BREAKING: Judge EXPLODES at Trump official IN COURT

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Legal Breakdown episode 491: @GlennKirschner2 discusses a judge losing her patience in court over Trump officials lying.  For more from Brian Tyler Cohen: Straight-news titled YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohennews YouTube (español): https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohenespanol Order my #1 NYT bestselling book: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/shameless Newsletter: https://plus.briantylercohen.com Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/briantylercohen Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/36UvEHs Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0066rKCBIycIMI4os6Ec5V Twitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohen Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohen TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@briantylercohen Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/briantylercohen.bsky.social Threads: https://www.threads.net/@briantylercohen

Transcript

00:00You're watching The Legal Breakdown. Glenn, I think it's fair to say that these federal judges

00:03are finally losing their patience with Trump. A federal judge just exploded at a Trump administration

00:08official in court. Can you explain what just happened? Yeah, Brian, this one involves Donald

00:13Trump's, you know, really horrific attempt to ban transgender people from serving in the military.

00:20They've been serving honorably since 2021. And the Trump administration, you know, just kind of

00:27cruelly and arbitrarily wants to put a stop to them being able to serve our country in the

00:33military. And a federal court judge in Washington, D.C., Judge Anna Reyes, just exploded at Trump's

00:40dirty DOJ lawyers who are going in and arguing garbage, basically, to the court. And she

00:47exploded in two ways or on two fronts, both on the form of this litigation and on the substance

00:54of the litigation. And what I want to do, we often don't like to, you know, read extended

00:59segments of court rulings, but I want to read just a couple of sentences of what Judge Anna Reyes

01:06said to these DOJ lawyers, because it really drives home just how horrific and cruel and lawless

01:14the Trump administration is being. So District Judge Anna Reyes found that Trump's transgender

01:22ban from military service is soaked in animus and it violates the Equal Protection Clause

01:28because it discriminates based on transgender status and sex. Quote, it's the ban's language

01:37is unabashedly demeaning. Its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit and

01:46its conclusions bear no relation to fact. But the judge didn't stop there. Quote,

01:52transgender persons have served openly since 2021, but defendants, meaning Trump and his DOJ

02:01and his Department of Defense, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, defendants have not

02:08analyzed the service of transgender service members. That is unfortunate. Plaintiffs,

02:15meaning the transgender military service members, plaintiff service records alone are Exhibit A

02:23for the proposition that transgender persons can have the warrior ethos, physical and mental health,

02:31selflessness, honor, integrity and discipline to ensure military excellence. I mean,

02:38what she's doing there is on the substance of this litigation. We have transgender military

02:45service members who have been serving honorably and they have excelled in their work as members

02:53of the military since 2021. And the Trump administration walks into court without any

02:59evidence to support their attempt to just completely ban all transgender folk from

03:06serving in the military. But there's a mountain of evidence undercutting this, you know, ugly

03:13transgender ban that Trump is trying to implement. And that's why she exploded on the substance of

03:20this litigation, because these DOJ lawyers don't have a damn leg to stand on.

03:25Glenn, I want to read you another quote from Judge Reyes, and I want your reaction to this

03:29quote. I am not going to abide by government officials saying one thing to the public,

03:33saying what they really mean to the public and coming in here to the court and telling me

03:37something different. Like I'm an idiot. Your reaction to that. My reaction to that is those

03:43kind of observations by a judge and those kind of let's call them shortcomings in litigation by DOJ

03:51lawyers is fatal. They can be fatal to litigation. And Brian, let me tell our viewers exactly what

03:57it was Judge Reyes was talking about there, because Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense,

04:04you know, people say he's a DUI hire. He said that, quote, transgender troops are disqualified

04:12from service without an exemption, period. Just a blanket statement. Transgender folk

04:19are disqualified. And yet, Brian, here is what these DOJ lawyers went in and argued to Judge

04:25Reyes. They said that, oh, Judge, we're only looking to disqualify people with a medical

04:31condition called gender dysphoria, which is not what the proposed transgender ban says. And that

04:39is what prompted her to explode. You've got the secretary of defense saying one thing publicly,

04:46which obviously is the true goal of the Trump administration, discriminate against all

04:53transgender folk. And then you have these DOJ lawyers coming in and contradicting that,

04:59arguing something completely different, frankly, something that's not even supported by the

05:04language of the proposed ban. Do you think I'm an idiot? Well, guess what? I'm not an idiot. And I

05:11think we can see the trajectory that this litigation is on, Brian. But Glenn, this has

05:17been a recurring theme where we've watched Donald Trump say one thing in public and say another

05:21thing in court. And really what matters at the end of the day is what's said in court. And so why

05:26doesn't this administration just have the freedom to lie in public if they're going to, if what

05:32they're saying in court is really the only thing that should matter? Well, because the plaintiffs

05:38in the case will introduce into evidence what the Trump administration officials are saying

05:45and doing publicly. And that becomes evidence that undercuts what, you know, this is not just

05:52judges reading newspaper articles or watching cable news and taking that as information and

05:58evidence in the case. It will be properly admitted. And the statements of people like the

06:03secretary of defense, Donald Trump, and other high government officials are absolutely fair,

06:09evidentiary game in this kind of litigation. And so what does it do to the credibility of the Trump

06:16administration when the judge really feels like they're being jerked around? Like what is this,

06:22historically, what has this kind of thing done? What it does is once you lose your credibility

06:28as a lawyer, whether you're a DOJ prosecutor, whether you're a civil defense attorney,

06:34a criminal defense attorney, once you lose your credibility, once the judge can no longer

06:40count on your word as being truthful and accurate, which, by the way, we as what are called officers

06:48of the court, every attorney is considered an officer of the court and has an ethical obligation

06:54to be truthful, accurate, and candid with the court. Once you have proved to the judge's

07:00satisfaction that your word cannot be trusted, you're all but done. You will have very little

07:08chance of, one, rehabilitating your credibility before that judge and, two, winning the litigation

07:15that you're involved in. So, you know, these DOJ attorneys who are debasing themselves,

07:21demeaning themselves, insulting our democracy and insulting the judges in the process,

07:28are doing themselves real harm. These are people who I predict will end up being referred to bar

07:32counsel, may be sanctioned, could be disbarred at the end of the day, as other Trump-aligned

07:38lawyers have been. And here's the good news. We're always looking for a point of light to

07:42give our viewers, right? I think the DOJ is going to run out of dirty lawyers who are willing to go

07:50in and debase themselves like this in service to dear leader. And what we're seeing, Brian,

07:56the people who are going into court, first of all, I can tell you they're not the best and

08:00the brightest at the Department of Justice, because the best and the brightest are honest,

08:05honorable, ethical attorneys and hardworking public servants who remain loyal to the

08:10Constitution. And you see these kind of high DOJ officials who are Trump flunkies going in and

08:17arguing cases where I can promise you, you never see, for example, the deputy attorney general,

08:23the number two at the Department of Justice going into court and arguing anything. They're

08:28bureaucrats, right? Usually it's three or four levels below them in the org chart where you see

08:35lawyers go in and arguing cases in court. They're going to run out of unethical lawyers to do Donald

08:41Trump's dirty bidding in court. And that's why I keep saying as bad as it looks, as bleak as it

08:47is right now, I don't think any of this is sustainable in the long run. And I think it

08:52will all end up imploding. Now, what form that implosion takes, how long before it happens and

08:58how much damage can Donald Trump do to our democracy and the American people before it

09:04implodes? You know, that that's anybody's guess, unfortunately. Well, I want to dig into the

09:10personal liability that some of these lawyers might shoulder by virtue of going into court

09:15and really jerking the judges around or lying in court or having or misrepresenting what the

09:20Trump administration's true position is in terms of whether they're able to keep their law licenses,

09:25for example. Do you think that the bar has taken an aggressive enough posture against folks in the

09:32recent past who have been part of the stolen election saga that Trump raised in 2020 when

09:38it comes to really trying to preserve the integrity of this entire profession? Yeah,

09:43it's a great question. And when we use a term like the bar, what people need to know, there are

09:4850 bars. Each state has its own bar, has its own bar counsel and has its own mechanism, its own

09:57procedures for investigating allegedly unethical practices by the lawyers who hold a law license

10:06from that state. Let me give you an example. When you are, for example, a federal prosecutor,

10:11you have to be a member of one state bar. I was a member of the state bar of New Jersey.

10:16And then you can practice federally in federal court in all 50 states, in all 13 federal

10:22jurisdictions. So the people who are going in and when a judge says something that calls into

10:28question the credibility and the candor and the truthfulness of an attorney, I can promise you

10:34the first thing that happens, Brian, is that attorney will be referred to their state bar

10:40counsel for a possible investigation. And people may not know this. Every single court opinion

10:47that is authored goes into a database and state bar counsel have these programs, these computer

10:55programs that will review kind of, you know, just as a matter of course, will review every court

11:02opinion to see if a judge criticized the ethics of an attorney who's a member of that state bar.

11:11These things will inevitably be discovered and hopefully the attorneys who are going in and

11:17arguing unethical positions or misrepresenting things to the court, ultimately, they will be

11:23held to account and their state bar will give them a look to see if they should be sanctioned.

11:29And finally, Glenn, you had mentioned that you don't believe that there's going to be

11:34enough lawyers to sustain what the Trump administration is doing, enough prosecutors,

11:38enough folks in the legal profession to be able to sustain this corrupt behavior that's being

11:43presented by the Trump White House. When we see something like, you know, you and I had spoken

11:48in our previous episode about Paul Weiss, this law firm that opted to bend the knee to the Trump

11:54administration to offer legal services that would be more palatable for conservatives. And when

12:01we're seeing things kind of go in the wrong direction, especially among folks who should

12:06know better, like the lawyers at Paul Weiss, just to name one firm, does that give you worry?

12:11Because on one hand, yes, it lends itself to reason that there should eventually come a point

12:16where we're going to run out of bargain basement lawyers who are willing to do the corrupt bidding

12:20of Donald Trump. But at the same time, we actually are seeing things move in the wrong direction

12:25as it relates to these lawyers who are increasingly willing to allow themselves

12:31to be cowed by Trump. Yeah, it gives me grave concern when I see DOJ lawyers going in and,

12:39you know, misleading the court, saying one thing when they know full well that the secretary of

12:44defense is saying and intending something very different when it comes to Trump's transgender

12:51ban for military service. It gives me grave concern when I see law firms, otherwise respectable

12:58law firms like Paul Weiss, go into the Oval Office and bend the knee because Donald Trump

13:04attempted to retaliate against them. And instead of standing up in court against that lawless

13:11retaliation, indeed, The New York Times reported that these executive orders that Donald Trump is

13:17signing, trying to punish and retaliate against law firms that displease him, are, quote,

13:23likely unlawful. And I have a feeling that's the way you'll see judges rule. So you have

13:28law firms like Perkins Coie that is going in and fighting this lawlessness of Donald Trump.

13:34And then law firms like Paul Weiss, who are capitulating and saying, I'll tell you what,

13:39we'll give you $40 million in legal services if you'll just stop punishing us. You know,

13:45what Paul Weiss did, Brian, makes all of our jobs fighting for the health and viability

13:52of American democracy significantly harder. But here's what I'm heartened by. I have been

13:58watching very closely all of the pushback from lawyers, from law firms in the wake of the

14:06reporting about how Paul Weiss bent the knee, that law firm bent the knee to Donald Trump.

14:12And I am seeing the legal community coalescing around the rule of law and the Constitution and

14:20the honor of our practice in federal courts and elsewhere. And I do think all of this will end up

14:27being a Trump miscalculation. I think the more people and entities and organizations Donald

14:33Trump alienates with his lawless executive orders, for example, the more that will help

14:40hasten his ultimate political demise, which I still think is coming, maybe not tomorrow,

14:45maybe not next year, but I do think it's coming. So I'm actually heartened by the response of the

14:50legal community overall to what we are seeing, you know, from those select law firms that are

14:56bending the knee to Trump. Well, look, all of this underscores the importance that the courts are

15:00having right now. They are really serving as the most effective bulwark against the worst

15:04excesses of this administration. We're seeing it by virtue of the fact that judges like the one

15:08that we spoke about in this very video, Judge Reyes, losing their patience with these folks,

15:13the Trump administration who are lying in the same way that Trump has been lying for so long.

15:18So we'll continue to stay on top of this. For those who are watching, if you want to support

15:21our work and stay on top of the news as it continues to break, please make sure to subscribe.

15:25The links to both of our channels are right here on the screen. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen.

15:29And I'm Glenn Kirshner.

15:30You're watching The Legal Breakdown.

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