Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, June 26

[Intro]

Natalie Orpett: Hello everyone, and welcome to Lawfare Live. Thank you for joining us. We have quite a lot to cover today, as loyal fans I'm sure will have guessed. So I will get us started. I'm Natalie Orpett, and this is Lawfare Live. It is 4:00 PM on June 26th. I am joined here by Lawfare senior editors Roger Parloff, Eric Columbus, and Molly Roberts.

So we will get started with some news out of the Supreme Court. We had a couple of decisions yesterday two of which we have been following very closely, and by we, I especially mean Roger Parloff. So let's start, Roger, with Mullin v. Doe, which was the challenge to temporary protected status and which has, as you have previewed before, would affect hundreds of thousands of people living in this country. So tell us what happened. What did the Supreme Court have to say?

Roger Parloff: Yeah, it was pretty much a total wipeout for the plaintiffs. These were, this is the temporary protected status program going back to 1990. It's Syrians and Haitians that are up here. There's maybe I, I think it's about 1,000 Syrians, but it's about 350,000 Haitians.

So there were two big aspects. One was not that big a surprise to me but they, they did find that the jurisdiction-stripping statute in the TPS statute itself is, is broad and, and so it wipes out all statutory challenges. That's 8 U.S.C 1254a(b)(5)(a). That's, I mean, it's, it's a surprising thing, in fact, given that this is a highly complex statute that, that describes all the procedures you're supposed, supposed to go through and says, "You shall do this. You shall do that. You, you must give 60 days notice for that. You must..." And, and all of that is wiped out if they, if they, if the secretary o- disobeys there's no challenge.

And that's what happened here. There was it was pretty clear that the secretary did not consult with the State Department or any other appropriate agency before terminating these, these designations and, but it, you don't even reach that question 'cause the, the jurisdiction-stripping statute bars review.

The, the, the response to that had been that, yes, it bars review of the ultimate designation, but it doesn't bar review of whether you followed the procedures, and that's how courts have have, have interpreted a very similar statute in the pa- the Supreme Court has interpreted a very similar statute in the past, but that is rejected.

So what remained was constitutional claims. The court has said in the past that it, there's a very high standard to assume before, before you'll assume that court, that Congress intended to deprive you of the opportunity to raise a constitutional question. And so, this is a six-three ruling, of course, with Alito writing.

And so Alito assumes, for the sake of argument, that the constitutional question survives, and the constitutional question here was, was the termination of TPS status, especially in the case of the Haitians infected with racial animus, so that would be an equal protection violation. And the, Judge Alito rejects that one simply, he seems to accord no deference at all to the lower court ruling. And which I, I, I'm thinking was Ana Reyes, I'm, I might be blanking. I hope that's right. Correct me if I'm wrong in the chat.

But there, there was, of course, you know, highly inflammatory language from Trump himself, and also from Secretary Noem that's most of us would say sounds like it was racially, there was a racial valence to it. But Alito wrote "Political discourse by prominent public figures is increasingly couched in terms that would have scandalized the public just a short time ago." And, and the statements cited by the Mio respondents, that's the Haitians, exemplify this development.

I, I don't really understand why Justice Alito says that, why it would matter. You know, I mean, if it might be that people are making racist statements now commonly, that would not make them any less racist. It doesn't matter how-- But I guess he's saying it's just heated, and we're mistaking the heated quality for the, the fact that, and we're jumping to the conclusion that these were racially, had a racial animus. He, he says that there is a plausible race-neutral explanation, the present administration's general stance on immigration and its obvious antipathy toward past administrations' TPS policies.

This po- so this ruling will take effect in 32 days. That's July 27th. There are six more nations where TPS has been paused awaiting this decision. In other words, a government is trying to terminate it and courts paused it awaiting this decision that’s Myanmar, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Venezuela. The Venezuela tranche is itself about three hundred thousand, three hundred and fifty thousand. There are six others where it's already been terminated. There's three left where the government has not yet had to say what it's going to do because it's not 60 days before they would expire. That's Lebanon, Sudan, and interestingly, Ukraine. It'll be interesting to see what happens there.

Thomas had a concurrence where he just, he agreed with everything Alito wrote, but then he drops a few advisory opinions that people can, that right-wing litigants can put in their briefs in the future for various points. He, he disagrees with Bolling v. Sharpe, for instance, the 1954 Supreme Court ruling. He doesn't think the Equal Protection Clause applies to- against the federal government. But there's some other things in there.

Kagan writes the dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson. And of course, the striking thing about Alito's rejection, she- and she dissents on both points. She does think the, the jurisdiction-stripping statute does not, it's, it's it, it, it, it only applies to the final decision, not to procedural issues. But especially on the race issue you know, the striking thing about Alito was he didn't quote any of the statements in question. And so, she writes "So here are some of those statements: "Haitians are eating the dogs, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people that live in Springfield.” Haitians are also eating, quote, “other things that are, that too, that they're not supposed to be." And Haitians in the United States, quote, "probably have AIDS," unquote, and Haiti is a, quote, "shithole country," unquote, which is, quote, "filthy, dirty, and disgusting," unquote. Haitian immigration is, quote, "like a death wish for the country," and Haitians, along with others, are, quote, "poisoning the blood of the country." I, I'll stop there for a moment. Poisoning the blood, it's hard to see how that doesn't have a racial valence. Continuing, why it is-

Natalie Orpett: This, so this, I mean, this all really speaks to a debate still between the justices about the extent to which outside comments can be taken into account and sort of gets to a broader theme that we're seeing in a lot of jurisprudence about the extent to which courts, courts can actually inquire about the representations that the government is making in court by looking beyond the briefs and beyond the statements made in court, right?

Roger Parloff: I, I don't think he's really framing it that way this time.

Natalie Orpett: Okay.

Roger Parloff: I think he's- trying to say you, you just haven't made your case-

Natalie Orpett: Okay.

Roger Parloff: That we can explain away these things, at least for Trump. The interesting thing, I mean, you're right, it's interesting, wa- does this change the standard, in effect, in other cases for proving, it’s, equal protection?

Natalie Orpett: Yeah, it's certainly something to, to watch. It's, I think it's, I, I raise that only to say that it is another way in which this case that seems like obviously it has quite a lot to do with how you read jurisdiction-stripping statutes and things like that, but, or provisions of statutes, I should say. But it sounds like there are some other thematic elements that have come up in other contexts as well.

Roger Parloff: Yeah.

Natalie Orpett: And a-apologies to, to interrupt you. I know there's a, a lot to talk about. Can I ask you to, to speak to us now about the question of what rights individuals have to declare asylum at the border? And correct me if I'm pronouncing this wrong, I think it's El O- Al Otro Lado. Is that right?

Roger Parloff: Yeah. Yeah, this one.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. And tell us what happened there.

Roger Parloff: Yeah, this is another six-three ruling by Alito. The dissent here is by Sotomayor. There, I think there was also, a dissent by Jackson. Th- this is unusual facts. This actually goes back to something that began sort of, logic, it began under the Obama administration, 2016. It was formalized in 2018. Began as there was an overtaxed point of entry in the Southern California, and they, they began to say "We can’t, we can't handle you today. Come back, you know, September 19th."

And then that, that spread to other points of entry, and then that spread to not giving them a return date, and that spread to the stopping them before they step in the United States. And this is called a “turn back policy.” That's an emotional phrase, “turn back.” The government calls it a metering policy because originally there was this theory that you were sort of-- they were gonna still get their interview people that are seeking asylum, but you're just pausing metering.

The suit was filed in 2017. And the weird thing about... and, and a summary judgment declared for the plaintiffs in 2021. This, the policy was then rescinded, and it hasn't been reinstituted. So, but it nevertheless went to the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed the d- declaration the declaratory judgment. And, and, and so there was sort of a significant mootness question whether you know, a policy that hasn't been in effect for five years and Judge Jackson dissented on those grounds.

But everyone else reached the merits. And the Justice Sotomayor said that the, the question is the, it, it's, you, you must be inspected when you arrive in the United States, and then you have a right to ask for asylum. And so the question was, does in the United States mean literally stepping in the United States? And, and so what they were doing is they were stepping acro- the, the CBP was going halfway across the bridge and, and stopping people before they stepped into the United States to avoid the requirement to, to process their asylum claims.

And the majority is saying yes on a, they're sort of ostensibly it's a textualist decision. They're fix- and, and, and that's how they base their decision. Sotomayor goes into a very emotional dissent talk- talking about the whole the obviously the context of the statute and the, the, the origins of this policy, turn back policy goes, she, she references the MS St. Louis in 1939, which brought 900 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany to Cuba, and and then the Cuba wouldn't let them off board, and then the U.S. wouldn't accept them, Canada wouldn't accept them. They were turned back, and a third of them were murdered by the Nazis. This is, and, and, and it is a, a pro- you know, a- after the war, a, a refugee protocol was signed as a result of that, and that protocol was formalized in the 1980 Refugee Act.

And, and so, her point is you are undoing all of this now, and you are allowing... And, and she talks about the facts of what did happen to the people that were being turned back and how you effectively force them to try to, you, you won't let them in legally, you force them to go illegally, in-between the point of entries, and they are, they die from drowning, they die from heat, heat stroke in the desert, and she said more people will die.

Apparently one last thing on this. Apparently at the oral, at the announcement of the opinions, you know, Alito read from his dissent, Sotomayor read an excerpt from- I mean, Alito read from his opinion, Sotomayor read from her dissent. Apparently she read more than he expected. He actually sort of gave a rebuttal oral statement. He said something to the effect of, and there's no, there's no recording, there's no transcript, but "there is much that I would have added in my bench statement had I known there would be a dissent read." I don't know why he wouldn't know there would be a dissent read. This is from Mark Walsh in, in Just Security. Vladeck gives, gives a, a sort of different account. He wasn't there but from what he heard. But anyway, it was apparently quite an unusual and, and, you know, another barometer of the level of anger.

I will say that both of the dissents I'm talking about today did say “respectfully,” which is different from Callais. Callais the, the dissent there were six times she said, "I dissent," and none of them, was it Kagan? Kagan, I think. And none of them used the word respectfully. So, anyway, things are heated.

Natalie Orpett: Yeah, that's some, those are seemingly little things that are obviously a big deal to court watchers. So just to, to clarify, the, on the first case, the TPS case, my understanding is that without TPS status, once they, these expire in any future expirations, people are immediately deportable. So this will affect, I assume, well over a million people already and many more to come depending on the, the ones that will be expiring or could be additional- further revoked.Is that, is that right?

Roger Parloff: More than a million had TPS at one point. I think it will certainly affect more than 600 to 700,000 people going forward.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. And for Al Otro Lado it just means that many, many people who were planning on seeking asylum will not be able to do so as they had been in the past.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. Trump has stopped all the asylum, incoming asylum attempts through other means at the moment.

Natalie Orpett: Right. Right. And for, for the three other people who care, there are serious questions not at all litigated in that case about the extent to which it violates our treaty obligations and international law. But as I said, only I and three other people care about that.

All right, let us move on to elections. We have several cases that had developments this week. Molly, I wanna start with you in Massachusetts on one of the two Trump executive orders relating to elections. I believe it was the 2026 one. But tell us what happened and which EO we're talking about.

Molly Roberts: Yes, you are right. It's the 2026 one. They're easy to confuse 'cause he did the 2025 one and it wasn't going so well, and so he tried again in a different way. We talked on just Monday, it was on Lawfare Live, about Judge Talwani allowing these two challenges to the newer executive order to proceed, which was different from what Judge Carl Nichols had done here in D.C., and then she pretty quickly ruled on one of those two challenges.

So the two challenges, one of them was from 23 states in D.C., and another was from voting rights groups. And she ruled on the states one. The voting rights group ruling presumably will come imminently and will be similar. As was basically expected, she found in favor of the plaintiffs. She found that the order's key provisions were ultra vires and unconstitutional, and she enjoined the government from giving them effect in the suing states. So specifically-

Natalie Orpett: And-

Molly Roberts: Yeah, go on.

Natalie Orpett: Oh, sorry. I was just gonna say, can you remind us what those provisions were?

Molly Roberts: Yes, I can. Thank you. So, one of them was a directive to the United States Postal Service to compile lists of citizens of each state eligible to vote, and then only to transmit mail-in ballots to people on those lists. And she found that that was unconstitutional. She found that it encroached on the Article One, Section Four delegation of that power to the states and Congress, 'cause there's no statutory authorization that Congress has given to the federal government, to the Postal Service to do this either.

And then the second key part of the order was a directive to the Department of Homeland Security to create also lists, separate lists, although it's not hard to imagine how all these lists are going to end up interacting, but separate lists for states that identify who's eligible to vote there. And she, for that, same thing. She said it went beyond the executive's constitutional and statutory authority. She pointed out it's not just a database of citizenship, it's these individualized lists for states that also identify who meets their particular residence requirements, and there's just no authority for that.

And she said that the portion of the order devoted to enforcement couldn't stand either because it was functionally an attempt by the administration to create a new criminal offense. So yeah, again, it's worth noting a few things. She still has to rule on the voting group's challenge, probably going to be the same, and the administration will almost certainly appeal. And again, there's this other challenge to the executive order here in D.C. that when, has been going more favorably for the government, and that is on appeal, too.

So there's a lot that we still don't know about how it's all gonna shake out. There's kind of an interesting difference between what Judge Tolvani did, which was look at the executive order and what it says, and what Judge Nichols said was appropriate to do, which was not look at the executive order, but wait for implementation and look at what the agencies actually did to implement it, which turns out to be a little different, what the text of the order says and what the agencies did. So we'll see what happens. Might be one that makes it to the Supreme Court eventually.

Natalie Orpett: Interesting. Okay, the next litigation that I will stick with you on, Molly is from the 2025 executive order on elections, which was purporting to require proof of citizenship in voting, if I recall correctly.And there was a DHS database that came out of that that I think is different than the DHS database you were just talking about. So tell us what happened in Judge Sukunnanan's court.

Molly Roberts: Yeah. Here, i- it's a good point that you make about the database being different, and this is kind of some of the weirdness in the implementation of the order that we were just talking about because initially DHS made a court filing saying, "we're gonna use this SAVE database to do this," and then they said, "No, no, no, never mind, we're not." Maybe partly because the SAVE database not doing well.

This, this decision hadn't come down yet, but I think it was anticipated, and here it is. And yeah, it's Judge Sooknanan of the District Court for D.C., and she sided with a voting rights group and the pro-privacy nonprofit, EPIC, to find that the Trump administration's overhaul of the SAVE system, which had previously existed, was unlawful.

So for those who don't know, SAVE is Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, and like its name makes it sound, it was designed by DHS to verify citizenship and immigration status for the purpose of federal benefits programs. But what this White House has been trying to do is transform it into what the plaintiffs in the case describe as a searchable national citizenship data system. And so the idea was it would put together records from the Social Security Administration and DHS to make it so that states could then query it to find who was eligible to vote.

And she said that the way that the administration did this, and again, particularly it has to do with this making it searchable for states, failed to comply with the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. She was pretty harsh. She said that they had basically mushed together a bunch of private information, much of which they were aware was unreliable, haphazardly, and plaintiffs had said that states were using the database to purge people from their voter rolls, mistakenly in many cases.

None of those mistakes, of course, has prevented anyone from voting yet. The midterms haven't happened yet. But she approached this in a slightly different way, and she said that having inaccurate information about citizenship status in these databases and having states then make these purges suggests that the people who end up getting removed broke or tried to break the law preventing non-citizens from voting, and that's defamatory. And that's an issue with the Privacy Act. You can't do harmful, you can't make this information available in a way that harms the plaintiffs under the Privacy Act.

So the order that this database was created pursuant to, 2025 executive order, has mostly been blocked, but the database had still been modified. The upshot of her ruling isn't that it has to be dismantled entirely, it's that states can't query it because that's how they're using it to monitor voting. She had originally decided not to halt the use of the system because she said it wasn't clear the data was being misused, but now it's clear that it is being used and misused. States like Texas and Louisiana are using it ahead of the midterms.

Natalie Orpett: Interesting. Okay. Getting some factual development in these cases has been useful in it of itself. Okay, Eric, moving over to you and the great state of Michigan, go Blue, tell us about DOJ's attempts to get voter roll information.

Eric Columbus: Sure. So I will start by plugging the piece that I wrote for Lawfare on this back in the end of March which explains in, in, in, in greater depth the, the background here. But basically DOJ is trying to get from every state except South, except North Dakota, which does not have voter registration a list of their unredacted state voter rolls. And it's not entirely clear what DOJ plans to do with this information. I, I discuss some of it in, in my piece. And DOJ is currently in court in around 30 states so, having sued around 30 states to, that have refused to turn over these records for a variety of reasons. And so far in district court they are 0-for-9, DOJ. And back when I wrote my piece, they were a mere 0-for-3.

A couple of days ago, the, we have our first appellate decision in this case in, in the Sixth Circuit in DOJ's effort to get Michigan's voter rolls, and they lost the district court despite having a Trump appointee, and they, they lost again in the Sixth Circuit in a, a panel with a, a Biden judge, a, I think, a Clinton judge, and a, a Trump judge. It was two to one, so they did actually get, for the first time, a a judge to agree with them. And so even though they lost, I would be, if I were DOJ, I would consider this an improvement over their, their past record and, and suggesting that there is a, a path forward all the way up to the Supreme Court given its composition there.

So, so basically the, they're trying to use, DOJ is trying to use Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to obtain these records, and that act says that election officials have to retain for 22 months from the date of any federal election all records and papers which come into their possession relating to any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting and then i- i- importantly, it authorizes DOJ to obtain such records if it provides a, a basis, if it provides a statement that includes the, the basis and purpose for the request.

And the, the majority here denied the request for on, on, on two, for two reasons. First, they, they determined, as the district court below had also determined, that the, the voter rolls did not, quote, "come into the possession of the Michigan Secretary of State," because she did not receive them. She created that list based, of course, on information that she had received. But what the, what the, what DOJ is seeking is a document that, that she created. And it's kind of an interesting argument. It's, it's, it's not one that, that other courts had, had come up with before this district court had agreed with it in you know, below.

And the, the Minori-, the, the, the, the dissenting judge said, "Well, look, this is, this is ridiculous. Of course, what they're, what they're really doing is the DOJ is really just requesting the individualized records that happen to be contained in this list." And the majority then rebutted that by saying, "No, that's actually literally not what DOJ requested. They did not request any individual records. They just requested this list." And I, I thought the majority had the better of the, of the argument here and explained it better than the district court had.

The second basis for the majority's decision is, is one that the district court had not accepted, but saying that there was, the DOJ failed to provide a statement for the, including the basis and purpose for its request. And it, it, it, here, I think the majority was not really on the, on, on strong ground because they, there were two... They know that there was one letter that basically provided a basis and another letter provided a purpose, and that they didn't have a, they, they weren't in, there was no one document that, that provided both.

And I believe an Oregon district court judge had also accepted that argument. But as, as the dissenting judge pointed out, like, it, it seems a little ridiculous because there's no, it's pretty clear that Michigan was on notice as to the, the, this, the basis and purpose of the request, and there was no there was no requirement that, that they both need to be con- contained in, in the same, in the same letter from DOJ.

The, the majority seemed not to or did not address one argument that had been accepted by some district courts, which was that Title III is, cannot be used- some district courts said that Title III of the 1960 Civil Rights Act cannot be used to police compliance with voter registration requirements, given that its, its basis is to enforce the, the, the right to vote and that it should be used, even though it need not be used only for Title III enforcement, it should be used for other things that are relevant to that.

Whereas what DOJ is doing here is, what DOJ claims it's doing here is that it's trying to figure out whether states are, are complying with their requirements to prune voter registration lists under f- under other federal laws including the Help America Vote Act. But that's, that's a whole ‘nother thing. And again, if you want to learn more about this, please read my article.

Natalie Orpett: Yes, Eric was way ahead of his time, which is a, a pretty good theme that you're, I, I think that's your beat, Eric, being ahead of your time on the litigations. So there's, there's obviously no circuit split here, but what's your, what's your bet on this going up to the Supreme Court at some point?

Eric Columbus: I think it will. Because, just because DOJ is, is, has made this a vast nationwide campaign in 30 states, so I, I think the Supreme Court will probably want to hear it. I mean, it's conceivable that they might not if they keep losing, but if they pick up another dissenter here and there, I think the court will want to hear it

Natalie Orpett: Alright. Switching gears to the Justice Department and its potential politicization. Though as we have discussed before, this first case is, is it? Is it not? Is it complicated? Do we believe in nuance here at Lawfare? Yes, we do. So Molly, coming to you on this one, this is a follow-up from the indictment of John Bolton who was charged several months ago at this point, I don't remember the exact timing with a number of counts, I think 18, relating to retention of classified information, mishandling, and such, such, such, and we have some sort of re- resolution of that case today. What happened?

Molly Roberts: Yeah, you are once again correct. It was 18 counts, and each of those could have carried 10 years. So, this plea deal that he's made is providing for a much lighter sentence than that. So this one I'll try to keep short because it was reported a week or two or three ago that this was going to happen. We talked about it then, so the upshot is basically the same.

It did happen. John Bolton pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of willfully retaining classified information and made a plea deal for a fine of $2.25 million and a prison sentence of up to five years. If the judge, who is U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang of the District of Maryland, decides to sentence him to more than that, he can withdraw the plea and go to trial, and he can also argue for less, even no prison time.

So at the hearing, the prosecutor said that, as President Trump's national security advisor during his first term, Bolton forwarded more than 1,000 pages of daily notes about what he was up to in his highly sensitive job via his personal email and messaging accounts to his family members, and it was all to lay the groundwork for this tell-all book that he was going to publish, which he did eventually publish, but it didn't have any of the classified information in it.

So, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, Kelly Hayes, gave a press conference after this and said during that, that he had, you know, really jeopardized national security, that it had related to sensitive matters involving foreign adversary. You also might remember that this whole situation led to what's believed to have been an Iranian hacker getting into Bolton's email, accessing some of the classified information, and trying to blackmail him with it. So it was, you know, pretty clear what the damage was.

He also, he, he also even touted in his book proposal, this is another thing that the prosecutor presented at the hearing, that he was going to deliver this memoir that was gonna tell the story of his time in the White House in a meticulously observed manner with direct quotes from all parties based on contemporaneous notes, and a lot of them were notes on stuff you really shouldn't be taking notes on. He would say things like, "in the Situation Room." So it was just very clear that, you know, he was sharing information that shouldn't be shared. And that, of course, gets to the question of nuance that you asked, which is he's certainly a political enemy of, well, a perceived political enemy, a perceived enemy of President Trump's.

And so in that sense, it is the prosecution of a perceived enemy, but these do seem to be crimes. There's always gonna be the question of whether the case would've been brought, it was under investigation during the Biden administration, whether it still would've been brought if President Trump hadn't come into office and decided to make sure that it moved forward, accelerated, but we really don't know

Natalie Orpett: Alright. Thank you. Let us stay stay with you, Molly and switching gears to the relationship between criminal prosecutions and the press and norms that heretofore existed that maybe not so much anymore. Tell us about some subpoenas we learned about in reporting today, today? The last couple of days?

Molly Roberts: Last couple of days. Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely maybe, may not exist so much anymore. So there was reporting this past week that the administration, the Justice Department, sought to force reporters for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to testify before grand juries, issued subpoenas to them, and then withdrew them after the news organizations challenged them.

So the Washington Post subpoena was to Ellen Nakashima, who's a veteran national security reporter there, and lately she's been reporting on the Iran war as well as the boat strikes. And it happened this spring, and all we know is that it was related to sensitive reporting about a national security matter. We don't know any more than that. And then The Wall Street Journal, three Wall Street Journal reporters who also reported on national security issues.

So that's kind of the extent of what we know. The Post was fighting the demand. We know more about what was happening with the Post than what was happening with the Journal because the Post has been more forthcoming. But they were fighting the demand in the Eastern District of Virginia in sealed proceedings, and then the government rescinded the subpoena. The court had asked, the, the Post had asked the court to quash it. There'd been a closed hearing, but the government didn't explain why it was rescinded. It just decided to do it.

And it's, again, it's not clear what the investigations were about. It's not clear what their scope was. All we know is national security. The kind of logical assumption is that it was some leak investigation, that they were going after the leaker, and that they were using the journalist to get more information about that. And in the hearings that the journalists would have had to appear at, and the testimony they would have had to give, they might have been asked to identify their sources. If they'd refused, which is, like, journalistic standard, you're supposed to protect your sources if you told them you would, then they could have been held in contempt of court. They could have even been charged with obstruction of justice.

So historically, like you mentioned, norms. This hasn't happened all that much, although it's not that it hasn't happened at all. The search of Hannah Natanson's apartment was unprecedented. There was nothing quite like it, but there have been subpoenas issued to journalists for materials around their reporting. So there are a few examples. The New York Times reporter Judith Miller was one that got a lot of attention because she ended up being held in federal detention for contempt of court for more than 80 days until Scooter Libby, who was her source, told her that she could reveal his identity, and so then she did. And then there are some other examples of reporters who have either, I mean, in pretty much all cases, they've fought the subpoenas. There have been cases where they've lost but then haven't been called to testify. It's similar to the Hannah Natanson situation, a case where there is plenty of room for the government to do this legally, but they simply haven't done it.

And of course, Pete Hegseth has been really interested in cracking down harder on leakers. Pam Bondi issued a memo in the Department of Justice that said basically we have new norms now about media leak organizations. So that's part of this bigger picture. They withdrew the subpoenas and we don't really know why. We don't know whether they're gonna try again. So that's where we are.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Yeah, we will... it, it's one of those things what we will learn about through reporting and not so much through court documents. All right. Roger, coming to you on the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center litigation. This is, as a quick reminder for folks, this is the criminal prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center on allegations of fraud and a couple of other things relating to their payment of informers for their work. So, Roger, there was some news today about a motion that they had pending

Roger Parloff: If there was news today, I may have missed it

Natalie Orpett: Oh, apologies. Sorry-

Roger Parloff: If, if there was-

Natalie Orpett: It was news today to me that I read about, that you read about before contemporaneously. Apologies.

Roger Parloff: There was a denial earlier, I, I think earlier this week or even last week of the they, they had been seeking, I think it was last week. They had been seeking the, to see the grand jury minutes or to have the judge or the magistrate at least to review them.

But that's a, a always a, a high standard. You need to show a particularized need and a compelling necessity, and the magistrate here, Kelly Fitzgerald Pate, said that wasn't met. They were relying mainly on statements that, there was a false sta- I mean, a, a, well, a false statement that acting Attorney General Blanche made the night of the indictment on TV under, under i- implying that none of the the, the cases about informants, the use of informants inside right-wing domestic terror organization or racist organizations… and Blanche had implied that none of that information was shared with law enforcement. Some, some of it was shared with law enforcement.

But she said that she wasn't going to impute Blanche's statements to the local prosecutors who were before her. Also it they, it, they were really the gist of the complaint was factual disputes about the accuracy of the indictment, which would you just have to leave until the trial itself. The SPLC had tried to rely on had, you know, James Comey's, in the first James Comey case the grand jury minutes were ordered to be reviewed, and the, the, at least the magistrate did review them. But she distinguished that there were 11 findings of procedural and substantive irregularities in the Comey case and that you didn't really have that here.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Eric, over to you now, I believe to talk to us about the Prairieland case. This was in Texas relating to protests and apparently allegedly by members of Antifa. What happened in that case?

Eric Columbus: I, gives me a chance to plug yet another piece that I wrote in, back in November when the indictment first dropped or rather when they first, they first indicted some of these folks on, on charges of material support to terrorists.

This was, this case arises out of an attack last July 4th on an ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, in which a local cop was shot in the neck and some rounds were fired at various DHS officers regarding the facility. This, this was clearly an ideological attack. The, f- it was a group of folks. They spray-painted DHS vehicles with phrases like "ICE pig" and, and left behind flyers like saying things like, "fight ICE terror with class war," and, "free all political prisoners."

The administration started screaming Antifa regarding this, and they, the, they keep referring in the indictment and in their, their, their discussion of the case in the press release upon the sentences as a North Texas Antifa cell. And they note in the press release after the sentencing that this is the first sentencing of defendants affiliated with Antifa following President Trump's executive order designating the group as a domestic terrorist organization in September 2025. And folks may recall that there is really no such thing as a domestic terrorist organization designation, something that Trump kind of made up for his own purposes.

And the, the sentencing, what's notable about the sentencing is that the charges were quite harsh. The, the person who, with the most involvement, who was convicted, the, the, the apparent shooter was convicted of attempted murder, among other things, and was sentenced to 100 years in prison. A bunch of other folks were sentenced to 50 to 70 years in prison. And I, I, I can't really say with, with precision the extent of their involvement. I mean, they were, they were convicted of a lot of serious things, though, but not attempted murder, but they were convicted of things like, like, rioting with intent to injure and possession of, of, of explosive devices, or rather conspiracy to use and carry explosives.

One that I think is, is indicative of, of the cery odd sentencing is that one, one person was convicted only of, of kind of obstruction of justice related charges. Concealing documents and hiding them, like moving a box of, of the, of like, of, of magazines, and they're kind of insurrectionary magazines, so that they couldn't be found by, by prosecutors. And he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, which seems vastly disproportionate to the seriousness of his crimes.

And the, the sentencing was conducted by for some reason, I don't really understand. It was, it was conducted by Judge Pittman, Mark Pittman. There were apparently, I think, two Judge Pittmans in, in, in Texas. This is the one who was appointed by Trump. And then by, and a, a few of the s- the defendant's cases after conviction were, were transferred to Judge Reed O'Connor, who is one of the most right-wing judges in the federal bench. He's a George W. Bush appointee, and you, some may remember him as, remember him as the judge who struck down the Affordable Care Act initially. Sorry, not in the, I'm not sure whether he was the first initially, but it might have been in a subsequent case. But, but anyway he also handed down some of those sentences.

So I, I, if I get a chance, I might try to dig into some of this case some more. But it is, it is an odd one, and, you know, related, we, there will be more of these, these indictments. We saw the one in, in Minnesota where there are allegations of Antifa cells operating. So, definitely something to watch around the country.

Natalie Orpett: And do you know, Eric those, those convictions all came after jury trials or were they bench trials or a jury trial?

Eric Columbus: Oh, jury, jury trials, I assume.

Natalie Orpett: Okay.

Eric Columbus: Yeah.

Natalie Orpett: I assume so too. And it, it seems to me, like you said, the, the charges were quite severe, which I assume also meant they came with some not insubstantial mandatory minimums. But do you have a sense of, you know, how much of these really big sentences was discretionary versus just because of mandatory minimums?

Eric Columbus: That's a good question. I don't know. I do know that, and for some of these they were, they were, the sentences were consecutive as opposed to concurrent, and I think judges have the discretion to im- if, if, if I'm wrong about this, someone please correct me, but I believe that a judge has the, the discretion to impose sentences concurrently even where there is a mandatory minimum for multiple charges.

Natalie Orpett: Alright. Yes, there, there's a lot there so apologies to put you on the spot there.

Eric Columbus: No worries.

Natalie Orpett: But I agree with you, it's worth watching that around the country especially with the supposed terrorism designation, which as you say, is not actually a legal term in this context.

Okay, I think we are sticking with you, Eric, still sticking with Texas as well, and this time talking about an immigration regulation that was briefly had its moment in court before it was whisked away.

Eric Columbus: Yes, and, and-

Natalie Orpett: Tell us about this.

Eric Columbus: Briefly is, is the word here. This, is there's a, a, a a, Texas sued on, on Monday sued to challenge, sued DOJ to challenge a final rule issued under the Biden administration that permits, it makes it easier for immigration judges to dispose of removal cases without final adjudication by using some- something known as administrative closure.

And I, I, I don't know the full details of how the rule operates because it, it's a little bit beside the point to what makes this litigation so interesting, which is that within hours the parties had, on the, the docket, a proposed settlement in which DOJ would withdraw the rule and the state of Texas would, would withdraw its challenge. And I, I think someone said it was a total of four hours between when the case was filed by Texas and when the judge signed off on the settlement. The judge, once again, was Reed O'Connor, who is, I believe, in a, a single judge courthouse in, I think, Wichita Falls in the Northern District of Texas, and is a, a favorite judge to go to by conservatives including the Department of Justice in this administration.

So this, and this was remarkably the second time, in this, the second Trump term, where Reed O'Connor signed off on a collusive lawsuit between Texas and the Department of Justice. Last year DOJ, it was the, the plaintiff and defendants were reversed. It was DOJ that was suing Texas challenging a state law under which undocumented immigrants were eligible for state, in-state tuition in Texas. And Texas agreed to settle the lawsuit by agreeing not to enforce that law at all.

Now, this is all kind of strange because in, in both cases, there were, you didn't need to litigate it. You, like, DOJ could have changed, could have gotten rid of the Biden era law through notice and comment rulemaking, and it would've taken a little bit longer, but they could have done it. And in the, and the, in the situation, in the other case Texas could have, I assume, they could have, the legislature might would have eagerly gotten rid of that requirement gotten rid of the, the availability of in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. But for reasons unknown to me, the parties decided to, in both cases, engage in kind of a collusive lawsuit.

And this is the same issue, or another variant of the same issue, that we've seen in the administration slush fund litigation, where Trump sued the IRS and the parties settled by, Trump sued the IRS for the leak of his tax returns, which was in fact illegal, and miraculously, the parties settled in a way that created this $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund. The judge in that case in Florida has, and still has, a lot of questions about what happened there. The, the judge in Texas, not so much.

And, and historically, Republicans have been very crit- critical of civil rights administrations and Democratic institute- and Democratic administrations that have a bit too readily in their, in their judgment, a- agreed to settle lawsuits brought by civil rights groups in, in, in environmental contexts and others. So it's very interesting, very interesting issue, and it's not clear what can or should be done about it as a policy matter.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Thank you. Let us change to our new category, which I explained to everyone last week why it has anything to do with national security, I assure you it does, which is the museums and buildings and what is happening with shall we say, the aesthetics of America. That's sarcastic. But Molly, coming to you on the question of the national parks and the extent to which the administration can make changes to signs and exhibits.

Molly Roberts: Yeah. Very quick update on this, just so we know where we are. A unanimous First Circuit panel temporarily paused the order that we talked about on Monday from District Court Judge Angel Kelly, which had instructed the National Park Service to reinstall exhibits it had removed pursuant to President Trump's executive order, basically about de-wokeifying the parks and saying only good things about America.

So far, the First Circuit hasn't paused or halting of the implementation of the order by the Department of the Interior. It still might, but it hasn't done it so far. And, but, but it said that the government doesn't need to put back up the exhibits about slavery, native people, climate change, and more by the 250th anniversary next month, which is the sort of symbolic deadline that Judge Kelly had imposed. So for now, you know, happy birthday to the best and shiniest version of America, and I imagine we will hear more from the First Circuit.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. So, where things stand are no further removals can happen, but no reinstatements need to happen.

Molly Roberts: Exactly.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. And the merits are still to be determined?

Molly Roberts: Yeah.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Got it. Roger, over to you and the Kennedy Center.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. There had just been a little thing where in a status report, the plaintiff in that case, Representative Joyce Beatty, had asked Judge Cooper to order Trump to explain what the tarp scaffolding is that now still obscures the front facade of the Kennedy Center. They had written that “willfully sabotaging Kennedy Center’s iconic facade to assuage defendants’ vanity or massage broken egos is a clear breach of fiduciary duty.”

So this week, Judge Cooper did order Trump to explain what it's about, but not until July 31st assuming it's still up. So, that is a, a relatively disappointing for, for, for me, frankly result. But maybe we will eventually get an explanation.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. If they don't moot that briefing by taking it down by the end of July.

Okay. We are ready for the lightning round that is the immigration litigation that we are tracking. So, Roger, you had wanted to start by informing everyone about a cert petition that came in. Tell us about that.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. The, the... we've been talking for a long time about the mandatory immigration detention issue that Kyle Cheney has written so much about and tracked. It's finally, a cert petition has reached the Supreme Court this week. It was filed by the government. It's in the Sixth Circuit case and it's called Raycraft v. Lopez-Campos. The Sixth Circuit was one of the three appellate courts that stru- that rejected Trump's policy. There are two court of appeals that have accepted it

Natalie Orpett: So, it, does this squarely put before the court if they take it the question of how to properly read that statute?

Roger Parloff: Yeah.

Natalie Orpett: Okay.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. Yeah, this is exactly.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Alright. Next item in the D.C. Circuit and expedited removal procedures. Roger, I believe that's with you as well.

Roger Parloff: Yes. T was, it's called Make the Road v. Mullin. And it, it ruled 2-to-1 it overruled it, it, it reversed Judge Giacobbe. The, the, there are two main ways of proceeding against a, a non-citizen who's here illegally. The, and the, there's the normal way, which can take months or years, and then there's something called expedited removal, which can take 24 hours.

And, you know, for a long time it was only used in situations where somebody was apprehended at the border and, and or very near the border within 100 miles and up to four- and couldn't show they'd been here more than 14 days. But the statute actually authorizes it to be used mo- more broadly and up, up, up to, up to two years if, if you can't show you've been here more than two years. And so, Trump moved it up to the max and, and, and made it countrywide.

And, and so Judge Cobb tried to stop that, but you know, the statute does seem to permit it. She found, she, she thought there was a constitutional issue, due process. There were certain ways, flaws also with the particular memo that described this, whether you would be informing the, the, the, the non-citizen that, you know, if, if they could show that they'd been here more than two years they they could get out of this expesi- expedited procedure.

But the court ruled 2-to-1 for Trump here. This was Justin Walker and Naomi Rao who are both Trump appointees. Robert Wilkins was the dissenter, and I've, he's a Democratic appointee, I forget which judge. And Rao would also have dismissed on jurisdictional grounds in addition to the not buying the due process grounds.

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Another one for you, Roger. This one, Judge Howell and the man who was returned to Honduras and she said you need to bring him back.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. “facilitate his removal,” that's the magic language we've settled upon since the Abrego case. That's the Supreme Court language. And it was, it's just sort of a, a horrifying individual case. He came into this country in 2020 when he was 14. He was an unaccompanied minor child. He was adjudicated to be, have Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, which is when you can't be returned due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment at, at home. And he was nev- and he got a work permit and has no criminal record, has a three-year-old daughter, a citizen.

And he was arrested in March of this year in Montana, and then sort of entered a Kafkaesque situation where he apparently went to six detention centers in 10 days and dropped off the map. And the… his lawyer could not get a statement from where he was or which, even whether he was in the custody of CBP or of ICE. So he brought a suit in D.C. to find out who had him and where he was, and a hearing was set and you know, the day of the hearing, Beryl Howell was informed that he had been sent to Honduras that morning. There was then a dispute whether it really was that morning. And anyway, she described the situation as one that boggles the mind and she has ordered the government to facilitate his return so that his case can proceed in a more normal fashion.

Natalie Orpett: And did the government give any explanation for why he had been removed?

Roger Parloff: There was precious little response. There were I mean, the, the main, to the factual questions, it was I think the main def- defense was, "You don't have jurisdiction. He's out of the country. It's not redressable. We got him out before you got the case, and, and so, you, you need to dismiss."

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Well, that'll be an interesting to see, it has echoes of JGG and Judge Boasberg from way back in the day. Okay, next one in California and relating to some ICE and EOIR policies. Roger, that one is still with you.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. This is about arrests at immigration courthouses. Remember we had another case on this in Manhattan, also before Kevin Castel. This one is in Northern District of California, P. Casey Pitts.

And this one this is this odd thing where, the, the, the, the gov- the government se- that seemed to change the policy relating to arrests at immi- well, it did change the policy relating to... There had been a policy of not arresting people at either regular courthouses, federal courthouses, or immigration courthouses. And that seemed to change in Mar- at least March of last year of 2025 with respect to both courts and people were being arrested.

And then and, and cases were brought and briefs were filed, and then, and then the gov- DHS changed its mind and said, "A- actually the new guidance doesn't really affect immigration courts, even though we've been saying that it does." So that didn't help their case in either one of these litigations because it im- it, it, it, it, it, it created a policy, it, it, it removed a, a, an existing policy in favor of no policy at all which, which looks like arbitrary and capricious.

And that's basically what the r- ruling was, that this was arbitrary and capri- capricious. The, but this ruling is broader. It's, it's under, it's, it's a summary judgment. It's not a emergency ruling and it's interim ruling, and it affect, and it's nationwide. It's not an injunction, it's an APA stay, but it has a nationwide effect for, so, it's a pretty important ruling.

Natalie Orpett: And I assume we expect that one to be re- appealed in short order.

Roger Parloff: Yes, and we do. We do. I, I, I don't have whether it's happened already.

Natalie Orpett: I'm sure it is imminent, if not. Okay, and I, I should have mentioned if folks have questions, feel free to drop them in the Q&A. Molly, I want to come to you now, and to talk to us about some immigration courts and public access.

Molly Roberts: Yep. So Judge McMahon of the Southern District of New York partially granted a preliminary injunction that in a case about public access to the two Lower Manhattan immigration courts. So a truly various group of plaintiffs: a pastor, an attorney, a journalist, a psychologist, and a court observer, it's, it's really like a walked into a bar joke setup, sued against the, these new restrictions that they said started last summer at these courts.

So they were finding doors locked during what should have been open proceedings. They were being told they couldn't watch. "No, no observers," when they tried to walk in. They were also barred from waiting areas and from talking to people with immigration cases who were in those waiting areas.  They said that was a First Amendment violation. The government said, "No, we did this because of overcrowding. It was all in the interest of security." And Judge McMahon did not buy that.

So, she found first on standing that the plaintiffs could sue some of the departments they were suing, the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, General Services Administration, but not ICE, although she's giving them an opportunity to cure that. And then on the merits, she found that there is a qualified First Amendment right of public access to sort of standard non-closed immigration court hearings, and removal hearings are trial-type adjudications, so they're presumptively open, she said. There'd have to be something special going on, some real reason for one not to be.

She also found that rules about who can be in the waiting areas or what conduct they can engage in have to be reasonable and viewpoint neutral, and it looked like the plaintiffs could show that these ones weren't. There really wasn't ever any justification that made any sense for why they were closed off or why they were told they weren't allowed to talk to people. "You can't," she said, "just prohibit communication there if it's quiet and consensual."

The complaint had also referred to exterior spaces that they said there were restrictions in, and she said that the claims of what those exterior spaces were exactly were too vague, but the plaintiffs also have some time to file a new complaint curing that.

And then there was a retaliation claim. She said that was colorable, too. These people were being retaliated against for going in and observing the hearings and trying to do interviews with the people in the waiting areas and all these things that the agencies didn't want them doing.

The government had tried to say, "Well, we issued reminders, actually. We sent emails saying these spaces were open," but the plaintiffs argued those didn't moot the case. They came after the lawsuit. They weren't binding. And the judge found the restrictions actually continued, at least in some respects, after those reminders. So, they didn't really mean much.

The two sides are now supposed to propose the language for the preliminary injunction, and the defendant's reply of the language it wants is due by July 9th. So, that will be where we kind of find out what's happening next here.

Natalie Orpett: That's very, it's interesting to me hearing the level of detail that they are supposed to come up with rules-wise because having spent some time in New York Immigration Court roo- waiting rooms they are extreme chaos, and I'm having a hard time imagining having anyone implementing them. But maybe things have changed.

Okay. Last item on the list, and folks should drop questions if you have them, is for Eric and has to do with sanctuary cities policies in New Jersey. Tell us about that.

Eric Columbus: Sure. So, the, DOJ sued four cities in New Jersey for having various types of, quote-unquote, "sanctuary city policies" that limited the local law enforcement's cooperation with, with ICE and, and their ability to do things that help enforce im- immigration federal immigration law.

And the district court tossed it on standing grounds. The district court noted that there is, there are New Jersey, there's a New Jersey law that, or rather, I think a policy issued by the attorney general of New Jersey, that is fairly coterminous with the, coextensive with the challenged local policies. And so, the policies that DOJ objected to, the injury that DOJ claims to have suffered, would not be redressable by a favorable decision in court because the state policies would still remain. And i- in fact, the, in the, I think under the first Trump administration, DOJ had sued New Jersey to challenge those the, those attorney general policies and had lost twice and, including before the Third Circuit, and did not take it any further.

And it, it's kind of an odd suit. I mean, DOJ kind of half-heartedly says, "Well, you know, there is, it is kind of redressable because i-if you rule in favor of us, that'll make it more likely that the state policy would somehow be overturned eventually." And the district court was like, "That doesn't, doesn't make any sense at all." And then the, there, to the extent that there were policies that were not coextensive with the state policies, the district court held that New Je- that DOJ had not proved they'd actually been harmed by those policies or they would possibly be harmed by them.

So this case is actually very similar to a case that from out of Boston a month ago and it, that was decided May 28th. And I, I could've sworn we had discussed that last week, although I cannot find it, sorry, last month at some point or earlier this month, but I cannot find it in the kind of agendas from those past shows, so maybe, maybe we did not. But I'm, luckily, I did not hallucinate that case. I actually just found it earlier While, while prepping for this. And it was a- another case in Boston where they sued the city of Boston for sanctuary city-type policies, and again, it was bounced on standing grounds because the court noted that the relief that the city was seeking the ultimate relief was basically barred by state law. And even if you had invalidated these, these Boston policies, it, it wouldn't have helped because you still have had the state law in the way, and the, the DOJ had not sued Massachusetts.

So it's not entirely clear to me why DOJ is, is, is doing these things. I mean, I, I haven't kicked the tires entirely on either of those opinions, but they, they seem, you know, well-written and I, they, they're, they're probably correct just on the, on the facts. And I,  i- i- -it's either sloppiness on the part of DOJ or maybe they're just trying to get as many of these suits going as possible to satisfy top brass and don't necessarily care as much about about the outcomes. And, and the sanctuary city, I mean, someone should take a look at the, at the sanctuary city record in, in the Trump, in both Trump administrations. It's very poor, and I don't think anything has gone to the Supreme Court, but they've lost again and again and again at the district court level.

The judge here was I don't know how to pronounce her name. It is P-A-D-I-N. She's Latina. I would guess it's Padin, but I could be totally wrong. And she is a Biden appointee

Natalie Orpett: Okay. Looks like we have two questions. First from David "Can a sentence be appealed, particularly as selective or vindictive, although I recognize not likely to win on appeal in that circuit?" Roger, any thoughts on that?

Roger Parloff: Well, you can, the, the, a sentence needs, there are federal guidelines, so I think you would challenge the sentence in terms of did you calculate, first, you, did you calculate the guidelines correctly? And second, if, if you went outside the guidelines, did you articulate a convincing reason for doing so? I, I, I don't remember the standard. I assume it's abuse of discretion. But so, and, and in that context, I'm sure you would say this became a political football and that sort of thing. I don't think you would specifically characterize it as vindictive or selective, but you, I think you could certainly argue the, the political emotions around this

Natalie Orpett: Yeah. My- so it's, it's an important distinction Roger just made. Selective and vin- vindictive doctrine that we've talked about in a lot of other contexts is about prosecutions. So that's not something that you would bring to challenge a sentence specifically. That's the, the pro- selective and vindictive prosecution claims are about the decision to prosecute in the first place.

There are, if I remember correctly, cases looking at vindictive sentences. Roger’s, I agree with you that the, the guidelines would be very important here. I don't know I don't recall ever hearing anything about selective sentencing, and I think that would be very difficult given the guidelines. Eric, Molly, either of you have additional thoughts on that?

Eric Columbus: Yeah, I would just add, I mean, the selective and vindictive prosecution doctrines are aimed at the executive branch, whether they have behaved in a selective or vindictive fashion. It, I think by definition it wouldn't, would not be selective in your, your, your sentencing because obviously you are, you have been convicted and you have to be sentenced. It is not a discretionary choice. And in, in terms of vindictiveness, I, I think that just kind of goes into what Roger said, whether you've calculated the guidelines correctly and whether you have, the judge, you the judge have articulated reason for departing from the guidelines if in fact you did. And your, your I think your state of mind doesn't really matter as much.

Molly Roberts: Right. I was just gonna say, if this is about something like the Bolton case or one of the prosecution of perceived political enemies, if you were, if there were room to challenge a sentence as vindictive, presumably you'd be saying the judge had been vindictive. So it wouldn't be saying the Trump administration had been vindictive. There'd have to be some reason the judge had beef. I mean, maybe the judge, you know, you'd be arguing the judge loves President Trump or something. But again, it would have to be about the judge's vindictiveness.

Natalie Orpett: Right. Okay. Our next question from Kathy, “any comments on Judge Sullivan's, I think, ruling com- supporting Katie Fang's suit requiring Todd Blanche to respond by Jul- July second by releasing unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files to the public or supplying valid reasons why he could not?

Eric Columbus: Yeah. So, yeah, on, on that I think we, we, we, I think we wanna hold off just to, just to make it since it's nothing has happened, technically nothing has really happened yet. Wanna hold off until Judge Sullivan, until DOJ responds, if it responds, to Judge Sullivan's ruling. He, I mean, they apparently had missed a deadline, but he did not in fact order the release. He said he, he basically ordered the release unless DOJ, of the documents, unless DOJ can show cause why they should not be released. So that, that basically give them another chance to file something and I think, I, I assume they will take him up on that, although it, it, it's, it's tough to say given that they apparently did not do so earlier. But, so in, in other words, tune in next time I think.

Natalie Orpett: Yet another reason to tune in next time.

Eric Columbus: Yep.

Natalie Orpett: Alright. Then I think we will leave it there for this week, for your double header, twice-in-one-week Lawfare Lives. Thank you to all of you for joining us, and we'll see you next week