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unidentified
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For landmark health care legislation, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. | |
| Watch our American History TV series, First 100 Days, Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | ||
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
| Back with us at our desk, it's Tom Fitton. | ||
| He's president of the group Judicial Watch. | ||
| It's been about a year since we've had you on, so for viewers who may not be familiar, what is Judicial Watch? | ||
| What's your mission? | ||
| How are you funded? | ||
| We're a nonprofit educational foundation funded by the public, no USAID funding, and we sue the government for documents. | ||
| We sue the government when they engage in wrongdoing. | ||
| For instance, we've been doing work on election integrity, cleaning up voter rolls. | ||
| We've been challenging reparations programs and woke racism, as I call it. | ||
| So we're kind of a conservative version of the ACLU. | ||
| And we are, when it comes at least to open records laws, the number one litigator in the country on terms of government transparency. | ||
| Conservative version of the ACLU, does your mission or your tactics change when there's a Republican in the White House versus a Democrat in the White House? | ||
| You know, if you'd asked me 20 years ago, I probably would say, oh, yeah, things change, but things don't change that much. | ||
| We have to sue the government to get access to information, no matter who's in office. | ||
| You may have support from the president individually on transparency issues, but the agencies are really slow to follow any direction in that regard. | ||
| I joke, the resting state of the deep state is secrecy. | ||
| And all things being equal, they're not going to give you the material. | ||
| How do you get the material? | ||
| You say you sue the government. | ||
| Where do you go to sue the government? | ||
| Well, there's a federal Freedom of Information Act, and what happens is you ask for the records, and more or less, you give them some time to respond or not respond. | ||
| And depending on the nature of the response, you can actually go into federal court. | ||
| And then the agency has to come in and defend its withholdings or explain to the court why it is they need more time to respond. | ||
| And so you've got the federal version of that. | ||
| Also, you have the state version of those laws. | ||
| And sometimes the state laws are better than the federal law in terms of ensuring transparency and ensuring a quick government reaction. | ||
| So we sue at the federal level, obviously, mostly, but we have several FOIA or open records lawsuits at the state level as well on election integrity and other issues of public interest. | ||
| What's your opinion of federal judges? | ||
| My opinion of federal judges, the judiciary is a branch of the federal government established by our Constitution. | ||
| It's a separate but equal branch, and it's incumbent, in my view, kind of to get to the point, I think, of the topic here today potentially, for judges to apply the law fairly and neutrally without letting their political animus get in the way of it. | ||
| What is judicial activism? | ||
| Judicial activism is substituting your own personal views for the fair and neutral application of the law. | ||
| And it's a temptation for judges of both the left and the right. | ||
| It's like, oh, well, I know what the outcome of this particular case should be, and I'm going to figure out a way how to get there using the judicial process. | ||
| And that's not the way it's supposed to work. | ||
| You can have a philosophy as you approach issues, but you're really supposed to fairly apply the law without regard to party or partisanship. | ||
| The Washington Post has a story about cases pending in federal courts having to do with Trump executive orders. | ||
| This is the lead graph. | ||
| Unions, civil rights groups, and others are squaring off in court with the Trump administration filing roughly 140 lawsuits over the dismantling of cuts in agencies by Doge, firings of federal employees, immigration restrictions. | ||
| The challenges have blocked many of President Trump's initiatives for now, while the administration has won a few significant early victories. | ||
| Does that concern you, the number of lawsuits and the number of executive actions that have been blocked via federal courts? | ||
| The number of lawsuits doesn't concern me because I recognize President Trump is engaged in an unprecedented strategy of reform that's really broad and hard to keep up with. | ||
| So it's no surprise that his political opponents or people who think they're being harmed are suing. | ||
| What's concerning is how many judges are kind of what I would, I'm not a lawyer, but I've enough unfortunate experience in litigation with the government, is how quickly these courts are interfering with the presidential powers, duties, and responsibilities and granting emergency relief to these individuals in ways I don't think the law allows for. | ||
| So there's this almost panic judicial decision-making that's more political than constitutional in my view. | ||
| And that's what's concerning. | ||
| Everyone has a right to sue within the law. | ||
| But courts are supposed to police requests for relief that aren't really appropriate under the law. | ||
| I want to sue on all sorts of things. | ||
| And the lawyers will say, Tom, well, you can sue, but the question is whether you'll be successful. | ||
| And the problem is the perception is that if you're a conservative pursuing this type of claim against a Democrat administration, you would not get this reaction from the judiciary that is so helpful to the left. | ||
| Now, in the end, Trump may win more than he loses, but the process is the punishment. | ||
| And in my view, you have judges usurping the executive and legislative powers and pausing self-government for months based on a legal pretext to cover a political animus. | ||
| When should a federal judge be impeached and removed? | ||
| When? | ||
| Well, the Constitutional envisions, obviously, impeachment for the traditional corruption, bribery, crimes, either ethics crimes, obvious ethics crimes, someone taking money for a judicial decision or obstructing justice, the way some judges actually were accused of doing and impeached for, and removed. | ||
| And the interesting thing about the impeachment power is that the founders were concerned, not the founders, but Americans were concerned about the Constitution and whether it gave the judiciary too much power. | ||
| And in the Federalist papers, they said, don't worry, if you have a judicial usurpation of the powers of the other departments or the other branches of government, the legislative or the executive, there are a few things. | ||
| They said the judiciary is weak. | ||
| It really can't enforce its powers without the support of the other branches. | ||
| And also you have this complete security of impeachment. | ||
| So impeachment was put in there not just to check corrupt judges in the criminal sense of the word, but judges who act outside their power. | ||
| And there's been really no impeachment of that nature, kind of impeachment of activist judges, as I would call it, since 1804. | ||
| And there was one judge who was justice who was impeached. | ||
| He wasn't removed. | ||
| But there's only been impeachments for corruption since then, not on activist judges. | ||
| And I think it should be discussed. | ||
| If I were Jim Jordan or the House leadership, I'd be holding hearings on the impeachment power. | ||
| Is it likely to result in anyone being removed? | ||
|
unidentified
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No. | |
| Even impeached? | ||
| Maybe not. | ||
| But I think some of the judges who have been involved here, I think you'll find if they wanted to do a serious impeachment inquiry, a series of rulings, not just one ruling, showing that the judge is activist and doesn't respect his oath to stay within his lane, which is to make judgments based on a neutral application of the law as opposed to basically being a politician in robes. | ||
| On hearings, I should note the House Judiciary Committee today holding hearing the title Judicial Overreach and the Constitutional Limits of the Federal Court, examining the judicial powers of the federal court. | ||
| You can look for coverage on the C-SPAN networks for that for this next 30 minutes or so. | ||
| Tom Finton is with us, a man who knows the federal courts very well, president of JudicialWatch, JudicialWatch.org. | ||
| If you want to call in, phone lines, as usual, Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| As folks are calling in, along with that hearing, the House is also going to vote on the No Rogue Rulings Act this week, which would strip individual federal judges of the power that they have been using to have injunctions that would affect the entire country. | ||
| The legislation would allow their injunctions to affect the individuals that come before their court. | ||
| Do you know about this legislation? | ||
| What do you think about it? | ||
| I do know about it. | ||
| The concern is we can always, there's always a way you can construct an argument where or a case where a universal injunction is appropriate, where someone comes in and sues over a federal government program or decision, and the judge says, I need to shut this whole thing down across the board. | ||
| But the problem is there's been what many people, both the left and the right, see to be abuses. | ||
| You know, Biden's people complained about universal injunctions. | ||
| Trump's been subject to more universal injunctions than any other president in history. | ||
| And the thinking is that if someone goes and sues, that the person who's suing should be given the relief. | ||
| Like, for instance, in this Venezuelan deportation problem over the Alien Enemies Act, you had five people go in and sue. | ||
| And the judge immediately granted a class action and essentially said no one can be removed throughout the entire country under this proclamation. | ||
| And in theory, everyone who's subject to be removal has to come before my court. | ||
| You know, that's not the way it's supposed to work. | ||
| So there are a few ways this can be checked. | ||
| You can pass legislation to limit the scope of the injunction power. | ||
| I think the Supreme Court, and I didn't get a chance to go back and look at the, there were a few media analyses of this. | ||
| The Supreme Court can change the federal court rules in a way that would restrict the use of the injunction power. | ||
| And of course, another thing that Congress could do is support the president by making, by kind of not ratifying what he's done, but by furthering what he's already talked about. | ||
| If he wants to shut down USAID, well, defund it. | ||
| If he wants to shut down Department of Education and there's a fight about that scope of his power in terms of restricting it to its bare statutory minimum, Congress should defund it. | ||
| And my frustration is Congress has kind of been slow on the ball in defending and protecting the taxpayer interest in President Trump's efforts to curtail waste fraud and abuse. | ||
| Why would a Republican House and Senate be slow on the ball in that for a Republican in the White House? | ||
| What's the reason you think it is? | ||
| The Republican leadership will tell you all sorts of reasons why they can't get things done. | ||
| I think it's close. | ||
| I think in the House, it's very close. | ||
| And there might be more support for this wasteful spending among Republicans than some Republicans would care to admit to. | ||
| Tom Fenton, with us. | ||
| Always happy to take your phone calls. | ||
| And we will start in Florida. | ||
| Brian, Republican line. | ||
| Brian, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Very close. | |
| Brian, you with us? | ||
| Yeah, just turn down your television so we can hear you clearly. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm looking for share with you. | |
| Turn down the television. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And go ahead with your question or comment there, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay, my question is overreach by local judges is, I think, unconstitutional because they're district judges. | |
| They're not the judges for the whole country. | ||
| And that should be contained to just one specific incident, but they can't make a ruling for the whole country as far as deporting illegal criminals that are obviously don't belong in this country. | ||
| Tom Fenton? | ||
| I mean, that's the heart of the debate, right? | ||
| And there was a decision last yesterday, I believe it was, by a Obama appointee in California that reversed the president's efforts to reverse President Biden's outrageous decision, in my view, to grant temporary protective status to over 600,000 Venezuelans. | ||
| So now the president can't deport any Venezuelans if this TPS, this temporary protective status, applies to them. | ||
| One judge is taking over our immigration policy, substituting his views on national security and what many people consider to be the unrevealable discretion of the president to remove illegal aliens in most circumstances. | ||
| And only because I have a headline on the topic, 350,000 is the number, at least according to the Washington Times story. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yeah, the immediate issue is 350. | ||
| The long-term issue is, I think, makes it up to 600. | ||
| To Mark here in D.C., Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| How are you all doing? | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I think that Congress really has a role in all of this and just doesn't seem to be stepping into what they need to be doing. | ||
| But maybe more importantly, when this process creates a mistake, as it has with Kilmar Armando Obrego-Garcia, a gentleman who is, it appears, incorrectly deported to El Salvador. | ||
| I believe the administration needs to take immediate steps today. | ||
| This should be their one mission this morning to getting this man back, or at least, if not getting him back immediately, understanding what the process is for getting him back. | ||
| And I think the judges have a role in this because there needs to be some sort of gatekeeping device so things like this don't occur. | ||
| Illegal are immigrants who should not be here, people who are violating our laws should be lawfully deported, correct? | ||
| But when there's a mistake made, how do we fix that and fix it today to get this man back where he belongs with his family? | ||
| I don't know the person he's referencing, so I don't have any way to comment on it. | ||
| This is Martha in Rankin, Texas, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I've followed Mr. Fenton for a few years along with Mike Davis. | ||
| And it's funny because I always thought Mr. Fenton was an attorney. | ||
| And I want to ask about his previous appointment in Trump's first term where he was appointed to actually judge the judges. | ||
| Wouldn't he have to be a lawyer in order to be qualified to judge judges? | ||
| I'm just kind of curious how that position worked for him and what he found in that position. | ||
| Any judges were picked off the bench or anything like that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Talk about your career. | ||
| So I was appointed by President Trump to the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure in 2020. | ||
|
unidentified
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And you don't have to be a lawyer to be a member of the commission. | |
| There are several non-lawyers on the commission. | ||
| And it essentially provides oversight over judges here in the District of Columbia who, for want of a better way of putting it, are municipal or state court judges who are appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate. | ||
| And so in theory, the power allows us to remove judges on the account of ethical misconduct or disability. | ||
| Did anybody get removed? | ||
| It happens from time to time. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What is the ethical misconduct that most often comes up in these sort of cases? | ||
| It's usually a failure to do their job. | ||
| My impression is. | ||
| You break ethics rules if you're not being a good judge, if you're not adjudicating cases in a timely way, if you're not doing your job. | ||
| And that's, you know, people rely on judges to do their job in order to get timely justice. | ||
| And in some cases, not getting timely justice can be dangerous. | ||
| Timely justice. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| Explain more. | ||
| If I have a brief on a matter of importance or a matter of importance generally, and I just don't want to adjudicate it, they keep on delaying and delaying and delaying. | ||
| And it's not only that case, but many other cases. | ||
| What's an egregious example that you've seen of that happening? | ||
| Well, I don't want to go on memory because, you know, I'm in a sensitive position, but it's happened where judges just haven't done their job and we've had to step in. | ||
| Marcia is in Georgia Republican. | ||
| You're on with Tom Fenton. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| You break ethics rules. | ||
| Marcia, you're with us. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| You're on with Tom Fenton. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, I am. | |
| Mr. Fenton. | ||
| I'm not understanding because actually we do have three executive branches and Trump is overreaching. | ||
| Actually, I don't understand why he's in the office anyway. | ||
| He's a felon. | ||
| And we don't vote felons. | ||
| They can't even vote. | ||
| And you sound like you're a sick of fan of Trump. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Marcia. | ||
| You know, if the president overreaches, you can be sued, right? |