No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Ted Lieu on the legality of Trump’s paramilitary forces in Portland

Episode Date: July 26, 2020

Paramilitary forces answerable only to Trump have begun inciting violence in Portland. Brian speaks with Congressman Ted Lieu about the legality of that occupation, about Bill Barr’s upcoming testimony in the House, and the consequences of commuting Roger Stone’s sentence for Trump after he leaves office.Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberMusic by WellsyRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the Trump administration sending paramilitary forces into Portland and what they're trying to accomplish by doing it. And my interview with Congressman Ted Liu, where we'll talk about the legality of Trump's moves in Portland, Bill Barr's upcoming testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, and the consequences of commuting Roger Stone's sentence for Trump after he leaves office. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. If you've watched any news lately, you've seen what's happening in Portland. You've seen armed paramilitary forces, tear gas, flash grenades, unprovoked arrests.

I'm sure you've seen the video of a Navy veteran getting beaten with a baton and then gassed for the crime of standing. I'm sure you've seen videos showing camouflaged officers throwing protesters into unmarked vans. So how did we get here? Protests have been happening since May in Portland, just like in a slew of other cities around the country. And they were largely peaceful, just like they've been in, a slew of other cities around the country. At the same time, polling was showing that the American people have been largely

on the side of protesters. 89% of Americans have said that police violence is a problem, according to polling by the Guardian. And yet Trump has positioned himself on the wrong side of that fight. To no one's surprise. Donald Trump is not going to come out in favor of social justice, and especially not for black people.

Sorry, that's not the guy. At the same time, he's also on the wrong side of this administration's handling of the coronavirus outbreak, with two-thirds of Americans disapproving of his pandemic response. In other words, Trump is on the wrong side of both of these major crises going down in America. So what does he do? Well, he takes a long, hard look in the mirror and admits he was wrong, but promises to do whatever is necessary moving forward to keep the American people safe.

I'm just kidding. That didn't happen. He decided to distract us with something else. Yeah. So on June 26th, he signed an executive order under the... pretense of preventing federal monuments and buildings from destruction. Remember that? The campaign pivot to defending statues?

Yeah, that's still happening. Coming up on 150,000 dead Americans and Trump's out there defending the most vulnerable among us, which are statues of Robert E. Lee and other traitors who went to war to destroy this country. Because somehow, that's patriotic. Yeah, if someone can explain that to me, by all means. Then on July 4th, federal troops arrived in Portland. under the pretense of protecting federal property.

The federal property in this case being a U.S. district courthouse and a federal building. Now, the agency normally tasked with overseeing the destruction of federal property is the Federal Protective Service. But that's not who's in Portland right now. In Portland, there are U.S. Marshals, there's a unit of Customs and Border Protection, CBP, and ICE. Now, in fairness, federal government does have the authority to protect federal property. But that's not what's happening here. We're seeing these troops, patrol streets, and effectively kidnap protesters and lob volleys of tear gas blocks away from the protests.

And the Homeland Security officials are claiming that those who travel beyond the boundaries of the courthouse are conducting investigations. To get an idea of just how absurd this is, David Lapin, the former spokesman for the DHS, back when Trump's first Homeland Security Secretary ran the agency, when he was asked about officials going beyond the borders of the courthouse, he said, quote, that's not an investigation, that's just a show of force. This isn't an Obama official, it's not a Bush official. This was the DHS spokesman for Trump. That's how far this administration has gone off the rails. We're still in the same term we were when that guy served this president.

And already he sounds like Bernie Sanders by comparison now. But the other issue, aside from, you know, the legality of these federal troops going beyond their jurisdictions, is why they're there in the first place. And this is the important part. Here's the excuse Trump gave as to why he sent the feds in. You know, if you look at what's gone on in Portland, those are anarchists, and we've taken a very tough stand. If we didn't take a stand in Portland, you know, we've arrested many of these leaders. If we didn't take that stand, right now you would have a problem like, you know, they were going to lose Portland. that if the feds didn't come in, there'd have been a problem.

Let's be honest here. The cause of the violence in Portland is because of these federal troops. Local officials across the board have been crystal clear that the protests were peaceful before federal troops arrived on July 4th. Granted, that doesn't mean you won't have a few troublemakers, but who doesn't? What city doesn't? It doesn't mean you call in paramilitary forces. Graffiti on the walls of a building doesn't mean you turn that city into a war zone.

And that's the excuse they gave, graffiti. These are federal troops, paramilitary forces being sent into an American city to police graffiti. We have images of Portland like it's Fallujah in 2004 because people tagged a building with paint. Are we really supposed to believe that? What happens when someone breaks a window? Do we drop a bomb? The fact is that sending those troops into Portland wasn't meant to quell the violence. It was meant to incite it.

The purpose is to achieve the exact outcome that we're seeing right now, which is prolonged and sustained and dramatic violence, which the White House has shockingly capitalized on in their campaign to deflect attention away from the things that are killing them in the polls. I mean, this literally could not be any more clear cut. Trump absolutely failed in responding to coronavirus. He failed in responding to the BLM protests. He failed in responding to the economic recession. all of these things are still going on. So either he continues to marinate in these issues and his poll numbers continue to tank

or he makes different news. So he made different news. He created a brand new conflict, a brand new crisis that he's hoping this time will work out in his favor. This guy is so incapable of change that instead of fixing one of the existing issues, he opted to create a new one with the hopes of finally getting people on his side this time. And so he sent federal troops into an American city

to tear gas peaceful protesters exercising the First Amendment right under the guise of protecting a building, a building, a concrete building. You look at the images coming out of Portland. They are the closest thing I've ever seen to authoritarianism in the United States, ever. And it's to protect a building. That's the best excuse they could come up with. Like, they said Obama was a dictator because he tried to give people health care. That's not a joke.

Conservatives called Barack Obama an authoritarian, as he was pushing to pass the ACA, which would give 20 million Americans health care coverage. Could you imagine what Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity would have said if Obama tried to send paramilitary forces into Alabama and Mississippi?

Could you imagine? By the way, want to know how inept this administration is when it comes to messaging? The anarchists, the Trump administration, and the acting DHS secretary are fearmongering about on Fox News? You know who those anarchists are?

They're moms. Those are the most. visible protesters in Portland right now. Moms. They're literally a group of women who are calling themselves the wall of moms. Yeah, be careful, America, you elect Democrats, and before you know it, we'll be taken over by mothers. And that group gave way to a wall of dads, and that gave way to a wall of veterans. So if you're keeping score here, we have, on one side, largely unidentifiable paramilitary forces, unresponsive to local officials or law enforcement. whose targets on the other side are mothers, fathers, and veterans.

Way to go Donald Trump. Congratulations on your newest attempt to win the new cycle by targeting our parents and vets. I'd say the only worst thing would be attacking kids. But he and Betsy DeVos are already busy trying to pack them into classrooms in the middle of a pandemic, so he's already got that covered. Also, I got to ask, where are all the Second Amendment people? Like, this is what they've been waiting for, right? This is what they've been warning against. This is why they've been stocking their arsenals to defend against tyrannical government

overreach. And finally, finally, they got it. Federal paramilitary forces, apparently only answerable to one person in the President of the United States and no one else, arresting American citizens in their own cities for exercising their First Amendment rights. Isn't that basically what the entire modern GOP is pretext? on, you ask any Republican what the Bill of Rights says, and it starts and ends with the Second Amendment. And yet we've got crickets from the right, not a word from a single Republican.

I don't know if it's because they're such partisan hacks that they're fine with tyranny as long as it's happening in Democratic cities or because they're just too cowardly to dare speak out against Donald Trump, but regardless of the reason, you don't need much more proof that their justification for falling over the Second Amendment isn't and never was to protect against a tyrannical government. Like, it's almost funny. No one has done a better job of inadvertently exposing Republicans as hypocrites as Trump has. This is a party that once claimed it was pro-life before rallying behind a guy whose failed response to the pandemic has killed 150,000 Americans.

This is a party that called itself pro-family values before lining up behind a guy who's now an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving him using campaign funds to pay off porn stars for affairs. It's a party that paraded itself around as fiscal conservatives only to see the deficit and the debt explode to unprecedented heights during this administration. They have undermined every single one of their own self-righteous positions while coddling Trump. They've exposed themselves as frauds on literally every position. And so now, when they had the chance to back up their anti-tirony stance that they've been screeching about for the last 50 years, it's straight up silence.

I mean, like, you got to hand it to Trump. No one's done a better job at exposing the moral bankruptcy of the GOP as he has. So what's happening now? What's the legal recourse here? Well, Portland's officials have made it clear that they don't want these federal agencies there. Oregon's attorney general has said it's, quote, absolutely beyond their authority. Senator Ron Wyden called the troops an occupying army.

Pelosi called them stormtroopers. Portland's police bureau kicked the federal representatives out of the city's command post. Portland mayor Ted Wheeler called the deployment, quote, an egregious overreaction on the part of the federal officers. And he said, quote, this is not a de-escalation strategy. This is flat-out urban warfare. The state has issued a legal challenge to the presence of these troops in court, but they lost their bid for a straining order on the grounds that it lacked standing.

But there are other challenges making their way through the courts right now. I discussed this too in my interview coming up with Ted Liu, but unfortunately it doesn't seem like cities or states have the ability to actually exert any authority over these troops, at least not for the time being. So the answer here is to make noise about this and make sure that everyone is aware this is what is on the ballot in November. Like, keep in mind, too, they'll enter more cities because even though this is an unmitigated disaster, Trump only knows how to dig in his heels. We just went through six months of pretending that coronavirus wasn't real. We saw 150,000 Americans die. You think that guy's going to be able to pivot? Not a chance.

So he'll continue sending his stormtroopers into U.S. cities with the hope of willing into existence, this idea that Democratic-run cities are dangerous. So if you vote for Joe Biden, the whole country is going to devolve into the hellscape that is Portland, not realizing that Portland is a hellscape because of Donald Trump, because of these troops. There's violence happening because the violence is the point.

I saw a quote that summed up perfectly what we're seeing here. Her name is Jennifer Christensen. She's a family law attorney who came out to the protest to join the Wall of Moms. She said, this is not creeping authoritarianism. The authoritarianism is here. Trump wants this to be the issue that we vote on in November. So I say, let it. Let it.

Next step is my interview with Congressman, Ted Liu, where we'll discuss this very situation in Portland and exactly what the next move is here. All right, today we've got Congressman Ted Liu. Thanks so much for coming on. Honor to be on your show, Brian. Thanks. So right off the bat, I'm going to tell you a series of words, and I'm not going to tell you why. The words are person, woman, man, camera, TV. You know, I can not only repeat five words. I can do six. Let's hear that. person, woman, man, camera, TV, elephant. You know, you might just have the mental acuity to be president of the United States.

Yes, I'm super excited about that because Donald Trump has set the bar so low that if you can pass a dementia test, somehow you're qualified to be president. So in all seriousness, you're on the House Judiciary Committee, so I'm really happy you're here because there's a lot to talk about. So let's start off with Portland. That's the big story of the week. Trump has sent federal troops into Portland. First of all, is it legal to send paramilitary forces into American cities?

I believe it's an abuse of power. One of the ways that Bill Barr has been able to send his secret army all over the place, both in D.C. as well as Portland, is through the deputization function of the U.S. Marshal Service. So it turns out the U.S. Marshal can deputize other federal officials to then go do jobs that they will not train for. And that's what we're seeing in both Portland and D.C. So I'm working on legislation with Representative Earl Blumenauer

That's going to shut that deputization function down And hopefully it'll mitigate the situation At the same time, we need to hold additional hearings And put public pressure on both DHS and the Department of Justice To stop sending in federal forces where they're not wanted and not needed. Do you think this is being done to quell violence or actually incite it? The Trump administration has actually inflamed tensions. If you listen to local officials in Portland, they were saying that things were getting

better, things were getting calmer, and then these unmarked, untrained federal units showed up that then made things worse. So these federal units should leave. I believe they are not there under a legitimate reason. That's why both the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General and the Department of Justice's Inspector General have open investigations into what these federal units are doing both in D.C. as well as in Portland. Right now as it stands, do local officials, like in Portland, for example, Mayor Wheeler, do they have the power to expel these federal forces from the city? Unfortunately, it looks like they do not. And so I think they also don't want to risk additional confrontation, because you can imagine how bad it might be if you have

another local law enforcement armed force engaging with the federal armed force. So you don't don't actually want to risk that kind of violence. But right now, there is no authority for unfortunate local officials to kick out the federal units. I mean, even if we operate under their excuse, which is to quote, restore order, ensuring public safety, whether it's during protests or not, is a state police power, which is reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. So, I mean, is their legal justification on solid ground? Yeah. So for any, you know, Republican elected official who champions liberty and freedom and states' rights who remains silent right now, they're just a bunch of hypocrites. What we see is the federal government trampling

states' rights. They are going into local areas to address local issues, and the state and local officials do not want these federal units there, and the people do not. So what you see in Portland is, in fact, more and more protests was showing up, including a lot of very courageous moms every night to make sure that these federal units are not doing bad things. And we also saw on videotape some of these federal units simply making illegal arrests. You can't just take a protester off the street who is not doing anything wrong and then interrogate that person. That is a legal arrest. And they stuck this person into an unmarked car. There is no reason for that. We do not have secret police in the United States. We're not a banana republic.

the Trump administration needs to withdraw these troops. Speaking of hypocrisy, what about all those Second Amendment defenders out there? I mean, this is what they've been warning about, a tyrannical government takeover, right? And then when we actually have a tyrannical government takeover, when federal forces are coming into American cities and basically kidnapping people, why haven't we heard from anyone on the right? Their lack of spines among my Republican colleagues has been a great shock. shocking disappointment these last three and a half years. At the same time, we know that they're

making up reasons to send in these federal units. If you look at what DHS head, acting head, Woff tweeted out initially when he visited Portland, it was a bunch of graffiti that he was going after. So our federal units are not the graffiti police either. And it is this massive federal intervention to, you know, stop graffiti. And it really is completely out of proportion to what's actually happening in port. Right. And I believe we had CBP there as well, because where else would the border police, the border patrol, be needed than Oregon? We also saw these random federal units in Washington, D.C. There was that very unfortunate incident where Bill Barr cleared out peaceful protesters at Lafayette.

park and then sent pepper spray canisters at them. That actually had a marked effect on Donald Trump's approval rating, dropping him down even further. And just as a matter of campaign strategy, I don't understand why Trump is doing this. It is making him look even worse. The chaos that people see they're now attributing to Donald Trump. And what he needs to do is really calm things down, not actually make things worse and inflamed tensions even more. And yet at the same time, I mean, this has been his campaign strategy from the beginning since before 2016. I mean, it's inciting these, you know, wedge issues, these basically a culture war. And that's the only way he knows how to win because he's incapable of uniting people.

He's incapable of solving problems. The only thing he knows how to do is divide people. And if that means, you know, inciting tensions in cities to scare people in suburbia or scare rural America because this is what your, this is what your neighborhood's going. going to look like if if you elect democrats well then that's what he's going to do so one of the great thing is about america is the american people learn from our mistakes and we can change and the american people if you look at multiple opinion polls in fact have changed now the american people view this chaos as being caused by donald trump the american people understand that protests is something that's protected by the first amendment they support a protest

they oppose this heavy-handed federal crackdown. And so while the American people have already moved on and changed, Donald Trump seems incapable of that. And that's one reason he's flailing into polls. Let's move on to Bill Barr. As of this recording, Bill Barr is set to testify on July 28th. We're recording before that. What is it you plan to accomplish with this hearing? So I would like to ask some questions about these federal units in both D.C. and Portland. what the basis of authority is, why we have unmarked, untrained, federal officials sticking people into unmarked bans. And I want to drill down on his secret army and secret police.

So that's going to be my line of questioning. Do you plan to discuss the firing of Jeffrey Berman at SD&Y? Yes. So other Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee will ask him questions along those lines. I think we also wanted to show that Bill Barr is a man of little credibility. He lied when he told the American people that pepper spray is not a chemical. It is, in fact, a chemical. He lied when he said that through Operation Legend, they arrested 200 people in Kansas.

Turned out, I think it was about one. He lied about the Mueller report when it first came out. He has made a number of lies directly to American people. And so I think we want to show that his credibility is sorely lacking. Is there an appetite in Congress to impeach Bill Barr and do you think that he should be impeached? I think he should be impeached. I think as a matter of timing, it's not going to happen. There was an election in less than four months.

The American people can decide if they want to fire Donald Trump and Bill Barr. And I trust the American people to make the right decision. So speaking of abuses of power, let's talk about Roger Stone's commutation. Is there going to be legal pushback? I touched on this last week in my interview with Kamala Harris. Bill Barr had said outright during a congressional testimony that pardoning in exchange for protection would be a crime. Here's the clip.

Do you believe a president could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient's promise to not incriminate him? No, that would be a crime. And yet, that's exactly what happened with the commutation of Roger Stone. Roger Stone had literally said, he knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably, but I didn't. You can't turn on someone unless you have something incriminating. So he makes it

perfectly clear that he did. So is Trump's commutation of Roger Stone, by Bill Barr's own definition, illegal, a crime? I believe it is. I believe what Donald Trump did is evidence of either bribery or obstruction of justice. And I believe an investigation should be open. So that's another question we're going to ask Bill Barr. At the same time, if the American people, people choose to fire Donald Trump in November, then on January 21st, that the next Attorney General acting Attorney General can open an investigation into Donald Trump's alleged crimes, both his commutation of Roger Stone, as well as an array of other potential crimes Donald Trump engaged in. So is there a chance for Stone's commutation to be rescinded? So what would happen is

you can't reverse what the president has done, but what you could do is if the president committed a crime, you can investigate him. And if he, in fact, met the elements of the crime when he's no longer present, he could go to prison. Which is ironic because, I mean, you can have Trump trying to help Roger Stone escape a crime and incriminate himself in the process and possibly get himself, you know, in legal trouble for that. That is also how our system works. The Supreme Court had a recent ruling where they made a very big deal of the fact that no one is above the law, including the president.

And that's why they allowed criminal prosecutors to go after his tax returns. So you're a veteran. You're a colonel in the Air Force. What's happening with the fact that Putin placed bounties on American soldiers' heads and Trump knew but opted to do nothing? Is Trump just writing this out until November? It is completely shocking to me that the President of the United States still has not been able to utter one sentence condemning Vladimir Putin. We know from both the public reporting as well as what the White House has said, the following facts.

The White House has not denied that the CIA assessed Russia paid money to people to kill U.S. troops. The White House has not denied that this intelligence showed up in the President's daily brief in February. The White House has also not denied that Russia has been arming Taliban fighters. The White House has also not denied that recently Russia has been hacking COVID-19 research centers in the United States. And yet Donald Trump cannot condemn Putin. I don't know why when it comes to Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump takes a knee, but it is deeply troubling. And I think there's something going on. And for three and a half years, we try and get to the bottom of it.

I think we need to keep looking at that issue. And in fact, he just spoke with Putin on the phone a few days ago and again refused to broach the topic. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is when Donald Trump appears weak and incapable. of standing up to Russia, it makes Russian behavior more aggressive, more overt. You see them taking voter actions that are against U.S. national security interests. So this is just a complete failure on the President of the United States. I don't really understand why he views Putin as his friend. It is a really bizarre relationship. Well, I think there might be one obvious reason that everybody kind of understands. Hopefully we'll find out one day.

So reporting came out that Trump told the U.K. Ambassador Woody Johnson to steer the British open to Trump Turnberry. Trump came out and denied the claim, why not compel Woody Johnson then to testify for the House and ask him? Because if this is true and he says that it's not, then he's committed a federal crime. And if he says it is, well, then Trump got caught lying against irrefutable evidence. I would love to do that. I think we should issue a subpoena to Woody Johnson. Unfortunately, what has ended up happening is the Trump administration has launched as unprecedented obstruction of the American people in Congress by basically refusing multiple subpoenas, refusing to have witnesses appear before Congress, refusing to have witnesses provide documents, and then they've gone to litigation route, which takes a long time to resolve. That's why I've introduced legislation that would allow the House of Representatives to execute our inherent content powers.

So the Supreme Court has upheld that Congress has the inherent contempt power, which means, for example, we can impose monetary penalties on witnesses that violate our subpoenas. And what my legislation would do is simply put in procedures into the House rules to allow us to execute this power. This legislation does not need approval by the U.S. Senate nor the President. It's simply a change our House rules. And if we can get that through, then I think we can put in a incentive for witnesses to show up. Otherwise, they'll get penalized. If this is an inherent house power, why aren't you able to exercise it now? Because you would need procedures to execute it.

And there would have to be a due process that is followed. And right now, the House rules don't have that in there. And so my legislation puts in the due process protections for the witness, and it puts in the procedures for the fine. So, for example, it caps the fine at up to $100,000. It allows time periods for the witness to negotiate a resolution. It provides for the full house to vote on the actual fine. So we've recently introduced it, and now we're making a push to have the Judiciary Committee mark it up, and then hopefully we can get it to the floor. Great. So Congressman Ocasio-Cortez was verbally accosted by Ted Yoho of Florida.

have you heard any Republican express any discontent with this, express any dissatisfaction with the fact that he did this? Again, their lack of spines on the part of my Republican colleagues is a tremendous disappointment to the American people, as well as to Democrats in Congress, but they have been completely essentially silent on this issue. Representative Alexander Ocasier-Cortez gave an amazing speech on the floor. and responding to what Representative Yoho did,

everyone should listen to her speech. Yeah. So you're on the House Progressive Caucus. You were an author of Medicare for All. How did you feel about the results of the Biden Sanders Task Force? Is there anything that surprised you or anything you'd like to see go further? I think it's great that there was a Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force, and I support what they did and what they have achieved.

And hopefully this will send a signal to, every Democrat in November, that essentially there's only going to be two people that are going to be president next term. It's either going to be Joe Biden or it's going to be Donald Trump. And if you don't vote for Joe Biden, it's really essentially a vote for Donald Trump.

Well said. I completely agree. So I know that you and your family live in the suburbs. Do you have a plan regarding where to live when Joe Biden abolishes them? So Donald Trump has, I think, still been unable to figure out that American people have moved down from his antics. Large proportions of American people,

overwhelming majorities now, no longer trust the president. They know that he speaks in hyperbole, in lies, and in exaggeration. So when he says things like Joe Biden's going to abolish his suburbs, no one believes him. And again, that's one reason he's flailing in the polls because he can't make anything stick against Joe Biden. and the more extreme that Trump gets, the less, even less credibility that he has.

Right. I mean, we've heard, you know, attacks against Joe Biden saying that he's, you know, in cognitive decline, and yet at the same time, he's an Antifa super soldier who's going to, you know, bring extremist ruin to the United States. So, so I think that, you know, the fact that they can't find any argument that's going to stick has presented itself on numerous occasions. I've been on a number of virtual events with Vice President Biden. He is amazing.

He is compassionate, empathetic. He is articulate. He really has a grip on what the majority of American people are feeling. And I look forward to debates because the American people will see that the person who is mentally unstable and in decline is Donald Trump. is the guy who's bragging about the fact that he can identify an elephant on a piece of paper. Correct. All right, well, Congressman, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Anytime, Brian. Thanks again to Congressman Ted Liu. Now, before I go, I want to suggest one more thing. A lot of people have been asking how they can help beyond, you know, retweets and donations and listening to a certain podcast. Another option is If you're young and healthy enough That you're at less risk

You can register to be a poll worker They are in desperate need of poll workers around the country And most people who've worked the polls in the past Are seniors who are at higher risk of catching coronavirus If they stay home And there aren't enough people to staff the polls Those polls will close And I don't think I have to explain

How much of a disaster that would be So if you can spare some time Please register to become a poll worker You can go to workelections.com information. Again, that's workelections.com. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellsey, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please

subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.