Dear Listeners:
Last month, when a panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that Alina Habba could not validly serve as interim US Attorney for New Jersey, Habba left New Jersey for a new job at Main Justice and issued a defiant statement about how you can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you can’t take the New Jersey out of the girl.
But when Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that Lindsey Halligan was not the interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia — and therefore threw out her precious indictments of James Comey and Letitia James — she just stuck around the office. She kept presenting indictments to grand juries, kept going to court, and kept signing documents as the US Attorney — kind of like that episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza showed up to work and tried to pretend he’d never quit his job.
It worked, sort of, for longer than it worked for George. But this week, Judge David Novak issued a blistering order, rejecting an argument from Attorney General Pam Bondi that the order finding her invalidly appointed was not binding beyond the Comey and James cases. Novak said he wouldn’t sanction Halligan, for now, since she knows very little about how to practice law, but he reserved the right to do so if she continued to purport to serve as US Attorney. And so, finally, she relented. As it happens, even if Halligan had been validly appointed as interim US Attorney, the clock on that appointment would have run out this Tuesday, so Bondi issued a statement thanking her for serving for 120 days with “the utmost distinction and an unwavering commitment to the rule of law.” And now someone else will run the EDVA office — I’m not sure who, since DOJ just fired the First Assistant US Attorney because he didn’t want to lead an effort to re-indict Comey, but someone.
For all subscribers, we discuss those events, and we look at news reports that ICE is relying on a secret legal memorandum asserting that it can enter homes to search for aliens subject to final orders of removal, even if there’s no warrant from an Article III judge authorizing them to do so. This is a departure from longstanding practice — see Orin Kerr on why it’s probably not legal — but even if it isn’t legal, as Ken and I discuss, it’s not obvious how one would get relief.
For paying subscribers, there’s a lot more news:
There’s an order enjoining ICE from certain enforcement tactics in Minnesota, but it’s subject to an administrative stay, for now — and, since this is Fourth Amendment Fun week, we have another opportunity to discuss how you might have a Fourth Amendment right, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get to use it.
We also look at the case of Geraldo Lunas Campos, a Cuban national who died in ICE custody earlier this month. ICE says his death was a suicide, but his family disputes that, citing other detainees who claim he was choked by guards. (A county medical examiner’s report also deemed his death a homicide — a determination of manner of death, not a finding of legal culpability.) Alas, it’s up to DOJ to keep those witnesses available to testify, and if DOJ doesn’t want to, they’ll likely be deported.
We discuss the federal charges for anti-ICE activists who are accused of disrupting a Twin Cities church service this past weekend — they were charged under the so-called Klan Act, and the charges were obtained via criminal complaint to a magistrate judge, which means prosecutors will still need to get a grand jury to agree to indict — and prosecutors’ failure so far to charge journalist Don Lemon.
We consider the Supreme Court’s ongoing effort to carve out the Federal Reserve from its plans to neuter independent boards and commissions (special unique historical tradition etc etc).
And we’ve got a weird one: former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has been sued for alienation of affection — still an available tort in North Carolina and five other states! — by the estranged wife of one of her former staffers, who says Sinema stole her man.
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
