https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/02/08/trump-tells-it-to-the-judges/Trump Tells It to the Judges
Feb 8, 2017
RUSH: I want to get to the Ninth Circus here, the oral arguments yesterday, because the judge panel could rule at any moment, even if it’s like 9:34 out there now. Everybody expects them to move quickly here. Trump today went and spoke to law enforcement officers and sheriffs. He was standing there — I watched it — and he read aloud Title VIII, Chapter 12 of the U.S. Code, which is the law involved here, which is the statute that permits his executive order. And this is it:
“Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation — and for such period as he shall deem necessary — suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
And Trump said (paraphrased), “It’s not just me. It’s for Obama. It’s for Ronaldus Magnus. It was done for the security of our nation, the security of our citizens. It has nothing to do with religion.” So a helpful reminder that Obama initiated a six-month ban on anybody from Iraq coming into this country, and nobody had a problem with it. So, then, Trump said that he listened to oral arguments about the legal challenges to his executive order, because the Ninth Circus made them available for audio streaming.
And he said, “When you read something so perfectly written, so clear to anybody, the courts seem to be so political. It would be so great for our court system to just read a statement and do what’s right.” Let me just tell you about this. (interruption) “In a sterile world” is exactly right. Let me read this to you again. There’s nothing ambivalent here. There’s nothing that is in any way confusing or that would provide any out from legal opposition. “Whenever the president…” By the way, this is a law passed and debated in Congress.
It was legislation signed into law by the president at the time. “Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation — and for such period as he shall deem necessary — suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.” There’s no wiggle room there. There’s no alternate interpretation. (chuckles)
There’s no reading between the lines to find out what they really meant here. It is as crystal clear as can be. This is why Judge Robart in the state of Washington did not use the law in issuing a temporary stay of the executive order. He couldn’t! He had to go off on tangents and use other things, such as it’s a religious ban, or it’s unfair, or it’s bigoted. And remember Judge Robart is not a Republican. He’s a Republican-appointed judge, but he is a left-wing judicial activist actually chosen by Patty Murray, the senator.
Now, here’s the legal theory on which opponents to Trump are trying to have this thing thrown out. The theory is that this statute cannot override constitutional rights, that no president is able to issue an executive order that overrides any person’s constitutional rights. Now, common sense says: “That should have nothing to do with this, because we’re talking about aliens! We’re talking about people outside the country who want to come in. They are not citizens. Therefore, citizenship is not being denied. Citizenship is not being trampled.”
Because we are talking about aliens and immigrants, refugees and all that outside the United States, who have no constitutional rights. However, there is a little gray here because some of the aliens affected by the Trump executive order have been in the United States before. They left, and they were prevented from getting back in by the issuance of the executive order. But they had been here before, and some of them have some degree of legal status here. But it isn’t citizenship that they have, the people we’re talking about and the people that Trump wanted to restrict from coming in.
Now, the left is arguing that this little bit of gray area gives them a measure of constitutional rights, gives these aliens who have been in the country before but who then left and wanted to come back and now can’t get in because of the order… Well, the left says, “They had quasi-constitutional rights. They had a measure of them, ’cause they’ve been here.” As an example of this, the police cannot enter the home of an alien criminal suspect without a warrant, even though the alien is not a citizen. There are still constitutional rights that do descend to a criminal alien suspect.
The Fourth Amendment applies to them just as it does to citizens. This has been so ruled by the courts. Now, whatever the merit of this argument, the fact remains that the rights of aliens who have some legal status in our country cannot outweigh the security of American citizens from foreign threats. In other words, this should not matter. The leftist argument is, “Wait a minute. You are denying somebody’s constitutional rights because they have been here before. Some of these aliens that wanted to come in and were prevented had been here before.
“They had lived here. They may not have had citizenship, but they had been effectively quasi-citizens by virtue of the way they lived and the way they were treated.” And the answer to that is: “Doesn’t matter. A, they’re not citizens. But, B, we cannot allow that small subset group of people to supersede national security!” The left says, “Damn right! Yes, we can. Screw you!” We’re gonna do anything we can to stop this president. We’re gonna do everything we can to stop Trump, and we’ll go any legal avenue open to us.”
But again their argument I think is specious and Swiss cheese because the rights of the aliens we’re talking about do not have citizenship. They’ve got some legal status, but they don’t have citizenship. You can’t allow deference to them to outweigh the security of American citizens from foreign threats. This is a matter the Constitution delegates to the political branches, not the judicial. The Constitution doesn’t give the judiciary a role here in national security, and they cannot assume it. So the president, whoever it is — in this case, Trump — has a very high degree of constitutional authority to repel foreign threats. And Congress, which has the authority to determine the qualifications an alien must meet to enter our country, has delegated sweeping authority to the president in the statute that I just quoted.
He has total say-so, by proclamation. He can suspend entry into this country by aliens, illegal immigrants, anybody, at a time he thinks we are under threat, and he can determine how long that ban is. Congress has given the president that sweeping authority. I sent this to a legal friend of mine to make sure that my interpretation was correct, and I highlighted the word “he,” “he shall deem necessary,” “he may deem appropriate.” That’s in reference to the president.
And the fact that the word “he” and singular and the reference to the president is in a statute that was passed by the Congress indicates Congress wanted the security decision made by the president alone. That’s why I said there’s no ambiguity here, and there’s no ambivalence. The power vested in the president here is total and complete, by Congress. They wanted the security decisions made by the president alone, not the president under the supervision of the federal courts.
Nowhere in this statute is there any reference to the judiciary at all. There’s no reference to the judiciary having review, that the judiciary must sign off on whatever the president does. That’s why what Judge Robart did is totally wrong! As a matter of law, Judge Robart was way outside his legal purview in issuing the stay.
And he did it because he’s a leftist hack doing the bidding of the side he agrees with. His ruling, if you go look at it, he didn’t address the law at all because he can’t. He cannot stay Trump’s executive order on matters of the law, and that’s why Trump is out tweeting how unfortunate all this is that politics — by the way, it’s not politics; it’s liberalism. It’s liberalism.
Now, Trump’s saying politics, I know why he’s saying that. Calling it the courts getting political is probably a little bit more effective in persuading people to your side than attacking liberals because it just is. Because people instinctively know the courts shouldn’t be politicized, you know, civics 101, courts should not be politicized, and people think that they aren’t and shouldn’t be. So I understand Trump using the word “politics” instead of “liberal.” But they’re a bunch of left-wing hacks, and two more of them on the Ninth Circuit three-judge panel.
Now, see, this doesn’t end here because the problem — Andy McCarthy wrote about this — let’s assume here that the Ninth Circuit upholds Judge Robart, Trump loses, and one of two things can happen there. The government can ask for the entire Ninth Circus to hear it. That’s called en banc. This a three-judge panel that can ask for all — I think it’s actually 19. There are many more judges at the Ninth Circuit, but some of them are long gone and they’re just there in name only. A lawyer being of counsel to a firm, name’s on the door, but doesn’t do any work. I think it’s actually 19 judges or thereabouts. And hardly ever is that granted. Appellate courts generally side with what their three-judge panels do.
So if they request en banc and it’s denied, it’s hello Supreme Court, where the assumption is that it’ll go 4-4 ’cause there are eight justices, and that would send the case back to the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that Trump lost, and that would be the end of it.
McCarthy writes: Wait a minute. It’s a mistake to assume this gonna go 4-4 because Anthony Kennedy, we can’t count on him on this, because Anthony Kennedy in couple of other cases has made it very clear he doesn’t like the judiciary being subordinated in these kinds of cases. He doesn’t like the fact the judiciary could just be swept aside. He doesn’t like the fact judiciary is told to stay out of matters like this.
The point is, it’s not a slam dunk that the Supreme Court would go 4-4, and it could go 5-4, either way, you just don’t know. There ought not be any debate. This is what’s wrong with the judicial system. This is where we are because of liberal hacks who are judges, because the law on this is just crystal clear; there is no alternative view of this. And now the left is saying to the judges during oral argument, “Yeah, did you hear what the president said during his campaign? He said he wanted to ban all Muslims, all the time.”
That’s not relevant. Objection! Relevance! Throw it out. You can’t start talking about — a responsible judge would shut down any lawyer who made that argument before he finished the sentence. We’re talking about the law. These left-wing liberal judge hacks are now telling us what they think was in the president’s mind and whether it’s moral or not, according to their political beliefs. It’s just bad.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, now, let me make another point here, folks. I want you to buckle in for this. You think Donald Trump is president; he is. You think he won the election; he did. Ever since Judge Robart stayed the executive order that Trump issued putting a temporary ban on all entry to the U.S. from people from those seven states and Syria, get this, the Washington Examiner: “Since President Trump’s immigration restrictions on seven nations were sidelined by a federal judge last weekend, the State Department,” which effectively Trump runs now, “has rushed in 100 Syrians, according to a report.”
The State Department of Donald Trump, clearly with a lot of Clinton and Obama holdovers in there, 100 Syrians. Syria was a nation mentioned in this list, and their ban was ongoing. It was not to be lifted in 90 days; it was permanent for however long. And the State Department has just looked at Trump and basically gone (raspberry) you, because in just two days, the State Department has rushed in 100 Syrians.
“From February 5 to February 7, 15 Syrian refugees were sent to New York, 10 to Virginia, 9 to Texas, and the rest to 11 other states, according to State Department numbers posted by Refugee Resettlement Watch.” Here’s the kicker. “Those let into the United States were vetted by the United Nations,” not us, all because a leftist hack judge stayed Trump’s executive order.
Does anybody have any doubt what the left is trying to do here? This is a willful, purposeful attempt to corrupt and undermine this country. One hundred Syrian refugees. Now, some of them may be perfectly fine. That’s not the point. The United Nations vetting them? That’s supposed to make it okay? This is the Trump State Department.
Daily Caller: “New Poll Shows Most Americans Support President Trump’s Immigration Ban.” It’s an Investor’s Business Daily poll. The public that voted for him is still with him. That’s that.
