the petitioner, which is the, the plaintiff in that case is the an ex-officio trustee, Ba-Beatty Joyce Beatty, a representative. She said they were asking Judge Cooper to force, to issue an order, requiring Trump and the, the majority trustees to explain what that tarp scaffolding is about that is still there blocking the front of the Kennedy Center. They say "Willfully sabotaging the Kennedy Center's iconic facade to assuage defendants' vanity or massage broken egos is a clear breach of fiduciary duty."

They also ask about this weird bylaw that if you remember that last day when Trump was buying time and saying there was a rainstorm and he couldn't take down the- It was too dangerous to take down the letters. He, he took an emergency stay motion to the D.C. Circuit, and he told them for the first time about a bylaw that had no- played no role in the litigation for- to date. And the bylaw purportedly would require, if the, if the name came down, it would require the return of donations.

And there was no footnote containing the text of the bylaw. There was no declaration. There was no, so it's not in the record, and we don't even know a bylaw of what. And actually what it says is it's a bylaw of something he calls the Trump-Kennedy Foundation for the Performing Arts or something like that.

And there is such a—and I have been trying unsuccessfully to, to get those bylaws too—there is such a, there is a foundation in D.C. Th- th- it's not the same as the Kennedy Center. There's a foundation set up in D.C., and it- the name was changed to Trump-Kennedy. It had been Kennedy Foundation. Kennedy Center Foundation was changed to Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation last year, no, in March of this year. And so I was looking for those. The, the, the Secretary of State of D.C. has not been helpful to me. The, the, the, the general counsel of the organization will not return my messages.

And, but, anyway, also this week, in their response to the mo- to Trump's motion to stay Judge Cooper's ruling pending appeal, they addressed that bylaw, and they said they say simply, "This argument was never presented below, is forfeited on appeal, and cannot be the basis for a stay. It is also ludicrous. A trustee cannot create a poison pill to sabotage a trust should courts prevent him from defying the law. If the motion's representation is accurate, it would be a textbook example of a breach of fiduciary duty, and this self-inflicted harm certainly cannot be a legitimate basis for extraordinary relief pending appeal."

Natalie Orpett: Molly, let us come back to you to talk about, more about the national parks. ... I hope you are, you know, walking your dog or something in the parks in case he winds standing on anything.

Molly Roberts: Yes, or visiting a museum in this case, I think. Or, yeah, or, or, you know, visiting a national park and expecting to learn about science or climate change and the sign has disappeared.

So, President Trump last March signed an executive order targeting a revisionist movement, he called it, that described the United States as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.” And the point of this executive order was to stop museums and parks from describing the United States that way.

So a collection of groups representing park conservationists, historians, scientists, filed a lawsuit and argued that the Department of the Interior had been engaging in a sustained campaign to erase history and undermine science by removing information from museums, from national park signage that wasn't in accord with this sanitized version of the United States that the executive order was requiring that they present to visitors.

And, this last week, Judge Angel Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Boston issued a stay that orders the government to restore the signs within 21 days, and it's within 21 days because that's supposed to be by the 250th anniversary, to properly honor the remarkable achievements of the United States and to accurately represent these 250 years of history. So, she found that the National Park Service Organic Act, again, the National Park Service Centennial Act, and the National Parks Omnibus Management Act, and the APA don't authorize the action the administration took, which was arbitrary and capricious.

And she, first of all, spends a lot of time going through this kind of compendium of what the administration did pursuant to this executive order, which ranged from removing signs at Acadia National Park in Maine that discussed the impact of climate change on the surrounding environment, to taking down exhibits in Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park that, but also that, that detailed slavery at the time of the founding, to just generally removing signs having anything to do with indigenous groups and the violation of the rights of indigenous groups, particularly at places kind of out in the West.

So, she goes through all that and she goes through all these acts and she really focuses on how they mention that the national parks exist for all the people, for no state or section of people in particular, and how some of the more recent acts focus also on having the highest quality science and information. And she says that this runs contrary to that, what the administration was doing. It doesn't tell  the story of all people, it tells only the story of some people, and that it sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization. And she said that, "The beauty of history is the unvarnished storytelling of a time gone by and the delivery of undeniable truth. The government’s stewardship of these park sites thus carries a responsibility to present history in full rather than in favored fragments. Unfortunately, the government has disregarded these principles."

So, the Trump administration is now seeking an emergency stay from the First Circuit and requesting a ruling by July 25th so that it can then go to the Supreme Court if that emergency stay is denied.

Natalie Orpett: All right. Eric, you, I believe, have a quick update on the Third Circuit.

Eric Columbus: Yes, and, and this relates to one of those cases that Molly just mentioned the, the, the Philadelphia case involving taking down exhibits regarding slavery from a house that George Washington used to live in while president called the President's House in Philadelphia.

The Third Circuit, six days after the case that Molly talked about the, the, the Third Circuit reversed the, the preliminary injunction that had been issued by the district court in, in Philadelphia. And I, I don't think it, it, it really impacts the, the case that Molly talked about because it was a very specific challenge brought by the city of Philadelphia and relying on alleged agreements between the federal government and the city of Philadelphia.

So it was kind of technical decision by the, the Third Circuit reversing her and also noting that to some extent there was not really final agency action because the department, the National Park Service had not finished replacing the exhibits that they had taken down with new ones that they were putting up. And apparently some of the ones they're putting up, at least according to the Third Circuit opinion are, are not really whitewashing sla- American history, but in fact did discuss slavery in ways that the Third Circuit indicated were, were, were not crazy reading between the lines.

Natalie Orpett: Whoever had the reflections on American history after 250 years playing out in litigation on their bingo card. You, you beat me certainly.

All right, let us shift gears and Molly, come to you. Speaking of challenges to or tests perhaps to the extent of executive power and back to the question, I suppose, of what power does the president have over elections that the Constitution says are administered by the states? What's happening in Massachusetts?

Molly Roberts: Yeah. So in Massachusetts, Judge Talwani has ruled that a challenge to the president's March 2026 executive order on mail-in voting, which is not the same as his March 2025 executive order on mail-in voting, which the key provisions of which have, already, mostly been struck down by courts, that a challenge can proceed on one front but not on another.

So, the front on which it can proceed is regarding the midterms, these elections, and the part on which it's not ripe is elections after that. And this is particularly important because a separate challenge to the same executive order in D.C., Judge Carl Nichols recently ruled wasn't ripe, and that's on appeal at the moment. So this is a different ruling than that, and I think it was more or less what people had expected based on the oral argument. They thought that she was more receptive to the complaint than Judge Nichols had been.

The executive order, as a reminder, does kind of two main things. One of them is it tells the Department of Homeland Security to come up with state citizenship lists, and then another is that it tells the Postal Service to come up with lists for transmission to the states after getting from the states lists of people that they want to or that they're planning to transmit absentee or mail-in ballots to, to come up with lists of who is eligible and then only to transmit ballots to the people on those lists. How exactly the lists interact, really unclear in the original executive order. It's becoming a little clearer now as filings are appearing. That's something that I'm working on, a piece on at the moment, so stay tuned.

But the ruling here from Judge Talwani doesn't reach the merits. It only reaches the question of whether the challenge can proceed. And essentially, what she says, contrary to what Judge Nichols ruled, is that this is happening fast enough. There are deadlines in here, and she runs through a bunch of the deadlines that are at the end of this month, within the week some of them are, and then there are some deadlines that are in months close before the election, and that the challengers to the executive order who are… It's two groups of plaintiffs. It's eight non-profits involved with voter education, and then it's 23 states and D.C., that they're having to modify their behavior now in anticipation that the executive order will be implemented. And so it's not reasonable to wait until the implementation happens for them to bring the challenge.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. And if I remember correctly, we also have an excellent piece about this executive order by Molly Roberts, and I believe that one was with Lauren Voss. Check it out in Lawfare.

Alright. Let us talk, Eric, about a different mechanism by which the federal government is investigating how it can be involved in elections which relates to Georgia voter rolls. What's going on in Georgia?

Eric Columbus: So we talked about this, I believe it was in the last Lawfare Live, when the, it was merely a motion, and now the judge has ruled on this motion. This was a motion brought by the Department of Justice to disqualify the judge who was hearing the Department of Justice's request for the unredacted voter rolls of the state of Georgia. And some listeners may, may know that the department has been seeking this from every single state that has, conducts voter registration. That makes 49 states.

And again, I will plug my, my work. I, I wrote an article on this back when DOJ was zero for three in the district courts in their efforts to obtain these rolls. They are now, as of earlier today actually, they are now zero for nine.

And the case in Georgia, by coincidence, happened to have be- be before Judge Eleanor Ross, who was reportedly the judge who was the subject of a recently released disciplinary report reprimanding her for doing two things, one of which was a little bit more salacious than the other. She was in pro- she attended a political fundraiser believed to be for Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County in Georgia, where Judge Ross used to work. And she unrelatedly conducted a years-long affair with an Atlanta police officer that involved having sex in her office that was apparently audible to her clerks, and then she lied about it to investigators and suggested that the clerks were, had, in, were, who reported her were in fact lying.

So, DOJ asked her to recuse herself. They, they mentioned both parts of what she had been reprimanded for, but they rested their recusal argument on, on her attending Fani Willis's victory party and saying that, "Look, you know, Fani Willis is an enemy of Trump and indicted him, et cetera, et cetera. This case is, is ... And she indicted him for, for his alleged actions in- with regard to an election. This case is, involves his administration seeking records relating to an election and gives rise to the appearance of impropriety and under the, the, the, the, the relevant s- recusal statute, a judge shall disqualify themselves in any proceeding where their impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

And so, Judge Ross looked at this and she said, you know, "Look, I'm, I'm- I, I don't think that anyone would, would really… I, I think I'm being impartial, but I, I agree that it, it might give rise to someone's concerns that I'm not partial, that I'm not impartial given the, you know, unique facts of the case, given that th- this involves elections and the Fani Willis prosecution also involves elections and, and therefore I will recuse myself.

I, I will note also that a couple things. One there are some who are seeking in, in, in Congress who are seeking to impeach Judge Ross for her actions and, and if she came out the other way, that would probably inf- inflame and put more, on more of a front burner those efforts. And I will also note that the DOJ's request to kick her out is kind of very much in, in, in the opposite direction from their desire to have these cases speed up as, as much as possible because they claim they are so essential to have them be resolved well before the midterms.

Natalie Orpett: All right. Thank you. Let us shift over to Roger and to a different topic, which is alternatively depending on your view reprimanding the deep state versus running up against protections of government employees and other types of constraints on firings in the executive branch. So with that sort of setup Roger, tell us about immigration judges' lawsuit.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. This is actually a, a big case. And you can tell it's a big case because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided that it should be heard en banc right from the start rather than, rather than having a three-judge panel hear it and then, then maybe later consider whether it needs to be heard with the whole full all, all of the active judges—that's the en banc review. They're gonna hear it en banc to start.

And this is a complicated case, and I think that we have articles written by Nick Bednar about this case, and I recommend getting it from him rather than from me. But in essence these immigration judges were fired without cause.

They are not principal officers. So, this is not a case that is covered by, for instance, we've talked a lot about the Slaughter case that'll be decided within the next two weeks about whether or not to overturn Humphrey's Executor, and everyone sort of expects that the Supreme Court's going to do that and say that principal officers must be fireable at will by the executive. That's part of Article Two.

The next step, and the really scary next step would be if, if the president also had the right to fire everybody, employees in the executive department, a branch. The civil service as we know it would, would end. We would have, we would be back to sort of a Tammany Hall-type system where the president could reward cronies and fire them at will and, and so on.

These people are sort of maybe in between. They're, they're probably, they might be inferior officers, but they have been treated like civil service employees and, and that's what makes this so important. I mean, they have been traditionally thought to have the protections of civil service employees and, and the government's position is no Article Two, boom.

And, and so this case is like, well, the hundreds of immigration judges, or at least more than a hundred, have been fired. Many January 6th prosecutors are in the same boat. Jack Smith employees, Maureen Comey, some FBI agents—it gets complicated with FBI, I don't wanna go out there. So this is a big, big case. The reason that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is hearing it is because these cases were had to be channeled to the Merit System Protections Board Protection Board which used to be an independent body. It isn't anymore because of the Supreme Court rulings that are leading up to Slaughter.

And so the, the Merit System Protections Board, in fact was deciding this case, and the OLC in the executive branch told it what to do. The Office of Legal Counsel in DOJ now takes the position that, you know, they decide an issue and everyone in the executive branch has to follow that, including the Merit System Protections Board.

And so, it was a weird decision. But anyway, the appeal from the MSPB goes to this specialized court, USCA the, the U- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which was created in 1982. It's a, it is Article Three judges, and they handle things like patents, is what we often think of them, but they also ha- handle personnel issues. And I, I think I think tariffs would've ordinarily gone to them, too. International trade, veterans claims, things like that.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. And Roger, remind us the, the caption of that case.

Roger Parloff: Yeah, I'm sorry. It's Jackler v. U.S.A. Right ... yeah, and it's paired with another case, and I've forgotten the other judge's name.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. So, we will turn quickly to two immigration updates, also from Roger. But I'll just note for folks we do expect to have our next Lawfare Live on Friday schedules permitting, and assuming that the news does not stagnate and there will in fact be things to talk about including some Supreme Court decisions, we're guessing. But stay tuned. We will obviously send messages per usual. And second note if you have any questions, please drop them in the Q&A, and we will get to them in short order.

So Roger the last two quick items from you are in Rhode Island. This is a suit and I, I don't even know whether to call it a lawsuit or, or a strange undertaking in court that you wrote about several weeks ago. Tell us what's going on there.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. I, I this is the case, it, it's called Gomez v. Nessinger. This was the case where, if you remember, the DHS issued a press release in April and it said "Activist," the headline was, "Activist Biden Judge Releases Violent Criminal Illegal Alien Wanted for Murder."

And so the judge d-d-did release somebody that was wanted for homicide. And the reason she did it is that no one told her he was wanted for homicide. And the AUSA before her knew he was wanted for homicide, but didn't tell her because ICE, which by the way is a unit of DHS, told her not to tell anyone. And he didn't. And as a result he... she released him. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. And and then they unloaded this highly misleading press release, which is still out there. And so I wrote about this at length. If you look up "Parloff DHS smear federal judge," you can probably find it at Lawfare.

And so, Judge Melissa DuBose was upset about this especially the, that the AUSA may have violated a duty of candor. And so, she referred him for disciplinary proceedings in the federal system. And so, Judge, Chief Judge McConnell did issue a short ruling saying, in fact, yeah it, it, it was probably a, a violation of the duty of candor, but the extenuating factor was it was not in bad faith. He, he, ICE was telling her not to. He thought there was some legitimate reason not to. It, it's sort of strange he didn't try to tell her you know, ex parte, meaning outside the hearing of the, of anybody except her. But he didn't.

And the, the upsetting thing about this is that nobody seems to have talked to ICE and said, "What were you thinking? Why..." Nobody seems to have interviewed the ICE officer and said, "W- why did you tell him not to?" Because it turns out that other- the you know, and this arm of ICE was telling him not to tell the judge this highly secret evidence. This, the other arm, the PR arm, had already released the information twice on Twitter, in a press release, and, and so it made no sense. Anyway, ICE is... Nobody talks to ICE. They only talk, so it's a very upsetting and, and, and unsatisfying end.

Natalie Orpett: It is very strange, the left hand not talking to the right hand in particular, in my view.

Roger Parloff: And I, I'm, I'm sort of making... I mean, that's the most innocent version I can come up with. I mean, you could come up with less innocent versions where ICE just wanted to really zap a Democratic-appointee judge, but I assume that's, it's a ref- left-hand, right-hand thing.

Natalie Orpett: Yeah. Okay. So last item relates to the state law prosecution in Minnesota of the ICE agent there. I think as expected, he filed for removal to federal court. And what is going on there, Roger?

Roger Parloff: Yeah, and there are actually two ICE agents now under federal indict- n- now under state indictment. One is Gregory Donald Morgan Jr, and that's the one this involved. Christian Castro is the other. He hasn't gotten to this stage yet, I don't believe. So, he did in June I think June 9th, he moved- removed his case to federal court.

This is the guy, fellow who allegedly he was it was the end of his shift. They were driving back to th- their, that building, I think the Whipple Building. And there was a, a ramp that was with lots of car- a bottleneck. And so they were in their unmarked SUV, and they decided to zip up the alley the shoulder instead of waiting for the traffic. And somebody else in the line saw this unmarked SUV zipping up the shoulder, and it bothered him, and so he blocked, he pulled to the right and blocked him. And the ICE agent took out his gun and from his, allegedly, from his car, aimed it at each of the occupants of the other car, who happened to be U.S, citizens, if that matters. And, and the car got out of the way.

So he's charged with two counts of assault. Assault, common law assault, you don't have to hit somebody, it's, it's threatening. And, and so he moved it to federal court. And, and now Minnesota has moved to have it remanded. And incidentally, an attorney on the team helping to have it remanded is James Pearce. If you remember him, he used to do these things, too. And he's moved on to some important things.

And so they- to remove it, you have to show that the, there's a connection between the charged conduct and of the federal authority of the officer and a colorable federal defense. And the, the response is, "The defendant fails to explain how pointing a gun at a motorist while driving illegally along a highway shoulder is connected in any way to his duties as a federal immigration agent. He equally fails to offer even a plausible account of why the Supremacy Clause immunizes his assaultive conduct as necessary or appropriate to carry out those federal immigration duties." So that's where that stands.

Natalie Orpett: Okay, and so that will be briefed. Minnesota will file a brief, and that, that is in federal court already. The removal statute brings them directly. Is that right?

Roger Parloff: Yes. It's already in federal court. And this was Minnesota's petition to send it remanded.

Natalie Orpett: Oh, I see. Okay.

Roger Parloff: And so we, we'll have a, I think we'll have a reply to try to keep it in federal court from the from Morgan.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Yeah. And the, the federal judge will, will decide that.

Roger Parloff: Exactly.

Natalie Orpett: So we will see what happens. Okay.

We have one question to wrap us up from Joyce F. "Can someone discuss the latest proposal to withhold DHS funding to the states if they aren't compliant with the EO, such as turning over voter rolls, which the courts have not required so far? Presumably this funding would include disaster relief." So Eric, I don't know if DHS alum if you have any thoughts here?

Eric Columbus: Yeah, that, I, I think that broke today, or at least I, I saw it today. I am skeptical that that would survive a challenge y- because the, the, in- under the Supreme Court precedent, you, you, you cannot impose a, a, a, a any restrictions attached to grants must be germane to the purpose of the grant and cannot be coercive a-against the, the, the state grantee.

And I, I don't think that this passes that test because the, the grants that the monies that we would be being withheld are not really cl- closely enough connected to the, to election security. Like, there's no reason why y- if you're withholding grant money related to disaster relief if they don't won't do what you want regarding election security.

And I think we've... There actually have been decisions around this and regarding other times when DHS has tried to do things like this. And I think DHS has said, "Well, it's all a part of DHS." And the courts have said, "Well, so what? That's not the, that's not the test." So I, I, I suspect that wouldn't go anywhere.

I mean, it might you know, there might be some states that will say, "Oh, well, gee, I guess we better do this, what, what the government wants or else we'll lose that money." But by and large, those re- are, are probably states that have already done what, what the, the, the Trump administration wants. So I'm not sure they would really gain anything out of that.

Roger Parloff: And I correct me if I'm wrong, but I, I think this is another type of Tenth Amendment violation to, It's not the commandeering we talked about earlier, but, you know, if you're coercing them to, to, to change a policy that they have a right to enact as, as a, as a sovereign state, I, I think it, the coerciveness violates the Constitution.

Eric Columbus: Yeah.

Natalie Orpett: All right. I think we are going to have to leave it there for this week, or I should say for this Monday. We will likely see all of you on Friday. Thanks so much for joining. This podcast is a part of Lawfare’s livestream series, Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration. Subscribe to Lawfare’s YouTube to receive an alert the next time we go live.

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