Trump Counters ‘Abuses of the Legal System’ | CLIP | Crossroads

[Music] [Applause] the actions of President Donald Trump have been regularly getting stalled or blocked by courts now you might have seen many of these are in turn brought about by lawsuits from various you know agencies a handful of them usually and now Donald Trump is taking actions to prevent the attorneys and law firms from blocking the actions of the president the White House said this presidential action quote memorandum for the attorney general and the Secretary of Homeland Security subject preventing abuses of the legal system and the federal court lawyers and law firms that engage in actions that violate the laws of the United States or rules governing attorney conduct must be efficiently and effectively held accountable now it notes this accountability is especially important when misconduct by lawyers and law firms according to Trump threatens our National Security Homeland security Public Safety or election integrity and of course a lot of his actions are around deportations and that is become National Security and Homeland Security because he has designated gangs as Terror organizations and he's alleging that if we're at war with terrorists or for getting rid of gangs or if it involves election Integrity well this deals with the National Security which is the jurisdiction of the executive branch meaning the president and he's arguing the judicial branch should not be able to to overreach into some of these areas now it notes this as well Federal rule of civil procedure 11 prohibits attorneys from engaging in certain unethical conduct in federal courts attorneys must not present legal filings for improper purposes including to harass cause a necessary delay or needlessly increase the cost of litigation in not attorneys must ensure that legal arguments are warranted by existing law or by a non-frivolous argument for extending modifying or reversing existing law or for establishing new law and it says attorneys must ensure that their statements about facts are reasonably based on evidentiary support or a belief that such evidence actually exists when these commands are violated opposing parties are authorized to file a motion for sanctions it notes the text of the rule specifically addresses the and provides for sanctions for attorneys and their firms as well as for recaller parties to give the solemn obligation that attorneys have to respect the rule of law and uphold other nations legal systems with integrity and furthermore rule 3.1 of the model rules of professional cond provides that quote a lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding or assert or controvert an issue therein unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous which includes a good good faith argument for an extension modification or reversal of existing law now this is all important and I'll explain in just a moment but Trump says this unfortunately far too many attorneys and law firms have long ignored these requirements when litigating against the federal government or in pursuing baseless partisan attacks to address these concerns he says I hereby direct the Attorney General to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous unreasonable and V vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive departments and the agencies of the United States now look let's dig into this the point here that attorneys are not legally allowed to file lawsuits if the intent is to harass cause unnecessary delay or needlessly increase the litigation the cost of litigation that's interesting because look when it comes to politics this is kind of common uh sometimes there's a goal even publicly stated in some cases of using lawsuits to delay things part of the agenda some would say when it comes to the lawsuits against Trump right now is to delay his actions until the midterms delay it as much as they can hope they can get somebody in place maybe the Democrats could retake the House of Representatives in order to stall Trump because otherwise he has effectively control of the whole government right now legal intervention is the only thing they can do to prevent Trump from doing what he wants to do and if again Democrats are able to get control of the house or the Senate it means that they can block most of his actions they don't need both they just need one or the other the other issue is when the president is using executive action right executive orders and so on meaning he bypasses that Pro that whole process the only way they can block that is through the courts and one of the ideas is of course you can delay things you can stop it you can put a hold on things let it go through the court system that might take I don't know a year two years three years and before you know it you know it's election season yet again and most of the president's actions have been stalled or blocked uh it's generally understood that this is kind of the way politics Works to an extent and it's been kind of common that law firms do these things and it also ties into the whole spectrum of you know legal Warfare law fair the use of law as a weapon the use of law as a political tool the use of law for methods outside the normal spectrum of just litigating cases right in other words you're using the legal system as a political tool or a Warfare tool and there's also the restrictions on making sure the legal arguments are quote warranted by existing law or by a non-frivolous argument for extending modifying or reversing existing law or for establishing new law in other words if a law has never been used in a certain way you can't just kind of do it that way uh people need to know if they're breaking a law if you're going to file a lawsuit against them people need to understand kind of the basics of what the law is you can't just make up interpretations of existing laws in order to create new standards of what's legal or illegal uh if you go by the technicality of this and un unfortunately we've seen a lot of cases over the last several years that involve you know novel interpretations of laws Trump is addressing that you know seemingly headon right here uh things that were quote unprecedented right we've never seen the law used in such a way and when it gets in that territory it raises the question of how a person could ever imagine they were violating the law if the law was never previously interpreted in a certain way and you do that thing and there's no precedence to it and you know you believe you're totally fine can you still be in violation of that's a big question right novel interpretations and lawsuits based on that and this is also one of the issues that a lot of trump supporters and Trump himself has faced over the years when you're dealing with these novel interpretations and kind of this goes into the case for the order overall which Trump is making right now it notes quote unfortunately far too many attorneys and law firms have long ignored these requirements when litigating against against the federal government or in pursuing basic par basic uh baseless partisan attacks now when it comes to this the reality is law law fair has become pretty common in the country this is kind of the way things have been going and this isn't necessarily a partisan issue either you have conservative ones that do this too uh there are groups on the right and on the left that you know basically make legal cases with the intent of engaging in politics and there are even allegations from the Trump Administration that some political law firms the allegation Trump and others around of are making some of them will judge shop they'll look for judges who they think will interpret the law like they do or you know play the political game like they do they'll intentionally file their cases in a handful of Select courts because those courts tend to have a precedence of ruling in their favor they will judge shop they'll put it in that court they'll make the lawsuit it'll block the president of the United States the judge will make a ruling putting everything on hold and even though other judges may not interpret the law that way these ones do they go to them and the allegation on the Trump side is that's kind of the strategy again believe that or not depending which side Iran because the other side is well Trump is kind of ruling by decree right now and many would argue that a president should not be able to effectively use orders in that way although others have Obama did it others have done it as well I think did it to an extent but what's interesting as well is it seems there's an established law that allows for sanctions against law firms this is what Trump is kind of invoking right now Trump is invoking a law that allows the government to sanction law firms if they engage in these types of practices even though you could argue these types of practices have been common for kind of a long time now and Trump is now actively in openly invoking these powers to go after them in addition to a lot of other actions uh this is what Trump is saying he's going to do he said quote I further direct the attorney general and the Secretary of Homeland Security to prioritize enforcement of their respective regulations covering uh governing attorney conduct and discipline he says I further direct the Attorney General to take all appropriate action to prefer to refer for disciplinary action any attorney whose conduct in federal court or before any component of the federal government appears to violate professional conduct rules including governing meritorious claims and contentions and particularly in cases that implicate National Security Homeland Security Public Safety or election integrity and he says I also he says I further direct that when there when when an attorney general determines that conduct by an attorney or law firm in litigation against the federal government warrant seeking sanctions or other disciplinary action the Attorney General sh shall in consultation with any relevant senior executive official recommend to the president through the assistant to the president for domestic policy additional steps that may be taken including reassessment of security clearances held by the attorney or termination of any federal contract for which the relevant attorney or Law Firm has been hired to perform services and he's also saying I further direct the Attorney General in consultation with any relevant senior executive official to review conduct by attorneys or their law firms in litigation against the federal government for the last 8 years meaning this would cover not only the Biden years but also Trump's first term in office when he was also facing a lot of you know legal stalls like this meaning Trump is not only going after firms or organizations that were using the law to block him this time whether you believe that's legal or not he's even going back to his first term in office to look at whether these actions were happening and he says if the Attorney General identifies misconduct that may warrant additional action such as filing frivolous litigation or engaging in fraudulent practices the Attorney General is directed to recommend to the president through the assistant to the president for domestic policy additional steps that may be taken including reassessment of security clearances held by the attorney termination of any contract for which the irrelevant attorney or Law Firm has been hired to perform services or any other appropriate actions meaning Trump is looking at every individual who has ever engaged in these practices currently right now as we speak over the last four years of the Biden Administration and even during his first four years in his first term in office he's looking at all of those cases and seeing was there a politicization of law firms and the justice system and if there were if they believe they were they will place sanctions on them or take other actions now this is pretty big because you know judges they can't technically do things as they please when we hear about federal judges in different parts of the country you know ordering to stop Trump's actions it's not like the judges are just doing this on their own the judges are usually making a determination based on a lawsuit there are law firms that bring the lawsuits in those particular courts the judge based on the lawsuit puts a hold on the order until the case goes through it's not like the judg is just you know springing out of the woodwork and giving orders to the president they are making judgments on legal cases and those then are used to put holds on the orders as they move their way up through the legal system a good amount of these cases are being filed by a handful of political law firms and these handful of political law firms are very very much tied into kind of this machine and again it's not like even a partisan thing there are organiz ations on the left that do it there are organizations on the right that do it too although you can argue that maybe there's a different interpretation of whether they're violating the law on this because this is novel interpretation a lot of times this is kind of by the book interpretation depends on what you want to say and look it's not like this new action from Trump will just end all legal challenges to his orders either but it will make it harder for Trump to be challenged right this could seriously impact political legal firms that Lo use the law in this way because again while it will not stop injunctions or actions against President Donald Trump using the law if the if the president oversteps the law they can file lawsuits but the argument is they can't just use lawsuits unless a law is broken so unless Donald Trump does something that actually does do does go against the Constitution or does go against existing law you can't just have law firms working politically file things on every single case when there's no historical violation uh of that particular order if the order is within the law you can't use the law to block it that's kind of the argument here