This is Bloomberg Law with June Graasso

from Bloomberg Radio.

Former national security adviser John

Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to a

single count of retaining classified

information and pay a $2.25 million fine

under a deal with the Justice Department

first reported by CNN. The deal would

resolve the criminal case filed in

October that charged Bolton with 18

counts of either retaining or

disseminating classified information,

including diarylike notes from his time

in government that officials say he

shared with his family members as he was

preparing a memoir about his time in

office. Bolton is expected to submit the

change of plea at a rearrangement

hearing at the US District Court in

Maryland on June 26th. My guest is

national security expert Brad Moss, a

partner at Mark Zade. Brad Bolton had

said that he was targeted for political

reasons. His lawyer had argued that the

conduct at issue was reviewed years

earlier and deemed not criminal. And

Bolton vowed to defend what he said was

lawful conduct. So, are you surprised

that he's taking a plea and folding at

this point?

>> So, I think there are multiple factors

that came into this for John Bolton.

One, you have to think of time and

expense. Even if he's victorious, even

if he takes this, you know, through

pre-trial motions and ultimately to

trial, even if he succeeds and is

acquitted, that's going to be

potentially millions of dollars in legal

fees, all kinds of time of stress and

effort. and he had to look at it from

the view of is there a way that I can

mitigate the pain, not put my family

through all of this and potentially

still either avoid prison time or

minimize it. And so I think that's

likely why they took this step. I mean,

and you have to think about it, there

were numerous charges in the original

indictment. Um, I think it was at least

10. This is down to a single charge of

retention of national defense

information that he's pleading guilty

to. It speaks a bit to some of the

weaknesses that would have existed in

the government's case. There absolutely

would have been the vindictive

prosecution pre-trial motions that would

have had all kinds of fights over

discovery. There would have been fights

over whether or not he had declassified

it as an original classification

authority himself when he sent stuff

over. they would have invoked some of

Trump's arguments about how, you know,

he could have declassified things. So,

it would have gotten messy and it would

have dug into some of the underlying

weaknesses in the government's case if

this had gone through. So, you know,

that's why, you know, I'd say that

Bolton took this deal to minimize any

future pain and potentially get off with

no more than maybe 30 days or something

like that. I could easily see him

getting a very light sentence here. And

for the government, they get their scalp

and they get to go home.

>> Bolton has exposure here. He could face

anywhere from no time behind bars to

five years in prison. So that's

something that prosecutors can make a

recommendation on and the judge is free

to ignore it.

>> Whether it's a formal agreement or a

recommendation, that would be part of

the plea. If the judge chooses to go

beyond sort of what was recommended,

then Bolton has the option, of course,

to pull back that plea and move forward.

But you look at similar plea deals for

situations like this. Think about David

Petraeus who got off with a slap on the

wrist, got, you know, I don't know if he

even got probation. You know, you think

about Hillary Clinton. There wasn't even

an indictment because of the weaknesses

in the case. There's a lot of instances

where I could see a judge looking at

this saying, "You got the $2 million

fine. I might give you 30 days in prison

at most, or I might just put you on 3

years supervised probation." You know,

John Bolton, whatever my political and

policy differences with him, as far as I

know, has no criminal background. You

know, this would be a first-time

offender. So that would all play in his

favor in terms of limiting jail time

just like it would have for Donald Trump

if you know he hadn't won re-election.

He would have had that option of playing

up firsttime offender elderly man you

know card that John Bolton no doubt is

going to play up.

>> Is it a weakness in the case against him

that he didn't actually have the

classified documents? It was notes about

meetings I think.

>> Yeah. Everything as far as I can tell

and you know I had to relook through the

indictment myself to you know try to

refresh my memory was diaries which

doesn't make this okay. You can't

transcribe information into into an

unclassified diary that is information

you know is classified that you got from

classified documents. That's not like a

secret, you know, loophole to it. But

he's not the first and he's not going to

be the last who writes up these diaries

because everybody who works in

government at that kind of level

eventually wants to write a book and

make some money. So he had these

diaries. He arguably should have known

that the information he was documenting

in them and sharing with people was

classified. That was the crux of the

case. The weakness for the government

was going to be twofold. One, they were

going to have to do a whole lot of

classified discovery and classified

presentations to link where he got the

information to what he documented in the

diaries. So, that was going to be a

whole lot of classified information

procedures act work. But then they were

also going to have to get around this

issue of when have you ever otherwise

prosecuted someone for diaries? When

have you ever otherwise prosecuted

someone for talking about it to a family

member? As far as I know, no one's ever

gotten prosecuted in that context. It's

always been the documents. It was the

documents for Trump. It was the

documents for Petraeus. You know,

everybody else always had the actual

documents with classification markings

on them. And that just didn't exist here

for Bolton. You mentioned Petraeus. Do

cases about mishandling classified

documents often end in plea deals or do

they go to trial?

>> For the most part, they almost always

end in plea deals. There's rare

sort of exceptions to the rule. You

think about Jeffrey Sterling and the,

you know, the alleged leak to the Times

and what he had provided up to James

Ryzen that actually made it to a trial.

But for the most part, when people took

home classified documents, you know,

they think of the guy in Maryland from a

few years back, that was a plea deal.

Think of Edward Snowden, if he had ever

been prosecuted and gone to trial, was

in the United States, that would have

almost certainly gone to a plea deal.

Think of Chelsea Manning, who

ultimately, I believe, ended up some

sort of a plea deal. I know there was an

aspect that actually went to trial, but

the limitations on that. You know, in

the end, the government usually can win

that, but it becomes extremely

timeconsuming and burdensome because of

all the classified information that's

involved. There are procedures, you have

sea, there's a way to do it, but they

really don't like to.

>> I'm surprised in one sense that they

reached a plea deal here because I mean,

President Trump so obviously dislikes

Bolton. I would think that this wouldn't

make him very happy. He's going to get

the headline he wants. It's going to be

headlines today, the next couple days,

and then again when he's when Bolton is

sentenced saying Trump hater John Bolton

pleads guilty and is sentenced to XYZ

days for stealing classified, you know,

information. That's what he wants. He

doesn't actually care how long Bolton's

in jail. He cares about the headlines

and he cares about the procedural

stories because that feeds his ego and

they can run on that and say, "See, all

these people who came after me, they're

the ones who are really crooks."

>> This case started under the Biden

administration. But is this case

dissimilar to other cases against

Trump's perceived political enemies like

the Jim Comey case and the Leticia James

case? This was the one that when it

first came up, when they first did the

search warrants and then eventually when

they had the indictments, that a lot of

people who had cried foul about some of

these other cases like Comey, Leticia

James, Adam Schiff, Lisa Cook, everybody

kind of held their fire a bit because

there was some actual fire. It wasn't

just smoke. There was some legitimate

meat on this bone. And what Bolton did

certainly was not appropriate. whether

or not he would have lost that trial,

you know, 6 to5 and pick them, you know,

it's really hard to kind of know for

certain, especially in a jury pool in

District of Maryland that would have

played against Trump to an extent, but I

could certainly see him potentially

getting acquitted on several of the

charges, but there was something there.

There was a legitimate basis, which was

why it got started up in 2021 and which

is why it went ultimately to

prosecution. Now, whether or not they

would have ever bothered if it wasn't

John Bolton, that's something they would

have fought in the pre-trial motions

over selective prosecution.

>> So, here's a question I often ask

lawyers when there's some obvious

evidence that's found. Why would he keep

incriminating evidence at his home and

office for the FBI to find? Why not get

rid of it? So there's a level of

arrogance that comes into play for what

I would describe and this isn't a

liberal conservative Republican Democrat

thing. This is a senior level government

person thing when you've been at that

senior level for so long and everybody's

always handled everything for you on the

detail side for classified information.

You just kind of feel like you can do

whatever you want. He's not the only

one. Like I said, we saw what Petraeus

did. We saw how Clinton got tied up in

stuff. they get sort of disconnected

from the, you know, the nuts and bolts

of it and they start thinking, "Oh, I

can just keep this. No one's ever going

to care." And to be fair, most times the

government really doesn't care. They

don't have time to prosecute all these.

I guarantee you, if you went through the

house of every former senior official

from the last four administrations,

you'd find something. You'd find

diaries. You'd find notes. You'd find

any number of things that potentially

could be classified cuz people are

stupid and they're arrogant. So, I think

that played a role for Bolton, who had

been, you know, a senior official in two

different administrations, the man that

was the pinnacle of the idea of the DC

National Security Insider.

>> We'll see what happens in court on June

26th. Thanks so much, Brad. That's

national security expert Bradley Moss,

apartment Mark Zade.

on the verge of trial and after a

closed-d dooror hearing, there was a

stunning implosion of a case against a

group of protesters accused of blocking

a federal agent from an ICE facility in

the Chicago suburbs last year. The

reason, misconduct by federal

prosecutors at the grand jury. Judge

April Perry said her trust in

prosecutors had been broken after

finding that they improperly spoke to

grand jurors outside the grand jury

room, personally vouched for the

strength of the case, and excused grand

jurors who disagreed with the

government's case. It's not the first

instance of federal prosecutors in the

Trump administration having cases

dismissed because of misconduct in grand

jury proceedings. My guest is former

federal prosecutor Jimmy Gerle, a

professor at Notre Dame Law School. So,

Jimmy, here's the misconduct that Judge

Perry found. Improper prosecutorial

communications. Prosecutors spoke to

grand jurors outside the grand jury

room. A prosecutor personally vouched

for the strength of the case, and grand

jurors who had disagreed with the

government's case were excused from

deliberating. These aren't subtle

mistakes. They're pretty basic, aren't

they?

>> They're shocking. It's a scandal.

Prosecutors are supposed to be a

minister of justice, not a minister of

corruption, you know, dishonesty and

deception. And that's what we're we're

seeing here.

>> Is there any way they could have been

mistaken about any of this?

>> Only in in this regard. So, one of the

the interesting dynamics we've seen over

the last year is that a number of

prosecutors have left the Department of

Justice and these are some of the more

experienced prosecutors. And they have

left because many at least believe that

they've been placed in an untenable

situation where they've been required to

bring criminal charges when they didn't

think there was sufficient evidence to

support criminal charges or dismiss

criminal charges when they felt that the

case should go forward. And those more

experienced prosecutors are being

replaced by inexperienced prosecutors.

And I've seen this firsthand when I was

a federal prosecutor in the US

attorney's office in Los Angeles.

Individuals that were considered for an

an A USA position, which were considered

really prestigious positions, they

probably on average had close to five

years experience before being hired by

the Department of Justice. I had a

former student of mine here at Notre

Dame Law School who was recently hired

after she graduated from law school. She

had zero legal experience. She had

recently graduated from high school. And

so I think that could be one of the

problems that they're bringing in these

inexperienced lawyers to assume these

very, you know, difficult positions of

federal prosecutor

serious cases, complex cases, and they

just don't have the experience or they

don't have the training. So that would

be in essence to kind of give the

Department of Justice the benefit of the

doubt. But with respect to the

prosecutors in the Chicago case, I think

this was just the unjustifies

situation. You know, they wanted to get

indictments against the Chicago

protesters and they were going to take

no for answers. So basically, this was

an attempt to rig the grand jury system

to ensure that they would get the

indictments that they were seeking

>> because at least one was an experienced

prosecutor. I don't know about the

others. So the judge said, "I've read

hundreds, if not thousands of grand jury

transcripts involving prosecutors who

are the most junior of prosecutors. I

have never seen the types of

prosecutorial behavior before a grand

jury that I saw in those transcripts."

So let's go through some of what she

found so disturbing. Explain what's

wrong with personally vouching for your

case before a grand jury, saying, you

know, this case, this is a winning case.

I know it's a winning case. Something

like that. No, the grand jurors are to

make the decision of whether or not

there's probable cause to believe that a

crime has been committed and if so,

whether there's probable cause to

believe that the target of the grand

jury investigation committed the crime.

And those decisions should be made

exclusively on the evidence that's been

presented to the grand jury. Not the

prosecutor's opinion regarding the

strength of the case, the strength of

the evidence, but on the evidence

itself. And this is very basic

fundamental, you know, ethics,

professional responsibility 1.0. This

wasn't a mistake. I mean, this was just

a blatant violation of fundamental rules

of professional responsibility and

ethics. Also, I mean, talking about

blatant, talk about speaking to grand

jurors outside the grand jury room and

then dismissing some grand jurors. How

would they expect to get away with that?

I mean, is the problem that the grand

jury process is secret? And how does a

defense lawyer or a judge know what's

going on?

>> That's exactly the case. So, the grand

jury proceedings are secret proceedings

number onely by by the prosecutor. And

so because of the secretive nature of

the grand jury proceedings, I'm sure

that prosecutors think, well, whatever

we're doing that's improper, whatever

misconduct we're engaged in is not going

to be revealed. It's not going to be

disclosed.

>> And I mean, this is not the only case.

There was a case in in Wyoming. A panel

of three judges threw out nine

indictments, including some for murder

after the examination of the grand jury

proceedings revealed misconduct by the

US attorney himself. The Trump appointed

US attorney who had had no prosecal

experience at all. to your point. So,

you have inexperienced people leading a

US attorney's office and going before

grand juries, but some of this seems

really basic.

>> Oh, it is. It is very basic. You know,

there there's really no excuse. I mean,

this goes to just fundamental principles

of fairness and due process,

independence, impartiality. As I stated,

this is an attempt to rig the system to

obtain the result that the prosecutors

are seeking to obtain, which is shocking

considering the fact that the grand jury

system really favors prosecutors. As I

stated, there's no judge, there's no

defense lawyer. The standard of proof is

merely probable cause. And then in

addition, the prosecutor doesn't have to

prove probable cause by unanimous

determination of the grand jurors. It's

enough that 12, all they have to prove

is 12 of the 23 grand jurors. Just a

simple majority have concluded that

there's probable cause. And further, the

rules of evidence don't apply in the

grand jury room. So prosecutors can

introduce hearsay evidence, double

hearsay, triple hearsay evidence. And

despite all of these rules favoring the

prosecution, these prosecutors still

felt that it was necessary to rig the

system, they were confident that they

could prevail based upon those rules.

And they needed to reach out and have

improper contact with the members of the

grand jury with respect to grand jurors

that had ruled or decided against them

in prior cases. They decided, well,

let's just exclude those grand jurors.

We don't want them on the grand jury

because they might decide against us. I

mean, this is just shocking conduct and

most disturbing.

It's not limited to the fairness and the

injustice of the particular case, but it

creates a loss of trust. There's this

loss of trust in the Justice Department

that's beginning to emerge and judges

across the country are beginning to

question, can we really believe what the

prosecutor is saying? Can we really

trust the arguments and the

representation that prosecutors are

making? And when we get to that point,

that becomes a crisis. I think that

we're really on the verge of a crisis

within the Department of Justice.

>> Yeah. The judge in this case, Judge

April Perry, told Andrew Bros, who is

the Trump appointed US attorney for

Chicago, who appeared in court to

apologize for the mistakes made. Judge

Perry said, quote, I do believe deeply

in the presumption of regularity and

that most government attorneys are doing

the best they can to do the right thing.

That trust has been broken. And that's

been happening in courtrooms across the

country. And what we're beginning to see

is in more and more cases, defendants

are challenging, raising legal

challenges to the integrity of the

procedures, the process inside the grand

jury room. And this is now an an

argument that is being raised in

multiple cases across the country.

Again, challenging the regularity of

fairness, the presumption of regularity.

And again I think it is creating a

crisis of trust crisis of trust within

the department of justice and not only

with judges but I think more broadly

with the public at large. If the public

starts losing trust in the criminal

justice system starts losing trust in

the integrity of prosecutor's offices

then that does not speak well for the

future of criminal justice in this

country. As you mentioned, lawyers in

Don Lemon's case as well as the

indictment of the Southern Poverty Law

Center reference this Chicago case. So,

defense lawyers are trying to get the

transcripts of the grand jury

proceedings, which had always been super

super secret, shall we say? But, I mean,

Judge Perry is thinking of releasing the

grand jury transcripts here. How else

can defendants really find out what

happened in the grand jury room?

>> Well, that creates a problem because as

you stated, you know, grand jury secrecy

is is credible. It's embodied in rule 6

of the rules of criminal procedure. And

it's important because we want persons

that appear before the grand jury. We

want them to to testify openly, freely,

be frank, and open about what evidence

they may have. And if their identity is

going to be disclosed, then this could

have a chilling effect on their

willingness to participate in the grand

jury proceeding. So it has implications

far beyond the individual case. But when

this the seed of distrust has been

planted with the courts, with the

general public, we're going to see more

and more challenges to the integrity of

the grand jury process. And it could

have a chilling effect with respect to

witnesses willing to come forward and

testify before the grand jury for fear

that again the transfer is going to be

disclosed and maybe their identity maybe

their name might not be disclosed but

someone could determine their identity

based upon the testimony that is

presented to the grand jury

>> to show how I guess concerned the

Chicago US attorney is about this.

They're reaching out to defense

attorneys in cases that were handled by

these prosecutors and they've agreed to

give the defense the minutes of the

grand jury proceedings in their cases.

>> And again, this is totally unheard of.

In all the years that I worked as a

prosecutor, as an assistant US attorney,

as a DOJ prosecutor, this didn't happen.

What we're witnessing today is not

normal. You know, this is exceedingly

rare and it's very disturbing and it

raises serious consequences about

prosecutors that are engaging in this

misconduct and they should not be

leaving their ethics, their ethical

values outside the courtroom or outside

the grand jury room. We need prosecutors

that embrace honesty, justice that are

governed by those. And here's one advice

that I would give. Every prosecutor,

every federal prosecutor should read

Justice Jackson's speech. Robert

Jackson, former attorney general of the

United States. He gave an address to the

second annual US prosecutor's conference

in Washington DC in 1940. And there he

talked about the prosecutor stating that

while the prosecutor is his best one of

the most beneficent forces in our

society, when he acts from malice or

other base motives, he is one of the

worst. one of the worst forces. Those

words really need to be taken to heart

by every every prosecutor in this

country. They need to read this speech.

They should have this speech framed and

hung on the wall in their office.

>> The US attorney in Chicago in the press

release mentioned that speech by

Jackson. So, we've seen a lot of cases

not only in Chicago, but in DC and Los

Angeles related to immigration

sweeps where grand jurors have refused

to indict, which, you know, used to be

unheard of. And I'm wondering if they're

overcharging, is that why they're having

problems with grand juries?

>> Yeah, I think that's part of the

concern. I think part of the concern is

that the grand jurors are looking at

some of these charges and they're

looking at them and saying this just

doesn't seem right. There seems to be a

disconnect between the severity of the

charges that are being filed where

they're seeking indictment and the

conduct, the harm caused by the target

and the grand jury. You know, there's

this disconnect between the harm and the

severity of the charge and therefore

they're unwilling to return an

indictment. just doesn't seem

fundamentally fair to them. And I think

as a result of that, that might be one

of the reasons why prosecutors are

trying to game the grand jury system to

ensure that there's an indictment where

there may be reluctant grand jurors

unwilling to to indict because they

think that the case has been overcharged

by the prosecutor.

>> They're going to have a sanctions

hearing. Do you think that these

prosecutors will be sanctioned? Well,

it's possible this misconduct in the

Chicago case in particular is is quite

quite egregious. So, I think that there

could be some individual sanctions above

and beyond the dismissal uh of the

indictment. We'll wait and see. And and

that's part of the problem. You know,

part of the problem is that when

prosecutors engage in gross misconduct,

there are very few sanctions that they

are subjected to. And that's in large

part because of qualified immunity

because u internal disciplinary uh

proceedings within the bar is very

difficult. It's a very very high

standard high bar that has to be met in

order to to sanction the prosecutor. And

so there isn't much of a deterrent

effect. So if if you engage in this type

of misconduct, yeah, the case might be

dismissed, but there's nothing that's

going to happen to the prosecutor

personally for his or her misconduct.

And and I think that's a problem.

there's no price to pay. So if you're

not going to be sanctioned, then what's

a disincentive here for engaging this

kind of conduct?

>> The Chicago US Attorney's Office has

implemented a quote remediation plan for

its grand jury procedures, and that

includes increased and expanded

education about grand jury

presentations, extensive deep dive

training from national experts outside

the office.

>> You don't need deep dive training on the

violations that are at issue here. I

mean, the prohibition on vouching

regarding the evidence, that doesn't

need any kind of a deep dive. That's not

a a complicated issue that requires, you

know, extensive training. Dismissing

members of the grand jury that you don't

like. This stuff is just so

fundamentally basic. It doesn't require

any type of extensive extra deep dive

training for prosecutors to know right

from wrong on these very fundamental

issues. It's just so disturbing. You

know, we're seeing cases being dismissed

because of selective prosecution. We're

seeing grand jurors time and time again

failing to uh to bring charges because

they think the evidence doesn't support

the charges or they've been overcharged

by the prosecutor. And all of it is just

it's really damaged the reputation of

the Department of Justice. And it's

going to take, I think, years and years

to regain that trust with the judiciary,

with members of the court, with the

general public. This is going to be

damaged. It's going to be long lasting.

It's not going to be quickly remedied.

>> I'm sure we're going to hear a lot more

when grand jury transcripts are released

in some of these cases. Thanks so much

for joining me, Jimmy. That's Professor

Jimmy Gerle of Notre Dame Law School.

Only 15 federal judges have been

impeached in our nation's history. The

House hasn't moved forward with an

impeachment proceeding in 16 years, even

though Republicans have filed

impeachment resolutions for a number of

federal judges who've ruled against the

Trump administration. However, House

Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan is

considering congressional action against

a Georgia federal judge for a very

different reason. The judge had an

affair in her chambers and lied to

judiciary officials about it. Joining me

is Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Manac.

Suzanne, I've never heard of a scandal

quite like this in the courts. Tell us

what happened. A judicial misconduct

committee found in a decision released

uh in late May that a federal judge,

unnamed in the decision, had been having

an affair inside of her chambers uh

during business hours and an earshot of

her clerks with a commander in the

police department. The decision didn't

name the judge, but did provide a number

of biographical details both about her

and the man she was having the affair

with. and Bloomberg Law has confirmed

through those details and additional

reporting that the judge is Judge

Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of

Georgia. Obviously, this was a violation

of judicial codes of conduct. Um the

committee, however, recommended a

private reprimand by not publicizing her

name and didn't recommend that she be

removed from the bench. Instead, that

she write apology letters to her clerks.

And so if Bloomberg Law hadn't found

this out, the people that came in front

of her, the defendants, the plaintiffs,

wouldn't have known whether or not she

has a conflict that they should protest.

>> That's correct. And that's something

that we've heard a lot about from legal

ethicists who've weighed in on this case

to say that, you know, that's correct.

By not publicizing her name, it does

take away the opportunity for a

potential litigant in her courtroom to

to raise a conflict concern or to

request recusal from a case. That was

one of the reasons that might have

leaned in favor of releasing her name,

but ultimately it's not the decision the

11th Circuit came to. They also did take

a look to see if she'd had any um cases

where the Atlanta Police Department was

a party during the relevant period of

time uh during which she was having the

affair with the police officer and they

determined that she had not. So the 11

Circuit on their own just said, you

know, we don't see a conflict here. But

they did concede that it had raised a

risk of conflict and even made a point

of noting that she hadn't herself taken

any efforts to be taken off those cases.

She had essentially just gotten lucky

and not been given any of them. And I

should also note that she was

additionally reprimanded for lying about

some of this conduct, which may end up

being among the more serious charges.

Yes. And the judiciary chair said a key

fact is that she lied to the judges

investigating her misconduct. And there

was another instance where a judicial

council found that the judge acted

improperly.

>> That's correct. She attended a campaign

watch party for the primary for district

attorney Fanny Willis a couple of years

ago. That party was found to have been

an inappropriate political event for a

federal judge to go to and we've already

seen one recusal request from the

Justice Department based on that conduct

in a voting rights case down in Georgia.

>> A recusal request. So initially it's up

to the judge to decide whether to recuse

herself or not. What are legal ethics

experts telling you about this request

for recusal on the voting case?

>> I've been told that they don't see it as

frivolous. Uh for one, I think this is a

case in which the Justice Department is

seeking Georgia voter registration

information. It's a lawsuit against the

Secretary of State's office at Brad

Rafflesburgger. And um they're making

the argument that because this judge has

clearly a friendship with DA Fanny

Willis and attended her victory party

that this counts as an endorsement of

her of the Democratic party. Fanny

Willis, of course, is the DA who brought

criminal charges against President

Donald Trump during the last

administration uh related to his efforts

to overturn his 2020 election loss.

They're making the case that this shows

that she should not be allowed to

preside over cases involving election

integrity efforts um in this space. She

has yet to decide that motion. Um, but

it has been filed and is pending.

>> The ethics experts, did they say what

they thought an appropriate punishment

would be for her misconduct?

>> A lot of people we spoke to felt that

her name should have been publicly

revealed by the judiciary. Because of

course, even when we see the Justice

Department's request for recusal, they

were relying on our and other news

reports that have floated her name. The

judiciary has not on its own confirmed

this name. They haven't denied it, but

they have not come out and confirmed it.

And a lot of ethic has said that this

would have made it a lot easier for

litigants um if that name had been

published. And while it's true that a

federal judges may not be as likely to

hear local police cases, it may come up

in the civil rights context and it's not

impossible there could be a context in

which this would come up. And so the

fact that they withheld their name did

take away the opportunity for litigants

to consider if there may be a conflict.

It just creates uncertainty. Let's turn

to a completely different subject, but

one that I'm really interested in and

you're covering. A judge has ordered

that President Donald Trump's name be

removed from the Kennedy Center

building. Tell us more.

>> Last week, the Trump administration was

dealt yet another blow in federal court,

this time by a Washington federal judge

who found that they had acted improperly

with regard to the Kennedy Center for

Performing Arts here in Washington. The

judge ordered the Kennedy Center to

remove Trump's name uh from the letters

on its facade. Trump had of course

attempted to rename the Kennedy Center

to be the Donald J. Trump and John F.

Kennedy Center. I should say it's a

memorial to to John F. Kennedy,

obviously our former president. And the

judge found that Congress had intended

the building to be named for JFK and for

JFK only. Um they also uh the judge also

came and stopped the administration from

a planned 2-year closure of the Kennedy

Center beginning this summer for

renovations. That's something that the

Kennedy Center's board um mostly of

handpicked board members by President

Donald Trump uh in who who chairs this

board. That board had voted in March to

close the center for two years for

renovations. And the judge found that

they just had not received enough

information to have made that decision.

They said that he said that the board

had considered really a one-sided

presentation and a predetermined

outcome. So, the board is free to decide

to vote again to close the center for

renovations, but they're required to

consider more information if they do

come to that conclusion. The judge also

made clear that needed repairs to the

Kennedy Center are permitted. So, it's

not that they can't touch the building,

um, but they have to take Trump's name

off the outside and they can't just

decide to close it for 2 years, uh,

without more information under

consideration. And in the case of

Trump's ballroom, work is still going on

even though a federal judge found that

it was not a legal construction.

>> That's correct. When it comes to the

ballroom, the administration has gotten

an order from the DC circuit that allows

them to continue with construction while

proceedings continue. So, while we've

seen a lot from Trump and others about

how the courts are, you know, messing

with his plans for the ballroom and in,

you know, affecting national security,

in fact, construction has not been

interrupted. Certainly, there's probably

some uncertainty for them, but uh

construction has continued unavated and

the DC circuit will actually be hearing

oral arguments in the White House

ballroom case and this coming Friday on

June 5th. So, that case is moving at a

pretty fast rate. Um so, we'll see how

the how the appeals court ends up

deciding on the merits.

>> Do you know who's on that panel? Because

so often, sadly, in these cases

involving Trump, it ends up being

Democratic appointees on one side and

Republican appointees on the other. The

DC circuit um has a three judge panel

that will hear the appeal. It's judges

Patricia Mallette, judges Naomi Ralph,

and Bradley Garcia. Both judges Garcia

and Mlette are Democratic appointees,

and Judge Ralph is a first

administration Trump appointee.

>> So, we'll see tomorrow how those

arguments go. Thanks so much, Suzanne.

That's Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne

Manac.

And that's it for this edition of the

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