I want to talk a bit about, you know, using my role as official lawyer talk show.
Hosts for the community of the San Joaquin.
Valley, I want to talk a little bit about these deportation efforts that the Trump administration has undertaken for these trende Aragua terrorists whom the Trump administration deported to Venezuela, and they're seeming blowing off, maybe not blowing off, kind of blowing off, sort of very much on the edge of the Federal District Court judge James Boseberg from the Federal District Court in Washington, d C. Who said, no,
you can't deport these people. Turn the planes around. He actually issued his order apparently while there were airplanes in the air deporting these people. And a lot of conservatives have been outraged by this. I share the conservative outrage over these federal District Court judges within the DC district basically acting like they are the President of the United States rather than the president being the President of the United States.
As well as the kind of the general.
Process that John Roberts really deserves blame for. John Roberts, one person who really could have rained this in years ago and who hasn't this whole concept of an individual federal district court judge issuing a nationwide injunction to completely stop a Trump administration policy from taking place throughout the country because one federal judge and one district somewhere in the United States issued a ruling to stop it.
So I despise that whole process.
Nonetheless, let's talk about these deportation of these trend Agua terrorists or designated as such. And this is one of the difficulties with the Trump administration doing this. So right, the Trump administration wants to get rid of criminals who are in the country illegally, these Venezuelan aliens who were claimed to be members of trend de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that I believe the Trump administration has designated a
terrorist organization. The Trump administration proclaimed that under the Alien Enemies Act, they are able to deport these people. Now, the Alien Enemies Act is a law. It's a federal law that was passed by Congress.
Okay.
It delineates the power of the federal government, through the executive of the federal government, to deport people.
Who are in the country.
And part of some alien enemy group, some enemy group Okay. The way that this law has been used, and it hasn't been used very often. Really, this law has only ever and by the way this law has passed in the.
Eighteenth century, like late seventeen hundreds.
This law has only actually been used up to now in situations where the United States was in a declared war with another country. Okay, so I think it was used in one of the World wars. It was, Yeah, so it it's only use up to this point has been in a situation where there was an actual declaration of war and the United States was in a state of war with somebody.
We are not in a state of war with trend de Aragua. And you say, oh, we're fighting this war against drugs and we're fighting this war against illegal immigration, they are well.
Okay, yeah, in a metaphorical sense, if you want to say we're at war, okay, that's fine, but that's not the legal war is an actual term that has an actual legal meaning.
It requires a certain kind of congressional action.
Now, this doesn't mean that it can't only be used in a time when the United States is in declared war with another entity. That's just the only times it has been used. So I'm keeping things open to that, but there are a lot of questions here. First of all, do we know these guys are actually quote members of
trendy Aragua. That's a good question. One of the reporting that's come out is that some of these guys who were being deported had not actually been charged with the crime yet, They hadn't had any notice or any sort of like hearing about establishing are these guys actually members of trendy Arragua.
So, and it's also the other sort of situation.
Where people would say, okay, well it would be appropriate to utilize.
The Alien Enemies Act.
Maybe you know, we haven't gotten to a point where war has actually been declared yet, but you know, we've had an invasion and Congress hasn't had time to act.
Well. First of all, Congress has had plenty of time to act. These illegal aliens have been coming into the country for a long time. But also.
Basically that there's so you could potentially say that, well, they're invading the country, so we can start utilizing it. Congress hasn't had time to act well. First of all, Congress has had time. Deck Secondly, I guess I'm a little unsure about the idea that trendy Aragua was engaged in an invasion in the way that you know, I don't know, Germany invaded France. Those are pretty clear, like that's a different kind of whatever kind of invasion illegal
alien gangs are doing into the United States. And it is very bad, and I don't like it, and I think it's horrible. It's not really an invasion in the same sense that you would normally think of an invasion that we would normally understand it. Part of President Trump's sort of executive order that led to this, he said, I find in declare that Trende Aragua is perpetu is perpetrating, attempting and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the
territory of the United States. Trende Aragua is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States, both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Okay, So there might be some.
Sort of argument for this, And this is one of the things that I've realized in doing like legal analysis of news stories in the Trump era, it's hard to talk about it intelligently, because basically the initial gut instinct of any mainstream legal analysis is going to be anti Trump, and usually there's a little bit more to the Trump
position than you would expect. So yesterday there was an oral argument about all of this, where the Trump lawyers, the lawyers from the Department of Justice, were trying to explain their actions in front of a three judge federal appellate court panel from the DC Circuit, and some of the issues involved were at place. So the first was the question of Okay, you're deporting all these guys, how are you identifying them as actually being quote, members of
trendey aarragua. Have you firmly identified them as members of trende Aragua. Secondly, do these guys whom you've so identified, do they have the right to any kind of review of your decision to classify them as members of trende Aragua? Are they entitled to judicial review? And the Trump the DOJ attorney Drew Ensign acknowledged through gritted teeth that yes,
they are entitled to judicial review. So even the Trump attorneys have admitted, okay, they're entitled to contest the administration classifying them as members of trend A Ragua, but ensign is refusing to concede that they're entitled to any kind of notice that they can contest, or notice that the administration thinks they're covered by the proclamation before they're deported.
Which is a weird position to take.
I mean, usually if you think someone is entitled to contest some legal designation of themselves, they'd be entitled to some sort of notice that they've been so identified and that they can contest it. The Trump lawyers are sort of trying to have their cake and eat it too. But then there's sort of this broader question of why are the courts involved at all? On one level, I
totally understand that critique. Okay, a series you know, foreign policy, international control over security, control over security, immigration through a series of Supreme Court cases. All of that is within the reserve of the federal government. All that is within the reserve of the presidency. Foreign policy is within the
control of the presidency. The idea that if these if this trend Iragua gang is affiliated with the Maduro regime in Venezuela, and I have no reason to question that, then the president acting in defense of the country seems like a very squarely executive funk. Well, the problem is that this is a statute that the president is invoking. Here, he's not actually invoking his inherent constitutional authority. He's invoking a statute something that was passed by Congress, signed into
law by a president. Now, as a result, it seems difficult for them to argue that this isn't something that could be subject to judicial review. Okay, If it's a statute that was passed by Congress saying the president may expel from the country this class of persons, well, I don't see how that won't be subject to some kind of judicial review. Like, okay, is this does this person fit within that class of persons that Congress says can be expelled? Is there some sort of opportunity to have
a hearing about this? I mean, the Trump administration has had to begrudgingly say yes, they have a right to a hearing, but not any right to notice.
On and on and on.
You have to make sure that if Congress has given the presidency the power to expel this group of people from the country, we have to be sure that the people the president is expelling actually fit.
Okay.
If I don't know if the United States was at war with Italy during World War II. Was every Italian American a fit person to be expelled under this law? That might have been an abuse of the law. Italian Americans would have been able to try and contest it. Maybe they should have been able to try and contest it.
Now.
Obviously, these particular guys whom Trump is deporting fairly certain seem like very very bad guys. But he's doing it under the auspices of this certain law, then I think he has to be open to some sort of review.
So there has to be It seems like there.
Is an admission from the Trump people that some sort of due process has to be followed. It can't just be the Trump administration designates these guys that way, they deport the guys, the guys have no opportunity for a hearing.
That's apparently that's not it. So whether.
The Trump administration is acting rightly here is one question. The other question, though, is does a federal judge really have the authority to tell the president to basically to review and overturn the president's decisions here? It seems a little difficult. And when we get back, when we return, I'm going to discuss it about the whole concept of judicial review and whether that would apply in a situation
like this. Now, I think what the outcome of this is going to be is the DC Circuit is probably going to say, no, you need to have a hearing to establish whether or not these guys are actually members of.
This criminal entity.
And probably what will happen is the Trump administration will find some other legal avenue for deporting these guys that'll be simpler. So when we return, I want to talk about do judges really have this power? And has the Trump administration, by kind of blowing off the District Court judge here enacted a quote constitutional crisis. That's next on the John Groardy Show. One of the weird things about looking at this question of can President Trump deport these
illegal aliens? Well, these persons from Venezuela, whom the Trump administration has designated as terrorists and members of the trend de Aragua gang affiliated with the Maduro regime. One of the thorny questions about it is that they are doing so.
They are deporting these people under the auspices of the Alien Enemies Act, a law that was passed in seventeen ninety eight that authorizes the president to deport people who are members who are alien enemies if the United States has been invaded or subject to some sort of enemy incursion or is at war or something. Now, that's sort of the examples of times when it could be used. I don't know if it's an exhaustive list of examples. Is the way that trend de Aragua has infiltrated the
Unia States? Is that an invasion in the same sense up for debate. However, it's a little dicey thinking that a federal judge has the authority, has the right to just tell the Trump administration, no, you can't do that. No, your determination about who is an alien and enemy alien for the.
Purposes of this law is subject to judicial review.
Why well, the whole concept of judicial review didn't even get established until five years after the Alien Enemies Act was passed. So the Alien Enemies Act was passed in seventeen ninety eight Marberry versus Madison. The Supreme Court decision that really established the whole concept of judicial review.
Wasn't until eighteen oh three.
And judicial review is the sort of concept within American law that the courts and ultimately the Supreme Court has the right authority to review laws passed by Congress, actions affected by the executive and to determine if they are consistent with the Constitution or with federal law, to issue determinations on the same, and to expect that those determinations be obeyed by the executive And honestly, it's a little bit of a lacuna, a little bit of a gap
within our constitutional order, because, as Andrew Jackson once said about one court decision that he didn't like, the Supreme Court has issued its decision, let them enforce it. The courts rely upon the good will of the executive branch and the executive branch acquiescing in order for their judicial determinations to actually be binding. Okay, the Supreme Court can
issue an injunction saying don't do this. If the actor that they say don't do this to still does it, then that actor would need to get arrested, prosecuted, whatever, by the executive branch for defying a court order. Well, what if that person who received that injunction is the executive branch itself? What if that person is the president himself? The president would have to the president effectively when he's told no by the Supreme Court has to sort of
voluntarily agree that he is not going to do that thing. Now, I'm not saying this is right or wrong. I'm not saying Marberry versus madisone is right or wrong. But it is the system that we have, the system that is currently operative within our constitutional order. And there are some decent argument, I think good arguments for saying that it's
an important development of our constitution. I think there's a little bit of naivete of thinking that in any constitutional order that well, Marbury versus Madison was after the Constitution, it's not original. Well, okay, any constitutional order is going to change develop over time.
What exactly is the role of the courts?
If the courts are just totally not to be listened to and the executive can totally blow them off, what are we talking.
About here now?
In spite of that, though, I think it is important for this Alien Enemies Act situation.
The Supreme Court.
You know, Alien Enemies Act was passed before judicial review was even really a staff published. So when Congress passed the Alien Enemies Act, did they think that the president's decision about this would be subject to review by a bunch of courts and courts saying, well, did you actually correctly identify this person as an alien enemy? Does this person should have a hearing? And notice that within our
modern constitutional order as it exists today. Sure, it totally makes sense, and I'm sure that's actually that that's going to be the ruling from the DC Circuit. And you know, maybe the Trump administration could have thought of a better system. Maybe they figured this would be a quick way to get these aliens deported. It turned out maybe not to be such a quick way. But I think this is where we're starting to push up against the idea of
a quote constitutional crisis. The left saying that Trump is initiating a constitutional crisis, the right saying that these judges are initiating constitutional crises. And I'll get to that when we return on the John Girardi Show. Are we facing a constitutional crisis? So the left is saying that Trump is initiating a constitutional crisis? Why Trump tried to deport these Venezuelans who the administration said were members of Trend de Aragua. This is a criminal gang from Venezuela.
They have some affiliation with the Maduro regime.
The Trump administrations characterizing them as terrorists and saying that they're enemy aliens for the purposes of the Alien Enemies Act, a seventeen ninety eight law which the Trump administration utilized to claim they had the authority to deport these guys. The Federal District Court judge in DC said, Hey, you got to stop these deportations because you haven't demonstrated that these guys are actually alien enemy.
Have you demonstrated these guys are actually members of this group.
I don't know who these lawyers are who like fleeing to the defense of these gangbangers, but yeah, I guess everyone.
I don't know.
Maybe they just hate the Trump administration and hate Trump administration immigration policies. Anyway, the court says, hey, you need to have some kind of hearing first to determine. You need some sort of hearing to determine these guys are actually members of trend Arragua. Some of these guys don't even actually have a criminal charge against them, so you know, you got to have some sort of hearing. The judge issues that ruling and the Trump administrations is up too late.
The flights have already left to deport them.
Well, now there's some factual dispute over that, well, some of the flights were still in air and presumably could have turned around some.
Of the flights.
Apparently there's some evidence some of the flights had not even taken off yet and that they So the question is, did the Trump administration ignore the judge's order, and by ignoring a federal court order, does that initiate a constitutional crisis. On the other hand, conservatives have I think very rightly pointed out a bunch of federal district court judges have issued completely absurd rulings to try to block and stop various executive actions that I think are very squarely within
executive power. You had federal district court judges angrily trying to order the Trump administration not to cut DEI programs and having ridiculous rulings where they say.
DEI programs are wonderful, where.
It's like that is totally not your role as a judge to talk about how good or bad a law is. Your job is to look at whether the law is lawful or whether the executive action to cut such a program is lawful.
The rulings by these judges about.
Whether the Trump administration has the authority to fire people or cut off spending all this stuff that seems, many of which has been so squarely within the power of the executive branch, and you have one individual federal district court judge issuing a ruling to shut off, to completely halt a Trump administration policy for the whole nation.
Has been disaster.
I mean, even like the Trump administration said, we're going to cut off this two billion dollars of USAID funding that's flowing, this federal district court judge issued a TRO saying, no, you have to spend the money, which, by the way, for a temporary restraining order a TRO. The idea of a TRO is no hold. It's a hold on a minute ruling from a judge. An action is happening that someone is claiming violates their rights. The judge issues a
TRO to say stop the action. Just stop the action for a second until we have the ability to review this.
So it's usually to prevent action from happening. That's usually what an injunction is or a restraining order is to stop action from happening. Stay at the status quo.
Well, when you're talking about spending money, the status quo is, don't spend the money. The judge issues this toro to say no, the money must affirmatively be spent at which time the horse is out of the barn. The legal issue becomes moot because the judge, in his apparently temporary restraining order, ordered an affirmative act to let again, to let the horse out of the barn. Now, there's no point in having a lawsuit because you've you've just issued a determination of it.
That's not what a tro is supposed to be.
So these fa over by the way, foreign aid spending, the direction of foreign aid spending something that seems squarely within the responsibility of the president who directs our foreign policy. So on the one hand, you have liberals saying Trump has initiated a constitutional crisis because.
He ignored this ruling from this judge.
On the other hand, you have Trump saying, by the way, I think the Trump people, those of us on the right, are totally correct that these federal district court judges are initiating are trying to prompt a constitutional crisis because they are like begging the Trump administration.
To disobey their rulings.
Now, is Trump initiating a constitutional crisis by ignoring this federal district court judge what people mean by constitutional crisis.
I keep saying that word. What does it mean? Okay?
Right now, as are institution stands, as it's interpreted, as it functions, we have this process called judicial review. That means that Congress passes a law, President enforces a law, and.
The courts are able to review.
Either laws passed by Congress to see if they are consistent with the Constitution itself, or they can review actions by the executive to determine if those actions by the executive are consistent with laws passed by Congress, regulations passed by the executive itself, or with the Constitution itself. The court's role is to review judicial review of actions by the government or laws passed by Congress, with the expectation that those rulings by those judges will be followed, even
when those rulings are against the president against the executive. Now, as I mentioned in the last segment, there's always this sort of this sort of unspoken tension there. There's this sort of basically just an unwritten other than in Marbary versus medicine, sort of this unwritten tradition about how this whole thing is held together with something that's relatively weak, which is the acquiescence of the executive to obey federal court orders. Right again, Andrew Jackson once said, well, the
court has ruled. The court has issued its ruling. Let the court enforce its own ruling. Does the court have a police officers to enforce their rulings? Now, the president has all the police officers. The president has all the troops. The president has all the force with which to enforce the law. The courts don't have that. The courts only
have moral authority. In a sense, when the court issues an injunction against the president, the court has no authority to force the president to do any There's no men with guns ultimately to force the president to do the thing that the court told them. The court relies on the goodwill of the president and basically the president's fear of political retribution for disobeying the court. And that's the
constitutional order that we have. If a president just starts deciding that he's not going to follow decisions by judges, federal district court judges, circuit courts, or the Supreme Court, we're in a real pickle because that sort of does upset the apple cart of the constitutional order.
As we have it today.
Hence why people say constitutional crisis now, is the Trump team, questionablyhether or not they blew off this judge and just kept these you know, flights of Venezuelan dudes going. Is that a constitutional crisis? Well, I don't know. I don't think it quite is. I think it is the Trump administration.
The Trump administration is not claim that. There's a big difference, even just for the sake of saving face, between saying that you're complying and really you know, straining hairs and going to the absolute limit of what the judge said and possibly screwing up and going a little bit past it, but saying you're trying to follow the court order and flat out saying no, we are not going to comply with this court's order. There's a difference between those two things.
The Trump administration did the former. They said, no, we're complying. But when the court judges shoot is ruling the planes were already in the sky and then we couldn't turn them around, blah blah blah blah blah, and the issue was already moved blah blah blah. They have all these different arguments. Now, some of those arguments maybe bs, but
that's still a very big difference. There's a big difference between saying the court does not have this authority to tell me what to do, versus saying it's sort of conceding that the court has authority to rule and saying that you're trying to comply, but kind of fudging it with how well you're complying. So do I think that's a constitutional crisis? No, I don't think it is. I think it's getting close. But this is the other side of that coin. All of that is assuming that these
judges are issuing legitimate rulings. The system is predicated on judges not acting like children.
The system is predicated on judges.
Understanding their role and at least more or less sticking to their role. I think these federal judges are pushing against a constitutional crisis by doing things that are so clearly outside their bounds, so clearly outside their scope as to really render it questionable whether the Trump administration at a certain point should say that you have exceeded the bounds of your authority and therefore we're not going to
listen to you. And the Trump administration has floated this in a couple of ways, Trump administration has floated this with maybe some of these judges.
Should be impeached and removed.
Now, John Roberts, I thought, ridiculously got on his high horse and saying no, the answer to bad rulings is to appeal them.
It's not to impeach judges.
Well, the question whether or not to impeach a judge is a purely political question. I don't know what business the chief Justice has to offer his political opinion about a political question. I don't actually give a damn what John Roberts thinks about that. If John Roberts no more or less than I want to hear John Roberts' opinion on tax policy and what good tax politicy should be. I don't want to hear his opinion on the political question of whether or not we should impeach and remove judges.
I don't know.
John Roberts sometimes acts like it's his job to stick up for all the federal judge Well.
Is that really your job?
And by the way, impeaching and removing judges would be within the structures of our constitutional order. It's permitted by the Constitution if you get a majority in Congress and two thirds majority in the Senate, you can impeach and remove a judge. It's happened before, but usually it's only happened because judges were clearly violating the law, taking bribes
and stuff like that. But I don't see why it would be wrong to initiate that against a judge who's wildly exceeding his or her authority.
Because it gets to this point.
In wartime, the president directs the first Marine Battalion whatever to go over here. Someone within that Marine battalion sues files a lawsuit in the DC District saying, I don't think it's a good idea for the president to do this. I think it puts our lives at risk, and I think it's it finds some statute to say that. Maybe
it's unlawful somehow, I don't know. And a federal district court judge issues a temporary restraining orders as the Trump administration's lawyers need to appear before us for a hearing to justify whether they're legally entitled to move the first Marine Battalion over there. Well, if that happened, the Trump administration or any president would tell that judge to go
to hell, and they would be right. That would be such a clear abuse of judicial authority that I think the Trump administration should tell that judge to go to hell. And there were moments in the Civil War where Lincoln ignored judicial rulings arguably under similar circumstances. So I think that's the problem, and a judge trying to do that
to a president that is a constitutionally critical thing. That's a crisis level thing for our constitutional order for judges to try to boss around a president for his core executive functions.
And that's what I'm saying when we say.
That there is a constitutional crisis, I think it's every bit as much coming from the left as this one instance of these Venezuelan gang bangers or alleged Venezuelan gangbangers, whether or not the Trump administration has the right to deport them, whether or not the Trump administration kind of blew off this federal judge. They said they didn't a bit. There's a big difference there. I think is at a
constitutional crisis. I don't know that could be bad defendant, bad behavior by a party in a lawsuit is I think, different from the president challenging the entire constitutional order. People have questionably followed judicial rulings before, while acknowledging the authority of a judge to issue that ruling that that's not exactly this is not exactly something novel. Judges basically thinking they can rule the country in place of the executive
is differently bad, and i'd say worse. When we return a presdent city council seat might come down to who can cure the most ballots. Next on the John Gerardi Show, so Brandon Vang is beating Elizabeth Jonathon Roses for this president city Council District five seat.
He is at fifty.
Point one four percent of the vote, she's at thirty something. If he gets over fifty percent, he automatically becomes the city council member.
There's no runoff.
So now they're doing this thing where there's only like I think like one hundred and fifty or so votes left to about two hundred votes left, and they're counting them right now, and it's like on a razor's edge. Depending on how it goes, Vang might get slightly over fifty percent and win right away, or might get slightly under fifty percent and they'll have to have a runoff.
And then there's also the process of ballot curing. The two sides can go to people who submitted their ballots and had a problem on the ballot and get them to quote cure their ballot and thereby pick up votes for one side or the other. This is how California Democrats win every close election. It's why John Duarte is not in Congress anymore now. Adam Gray is. Adam Gray
was better at vote curing than Duarte was. So we are on a razor's edge here seeing who is going to be the next city council member for District five. We will with bated breath and you will hear all about it. I'm sure here on the valleys power talk, John Girardi, I'm out see you next time.