You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. In its first abortion decision since overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court unanimously preserved full access to MIFA pristone, the pill used in nearly two thirds of all abortions in the country last year. But the justices took a sort of off ramp, deciding the case based on a procedural issue called standing ruling that the anti abortion doctors suing couldn't show they were injured by the FDA's expanding
access to MIFA pristone. It was the same concern we heard voiced by justices across the ideological spectrum during the oral arguments, from liberal Katanji Brown Jackson to conservative Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the majority opinion.
I mean, it makes perfect sense for the individual doctors to seek an exemption. I understand it. They already had 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 on the standing issue under federal law, no doctors can be forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion.
Correct The court didn't address the merits of the case, the FDA's loosening of the restrictions on mifipristone, leaving it open to similar attacks expected by opponents of abortion. Joining me is an expert and reproductive 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 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 planiffs didn't have standing. The planeiffs argued that they had standing because they could face conscience based injuries if patients had complications from 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 MiFi pristone, and the Supreme Court rejected all three of those claims. On the conscience point, the justices 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 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 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 opinion, 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, because 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 the lower court trying to say they can bring these claims and they might not 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 pushed 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 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 elect of 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.
Shut 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.
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.
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 at a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment in Labor Act, Trump's state bands when those bands wouldn't allow access to abortion for certain medical emergencies, that
the federal law would require. Idaho, the state of Biden administration took to court, has responded that the MTALA does nothing of the sort, and that the question is either left to the states or even that AMTALA offers some protection for the unborn child, as Idaho puts it, pointing to language in the statue, so that ruling remains to be seen and could have pretty important effects.
After the oral arguments in them. 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 whin for Idaho, But on what basis or how sweeping a win, I think remains to be seen.
Speaking about sweeping, about half the states have total bands on abortion or laws limiting how MiFi prestone can be prescribed. Does this decision change that at all? Or is it still illegal in those states?
It's still illegal. This ruling doesn't change the status quo. So if the state has prohibited mifra pristone, it's still prohibited in the state. If a state provides access to mira pristone, the drug is still available. So it isn't underlining any state law one way or another.
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.
The plaintiffs here are probably less important than the attorneys representing them, who are the Alliance Defending Freedom group that has really been dominating in some ways the landscape of Supreme Court abortion litigation since the Supreme Court overturned re viewad 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 abortion pills. So we're going to see much more where this came from from them.
Anti abortion activists have been using different strategies, and we see laws passed in some states that target abortion in inventive ways. For example, Louisiana has designated abortion bills as dangerous control substances that you need a prescription for. Do you see one strategy as more effective than another.
That's absolutely 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 June 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 mythipristone a threat to the environment and to the groundwater that're 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 enforce the Comstock Act as a ban on abortion, and that that would of course override not just state laws but even ballot initiatives that voters are deciding for themselves when it comes to protecting abortion right. So there are a lot of play here, and this case is just a small piece of a much bigger.
Puzzle, a puzzle where the pieces don't always seem to fit together. Thanks so much, Mary. That's Professor Mary Ziegler of UC Davis Law School. In other Supreme Court news, this week, a divided court threw out the federal ban on bump stocks, saying regulator has exceeded their power by outlining the rapid fire devices after they were used in the deadliest mass shooting in the country's history. That vote was six to three down. Ideological lines with the Liberals
dissenting coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show. His gun trial may be behind him, but hunter Biden faces another trial on tax charges in September, as well as sentencing most likely in October. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. Hunter Biden is now the first child
of a sitting president to be convicted of crimes. On Monday, after less than three hours of deliberations, a jury found him guilty of all three felony charges for lying on a mandatory gun purchase form by saying he was not
illegally using or addicted to drugs. The prosecution had presented evidence that hunter Biden was addicted to crack when he bought a Revolver in twenty eighteen, with deeply personal testimony from his ex wife and former romantic partners, with embarrassing evidence such as text messages and photos of him with drug paraphernalia or partially clothed, and with his own words from the audiobook of his memoir.
I had no plan beyond the moment to moment demands of the crack pipe. I used my superpower finding crack anytime anywhere less than a day after landing at LAX in the spring of twenty eighteen.
Special Counsel David Weiss, who brought the case against the president's son, defended the prosecution, saying it was about the rule of law.
This case was about the illegal choice's defendant made while in the throes of addiction, his choice to lie on a government form when he brought a gun, and the choice to then possess that gun.
But several jurors who said they felt they had no choice but to find Biden guilty also said they thought the case should never have been brought. Joining me is former Manhattan prosecutor Duncan Levin of Leven and Associates. Duncan the Special Council, said this prosecution was all about the rule of law, but not many people in similar situations are prosecuted under this law.
The case that shouldn't have gone to trial in the first place. This was supposed to be resolved on upleaded
two misdemeanor tax charges. He's facing unrelated tax charges that are coming up for trial in September in California, basically related to a million four in foreign business income, and he's facing three felony counts there and six other misdemeanor counts, and they're you know, pretty serious charges, their evasion of an assessment and filing false returns, not paying his taxes, and so this was all supposed to be wrapped up with a plea deal that was going to resolve in
absolutely no jail time. Not plea deal fell apart that all being said, I think that if you're going to put in a case like this, the witnesses that they called were necessary witnesses. They were at the core of it trying to prove that he was a user where addicted to controlled substance at the time that he filled out this form to buy the gun, and they had to call witnesses who were going to testify to that.
But the politics of this case are unmistakable because it charges themselves are ones that are rarely, if ever brought. Lying to a gun dealer is brought, probably fewer than three hundred times a year, and that's out of twenty five to thirty million background checks that are conducted around the nation every single year. The false claims on a federal firearms application is a form called the ETF four
four seven three. I have never heard of a case being brought as a standalone case relying on a federal firearms application. Never standalone. It's usually brought in connection with another more serious crime, maybe somebody illegally using a gun or a felon in possession. This is a gun that was never used, it was never loaded, and Hunter Biden possessed it for eleven days. Just to put it in perspective.
The three jurors who spoke and said that they had no choice but to find him guilty, but they question whether the criminal case should ever have been brought. One said the case seem like a waste of taxpayer dollars. Aren't those the jurors that the defense was targeting to nullify you to say this case isn't worth it. We're not going to find him guilty.
The jury obviously took the case very seriously, and it sounds like politics really did not play a role in it, and they didn't nullify, and the defense is clearly not allowed to argue jury nullification. To them. Remembered, this is a defendant who is well known to everybody in Delaware, particularly they jurors walked through the lobby of the courthouse every day to get to the trial, and the defendant's
father's photograph is hanging in the lobby. The First Lady of the United States is sitting in attendance at the trial. And they took their job seriously. They didn't nullify. They looked at the evidence and they convicted. The case itself was strong, and the defense really just said, at the time he filled out this ATS form at the gun dealership, he was not at the moment he filled the form
out addicted to drugs. But there was evidence that you know, right before and right after he was, you know, texting with a drug dealer, and that he was clearly addicted to drugs. You know, this is a case that was a waste of taxpayer dollars. On the other hand, the you know, government was kind of forced into going a trial on it when the plea deal fell apart. So everybody's right here, it's the case that was strong. The jury did a very thorough job and obviously took the
evidence very seriously. They didn't nullify because the case it self was worthy of a conviction. It's a case where interturers looking at it without a political lens and without looking through the lens of nullification, would convict because it was a strong case. There are a lot of cases that you could question the motives behind prosecutors bringing them
in the first place. This case, I questioned the motives of the special prosecutor bringing the charges frankly, because these charges are never brought at a standalone case without something more serious. So I do question whether the case was brought because it was Hunter Biden. But at the end of the day, it's unlikely to result in any jail time, and I think the more serious charges that he's facing
are in September. With these tax crimes, he actually has some significant exposure to an incarceratory sentence in September if he's convicted on those charges.
Is there anything else the defense could have done to change the verdict?
Judtieka really, I thought went out of her way to hobble the defense, and I would ascribe part of it to politics, and given the posture of the case, the fact that she scuttled the plea deal. There were two instances where the defense tried to get very key evidence into the trial, one of which is that this ATF
four four seven three form was altered. It was altered by the gun dealer at some point after the fact, and that is the cause it is a requirement when the gun dealer has this form filled out that they get identifications that has the purchaser's address on it. At the time that they got the form in the first place, they got hunter Biden's passport, which did not have his address on it, and later at a point they filled out the form again to say that they'd gotten his
driver's life. The judge barred the defense from introducing evidence of the altered form and said that it was a quote unquote conspiracy theory and unsupported rhetoric. I find that hard to believe and just a ruling that really has no merit because this is a case all about who filled out the form and when they filled out the form. The fact that the form was altered after the fact is very key evidence, and frankly, I think is some grounds for appeal that that was not allowed to be
introduced at trial. The other thing is that the defense tried to call a Columbia psychiatrist named doctor l Eiun to testify at trial about hunter Biden's state of mind
at the time that he filled out the form. There is a knowledge requirement here, and the defense was trying to show to the jury that at the time he filled out the form, he did not believe himself to be an addict, and I think there's some support to that in the evidence because Hunter Biden had just finished an eleven day rehab program and also was living with a sober companion, and so somebody who is sober for even one day or two days or eleven days may
not consider themselves to be an addict. And it's something that I think the defense should have been allowed to argue and was precluded from arguing, and that really gutted the defense case in many ways. So they were really left with this very narrow argument that at the time of filling out the form he was not addicted to drugs, because there's no evidence he was doing drugs that day. So I think the judgment really out of her way
to recap the defense. So they do have some appeals here that they can pursue.
Another appellate issue they may use is one that they used to try to get the charges dismissed before trial. They argued the gun law was unconstitutional following a ruling by the US Supreme Court in twenty twenty two, the New York Case that expanded gun rights and the Fifth Circuit has struck down the law barring users of illegal drugs from possessing firearms, ruling it was unconstitutional. So could that be a good appellate argument?
I think this is a great suppellent argument and we can all expect to see it, and frankly, it may at some point win. At the point that it wins, however, he will have already been branded a felon and done time if he does time or served out a sentence, because this is unlikely to wind its way through the courts anytime soon. But if you look at the statute itself, which is nine twenty two G. Three, it basically makes it unlawful to possess a gun if you are a
user or addicted to any controlled substance. And the terms are ill defined. And you know, anyone who's gone through addiction and is understanding of the challenges facing addicts knows that the term addict is one that is very loaded, and the term user is one that's very loaded. And it's unclear whether it means that you have to be a user at the time you're filling out the form, or what that even means. If somebody does crack or some controlled substance and two days later goes to fill
out this application. Are they a user? Are they an addict? The terms are ill defined, They're very vague, and I think as a result of it, the statute is really subject to being struck down as unconstitutional.
Let's turn to what happens next. There's the probation into you, the sentencing memos, and biden friends and families sending in letter after letters to the judge. Which part of that is most important?
The probation interview is meant to give the judge a sense of who he is as a person that may not emerge from the trial, and the same thing for the sentencing memo. In large measure, it's meant to educate the judge on who a defendant is, who their friends are, the character references, and explain any mitigating circumstances. Here. The judge is very familiar with this defendant, and so it may be of less weight to have a probation officer
interviewing him and giving any information to the court. A parallel to be drawn to Donald Trump and his criminal hush money trial in New York, where there was a probation interview recently. These are probation interviews that are of highly vetted people, and so it may not sway the judge who's likely very familiar, but this judge may see
Hunter Biden as an addict. And I think that both the sentencing memo process and the probation interview are meant to give a much more holistic view of some of the good things he's done, the work he's done his family, and educates her on all of the other parts of his personality and being that have not come through so far in any of the brief thing and the trial.
So he technically faces twenty five years. Do you think he'll even be sent to prison.
I think he will not be sent to prison on this case because the case merits no prison It's a case involving nothing violent. Even though there was a gun. This was a gun that he possessed for eleven days. It was never loaded. The charges are never really brought a standalone cases. He had no other offenses. This is his first criminal offense. The cases are brought fewer than, as I say, three hundred times a year out of
twenty five million background checks. It's a very minor case in terms of the federal sentencing guideline and Jay is really already on record with a plea deal, with their recommendation to the judge that he should not go to jail over this. Frankly, over the tax case either, there was no jail requirements involved, and so the OJ and the parties have already all but agreed that he should
not see jail time on the case. I will find it shocking if they now turned around and asked for any kind of jail time on that, and the.
Special Council sort of hinted there might not be jail time when he made that statement after the verdict. Thanks so much, Duncan. That's former Manhattan Prosecutor Duncan Levin coming up next. A place in Manhattan where you can see famous politicians, billionaire businessmen, and top lawyers crossing paths. I'm
June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. If you're fighting the law in Manhattan, chances are good that it will bring you downtown to Foley Square, where there are no less than eight courthouses within a few blocks of each other. And yes, the courthouse scene in Law and Order is one of them. Many historic trials have taken place in these courthouses over the years, but rarely do so many
of them converge at the same time. For weeks, like a planetary alignment of the justice system, famous politicians, billionaire businessmen, and prominent lawyers have been crossing paths as their trials play out simultaneously. The hush money trial of former President Donald Trump, the bribery trial of Senator Bob Menendez, the market manipulation trial of Chinese billionaire Bill Huang, and the
fraud trial of exiled Chinese tycoon Guo Wan Wuei. Now some of the defendants, one in particular, have been stealing the spotlight, allowing the others to slip past almost unnoticed. But carefully watching it all has been Bloomberg Legal reporter AVA Benny Morrison. Ava tell us about this area where you have all these courthouses, federal, state, civil, criminal.
It's quite a condensed little area down there. You have the federal courthouse, which is on Pearl 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 walkables, and they're all very close to each other.
So until last week, there were four high profile trials going on at the same time, in what you called a planetary alignment of the justice system.
Yes, it certainly has been very busy down there. In the state courthouse, we had former President Donald Trumps 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
Archaeos Capital Wants Management. 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 Bil Kwong's thirty six billion dollar personal fortune.
He's accused of.
Fraud, market mutilation, and racket heearing. We've also got the trial of Senator Bob Menendez Nears 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 are testifying against Menendez. And then lastly we have Chinese tycoon Miles Glow. Milesbow has been living in New York for a few years.
He's been 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.
Will the hush money trial was going on, were most of the crowds and attention focused on 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'd pack up and return the next day.
Wall Street is really watching the Wong trial, and a lot of attention is on Menandez too, But Wong seemed to have benefited from the concentration on Trump.
Yes, exactly, especially in finance world and on Wall Street. Everyone knows who Bill Kong 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 walks 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 unnoticed. So I think he's definitely benefited from having his trial underway in the same building as someone a bit more high prof 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 court rooms, 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 are testifying, You've got people lining up for naturalization ceremonies, You've got
descendants out of town lawyers. One morning, we saw Bill Huang waiting in the marble lobby foryer and looking at some of the court sketch artists pieces that were hanging on the wall that had captured moments in other high profile trials that have 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. Scott Becker used to work for Bill Huang at Archaegos, and he was preparing to testify against Swang later that day. So 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 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 seen Wong in the court cafeteria almost every day, sitting down with his wife and some of his employees from his nonprofit, the Grace 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 see, especially as the weather gets where Marked menendezo I hasn't been seen around the cafeteria, so I don't know where he's bunkering down to have lunch each day.
Court cafeterias often have, you know, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, defendants all in this concentrated area with their cafeteria trees. It's really unusual, you know, 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 Floyd is coming and going constantly, but it certainly has been a buzzer of activity. There are people lining up the sandwiches, and one day you can be standing next to a federal
court judge. The next day you're standing next to the federal prosecutor who's presenting the government's case in the massive racketeering trial upstairs, and then you see a defendant sitting down with his wife 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 avalunch.
And these federal trials have been going on for some time, so Menandez and Huang trials about a month, and the Quote trial a little less than that. How much longer are they expected to last?
They have been going on for a while, and they still have a bit to go. I check in on the Borad trials, and I think that the prosecution is only about halfway through its case. In the Wang trial, the judge estimated that it may well fill into July at this point, and then the Menendez case, and the prosecution is still presenting its evidence, 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 court rooms.
And as you know, Trump complained about the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, and I have to say the Federal Courthouse is just much nicer.
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 the reporters who are covering the Trump trial has to line up for hours each day to get a spot in an overflow room. So, you know, different experiences covering trial's and HFO cool hazard.
Ava, thanks so much for giving us this behind the scenes look at what's happening at these major trials. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Ava. Benny Morrison in other legal news.
On this vote, the yays are two hundred and sixteen, the nays are two hundred and seven.
The resolution is adopted.
And with that party line vote, Merrick Garland became the third ever Attorney General to be held in contempt of Congress. Garland has refused to hand over audio recordings of President Joe Biden's interview with the Special Council during the investigation into his handling of classified documents. The transcripts of that interview have already been made public by the Justice Department,
and Biden has asserted executive privilege over the audio. Despite that, Republicans like James Comer of Kentucky say they have a right to the tapes.
It is insufficient to simply take the Justice Department at its word that the transcripts have not been altered.
Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin says the move is all about politics.
They literally don't even know what they're looking for anymore, so why do they want it. Well, they're hoping that in the five hours of President Biden's testimony they can find a mispronounced word or phrase, or a brief stammer which they can then turn into an embarrassing political TV attack ad.
On Friday, the Justice Department said it won't prosecute the Attorney General because the refusal to turn over the tapes was not a crime. In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Justice Department official cited the department's longstanding policy not to prosecute officials who don't comply with subpoenas
because of a president's claim of executive privilege. The last Attorney General held in contempt of Congress was Bill Barr in twenty nineteen for refusing to turn over documents related to the Special Counsels and investigation into Trump, and in twenty twelve, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt for failing to turn over documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. The Justice Department took no action against either attorney general. And that's it for this edition of The
Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law podcasts. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law, And remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg