🚨 MAJOR UPDATE on Trump DEFYING court order

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00:00You're watching The Legal Breakdown. Glenn, the eyes of the nation are on Judge Boasberg's

00:04courtroom right now. Judge Boasberg demanded that Donald Trump's administration not continue

00:09to deport these Venezuelans who are accused gang members until they've actually had their due

00:14process. The Trump administration refused to comply with this court order. And so in turn,

00:19Judge Boasberg demanded that the Trump administration come back into into court

00:22to explain themselves. We now have an update as far as how that hearing went. Can you explain

00:26what happened? You know, it's pretty clear, Brian, based on the reporting that Chief Judge

00:31Jeb Boasberg, the Chief Judge of Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., when he was grilling

00:37Donald Trump's DOJ lawyers about why it appears that they may have violated his court order to

00:44turn planes around. The reporting is Boasberg was incredulous. I'm going to use a word from my

00:51Jersey days. It seems like Judge Boasberg was pissed and he has demanded more information.

00:58Here is the form that more information will take. The first thing he said when the DOJ attorneys

01:06were kind of doing the homina, homina, homina. We don't have all the details. We don't know

01:11exactly where the planes full of Venezuelans that had been snatched up by Donald Trump's thugs and

01:19put on this plane and sent where? Not to Venezuela, but to El Salvador with no court hearing,

01:27no due process, no evidentiary showing that these people were even sort of susceptible to being

01:35detained and deported. And the DOJ lawyers didn't have a lot of answers. Jeb Boasberg,

01:40Judge Boasberg was incredulous. And he said, here's what I'm ordering you to do.

01:45I want a sworn affidavit. So that sort of gets around the DOJ lawyers, you know,

01:52yammering and stammering about we don't really know what went on here. I want a sworn affidavit

01:57with a chronology. He didn't say minute by minute, but they would probably be well advised to make it

02:04a minute by minute chronology about when those planes took off, when they received notice of

02:11Judge Boasberg's order to turn the dang planes around when those planes landed. And he, Judge

02:18Boasberg said, y'all are coming back into court and we are going to drill down and see if the

02:25Trump administration intentionally violated my court order. And if he concludes that the Trump

02:31administration did intentionally and knowingly violate his court order, I think the next thing

02:38we're going to hear is the C word contempt of court. But Judge Boasberg will decide what,

02:44if any next steps should be taken, one, to address and remedy this situation. And two,

02:52to punish, to hold accountable the Trump administration in the event they did

02:57intentionally violate a federal judge's order. On the latter half of what you just spoke about,

03:02what does contempt look like for the federal government? It's not like they have to spend

03:06any of their own money, for example. So what really can judges do when you hold the federal

03:12government in contempt? There's quite a bit they can do, Brian. There are two kinds of contempt,

03:16civil contempt and criminal contempt. Civil contempt is the lesser sanction or penalty.

03:22So let's start with that. Civil contempt is designed to put usually monetary fines or

03:30other conditions in place to urge the federal government to come into compliance with court

03:36orders, to basically what we call purge the contempt, get rid of the contempt by beginning

03:42to abide by existing court orders. That's civil contempt. However, if there are Trump administration

03:50officials up to and including Donald Trump, who just intentionally defy and thumb their nose at

03:58and disobey court orders, then the judge can say, I am prepared to hold you in criminal contempt.

04:05Now, if you're going to hold somebody in criminal contempt, there has to be notice and an opportunity

04:10to be heard, basically a mini contempt trial. And here is the really good news, Brian.

04:16Ordinarily, judges cannot initiate prosecutions on their own. Why? Because prosecutions are

04:24exclusively an executive branch function and responsibility. It's the Department of Justice

04:31under the control now, indeed under the thumb of Donald Trump, that gets to make the decision

04:36whether to prosecute a case or not. That generally includes contempt charges, except when the

04:42Department of Justice refuses to prosecute a contempt charge that is based on a violation of a

04:49judge's court order. Then the judge has the opportunity to appoint an independent prosecutor

04:55and have that person prosecute the contempt charge against the federal officials. So that is good

05:02news on the procedural front. Now, let me tell you, Brian, there's some great law review articles out

05:07there that collect up all of the instances of contempt by federal government agencies and

05:14officials. And what I will say is in reading that law review article, rarely does push come to shove.

05:22Rarely do judges go all the way to criminal contempt hearings. For example, a cabinet

05:29official who just steadfastly refuses to comply with federal court orders. But importantly,

05:35the federal judges have the power and the authority to do it. And if ever that power

05:41and authority is going to be tested, it looks like it's in this lawless Trump administration.

05:47Can I drop some cold water on this theory and ask what about presidential pardon powers? I mean,

05:53doesn't Trump have carte blanche to basically issue pardons in the event that some administration

05:58official of his does get found to be in criminal contempt, that he could just issue a pardon and

06:05wipe the slate clean? Well, I'm going to be honest here, full disclosure, there is no precedent. In

06:11other words, no appellate court up to and including the Supreme Court has ever had to

06:16wrestle with that precise legal issue that you just spotted. You really have earned your law

06:21degree after nearly 500 episodes of the legal breakdown that you and I have been doing over

06:26the years. It's a great question. Let me give you my informed opinion on how a court would rule.

06:32You're absolutely right. Recently, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed just how broad and sweeping

06:38a president's pardon power is. However, just as the courts can never appoint a prosecutor except

06:48in the instance when their own authority, their own lawful constitutional authority is being defied

06:56by the executive branch, I predict the Supreme Court will say it is a natural follow on that if

07:03there is a criminal contempt conviction of a federal government official under those circumstances.

07:09Guess what? The president's pardon power doesn't extend to that. Why? Because that is an offense

07:18against the judiciary that is necessary to uphold the judiciary's separate but equal powers as a

07:26co-equal branch of government, completely untested in the courts. But I actually think that result

07:32makes a lot of sense. Glenn, as the result of this, John Roberts took the rare step of coming

07:38out and issuing a rebuke of Donald Trump because Trump logged on the truth social, surprise,

07:43surprise, demanding that Judge Boasberg actually be impeached for committing the cardinal sin of

07:49not allowing him to just, I mean, he's disappearing people who haven't even been

07:54charged with a crime or much less convicted of a crime. And so what do you make of the fact that

07:59we actually now have Supreme Court justices on this far right Supreme Court who are taking a

08:04stand against Trump's overreach? Yeah, a really important statement. And let me say that chief

08:09justices of the Supreme Court almost never speak publicly about these kind of issues or disputes.

08:17Indeed, they usually do all of their speaking through their rulings. But here is what the chief

08:23justice said after, you know, Elon Musk calls for impeachments of judges who displease, I guess,

08:31he and Donald Trump. And Donald Trump actually made some really intemperate remarks about

08:37Jeb Boasberg recently. Here is what the chief justice said. For more than two centuries,

08:43the chief justice said, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response

08:49to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for

08:56that purpose. If I can translate that from justice to English, that is basically John Roberts telling

09:03Donald Trump and Elon Musk, shut the hell up. And he's exactly right. You know, these calls that we

09:13all know endanger judges when Donald Trump begins to call them names and and Elon Musk

09:20insists that they must be impeached and removed because they issued some ruling that, you know,

09:26displeased Musk and Trump. This is dangerous. We have seen judges like Tanya Chutkin in D.C.

09:34and Juan Marchand in New York be put in harm's way. Death threats come pouring in from Trump

09:41supporters. Their homes are swatted. In other words, false reports are made to the police that

09:48a violent crime happened inside their home such that SWAT teams show up at judges homes with guns

09:55drawn. I mean, this is the kind of nonsense and garbage and dangerous, inflammatory conduct that

10:02really has to stop. And in his, you know, rather subtle way, the chief justice of the United States

10:10just told Donald Trump and Elon Musk, this has got to stop.

10:14Glenn, you you were actually quoted in an article in The Washington Post. I'll put that right here

10:20on this screen. This is about Judge Boasberg. You said that Judge Boasberg is a singularly

10:25remarkable prosecutor. I say that because he never lost a murder case and because he would never tell

10:29anybody he never lost a murder case. It wasn't in his DNA to talk about himself or his accomplishments.

10:34I don't think there's anybody better suited or better equipped to handle these challenges to

10:38the independence of the judiciary or challenges to American democracy. And so can you talk about

10:43these attacks on somebody? Look, it would be one thing if you had a judge who is as partisan as,

10:48oh, I don't know, let's say Judge Eileen Cannon down in Florida. But that's not the case with

10:53Judge Boasberg, who is deigning to defer not to Donald Trump, but to the law as it's written.

10:59Yeah. Jeb Boasberg, in my experience, and I've known him for decades, not only did I

11:05supervise him when he was a homicide prosecutor in my homicide section at the D.C. U.S. Attorney's

11:11Office, he was my trial partner. We went to court every day, stood shoulder to shoulder trying some

11:16really horrific murder cases. You want to take the measure of a man or a woman,

11:23have them as a trial partner in a really high stakes murder case. This is a man who is

11:30singularly devoted to the rule of law, to the Constitution, and applies, you know,

11:38the rules and the laws without fear or favor fairly and equally without any bias in favor or

11:46against one party or the other. I actually can sleep well at night knowing that we have somebody

11:52like Judge Boasberg litigating these most consequential issues, because regardless of

11:58how he rules, it's going to be right. It's going to be accurate in accordance with the law and the

12:04Constitution. And Brian, you know, people may not remember. They may not have known in the first

12:10instance. You know, Judge Boasberg was also the chief of the FISA Court, the Foreign Intelligence

12:16Surveillance Act Court, when that whole thing blew up with the Carter Page FISA warrant that was

12:23issued. And it had some misinformation in it. You know, Judge Boasberg took a look at what

12:29happened there. And after the Durham report came out, remember, Special Counsel John Durham

12:35investigate the investigators. Well, there was a an FBI employee who I believe was a lawyer who was

12:43caught altering an email. And that altered information, bad information, false information

12:50made its way into a FISA application. Judge Boasberg went after that so hard he banned that

12:58person from ever having anything to do with any FISA court applications moving forward. And he

13:05also put safeguards in place demanding that the the Department of Justice account for how it is

13:13these mistakes were made, making sure there were no other mistakes out there that went undiscovered

13:18and unaddressed. You know, these were things that if people looked at them, they would say,

13:24wow, that seems those seem to be pro Trump rulings, pro John Durham rulings. It didn't matter

13:33how those rulings played out, who they helped, who they hurt, who they held accountable,

13:37who they exonerated. He did the right thing under all circumstances. And that is what he will

13:45continue to do regardless of what Elon Musk or even Donald Trump says about him.

13:51Well, look, this is especially important. I mean, really, this case is kind of what we've been

13:56expecting, so to speak, in the sense that we've waited to see what happens when the Trump

14:01administration inevitably decides to discard the ruling handed down from a judge. And that's what

14:06we're seeing right now. So hopefully we will see the judge, Judge Boasberg here, take a hard line

14:12against this decision to completely ignore a lawful order. So a lot more to come on this topic

14:20in particular. For those who are watching right now, if you want to follow along and if you want

14:23to support us and independent media more broadly, the best way to do that is to subscribe to our

14:27channels. The links to both of them are right here on the screen. Glenn in particular is fast

14:31on his way to a million subscribers. So if you haven't yet subscribed, please hit the subscribe

14:36button. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen. And I'm Glenn Kirshner. You're watching The Legal Breakdown.

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