Biodun.BBC: U.S. Constitution

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Friday, October 25, 2019

ANALYSIS AND BREAKING: Judge validates Trump impeachment inquiry, orders Mueller document release

October 26, 2019 08H:46 GMT/ZULU

by Suzanne Gould, BBC News and Reuters News Analysts, Washington

A U.S. judge on Friday validated the legality of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump and ordered his administration to hand over an unredacted copy of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report detailing Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, handing a major victory to the Democratic-led House of Representatives, undercut an argument that Trump’s fellow Republicans have made in attacking the impeachment inquiry. The judge said the House need not approve a resolution formally initiating the effort.

The U.S. Constitution gives the House wide latitude in handling impeachment. Democrats began the inquiry without putting such a resolution to a vote.

The judge gave the Justice Department until next Wednesday to provide the blacked out material from the Mueller report that was subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee.

“The reality is that DOJ and the White House have been openly stonewalling the House’s efforts to get information by subpoena and by agreement, and the White House has flatly stated that the Administration will not cooperate with congressional requests for information,” the judge wrote, using an acronym for the Justice Department.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the ruling “another blow to President Trump’s attempt to put himself above the law.”

“This critical court ruling affirms Congress’s authority to expose the truth for the American people,” Pelosi, the top elected Democratic official, said in a statement, adding, “The President will be held accountable – because no one is above the law.”

The Justice Department had argued that the redacted information could not be disclosed because it contained material from grand jury proceedings that was required to be kept secret, but the judge strongly disagreed.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump departs for travel to South Carolina, at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tom Brenner -/File Photo

“DOJ is wrong,” Howell said, adding that the committee’s need for disclosure of the materials “is greater than the need for continued secrecy.”

“Impeachment based on anything less than all relevant evidence would compromise the public’s faith in the process,” added Howell, a former federal prosecutor appointed to the bench by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.

Howell also ruled that the House has undertaken a legal and legitimate impeachment inquiry and criticized efforts by the Justice Department and the committee’s ranking Republican Doug Collins to argue that Democrats had not met the legal threshold.

“Blocking access to evidence collected by a grand jury relevant to an impeachment inquiry, as DOJ urges, undermines the House’s ability to carry out its constitutional responsibility with due diligence,” the judge added.

The Democrats sought access to the redacted materials as part of their effort to build a case for removing Trump from office.

The committee, Howell ruled, “has presented sufficient evidence that its investigation has the preliminary purpose of determining whether to recommend articles (of) impeachment,” referring to formal charges that the House could approve that would trigger a trial in the Senate on whether to remove Trump from office.

A Republican resolution introduced in the Senate on Thursday criticized the process that House Democrats are using in the impeachment inquiry. It argued that a resolution is needed to initiate such an inquiry. The judge disagreed.

“Even in cases of presidential impeachment, a House resolution has never, in fact, been required to begin an impeachment inquiry,” the judge wrote.

‘THOUGHTFUL RULING’

Democrat Jerrold Nadler, the panel’s chairman, lauded the ruling.

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifies before the House Intelligence Committee at a hearing on the Office of Special Counsel's investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis

“The court’s thoughtful ruling recognizes that our impeachment inquiry fully comports with the Constitution and thoroughly rejects the spurious White House claims to the contrary,” Nadler said.

Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the department is reviewing the decision.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sought to minimize the importance of the judge’s comments on an impeachment resolution, saying Republicans had argued that it was “unfair and wrong” but “not unconstitutional” for the House to have failed to pass such a measure.

Mueller submitted his report to U.S. Attorney General William Barr in March after completing a 22-month investigation that detailed Russia’s campaign of hacking and propaganda to boost Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 election as well as extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

But when Barr, a Trump appointee who Democrats have accused of trying to protect Trump politically, made the 448-page report public the following month, some parts were blacked out, or redacted.

Mueller said his investigation found insufficient evidence to establish that Trump and his campaign had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia.

Trump’s administration has refused to comply with subpoenas from House committees in the impeachment inquiry seeking documents and testimony. But some current and former administration officials have defied the White House and testified in the impeachment inquiry.

The impeachment inquiry centers not on the Mueller report but on Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate a domestic political rival, Democrat Joe Biden.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Trump says illegal immigrants should be deported immediately without judicial process

June 24, 2018 23H:07 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Melissa Gruz and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Washington

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said on Sunday that people who enter the United States illegally should be sent back immediately to where they came from without any judicial process, likening them to invaders who are trying to “break into” the country.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Nevada Republican Party Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., June 23, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

His proposal drew immediate criticism from legal analysts and immigrant rights advocates who said it would violate the U.S. Constitution’s due process provision, which applies to citizens and non-citizens alike.

In a series of tweets on Sunday, Trump said: “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”

“Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country. Strong Borders, No Crime!”

It was unclear if Trump was advocating an expansion of the provision that allows expedited removals of illegal immigrants at or near the U.S. border, a policy his administration has embraced since he took office. Nor did Trump differentiate between illegal immigrants and people who entered the United States to seek asylum protection.

The White House did not return a call seeking clarification.

“The president of the United States has just forcefully proposed the end of political asylum and no due process for migrants,” Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, wrote on Twitter.

Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told us at Reuters: “The administration cannot simply get rid of all process for immigrants. The due process clause absolutely applies. It’s not a choice.”

Authorities can bypass due process protections with the expedited removals policy that allows quick deportations if an immigrant is apprehended within 100 miles (160 km) of the border and has been in the country less than 14 days. Those seeking asylum must be granted a hearing.

Trump’s tweets on Sunday came after a week of global outcry over images and video of crying children and their distraught parents separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. Critics in Trump’s Republican Party, as well as his wife and daughter, urged him to abandon the policy.

The president buckled to the pressure on Wednesday, issuing an executive order that ended the separations. But the government has yet to reunite more than 2,000 children with their parents.

TRUMP FUMES OVER IMMIGRATION

But Trump’s frustration over the issue only grew. He has issued a drumbeat of criticism of the immigration system and Democrats in Congress, while using increasingly harsh terms such as “invasion” and “infestation” to describe illegal immigration.

“Here, I think he is making it clear, he just doesn’t want anybody here. He wants people to just be sent back, no matter what,” said Jorge Baron, executive director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, who compared Sunday’s tweets with comments Trump was reported to have made in January about immigrants from “shithole” countries.

While some who advocate for stricter immigration rules have argued that people are making fraudulent asylum claims or abusing the loopholes in U.S. immigration laws, Baron said Trump’s views went way beyond those arguments.

Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting adults for entering the country illegally entails a process that typically takes many months. That required children to be separated from parents because they are not legally allowed to be kept in detention for more than 20 days.

Keeping the children with their migrant parents as they await court proceedings faces obstacles, however, including the lack of sufficient housing, a paucity of immigration judges and a daunting backlog of cases.

Under expedited removal proceedings, which are used most commonly at ports of entry, an immigration official can evaluate an immigrant’s claim and reject it with no involvement by an immigration judge or review board.

The Trump administration called last year for the expansion of the expedited removals program to immigrants who have been in the country illegally for up to two years.

There is an exception from expedited removal for those with a credible fear of returning home.

Lindsay Harris, an assistant professor of law at the University of the District of Columbia, said those with no credible fear could still see a judge, while those with such a fear could begin a long legal process that eventually could result in asylum and applying for a work permit.

“It’s already an extremely truncated process,” the ACLU’s Gelernt said. “The president’s suggestion that there is a ton of process for these individuals is simply wrong. There are already people being removed with a truncated process.”

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Travel ban: Trump steps up attack on judge, court system

Mon Feb 6, 2017 | 03H:20 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rachel Rubin and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Washington DC

President Donald Trump on Sunday ramped up his criticism of a federal judge who blocked a travel ban on seven mainly Muslim nations and said courts were making U.S. border security harder, intensifying the first major legal battle of his presidency.

In a series of tweets that broadened his attack on the country's judiciary, Trump said Americans should blame U.S. District Judge James Robart and the court system if anything happened.

Trump did not elaborate on what threats the country potentially faced. He added that he had told the Department of Homeland Security to "check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY. The courts are making the job very difficult!"

The Republican president labeled Robart a "so-called judge" on Saturday, a day after the Seattle jurist issued a temporary restraining order that prevented enforcement of a 90-day ban on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day bar on all refugees.

A U.S. appeals court later on Saturday denied the government's request for an immediate stay of the ruling.

Vice President Mike Pence defended Trump earlier on Sunday, even as some Republicans encouraged the businessman-turned-politician to tone down his broadsides against the judicial branch of government.

"The president of the United States has every right to criticize the other two branches of government," Pence said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

It is unusual for a sitting president to attack a member of the judiciary, which the U.S. Constitution designates as a check on the power of the executive branch and Congress.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Trump seems intent on precipitating a constitutional crisis.

Some Republicans also expressed discomfort with the situation.

"I think it is best not to single out judges for criticism," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on CNN's "State of the Union" program. "We all get disappointed from time to time at the outcome in courts on things that we care about. But I think it is best to avoid criticizing judges individually."

Republican Senator Ben Sasse, a vocal critic of Trump, was less restrained.

"We don't have so-called judges ... we don't have so-called presidents, we have people from three different branches of government who take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution," he said on the ABC News program "This Week."

LEGAL LIMBO

The ruling by Robart, appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush, coupled with the decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to deny the government's request for an immediate stay of the ruling dealt a blow to Trump barely two weeks into his presidency.

It could also be the precursor to months of legal challenges to his push to clamp down on immigration, including through the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, and complicate the confirmation battle of his U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

The Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, said on Saturday that Gorsuch, a conservative federal appeals court judge from Colorado, must meet a higher bar to show his independence from the president.

Trump, who during his presidential campaign called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, has vowed to reinstate his controversial travel ban. He says the measures are needed to protect the United States from Islamist militants. Critics say they are unjustified and discriminatory.

The legal limbo will prevail at least until the federal appeals court rules on the government's application for an emergency stay of Robart's ruling. The court was awaiting further submissions from the states of Washington and Minnesota on Sunday, and from the federal government on Monday. The final filing was due at 5 p.m. PST on Monday (0100 GMT on Tuesday).

The uncertainty has created what may be a short-lived opportunity for travelers from the seven affected countries as well as refugees to get into the United States.

Sara Yarjani, an Iranian student with a U.S. visa who was attempting to return to Los Angeles to visit her parents, was among those who boarded flights to the United States after learning that Trump's travel ban had been blocked.

Her visa had been stamped "revoked" and she was sent back to Vienna last week. She was slated to arrive in Los Angeles on Sunday, according to her sister, Sahara Muranovic.

"This is our only window," Muranovic said. "Maybe they'll blow it again by Monday."

FACT AND FICTION

Trump's Jan. 27 travel restrictions have drawn protests in the United States, provoked criticism from U.S. allies and created chaos for thousands of people who have, in some cases, spent years seeking asylum.

Reacting to the latest court ruling, Iraqi government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said: "It is a move in the right direction to solve the problems that it caused."

In his ruling on Friday, Robart questioned the use of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States as a justification for the ban, saying no attacks had been carried out on U.S. soil by individuals from the seven affected countries since then.

For Trump's order to be constitutional, Robart said, it had to be "based in fact, as opposed to fiction".

The 9/11 attacks were carried out by hijackers from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon, whose nationals were not affected by the order.

In a series of tweets on Saturday, Trump attacked Hobart's opinion as ridiculous.

"What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?" he asked.

Trump told reporters at his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida late on Saturday: "We'll win. For the safety of the country we'll win."

The Justice Department's appeal criticized Robart's reasoning, saying the ruling violated the separation of powers and stepped on the president's authority as commander-in-chief. It said the state of Washington lacked standing to challenge Trump's order and denied it "favors Christians at the expense of Muslims."The U.S. State Department and Department of Homeland Security said they were complying with Robart's ruling and many visitors were expected to start arriving on Sunday, while the government said it expected to begin admitting refugees again on Monday.

A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, Leonard Doyle, confirmed on Sunday that about 2,000 refugees were ready to travel to the United States. "We expect a small number of refugees to arrive in the U.S. on Monday, Feb. 6th. They are mainly from Jordan and include people fleeing war and persecution in Syria," he said in an email.

Iraqi Fuad Sharef, his wife and three children spent two years obtaining U.S. visas. They had packed up to move to America last week, but were turned back to Iraq after a failed attempt to board a U.S.-bound flight from Cairo.

On Sunday, the family checked in for a Turkish Airlines flight to New York from Istanbul.

"Yeah, we are very excited. We are very happy," Sharef told Reuters TV. "Finally, we have been cleared. We are allowed to enter the United States."