UNBIASED - Biden Admin Sued Over New Debt Relief Plan, Trump's Countersuit Dismissed, Sen. Feinstein Gives Up Power of Attorney, Mother Accused of Trafficking Daughter Sues Airline.

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

1. Biden Administration Sued Over New Student Debt Relief Plan (2:17)2. Mother Sues Southwest Airlines for Accusing Her of Human Trafficking Her Own Daughter (8:25)3. Judge Dismisses Trump's Defamation Countersuit Against E. Jean Carroll (12:34)4. Senator Feinstein Gives Power of Attorney to Daughter (18:37)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You are listening to the Jordan Is My Lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy what day is it Tuesday? Happy Tuesday. I hope you had a great weekend. We're kind of going back to the roots with this podcast episode. So as you guys know, Tuesday is a slower day in the news. There's just usually not as much going on on the weekends. So I do have four stories to cover today. But it's not going to be like it's been lately where I do deep dives and notable

mentions. This is kind of just, I'm going to talk about each story for however long it takes, tell you guys what you need to know, do a little bit of analysis on most of them, and that'll be it. So the first story is going to be a lawsuit challenging President Biden's newest student loan forgiveness plan. The second story is going to be about a mom who sued Southwest Airlines because they suspected her of human trafficking her own daughter. The third story is going to be about the judge overseeing E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit that just dismissed Trump's countersuit. And the fourth story is going to be about Dianne Feinstein and how she just handed over the power of attorney to her daughter. Before we get into the stories, let me just remind you, please go ahead and review my show

if you haven't already. It truly means the world to me. Not only does it just bring me joy seeing all the good things you have to say about my show and why you like it, but it also lets other people know why they should be listening to my show, why they should be ingesting nonpartisan news. And of course, the other way you can help is by sharing this show. So if you really like one episode in particular, or you just like the show as a whole, feel free to send it out to your friends, family members, whoever it might be that would appreciate it. And of course, one final note, my legal disclaimer that I have to give you every episode. Yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. There is a new lawsuit challenging the Biden administration's most recent student loan

forgiveness plan. So of course, we know that the recent student loan forgiveness plan. So of course, we know that the previous student loan forgiveness plan was struck down by the Supreme Court thereafter. The Biden administration implemented a new plan based off of a new rationale or a new foundation, and that is now being challenged. So let's talk about it. There are two plaintiffs in this lawsuit. It is the Cato Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. You may call it Mackinac. I call it Mackinac. You can say either. I just I was born in Michigan, so I grew up saying it Mackinac. But nonetheless, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute are the two entities challenging this new plan. There are three defendants, Miguel Cardona,

who is the Secretary of Education, Richard Cordray, who is the COO of Federal Student Aid within the Department of Education, and the Department of Education as a whole is also a defendant. The long and the short of it is that the new debt relief program is equally as unlawful as the previous program that was blocked by the Supreme Court. And that's according to the complaint, of course, not me. Now, the two programs are different. They, as I said, have different foundations. So let's talk about the differences. So the old student loan forgiveness program utilized the HEROES Act. The HEROES Act was enacted following 9-11, and it basically gave

the Secretary of Education the power to, quote-unquote, waive or modify. So waive or modify are big words there. Provisions of the Higher Education Act that dealt with financial assistance programs. And the reason that the HEROES Act came about, you know, the legislative intent was to ensure that borrow modify certain provisions. That is what the Biden administration used in trying to forgive student loans previously. So what they said was, you know, COVID is a national emergency, so we're going to use that and forgive certain student loan borrowers, ones that either received a Pell Grant or make X amount of money. And how we'll do that is by waiving and or modifying certain provisions that require loans to be paid back. And what the Supreme Court said was, well, no, actually, you're kind of exceeding your authority here. You're going well beyond waiving or modifying,

and you're actually changing the entire scope. So we're going to strike this down, and you can't forgive student loans this way. And so President Biden immediately after said, we're going to figure out a way around this. We're going to figure out a new way under the Higher Education Act to forgive student loans. So the new program, what it does is it retroactively credits certain conditions towards a borrower's payment count that didn't apply before. So under the Higher Education Act, borrowers that are on income-driven repayment plans are actually eligible for loan forgiveness after they've made either 240 monthly payments or 300 monthly payments. And depending, you know, whether you fall under that 240 number or 300 number depends on certain things. But just know that those are the numbers that entitle you to forgiveness

in certain cases. So previously, certain conditions didn't count towards that 240 or 300 number. And the Biden administration says they should have. These are things like any month where a borrower was in repayment status and they made late or partial payments that didn't count towards the payment count before. And now it does. Another condition that didn't previously count towards the payment count but does now is any period in which a borrower spent 12 or more consecutive months in forbearance, things like that. In other words, those conditions that I just mentioned, plus others, I believe there's like five or six

others, maybe four or five others, they didn't count towards a borrower's payment count. So if a borrower was in repayment status and made a late or partial payment, that month didn't count towards that 240 or 300 number. But now it does. Not only does it count now, but also the Biden administration is retroactively crediting these periods of time for borrowers. So as a result, this will either put borrowers over the payment count threshold for forgiveness or put them closer to the payment count threshold than they were before. So the rationale behind the two plans are a bit different. But nonetheless, this lawsuit filed by the Cato Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy is saying that once again, the Biden administration exceeded its authority with this new plan.

And specifically, what the lawsuit focuses on are the conditions in which borrowers are being credited for months spent in forbearance. This lawsuit says there's no authority that allows the Department of Education to count nonpayments as payments. And it cites to statutes governing the loans and income-driven repayment plans, and it says that a borrower must make, quote, monthly payments for X amount of time in order to receive forgiveness under these statutes. So what the plaintiffs are saying here is borrowers are essentially being credited for making no monthly payments if they were in forbearance or whatever it was, And there's no authority for

the department to do that. So as far as the education department, they are calling this lawsuit a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt, saying, quote, we are not going to back down or give an inch when it comes to defending working families, end quote. The second story I have for you is that a mom has filed a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines alleging racial discrimination after an airline employee suspected she was a potential human trafficker. And this all happened while she was flying with her biracial daughter. So the mother is white. The daughter is both black and white. She's biracial. The mother is a single mom, so she was just traveling alone with her daughter. The two got

on a flight in October of 2021 to Denver, and when they got off the plane, they were met by two Denver police officers and a Southwest employee in the jet bridge. And apparently, the flight attendant was the one who became suspicious of the mother. And what the flight attendant told the police is that the mother and daughter didn't speak during the flight. The mother didn't allow the child to talk to the flight crew. And when they boarded the plane, the mother asked other passengers to switch seats so they could sit next to each other, which is a fairly normal when you're traveling with your minor child. That's a fairly normal request. But the flight attendant thought that these three things together were weird and reported it as possible human trafficking.

So the mother is saying that her daughter spent most of the flight listening to an audio book. That's why they weren't talking the whole time, but that they had spoken during the trip. And the switching of the seats thing was like her just wanting to sit next to her daughter. But to make matters worse, the reason they were traveling to Denver is because her McCarthy, the mother, McCarthy's brother, or the daughter's uncle, had just passed away. So they were going to Denver for his funeral, and the second they land in Denver, they're questioned by police. Now, the mother didn't immediately find out that she was suspected of human trafficking. She actually didn't find out for another 10 days. So she was questioned. The officers gave her the clear to go on their merry

way. But then 10 days later, the detectives called her almost like a follow-up call. And that's when she learned that there was suspicion of human trafficking. According to McCarthy, she says this wouldn't have happened if her daughter was white. And I couldn't get access to the complaint. So I don't know the specific claims that are set forth in the complaint, but if I had to guess, this is a Title VII claim, which Title VII prohibits against discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. Again, I don't know for sure. It's just my best guess. One thing to note is that private actions for discrimination require intentional discrimination, which is a slightly

higher burden. So in order to claim this, what the mother is going to need to prove is that her and her daughter were intentionally treated differently because of their race, color, or national origin. And this can be proven through direct or circumstantial evidence. So direct evidence would look something like if the flight attendant reported the behavior and specifically said, you know, the mother is white, the child is biracial or something like that. But if there's no direct evidence like that, then it would be based on circumstantial evidence.

So this would be things that happened at the time. So inappropriate remarks, maybe, or suspicious timing, or how other similarly situated passengers were treated. So were there any other single parents on the plane traveling with a child? How were they treated? Things like that. My thought is that Southwest Airlines will try to settle this, but only time will tell. The next court date is a scheduling conference which is scheduled for october 3rd that's where the judge is going to set the next hearing create a timeline etc but again i think southwest will

try to settle this i don't think they're going to want something like this going to a jury but as i said only time will tell let's take a quick break and we will be back for the last two stories hell. Let's take a quick break and we will be back for the last two stories. The judge overseeing E. Jean Carroll's defamation case has thrown out Donald Trump's countersuit. You may remember the day after the jury's verdict finding Donald Trump liable for both defamation and sexual abuse, E. Jean Carroll was interviewed on CNN and Donald Trump did his CNN Trump Town Hall, both of them on the same night, the night after the verdict. During E. Jean Carroll's interview, she insinuated that Donald Trump had, in fact, raped her, despite the jury finding that he hadn't. So the interviewer asked her,

you know, how do you feel that the what was going through your mind when the jury didn't find him liable of rape? And E. Jean Carroll said in the interview, I just thought to myself, you know, he did it. Yes, he did. And then that same night, Donald Trump doubled down on his claims that he didn't rape or sexually abuse E. Jean Carroll, that he didn't know who she was, all those other things that, you know, he's been saying. Well, following this, E. Jean Carroll goes ahead and adds $5 million onto her already existing $5 million claim for defamation due to his remarks at the Trump Town Hall, basically alleging, you know, this was additional malice, like he had already been found liable.

And then he goes on live television and says it all over again. At the same time, Donald Trump counter sues Carol. And what he says is that her remarks during the interview constitute defamation because they were false. The jury had just found that he hadn't raped her. And yet, you know, she's doubling down on her claims. And so he so he countersues. Well, since then, since E.G. and Carol added on the damages and Donald Trump countersued, Trump has been denied a new trial. So he requested a new trial that was denied. And the DOJ said that it will no longer shield him from the defamation claims under the Westfall Act. Previously, Attorney General Barr

had said that this does fall under the Westfall Act. This is when Trump was president and extending the Westfall Act to this situation would have basically granted him immunity from the claims. So it would have made the DOJ a defendant in the case rather than Donald Trump, because what the Westfall Act says is that the president is immune from claims during his presidency. But the DOJ went back on that. They revoked it. And so now Donald Trump does not get that immunity. So that's what's happened since the countersuit. But I digress. In the latest development, the judge dismissed Donald Trump's countersuit. And what the judge said was that the countersuit has to be dismissed because Carol's statements made during her interview

with CNN were at least substantially true. And the rationale behind the judge's decision boiled down to the small difference between rape and sexual abuse as per the New York Penal Code. And what the New York Penal Code says is that rape involves forcible penis penetration without consent. Sexual abuse, on the other hand, involves the touching of sexual or intimate parts of another person without consent. The judge says, though, that, you know, these two things, rape and sexual abuse, are not that different. The only difference is the forcible penetration with a penis versus forcible penetration with something else.

And the judge says that there had been convincing proof that Donald Trump deliberately and forcibly, I'm quoting her ruling here, had deliberately and forcibly penetrated Carol with his fingers, which the judge says isn't rape, but it is digital rape. And for this reason, the judge's order dismissing Donald Trump's countersuit reads in part, quote, Mr. Trump raped her, albeit digitally rather than with his penis. Thus, it establishes against him the substantial truth of Ms. Carroll's rape accusations. Donald Trump's attorneys have said that they are going to appeal. So now we're just looking at E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit against Donald Trump. And now that many of the legal hurdles are out of the way, the next step is trial,

which is scheduled for January 2024. Now, remember, this is a civil case and this case is different than the one we just saw a verdict in in May, I believe it was. So what happened was just very quickly, she filed this defamation suit in 2019. And then when New York enacted the New York Adult Survivors Act, which said you could hold sexual abusers liable for their actions, even if the statute of limitations had expired for this one year period of time between 2022 and 2023, E. Jean Carroll filed another lawsuit in 2022 for another defamatory statement and this time sexual abuse as well. So that is the case, that 2022 case is the one we just saw the verdict in. This 2019 case is the original case that has been held up in appeals. There's been a bunch of legal issues, obviously dealing with the Westfall Act and things like that. So now it will finally go

to trial. I mean, I would think it'll finally go to trial, but you never know what can happen. And again, that's scheduled for January 2024. Before we move on to the next story, I did just want to say as a side note, we because we're talking about Donald Trump, we are expecting the fourth indictment out of Georgia. Well, the fourth indictment in total, but the only indictment out of Georgia coming maybe as soon as the day like Tuesday when this episode goes live. The courthouse was blocked off on Monday. There was a bunch of orange blockades in the road. No one was allowed on the street. So they are anticipating that that indictment is going to come soon. So I will, of course, cover that in the next episode. But as of now, we're just anticipating that that's coming.

So that concludes that story. The fourth and final story I have for you is about Dianne Feinstein. So we know about a week ago, there was the two incidents, the first with Mitch McConnell, where he just froze in front of the cameras. And then the second with Diane Feinstein, who appeared to be confused during a committee vote. One of her colleagues telling her just say I. She went on like a rambling tangent about something that wasn't related when she was just supposed to say I. So that happened about a week ago. Now she has given up her power of attorney to her daughter. And actually, she gave up her power of attorney to her daughter before that incident, but the news didn't break

until just this week. So what does this mean? Let's talk about it. When someone gives up their power of attorney, they're basically giving the power to make decisions about their legal or financial affairs to someone else. In other words, you're giving someone else the authority to act on your behalf as if they are in your shoes. And the name is a little bit deceiving in that you don't have to be an attorney to acquiesce this authority. It's just called power of attorney.

And it's not uncommon to see when people get old. And although in this case, it is being used presumably because of old age, mental deterioration, things like that. That's not the only reason power of attorneys are used, but we don't need to get into that. However, one thing to note is that you can't execute a power of attorney once you're mentally incompetent. It has to be done when you're still competent enough to do it, which likely means that Feinstein knows she's deteriorating, she's heading down that road, and she doesn't want to wait until it's too late. So she's giving the power to her daughter now. As a final note, and as I mentioned before, the document was actually executed on July 17th, though news outlets are just catching wind of it now.

And the confusion incident at the committee vote happened about 10 days after that, just to kind of give you a little timeline. But that's what's going on with Dianne Feinstein. And that concludes this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Please don't forget to leave me a review and i will talk to you on friday