Trump Smacked Down by Judge Who Haunted Him in the Past
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A senior federal judge in New York, Alvin Hellerstein, has just ruled during an afternoon hearing that Donald Trump and the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act to try to remove and deport people to El Salvador, to the killer jails of Seacott,

is the equivalent of the Inquisition and medieval. And in response, the Department of Justice had the balls to say out loud that they see due process as a flexible standard. See, I thought Monday morning when Donald Trump posted on his social media, "We can't give due process to everyone."

I thought that showed a fundamental lack of understanding by the commander in chief, the chief legal officer of the fundamentals of our constitutional bedrock. But now I see the lawyers are taking the tone from the top and they're telling federal judges that habeas corpus is a flexible standard. Well, Judge Hellerstein doesn't think so. In fact, even though the Supreme Court

It's ruling back in early April in the JGG case in which they said six to three, well, you can use the Alien Enemies Act for now, but there's got to be due process. There's got to be notice. And they didn't define it. Judge Hellerstein has defined it. He's told the parties, particularly the government, exactly what they need to do in terms of notice, exactly what they need to do in terms of due process in the habeas corpus world. And for those...

Venezuelans and others that are in his jurisdiction, the Southern District of New York, especially based on the Supreme Court's ruling on Saturday at 1 a.m., they're not going anywhere without due process until he's satisfied. And he decided to get his pound of flesh today with the lawyers there. Again, Drew Ensign. Drew Ensign's like the zealot. He shows up in every room. He's like a bad version of Forrest Gump.

He's in every historical room making all the wrong decisions. You made the right decision. You're on Midas Touch and on Legal AF. Let me jump right into it. We had a hearing today in the afternoon. I'm going to do some reporting on that about what was people in the room and what they heard Judge Hellerstein say. But let me tell you how we got here. Early April,

Supreme Court says, nah, we don't want to class action in D.C. to handle this issue. We want individual or at least habeas corpus petitions filed wherever these people are located. Well, the ACLU and others were able to bring the case in Colorado, in New York, Southern District of Texas, Northern District of Texas. That's where all these Venezuelans were.

At that moment. And so they rushed to court and they got Judge Hellerstein in the Southern District of New York that covers Manhattan and Brooklyn and the Bronx and different. It covers Manhattan and Orange County and different places there. So he issued his order. Now, here's what his order said, which he issued in on April the 11th, just a few days after the United States Supreme Court made their ruling.

The Supreme Court, in its per curiam opinion of April 7th in Trump versus JGG, ordered enjoying the removal of provisionally certified class of all non-citizens in U.S. custody who are subject to the president's proclamation.

Since in a habeas case venue is proper only in the district of confinement, held that an individual subject to detention and removal under the Alien Enemies Act is entitled to judicial review and ruled that detainees being held pursuant to the AEA are entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard in such a manner as to allow them to seek habeas relief in the proper venue.

He found that the petitioners are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims. And this is where you can individually attack Donald Trump's attempted use at using the AEA, the Alien Enemies Act. But this judge, Judge Hellersine, said neither the AEA nor the presidential proclamation authorizes removal of detainees or other persons similarly situated without notice and a hearing.

or they will suffer irreparable harm. Ordered, this was his order that we were there on the hearing about today. The pending further orders of this court, the government has ordered not to remove petitioners.

A subject to that invocation of the Alien Enemies Act from the United States, unless upon notice and hearing and such notice shall be in English and Spanish, the language of those sought to be expelled and if needed, Spanish to English interpreters shall be provided for hearings. And then he went through all the different ways that has to happen. They had a status conference today.

Hellerstein wasn't happy. And that's where he started to invoke medieval times. And I don't mean the restaurant where people are dressed like for medieval times. Yeah.

The Department of Justice, here's what Hellerstein said, absent these decisions by these various courts, people would be removed. Judge Sotomayor, and that's in her dissent in the Supreme Court ruling, has shown the preparations the government made to remove people, that there would be irreparable harm is obvious. The jails in El Salvador are not appetizing to say the least. He went on to say the following,

From the bench, he said, after detailing the horrific conditions in Seacott, which he said were irreparable harm, he said, what way is that to treat a human being?

It was a brutal hearing for the government. He compared all of the treatment and how they're being rushed out of the country to avoid jurisdiction and being sent to El Salvador as being compared to the Inquisition-like medieval times. He also said, what is the rush? They're in custody. Obviously, the rush is, of course, to take them out of the federal jurisdiction.

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Wow, run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. Let me read you a couple of other notes from the courtroom, so to speak. The Department of Justice lawyers are trying to argue they gave proper notice and the judge is questioning the type of notice they were given and the type of hearing they were given.

Judge Hellerstein, the ACLU's Mr. Gallant argued there has to be notice sufficient to contest the allegations. An English form doesn't do it. The Supreme Court granted an administrative stay and we'll see going forward describing what happened at one o'clock in the morning on Saturday. Hellerstein said, I've seen the pictures of these people bent over. How is that any way to treat people? Is a tattoo actual hostilities?

And then the Department of Justice lawyer said there was just a Tren de Aragua indictment just the other day. Yeah, there was also a Tren de Aragua dismissal just the other day of an indictment. So...

What's gonna happen now? I mean, this is exactly what the Supreme Court wanted This is exactly what Donald Trump didn't want which is he didn't want hundreds or thousands of individual habeas corpus petitions Flooding into the lawsuit to the courthouses, but that's what has to happen There's no other way to administer look the Supreme Court could have thought of a number of different ways to handle this but once they went down the road of habeas corpus

petitions, which has really never been used to stop deportation and removal, then you were going to have individual judges like Judge Hellerstein, the judge in Colorado, the judge in the Southern District of Texas, all making rulings.

And what Trump missed in his being debriefed about the result of the April 7th Supreme Court ruling, which he cheered as being in his favor, is that the Supreme Court said these people can individually challenge whether the Alien Enemies Act was properly invoked by Donald Trump. Why are we at war with Venezuela? How are these people enemy combatants?

These are things that judges like Hellerstein are going to get to the bottom of. Now, you might remember Judge Hellerstein.

And Donald Trump certainly does, because Hellerstein ruled against Donald Trump a number of times as Donald Trump tried to remove his case brought against him for sex abuse and defamation by E. Jean Carroll, one that he lost twice, was found to have sex abused. E. Jean Carroll under New York law was awarded, she was awarded almost $100 million in damages. She was also defamed by him. He wanted to get that out of the federal courts and get it out of the state courts in New York and get it over to the federal courts. And the judge defamed.

having looked at the record and having heard testimony, said, I don't think a private affair, literally, of this person while they were running for president or otherwise is an official conduct that gives him the right for federal officer removal. So Hellerstein is no stranger to Donald Trump, but he's doing his job here.

You know, and we appreciate it. We're going to continue to follow how individual judges and the American Civil Liberties Union are trying to keep the Trump administration's feet to the fire, keep due process and the Fifth Amendment privileges and Fifth Amendment rights alive against Donald Trump, who wants to kill them all because they're flexible and it would be too hard to do.

If you're trying to put somebody in, let me make this simple for you. I see this has to be simplified and dumbed down for our president of the United States and his Department of Justice. If you're trying to put somebody in jail, no matter where those jails are located, in the United States or in some foreign country or some block ops torture center, before you do it, you have to give them proper notice first.

That effectuates due process, doesn't undermine due process and bring them before a judge in a black robe for the due process they are required. And if you win at the end of that, then you can send them to wherever you want, subject to the Geneva Convention, the Convention Against Torture and the Eighth Amendment Against Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

That's it. It's not that hard. You make it very hard in order to confuse your voters. But we try to simplify it here on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. So while you're here, hit the subscribe button. Have you heard? The Midas Touch Brothers podcast got the Webby, the Oscar for podcast of the year.

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