Judge Napolitano - Tariffs and the Constitution

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Risk, trust the experts and you see health for Innovative and person of ezzed heartcare. Expect more at you see how dot COM's northbound seventy five erecting your town street left hand side, then one end the split north seventy five on the right hand side, and cruis are working to clean up from an earlier accident. He spent two to seventy five turkey foot that ramp is blocked off. Coming up next guests, who's well being a Giants fan. Pretty sure we know who the judge is rooting for

Next Chuck ingraman fifty five krz. He talks station what are you gonna do? Good morning, Good morning, Judge.

Nitapolitano introductions. I get anywhere I know, I listen.

I cann't say that definitively, because I know you're introduced every single day on multiple platforms everywhere around the country and the globe. But I would have been able to easily guess that his are the most interesting and unique introductions. How could they not be? No one ever knows Greg what's on Chuck's mike? Does he have it right?

Though?

You can be rooting for the Chiefs.

No, he does not.

I am a fan of Barkley, who I think is the greatest running back in the business, and if he has a few more years like this past one, he'll be the greatest running back in history. And the Giants need to learn their lesson about the stupidity of letting him go over allowsy million dollars a year.

Is that a chip I see on your shoulder, Judge the politics, It is a big chip.

They paid Danny Dimes forty million a year, is the worst quarterback in the business, and they let Barkley go the best running back in the business.

Well, I'm on your side. I'm on your side, so we will share.

Any of this have to do with Patrick Mahomes, who might be the best athlete.

On the planet right, Well, and let us use that as a pivot. Not much of a relatable pivot. Pivot over to your column is the tariffs in the Constitution. I'm so glad that you chose to deal with the concept of tariffs, but it's a rather esoteric area of the law. And even in my retort to you or my response to you, I wasn't aware of the case that the Supreme Court has allowed this to happen. But

It. Just it seems like.

Congress years ago, at the height of the depression and the cusp of World War Two, the Congress decided to give that power to Franklin Delan of Roosevelt, and it has resided in every president since. Notwithstanding, the Constitution couldn't be clearer. All taxes shall be raised by legislation enacted by the Congress, and all legislation for imposing taxes shall originate in the House of Representatives.

Couldn't possibly be clearer.

You have this one tax, a tariff which can be ruinous, can be imposed.

By the president and the president alone.

And yet the Constitution does not address specifically tariffs residing in the executive branch. So by what circuitous route does the president end up with the power to just sort of one day turn and say, hey, I'm going to tax Canada twenty five percent.

So the decision is called United States versus Curtis Right. Curtis Right was the name of an arms manufacturer who sold arms to Bolivia, and the Congress had authorized FDR to im embargoes on arms. Had his own choosing, you can impose an embargo one day and unimpose it the next. And when he imposed the arms embargo on Bolivia and Curtis Right sold it anyway, the Fed's indicted the corporation. The federal judge throughout the indictment by saying that the

The Supreme Court reversed it.

Now, if the Supreme Court had simply reversed it and said hold a trial.

We wouldn't have known about any of this.

But the reversal was written by Justice George Sutherland born in Great Britain, which is part of this story. He wrote a treatise on presidential power, going well beyond the issues before the Court, and in that treatise, in the guise of a judicial opinion us versus Curtis Right, he declares that the president and the president alone establishes foreign policy, and he needs tools to effectuate that establishment.

And among those tools.

Are deciding what's criminal when it violates his foreign policy, and imposing tariffs in order to effectuate.

The aren't policy. None of this was.

Before the court, or most of it wasn't before the court, but it's in the opinion anyway. The opinion has never been touched as absurd as it is because the federal government is one of limited powers, but just as Sutherland wrote, this is actually in the opinion Brian that in seventeen eighty nine, when the Constitution was.

Ratified, the power of foreign government.

Of dealing with foreign governments magically came across the Atlantic Ocean from George the Third to George Washington and has been reposed in the hands of every president ever since.

So we relate.

It is still good law, as irrational as it is, and every president from FDR to Donald Trump, has used that opinion as legal authority for the imposition of everything from embargoes to tariffs.

So, insofar as Curtis Right was concerned, it was selling arms to Bolivia in spite of the ban on that did that happen.

But the ban was not a congressional band. The ban was a presidential ban, and so Curtis Wright argued that Congress did not have the power to delegate that power to the president. If Congress had said, thou shalt not sell arms to Bolivia, and if you do, it's a felony, that would have been one thing.

But when Congress said.

Thou shalt not do what FDR prohibits you from doing it, if you do, it's a felony that violates the principle of non delegation.

So Supreme Court rejected that argument.

But within that that that declaration, FDR was able to say, no, don't sell the arms delivery. He also he made it a crime to violate his declaration that they won't be sold or did it just was it just a ban that didn't carry with it a criminal component. That's what I wanted to kind of be clear on.

He made it a crime, Oh, which is why it was scandalous.

It will be one thing to impose some administrative sanction on this company, quite another thing to indict them for a crime that was never enacted by the Congress. This violates all the due process jurisprudence about notice and about the legitimacy of federal crimes, which can only be made valid by action of the Congress, not by action of the president. Now, Joe Biden has imposed sanctions and Donald Trump has not unimposed them on many, many Russian facilities.

I don't even know if the president knew it. I also don't know.

It's long wind an answer to your question, if it is a crime a felony to violate those sanctions, Uh, there's about a couple of million dollars worth of still itch Naya vodka still sitting in Port Newark. It came across the Atlantic Ocean while Biden imposed the sanctions.

It's still sitting in a warehouse in New Jersey. I don't know who owns it. I don't know what's going to become of it. But if you sold it, could you be arrested. I don't know the answer.

To that, but the idea though that, I mean, I'll just say it out on a whim. The president can do that and also, in doing so, create a crime without congressional approval, which is where that power lies. I understand why you're you're in such a state of disbelief that this law actually is still on the books, and the fact that it derived from from from British law. They don't have a constitution with separation of powers.

Correct Correct Justice to Southerland, who you know came to the US as a baby, was a senator from one of the Western States. I forget which, but now nevertheless had the mindset that the president was a monarch and the Congress was like parliament, which is unlimited.

Parliament can legislate on anything from spitting on the sidewalk to treason.

Congress theoretically cannot legislate on spinning on the sidewalk, although that legislated, and I'm just about everything else. That's another story for another time. But in Justice Sutherland's mind, and seven of the of the remaining eight justices agreed with him.

McReynolds dissented.

The president is entitled to monarchical powers with respect to foreign affairs because when we became a sovereign country, these powers devolved on him. When they were taken away from George the Third. I mean, this is absurd. Madison and company would have rejected that unambinuously had it been articulated in seventeen eighty nine.

Yeah, there's no question in my mind. You've got that right. Oh lord, well, can thank you? I mean again, I said yes, to be.

A little bit in the weeds.

But everybody's asking, how can the president impose a tax?

Well, this is how this is.

How power evolves in America from stupid, outdated, irrational Supreme Court opinions.

Yeah, and uh, I want to address that. Always makes me want to bring up the commerce clause.

I know, I know.

I talk about Patrick Mahomes at.

Judge edit of Paula Ton. We always end on judging Freedom, which is your your podcast, and I'll encourage my listeners to search for it and watch it and listen to it. Are you going to be talking to you today?

Your honor Max Blumenthal, Phil Geraldy and the great Scott Ritter later this afternoon.

Thank you, Brian, I was a pleasure and tell Ingram I love him.

You got it, My brother, love you too. Right back, it's coming up an eight forty fifty five KRC detalk station. We're going to benefit the homeless with them already grave and we're talking about that in just a few minutes. I hope you can stick around fifty five KRC.