This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio Today. The Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to the abortion pill that was used in nearly two thirds of all abortions in the country last year. In the court's first abortion decision since conservative justices overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. The justices reversed a federal appeals Court ruling that would have barred mail order prescriptions from mifipristone across the country.
The ruling was based on a procedural issue called standing finding. The challengers in the case, anti abortion doctors and medical groups, failed to show they were injured by the FDA's approval of the medication. It was the issue we heard voiced by justices across the ideological spectrum during oral arguments, from liberal Katanji Brown Jackson to conservative Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote Today's who wrote today's opinion.
I mean, it makes perfect sense for the individual doctors to seek an exemption, but as I understand it, they already have that, and so what they're asking for here is that in order to prevent them from possibly ever having to do these kinds of procedures, everyone else should be prevented from getting access to this medication.
Just to confirm understanding issue.
Under federal law, no doctors can be.
Forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion.
Correct.
But the court didn't even address the FDA's decision to loosen the restrictions on MiFi pristone. So this decision doesn't mean that the drug is safe from future legal attacks. Joining me is an expert in reproductive healthcare rights. Mary Ziegler, a professor at UC Davis Law School. Mary, did this decision, this unanimous decision come as any surprise after the oral arguments.
I mean, it was a little bit of a surprise that it was unanimous, But I think after oral argument it was pretty clear that the plaineiffs were in trouble here on standing grounds, and their standing arguments were really weak, you know, from the outset. So in that sense, it wasn't a surprise.
And tell us how the court came to its decision on standing.
Well, the court had three different grounds for deciding the planeiffs didn't have standing. The planeiffs argued that they had standing because they could face conscience based injuries if patients had complications for with the Pristone and ended up in the emergency room where they were practicing. They argued that they would suffer economic harms potentially if forced to treat patients.
And finally, they argued that their group, their association, suffered harms because it was forced to divert resources that could have been used for other pro life or anti worsion work to oppose Mithi Pristone, and the Supreme Court rejected all three of those claims. On the conscience point, this is said, essentially, there are lots of federal laws to protect conscience, so there's no real threat of injury here.
On the claims about economic harm, the course of this is just way, way too broad, almost to the point of ridiculousness. They said. If this was true as a theory of standing, firefighters could sue to object to relax building codes, and teachers and border states could sue to
challenge immigration policies, this would be a Pandora's box. And finally, on associational standing right the idea that the association was diverting resources, the Court emphasized that this would be essentially allowing organizations to manufacture standing by spending money to gather information and advocate against an action. So all three of those standing claims failed. But again they were specific to
these parties. So it doesn't mean that these claims will necessarily go away forever, just that these plaintiffs were unable to bring them.
Yeah. In fact, on the last page of the paion, just as Kavanaugh wrote, quote, it is not clear that no one else would have standing to challenge the FDA's relaxed regulation of mifipristone, and the Texas judge below has allowed the states of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri to join the case at the district court level to help press the same claims against the FDA. So that's still pending.
Yes, So there are these other plaintiffs in the district court who had initially tried to intervene in the Supreme Court proceedings and were turned away, but who are proceeding through the lower courts arguing that they understanding that these plaintiffs lacked. And it's worth emphasizing too, that isn't necessarily the end of it either. There are some local counties and cities and what's called the Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement that have been mulling bringing suits on the
same basis and asserting they have standing. So I think we're seeing already some plaintiffs in lower court trying to say they can bring these claims, and they might be the only ones, and.
The Supreme Court can almost get pushed to hear these cases. For example, in this case, you have the most conservative circuit in the country, the Fifth Circuit, pushing the legal envelope and finding that these plaintiffs have standing to sue, and then the Supreme Court has to respond and.
Push back exactly right. And it doesn't necessarily mean that those plaintiffs will succeed either, right, I mean, they might not have standing either. But I think all we know after today is that the Supreme Court is kicking the can down the road. They haven't resolved many of these claims permanently, and.
The Court stop short way short of affirming the FDA's decisions to expand access to mifipristone. I mean, they didn't consider the merits at all in the opinion, right.
I mean, if anything, the Court seems sympathetic to the idea that people have conscience based objections to abortion. The Court seem to be sympathetic to those and the Court didn't at all affirm the logic of the FDA's decision making didn't say anything one way or another about the plaintiff's theory that the Comstock Act operated as if the facto.
Ban on abortion.
So we got really no insight, especially no insights that would be reassuring to the Biden administration about what the Court thinks about those things.
Just as Kavanaugh wrote, the plaintiffs have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to the FDA's relaxed regulation of mifipristone. That language is a little troubling, isn't it.
I agree, I mean, and I think it signals that we haven't seen the end of this by a long shot.
And there's some irony in the fact that Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion in the Dobbs case which overturned the constitutional right to abortion, and he said, basically, the abortion issue is now up to the states. We're done with it.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody paying attention really believed that. But it's ironic, of course, that the Court has two abortion decisions in one term. I mean, this isn't even the last we've heard from this particular term on abortion, which is extraordinary. So this is not, you know, not even the end of what we're hearing from the justices right now, much less, you know, for the longer term.
Mary, Does this mean that women in every state can get mifa pristone or is it still illegal in states that have bands on abortion?
It's still illegal. This ruling doesn't change the status quo. So if a state has prohibited mithrapristone, it's still prohibited in the state. If a state has access to mifhra pristone or provides that access, the drug is still available. So it isn't underlining any state law one way or another.
You mentioned the second abortion case that's yet to be decided over Idaho's strict abortion ban.
Tell us about that that case involves emergency access to abortion. The Biden administration has argued that a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment in Labor Act Trump's state bans when those bands wouldn't allow access to abortion for certain medical emergencies that the federal law would require. Idaho, the
state of Oide administration took to court. Has responded that the amtala does nothing of the sort, and that the question is either left to the states, or even that Imtala offers some protection for the unborn child as Idaho, what's it pointing to language in the statue, So that ruling remains to be seen and could have pretty important effects.
After the oral arguments, and then if a priss Stone case, it seemed pretty clear what the decision would be. Can you glean anything from the oral arguments in the Idaho case?
I mean, it seemed as if the court was likely to side with Idaho, although the oral argument was a little bit all over the place, So it's not entirely clear that that's going to be true. And if it is true, it's not entirely clear on what basis they're going to side with Idaho. So I think we're expecting a win for Idaho, but on what basis or you know, how sweeping a win I think remains to be seen.
And tell us a little about the lawyers for the anti abortion doctors and medical groups here. They're from the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom that's been behind a lot of Supreme Court decisions, and so the alliance.
The plaintiffs here are probably less important than the attorneys representing them. Who are the Alliance Defending Freedom. That's the group that has really been dominating in some ways the landscape of Supreme Court abortion litigation since the Supreme Court overturned re Vwad. So this is part of a much longer game for them. They have lots of other cases and strategies in the pipeline, including challenges involving aborshi pills.
So we're going to see, I think, much more where this came from from them.
We've talked before about the fetal personhood movement, which is an effort to give fetuses the same rights as a person, including the right to life. But you mentioned the Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement. What's that about.
This movement has created ordinances in a variety of cities. These were the model for Texas's SB eight, which, as you may know, is the bounty bill that passed in Texas. It's now spreading ordinances based on the Comstock Act. It's spreading ordinances designed to limit interstate travel for abortion. The man behind it, Jonathan Mitchell, and his colleague Mark Lee Dixon, have had a lot of influence on anti abortion strategy
as well. So I think they're also looking at a potential way into helping with this kind of challenge.
Anti abortion activists are using different kinds of strategies to try to prevent abortions, and we see laws passed in states that target abortion in different ways. What's the most concerning.
That's absolutely right, right, So there's very much a kind of like throw it at the wall and see what sticks. That's going on here. Many of the strategies you mentioned jun involve abortion pills, so some of them involve making it easier to survey and track who's using abortion pills, in part because states where abortion is legal have been passing shield laws, some of which allow physicians to mail pills into banned states. So some states are looking for
tools to track and ultimately prosecute that usage. We're seeing efforts again to limit travel often called abortion trafficking ordinances that criminalize assisting people traveling for abortion. We've seen efforts to even do strange things like label mithipristone a threat to the environment and to the groundwater that are targeting the Environmental Protection Agency. And that's just the tip of
the iceberg. Probably the most salient rely on the strategy that Donald Trump will you know, win the twenty twenty four election, and that his Justice Department will be able to inform the Comstocks Act as a ban on abortion, and that that would of course override not just state laws, but even ballid initiatives that voters are deciding for themselves
when it comes to protecting abortion right. So there are a lot of strategies in play here, and this case is just a small piece of a much bigger puzzle.
Finally, Mary, some are breathing a sigh of relief because the Supreme Court has allowed access to MiFi pristone. But this doesn't mean that mif A pristone is safe from legal attack at the Supreme Court and elsewhere.
No, not at all. I mean, the Supreme Court is just saying that these particular plaintiffs don't have standing. I mean this case, I mean, these claims aren't even going away. That's the most basic point. But I mean it's certainly not true that abortion is safe and that other attacks on abortion pills or abortion aren't ongoing.
Thank you so much, Mary, I always appreciate your in depth analysis in this area. That's Professor Mary Ziegler of UC Davis Law School coming up next to the Justices reveal the extra money they earned last year in addition to their two hundred and seventy four thousand dollars salary. Guess who's on the top of the list getting a nearly nine hundred thousand dollars book advance and what about
those four thousand dollars tickets to a Beyonce concert? And the justice who, like a bad student in school, asks for an extension. The justices will be issuing decisions again tomorrow. Some of the most controversial cases of the term are still in front of them, those involving Donald Trump and presidential immunity, guns, social media, homelessness, the wealth tax, and the power of agencies to fight things like climate change.
Of the sixty one cases the Court heard this term, twenty six decisions are still outstanding, but the justices do
have behind them the revelations about their finances. While all the justices except Samuel Leto who got the extension he requests every year for a reason only he knows, and surprise, it was the newest Justice, Katanji Brown Jackson, who topped the list with an eight hundred and ninety three thousand dollars advance for her yet to be published memoir, followed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh Bloomberg New Supreme Court reporter Greg
Store has looked at all the numbers. Clarence Thomas suddenly remembered about some luxury trips back in twenty nineteen.
These are the trips that he took with Harlan Crowe that were the subject of the first big story about this subject about a year ago from Republica, including this cruise that he took on Harlan Crow's yacht in Indonesia. Now Justice Thomas's disclosure this is a trip in twenty nineteen,
and his new disclosure. He mentioned at the end that in his original twenty nineteen report he had inadvertently admitted a couple items, and he disclosed not the cruise itself, but he disclosed the food and lodging he got for one night in a hotel in Bali. He also disclosed food and lodging in California and a separate trip at this retreat known as the Bohemian Grove, So he didn't disclose everything about it, but it was at least an acknowledgement that these trips seem to have happened.
But he may now have more trips to account for. According to documents released by Senate Democrats just today, Thomas failed to disclose at least three more private jet trips across the US paid for by GOP, megadnor Harlan Crowe. In any event, these trips represent an enormous amount of money.
Yeah, an enormous amount. There's a watchdog group known as Six to the Court that did some very rough calculations and came to the conclusion that Justice Thomas received more than four million dollars overalling gifts since nineteen ninety one, including these trips.
The most interesting gift to me was the nearly four thousand dollars in Beyonce tickets that Justice Jackson got and she topped the list.
Yeah, she did top the list. That was a bit of an eye three seven hundred and twelve dollars for four concert times.
I know, I spend that every time I go to a concert.
Yeah, exactly. The author reported two gifts of artwork for her chambers at twelve five hundred dollars. Yeah, that was certainly the one that captured a lot of attention. You know, no suggestion she did anything wrong there, but she made a decision that this is the kind of gift she's comfortable accepting and then disclosing, and you know, it's not something that other justices necessarily do.
Thomas also disclosed receiving photo albums worth two thousand dollars. It just seems to me like it's a bad look for justices to be accepting these kinds of gifts. Is there any rule or ethical consideration that they have to make or are they just allowed to take anything they want?
Well, you know, they do have to disclose them. That's sort of the one rule about that. And if you know, Beyonce were involved in a Supreme Court case, you would expect Jackson would probably recuse. But no, that's that is very much the issue that people are talking about, and you know, is it a bad look to be doing
any of this stuff? And the other element I would toss into the mix is that, you know, the Justice is collectively collected about a million and a half in book income last year, including a big chunk of that was Justice Jackson for a book that has yet to be published. And we just learned the last few days that Justice Kavanaugh's coming out with a book and he
reported six digits in income from that book. So you know, they are picking up extra income in ways that you know certainly are eye opening and do sort of raise questions about, you know, whether that is the kind of, as you put it, look we want from a Supreme Court justice.
I mean, a lot of judges give up lucrative private practices to become a judge to do public service. And here you have the majority of justice is on the highest court in the land, make book deals, etc. And making the kind of money that separates them from the vast majority of Americans. It may not be unethical, but it just strikes me as what's wrong with this picture? But I noticed that Justice Kagan never seems to be involved with any of these extra income things, books or
anything else. Was there anything on her financial revelations that was noteworthy?
Now she's really one of the ones who has not written a book, is not accepting unusual gifts, and as largely steered clear of any of these ethical issues. She is, I think fair to say, a good deal more more
cautious and careful. Along with the Chief Justice. He's the other one I would sort of put in that next as people who are very careful about what they accept in the appearance they give off when they make appearances and the like, they make different decisions, And of course one of the issues here is that all these decisions
are up to individual justices. Justice Kagan believes that justice should operate a certain way, and she's allowed to do that, and Justice Thomas believes something very different, and there aren't really any any constraints on him.
There was an issue about the Chief Justice's wife, right, she's a legal recruiter.
Yeah, she left her law practice to become a legal recruiter, and there have been there have been some stories about her work there. But I think when you talk to judicial ethics experts, that's one where in general they tend to say, you know, first of all, a spouse does have a right to his or her career, and that is so separate from the work that the Chief Justice does.
The idea that you know, somehow it might influence his decision making that she is involved in in, you know, cooking up a lawyer and a law firm, that that's not high on the list of ethical issues we should be worried about.
And so Justice Alito received a ninety day extension to file his report and he's done that before. I mean, it seems odd since he's filed his taxes.
Yeah, he does it every year. We never get a real explanation for it. No other justice, no other active justice does it. As a matter of course. Last year Justice Thomas got an extension, but that had more of an explanation to it because he was dealing with a lot of these new revelations and some changing guidance about how to file reports, So that made a little more sense than Justice Thomas did file his report on time this year. Yeah, I don't have an explanation for why
he does that. We will certainly look at his filing when it comes in, but it.
Puts more emphasis on it if you're the only one, you know at a certain time coming out.
With it, unless you do it at a time when all the people who be covering about it are on vacation. It's the middle of the summer.
You make a great point, Greg, You know your Supreme Court justices very well. Thanks so much. That's Bloomberg New Supreme Court reporter Greg store And yesterday, Senate Republicans successfully blocked a bill that would have required the Supreme Court to adopt a code of conduct and would have created a mechanism to enforce it. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin criticized Chief Justice John Roberts on the Senate floor for not doing enough to enforce ethical standards on the Supreme Court.
Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, So where can you go in Manhattan if you want to see some famous politicians, billionaire businessmen, top lawyers, and lots of journalists. We'll tell you. Coming up next, I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. So where can you go in Manhattan if you want to see some famous politicians, billionaire bill businessmen, and top lawyers. Go downtown to Lower Manhattan where courthouses abound. And we're in the last few weeks
like a planetary alignment of the justice system. Politicians and Wall Street figures have been crossing paths at simultaneous trials of former President Donald Trump, Senator Bob Menendez, Christian billionaire Bill Wong, and fugitive Chinese tycoon Guo Wangue. Joining me is someone who has experienced this firsthand. Bloomberg Legal reporter Ava Benny Morrison. How big is the area downtown where the Federal Courthouse and the Manhattan State courthouses sit it's.
Quite a dense little area down there. You have the Federal Courthouse, which is on Tel Street, and then across the road from that you have the New York State Supreme Courthouse. And then there are a couple of other federal courthouses state courthouses in the streets around that, so it's all very walkabules and they're all very close to each other.
Tell us about the four trials that until last week we're going on, and what you called a planetary alignment of the justice system.
Yes, it certainly has been very busy down there. In the state courthouse New York State Supreme we had former President Donald Trump on trial in the hush money case, that was until he was convicted last week. And then in the federal courthouse we have free trials going on at the same time. Just a few flaws apart. Firstly, we've got Bil Kwong, who was the founder of the
immensely successful family office Arkaeos Capital Wants Management. Our KGOS collapsed in twenty twenty one, and that reverberated around Wall Street, led to massive losses for a number of big banks and almost wiped out Bill Wong's thirty six billion dollar personal fortune. He's accused of broad market mutilation and racket heearing.
We've also got the trial of Senator Bob Menendez. He is accused of accepting bribes while he was in office, and that trial has been going on for a couple of weeks now, and we've had some interesting witnesses, cooperating witnesses who testifying against Menendez. And then lastly we have Chinese tycoon Miles Glows. Milesgow has been living in New York for a few years. He's in a close associated
Steve Bannon. He's also close with hedge fund manager Kyle bat He's accused of fraud and swindling up to a billion dollars out of investors. So it's all happening there at once.
Can I assume that while the hush money trial was going on, that all the attention and the crowds were around that courthouse.
Yes, they certainly were, But because of how close the
courthouses were, some of those crowds were spread out. For example, every afternoon before about four pm, there was a small group of Trump supporters that would gather outside the Federal Courthouse, which is across the road from where Trump was obviously on trial, and they would turn out with Trump flags, make America great again, hats, horns, whistles, and they'd wait for him to drive past his convoy when he would leave court each day, and he would slowly roll past.
He wouldn't wind down the window, but he would put them away through the very dark windows. And they get very excited about that, but they pack up and return the next day.
Wall Street is really watching the Wang trial, and a lot of attention is on Menandez too, But Wang seemed to have benefited from the concentration on Trump.
Yes, exactly, especially in finance world and on Wall Street. Everyone knows who Bill Huang is and there is a lot of interests, as he said in his trial. Yet, because of all the other high profile trials going on with Menendez Trump, every time Bill Huang walked out of the courthouse, he goes largely unnoticed by the people that
are standing outside and the Trump supporters. In contrast, Menendez, when he walks out of the courthouse by himself, he's often heckled by some of those supporters who yell things at him, and the US marshals have to clear a path for him so he can get into a waiting car.
So it's been interesting that someone like Bill Wong, who has such a massive impact on the finance world only a couple of years ago, can sort of go in and out of the courthouse largely unnotice So I think he's definitely benefited from having his trial underway in the same building as someone a bit more high profile like Bob Menendez.
Do these famous defendants ever run into each other.
So even though these men have been on trial in separate trials, separate courtrooms, there's often some moments where they cross paths, especially in the morning. Everyone who doesn't have a path to get into the federal courthouse has to line up in security, and that can be a wildly different mix of people. You've got witnesses who were testifying, You've got people lining up for naturalization ceremonies, You've got
defendants out of town lawyers. One morning, we saw Bill Huang waiting in the marble lobby for you and looking at some of the court sketch artists pieces that were hanging on the walls that had captured moments in other high profile trials that had happened inside that courthouse. Behind him, through the glass, you could see Senator Menendez waiting in the security line, and just a few people ahead of
him was Scott Becker. Scot Becker used to work for bil Khong at archae Goths, and he was preparing to testify against Huang later that day. So it is the courthouse has certainly been a melting pot of very interesting characters in cases.
Now, does Wang or Menendez have an entourage?
Kwang certainly has an entourage. He has had at least a dozen people turn up at his court case every single day. They take up two or three of the benches in the public gallery, and they will often join him for lunch inside the courtroom cafeteria. So he's definitely got his fair share of loyal supporters around him every day. Menendez has been more of a loan figure. I've only ever seen him with his lawyers waiting for the elevator or outside the courtroom. When he has walked out of
the courthouse, he's often been by himself. Sometimes he stops and gives interviews to some of the Spanish speaking media who have been gathered outside, but largely he's coming and going from the courthouse on his own.
The courthouse is there are near Chinatown and Little Italy. Do they head off there for lunch, Not that I've seen.
In the past. There have been defenders who have been on trial who have chosen to leave the courthouse during the lunch break and go and find some dumplings in Chinatown around the corner. But in this case, I've almost seen Huang in the court cafeteria every day, sitting down with his wife and some of his employees from his nonprofit, the Great and Mercy Foundation. He's co defended Patrick Halligan.
I've think him a couple of times eating lunch outside in the patio, which I've got to say has quite beautiful views of the Brooklyn Bridge, so it's a nice place to sit, especially as the weather gets more of mar Menendez though, hasn't been seen around the cafeteria, so I don't know where he's bunkering down to lunch each day.
Yeah, Cork cafeterias often have you know, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, defendants all in this one place with their treys. It's really unusual, you know, the feel of it, because they're normally on opposite sides. It can seem sort of surreal sometimes.
Absolutely and jurors aren't allowed to go to that cafeteria because there are defendants, witnesses, prosecutors, defense lawyers coming and going constantly. But it certainly has been a buzzer of activity. There are people lining up for sandwiches, and one day you can be standing next to a federal court judge. The next day you're standing next to the prosecutor who's presenting the government's case in the massive racketeering trial upstairs.
And then you see a defendant sitting down with his white next to the court security officer who's in charge of during everyone's behaving himself in his court room. So you know, they're human beings. They need to eat at some point, So it's interesting just to see the mix of people that end up sitting next to each other snacking on chicken salad or slice a pizza. Avalanche.
And these trials, the Menendez trial, the Quang trial, and the Guo trial, are they expected to take much longer because they have been going on for quite a while.
They have been going on for a while, and they still have a bit to go. I check in on the Bow trial morning, and I think that the prosecution is only about halfway through its case. In the Huang trial, the judge estimated that it may well fill into July at this point, and the Menendez case, the prosecution is still presenting it's evident, so we've still got a few
weeks to go. In each of these trials, it's been a real juggle, I think for the reporters covering it, trying to run between each courtrooms.
And former President Trump complained about the courthouse, the Manhattan Criminal Court, I mean, the federal courthouse is much nicer than the state courthouses.
Yes, it is. The Federal Courthouse is quite grand. Got a big, open marble lobby. The courtrooms have great acoustics, which is very important when you're trying to hear whatever I'm saying. Beautiful views over the city and over the
Hudson River. There's a great, big test room there that we all work out of, so it is a lot easier to work out of there than it is, I think in State court, which is a lot older, A lot of bit of reporters who were covering the Trump trial had to line up for hours each day to get a spot in an overflow room. So there have been totally different experiences covering trials, and each of those courthouses.
Well, it's a really interesting time to be covering trials in downtown Manhattan.
It's really bozzy as prosecutors everywhere, lawyers everywhere. You just run into people what the most random of places. Everyone's sort of saying, what are you going to or what are you covering all these persons up in this trial? Or quick, let's get down to this. So it's a really fun time to date there.
Okay, Ava, you'll have to report back to us as the trials wind down. Thanks so much. That's Bloomberg Legal Reporter Ava, Benny Morrison, and that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Podcast. Remember you can always get the latest legal news by subscribing and listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, slash Law. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg