There is so much that is happening right now that we have three different instances where the Trump team has gone into court and gotten quite the surprising response from these judges.
So first and foremost, we’ve been talking a lot about these suspected gang members who weren’t afforded due process. Of course, Judge Boasberg tried to prevent this. That put a stop to the administration just being able to deport these people at will without any due process. And so now they are seeking due process. And the first instance where they actually sought to do that didn’t exactly go too well. Can you explain what happened?
Yeah, Brian, if the importance of the constitutional right to due process was ever driven home, it was driven home today by Judge Brinkema, a very experienced senior judge. Now, remember that in the Venezuela immigrant cases that Judge Boasberg is presided over, they got no due process rights. You know, Donald Trump’s ICE agents just basically snatched them all up. Some might call it kidnapping, stuffed them into a plane and sent them to a prison in El Salvador. And now we see why actually honoring due process rights is so damn important, because it looks like the government, Donald Trump’s executive branch tried to do it right.
Trump Team goes after another alleged Venezuelan gang member
What did they do? They went to Judge Brinkema with a warrant to try to detain yet another alleged Venezuelan gang member. And Judge Brinkema quite literally laughed them out of her judicial chambers. Here is the quote from the judge regarding the warrant that, you know, Donald Trump’s executive branch agents handed her, trying to convince her that they had probable cause, that this particular person was a Venezuelan gang member.
This quote from the judge: “This is a terrible, terrible affidavit. If this were before me in a criminal case, and you were asking to get a warrant issued on this, I would throw you out of my chambers. No agent should do this type of editorializing, not when people’s liberty is at stake. I expect more from the government, meaning Donald Trump’s executive branch agencies and agents. I expect more from the government than this kind of very shoddy work. This is assumptions and putting words in people’s mouths. You don’t have it here.” And she goes on with some more choice quotes. If ever there is a demonstration of why due process matters, it is in those words from Judge Brinkema.
Look, Glenn, we are in a political ecosystem where that kind of language between politicians, between commentators is pretty normal. How unorthodox is it to hear a judge speak that way?
You know, Brian, it’s not unprecedented, but in my 30 years as a prosecutor, let me explain just how unusual this is. One of my responsibilities for years was to review precisely these kinds of affidavits. And I had to sign off on them, approving the agent, the detective, the investigator, taking it and walking over to the judge in chambers to seek a search warrant, an arrest warrant or other process.
You know, I would say if I approved 100 warrants and sent the agent or the investigator over to the judge in chambers for review, maybe, maybe one out of 100, I’d get a call from a judge.
You know, Mr. Kirshner, I know you approved the application for the warrant. I have a couple of questions about probable cause. Sometimes, Brian, I could easily answer those questions and no further action was necessary. Sometimes I would say, Judge, send the agent back over to my office. We will go back through the investigative file. We’ll put some additional facts, if we have them, in the affidavit, and then I’ll send the agent back so we satisfy any lingering concerns you might have about a probable cause. If that happened one in 100 times, I’d be surprised.
Over the course of my 30-year career as a prosecutor, never, never did I have a judge say or even approach saying anything like Judge Brinkema just said to Donald Trump’s executive branch agents. I just want to reread this quote here: “This is a terrible, terrible affidavit. If this were before me in a criminal case and you were asking me to get a warrant issued on this, I’d throw you out of my chambers.”I mean, this right here is the whole reason why due process actually matters.
The reality is that if the Trump administration was still barreling ahead using the same processes, which is to say no due process, as they had prior to this. This is the kind of rationale, the kind of justification, the kind of basis that they were using to just outright not only ship these people out of the country, but ship them to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. Are you fucking kidding me?
Okay, moving to a different topic here. There’s been a story that’s been consuming a lot of media coverage because it has major First Amendment implications. Can you speak about what a federal judge just did regarding the removal of this Tufts University PhD student who the Trump team had revoked her visa because they were unhappy in the aftermath of her writing an op-ed that obviously didn’t comport with the political ideology of this Trump team?
Yeah, Brian, this case shows why our First Amendment free speech rights are so damn important. There’s actually a video that has been circulating on TV, on cable news, and on social media of the detention of this PhD student who was here on a student visa, who wrote an op-ed about what was going on over, you know, between Israel and Palestine.
And apparently it was an op-ed that displeased somebody in the Trump team. So look what they did to this PhD student. And Brian, this PhD student, Ramisa Ozturk, got a lawyer to file what’s called a writ of habeas corpus. We sometimes hear that referred to as the great writ.
And loosely translated, it is a command from a judge, from a court, to bring me the body of the prisoner because there’s an allegation that the prisoner is being unlawfully, unconstitutionally detained by the U.S. government. And the judge, I believe it’s federal court judge Denise Casper, put an immediate stop, an immediate injunction or restraining order prohibiting the federal government from removing this PhD student from the United States until this issue could be litigated.
Delusional Trump Team
Right now they’re litigating the question of whether the judge has jurisdiction. I suspect that the judge will conclude that she does have jurisdiction. But it’s interesting because when you read the two-page order issued by the judge, twice the judge felt compelled to order the federal government not to remove this person from the United States until this issue can be resolved.
So this is another good news story, I would call it, in the long run because it is showing that the courts, which are often very slow to move, have been taking up these deprivations, these violations of the U.S. Constitution by the Trump team, you know, at light speed. And I’ll tell you, Brian, in case after case after case, the Trump team is losing. They are losing from coast to coast in almost every case, not every case, but almost every case. And I think we’re somewhere between 100 and 200 lawsuits that have now been filed against the Trump team.
Trump Team trying to deport student
Glenn, you know, people are going to look at this, especially Trump team officials, especially Republican lawmakers and senators, and say that this student deserved to be deported because she was a guest here, she was on a visa, and so doesn’t have the same due process and constitutional protections afforded to her as an American citizen would. Can I get your reaction to that? Is that true?
No, Brian, the Constitution and the constitutional protections and guarantees apply to everyone who is here. Now, think about it. People who are here illegally, they have no status. They have come to the United States, you know, crossing the border illegally. Even they have due process rights to things like notice and opportunity to be heard before they are deported. So, no, the Constitution applies. And it’s not like the federal government gets to say, you know what, we’re going to violate all of somebody’s constitutional rights based on what we think about this person, what their status is, what they said, what op-ed opinions they may have written.
You know, that’s just not the way it works here in the United States.
And finally, Glenn, let’s finish off with this. One last bit of good news. We’ve spoken at length for the last almost 100 days here about the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is an agency, relatively new agency, that was stood up solely, solely to protect consumers who had been defrauded by predatory financial institutions and banks. This is an agency that’s returned $21 billion to over 200 million consumers. It was also an agency that would have had oversight onto Elon Musk in his effort to turn X into an everything app, basically to be able to use payment processing systems that it would become under the purview of the CFPB.
And so, surprise, surprise, Elon immediately took an ax to the CFPB as soon as he had the ability to do so under Doge. That effort seems to have hit quite the roadblock here with Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s latest ruling. Can you explain what happened here?
Yeah, Brian. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is another very highly regarded, fair, independent, impartial judge in federal court in Washington, D.C., just gave us a really bright point of light. And I don’t know if you can flash up on the screen just the first page of her new ruling regarding the CFPB, because here’s how she opens her new memorandum opinion.
She quotes Elon Musk as saying, “CFPB, RIP,” spoken by Elon Musk on February 7th. She then quotes Russell Vogt saying, “the CFPB has been a woken, weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time. This must end.” And then she quotes Donald Trump himself, quote, “that was a very important thing to get rid of,” said President Donald Trump.
And here is what she said about those quotes and about this litigation in her opening salvo. The motion for preliminary junction to be decided boils down to one question: Should the court take action to preserve the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now before the case concerning its fate has been resolved? That is an extraordinary step. And before it, the court can step in. The court must conclude that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claims, that they would suffer irreparable harm in the meantime if the court lets the lawsuit run its course, and that an injunction would be in the public interest.
And her final sentence of her opening salvo, the court has made those findings. And the answer is an overwhelming yes, the court can and must act. This is, you know, in the face of Trump and Musk and Vogt, trying to just completely shudder the CFPB without regard to any of the legalities, legalities that, according to Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the plaintiffs who brought this lawsuit are very likely to win. And had she not acted, they would have suffered irreparable harm.
You know, this, again, is the federal judiciary standing strong, being a bulwark, being a firewall against the runaway illegality and unconstitutionality of Donald Trump and his Trump team flunkies.
So to summarize here, we have:
The Trump team being rebuked in their effort to deprive someone of their due process rights by deporting them to another country.
The Trump team being blocked in their effort to remove a Ph.D. student who they also tried to deprive of having constitutional protections that are afforded to her in this country.
The Trump team being blocked in its effort to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by fiat.
So look, all of this underscores one thing, and that is even in a moment right now where it feels like it’s so difficult to keep our heads above water that this administration is running roughshod over our democracy. And they are. We do have a bulwark in the federal judiciary. And to Glenn’s exact point, we are winning these cases over and over and over and over.
And so use this to draw some inspiration as we move forward into this administration, where their goal expressly is to try and deprive you of any optimism, of any hope moving forward. I mean, this is their stated goal is to flood the zone with shit in an effort to overwhelm you. But the reality is that when we get all of this stuff in the courtroom, when we are litigating all of this stuff over and over, in almost every case, we’re watching the Trump team lose.
So if that’s not some reason to keep some faith, I don’t know what is. And so for that reason, we’ll continue to bring this stuff to you as soon as we have.on’t know what is. And so for that reason, we’ll continue to bring this stuff to you as soon as we have any breaking.
