UNBIASED - SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Jan. 6th Defendant Case, Gives 'OK' Idaho's Gender Transition Ban, Mayorkas' Impeachment Articles Head to Senate, USC Cancels Valedictorian Speech, and More.

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

1. Supreme Court Allows Idaho to Enforce Ban on Gender-Transition Care for Minors While on Appeal (0:40)2. Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in Fischer vs. United States: Were January 6th Defendants Improperly Charged with Obstruction? (4:48)3. House Delivers DHS Secretary Mayorkas' Articles of Impeachment to Senate (10:49)4. Speaker Johnson Will Not Resign Despite Additional Support for Vacate Motion (12:50)5. University of Southern California Cancels Muslim Valedictorian's Speech Citing Safety Concerns (14:12)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Watch this episode on YouTube.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

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features,

BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance,

call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Tuesday, April 16th, and this is your daily news rundown. Of course, if you love the unbiased approach this episode provides, you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen. Go ahead and share this show with your friends whatever platform you listen. Go ahead and share this show with your friends and if you are watching on YouTube please go ahead and hit that thumbs up button, subscribe to this channel if you haven't already, and all of those things are very much

appreciated. So without further ado let's get into today's stories. Last night we saw the news that the Supreme Court is allowing Idaho to enforce a ban on gender transition care for minors. So let's talk about it. First and foremost, this order from the Supreme Court is not a permanent decision. It is temporary. The Supreme Court has yet to even agree to take up this case at this point. So here's the deal. There's currently a legal battle

going on in Idaho over a state law that makes it a crime for doctors to prescribe any sort of gender transition care to minors. So that can include hormones, puberty blockers, surgeries, etc. So the state of Idaho, just like other states that have similar laws, was sued. Specifically, two transgender girls who receive estrogen therapy went to court along with their parents. Prior to the law taking effect on January 1st, the district court judge temporarily blocked the state from being able to enforce this law while the lawsuit was in process. Ultimately, the district court, in its ruling on the merits, ruled in favor of the girls and blocked the law from being

enforced. So the state of Idaho then appeals to the Ninth Circuit, and in doing that, asks the appellate court to put the district court's ruling on hold while the appeal takes place, effectively allowing that law to be enforced, at least temporarily. The appellate court denied that request. So what this meant is that while the state of Idaho appealed the district court's decision, Idaho's law could not be enforced. So what does Idaho do at that point? It takes it to the Supreme Court, and it asks the Supreme Court to do what the appellate court wouldn't do. In other Court and it asks the Supreme Court to do what the appellate court wouldn't do. In other words, Idaho asked the Supreme Court to block the district court's ruling

and allow this law to take effect while the appeals court decides the merits of the case. And last night, the Supreme Court granted that request. So here's what we're looking at both currently and prospectively. Currently, what this decision from the Supreme Court means is that Idaho can now enforce the law while the appellate court considers the case. Once the appellate court makes a decision on the actual merits of the case, the losing party can then ask the Supreme Court to review the appellate court's ruling. Now, the Supreme Court doesn't have to review it, but given the rise in laws similar to Idaho's, the court may decide to take it up. If the justices do decide to take it up, they'll also at that point decide whether the law can or cannot be

enforced pending their ultimate decision. If they don't take the case up, the decision rests with the Ninth Circuit. And perhaps the Supreme Court gets involved in the next case dealing with this issue because it's typically when we have circuit splits that the Supreme Court decides it's their time to intervene. Now, what's interesting about last night's order from the justices is that we got a little bit of a look into how the justices feel about this issue. Typically, orders are usually very short, one page. The justices don't always publicize who voted which way. Orders are just different than opinions in that way. But sometimes, if it's a more controversial issue like this one, we'll see the justices actually publicize their vote and write why

they either joined the majority or chose to dissent. In this order, Justices Jackson and Sotomayor dissented together, meaning they disagreed with the court's decision to allow the law to take effect, and they together wrote their dissent. Justice Kagan also said that she would have denied the state's stay request and therefore dissented, but she did not elaborate as to why. Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito concurred together, meaning they agreed with the court's decision and wrote their concurrence jointly. Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett concurred together, and Chief Justice Roberts did not make his vote known. So very much along ideological lines. Staying on the topic of the Supreme Court, the justices heard oral arguments today in a case called Fisher v. The United States. In this case, the court will have to decide whether the D.C. Appellate Circuit incorrectly

interpreted a statute in upholding the conviction of a January 6th defendant. So here's some background for you. Joseph Fisher entered the Capitol building on January 6th, 2021, and was subsequently charged with various crimes, but some of them included assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct, as well as obstruction of an official proceeding. That last charge, obstruction of an official proceeding, is what's at issue here. Specifically, what he was charged with was violating Chapter 18, Section 1512, Subsection C of the U.S. Code. And what that says is this. Subsection C1 says it's illegal to corruptly alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal a record or document or attempt to do so with the intent to impair the object's availability for use in an official proceeding. Subsection C2 says or to otherwise obstruct, influence,

or impede any official proceeding or attempt to do so. And that word otherwise is going to play a big role here, and I'll explain why in a minute. But Fisher's argument is essentially that this particular law was only intended to apply to evidence tampering, which Fisher did not do. And this argument was actually adopted by the district court. So the district court, which is the lowest court in a proceeding, had actually dismissed Fisher's obstruction charge based on one of the judge's rulings in a separate case where the judge had found that this particular law only applies to cases that involve evidence tampering that obstructs an official proceeding. The

government then took the charge to the appellate court, where the appellate court upheld the conviction, holding that the law actually applies to all forms of corrupt obstruction, not just evidence tampering. Now it is an issue for the Supreme Court. When determining how to interpret any given statute, the court will typically look at the intent of the drafters when the statute was written, the history of the statute, how the statute has been applied in the past, as well as the actual text of the statute. So for instance, this particular law was enacted in light of the Enron scandal. Consequently, what Fisher argues is that this law was meant to prevent destruction of documents and evidence that could be incriminating for a company, but this law was never intended to reach

acts unconnected to evidence, such as what happened on January 6th. The government though, although it acknowledges that this law was drafted in the wake of the Enron scandal, says that Congress intended to close the loophole exposed by Enron, which was the destruction of documents, but also to address the larger problem that was this risk that corrupt obstruction could occur in unanticipated ways, and therefore Congress covered all potential acts that could obstruct a proceeding. When looking at the actual text of the law, which we know the court looks at, the two sides disagree as to what the phrase otherwise means in this context. So Fisher says that otherwise is meant to encompass acts related to those in subsection C1, which specifically deal with altering, concealing, or tampering

with evidence. In other words, he says otherwise is meant to include other acts that one might take to tamper with evidence outside of altering, destroying, concealing, or mutilating, which are the specific acts specified in C1. The government, on the other hand, says no, no, no, no, no. The phrase otherwise was meant to be a catch-all. It was meant to encompass any act that obstructs a proceeding, not just tampering with evidence. C1 specifically prohibits evidence tampering, but C2 is meant to include anything that obstructs a proceeding that isn't evidence tampering. And when I say C1 and C2, I'm just talking about the two separate provisions encompassed in this same law. So what the government says is Fisher's actions and many of the other January 6th defendants' actions fall under C2, which encompasses

anything else that obstructs a proceeding that's not evidence tampering. At oral arguments, the justices definitely pressed both sides, but it seems that the majority are leaning in favor of Fisher, though it's not obvious, and that's kind of why I hesitate to say it. It wasn't super obvious. The three liberal justices definitely made their stance pretty clear that they will side with the government on this one, but Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, and Chief Justice Roberts seemed to have more of an issue with the government's argument, specifically with the government's interpretation of this law. Though, as I said, all of these justices also pressed Fisher's arguments, too. So this will be a close decision.

5-4, 6-3, something like that. We'll likely have it at the end of June just because this is a more controversial one. As far as implications of the decision go, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Fisher, that'll mean that all of the January 6th defendants who were convicted of violating this particular law would either have their charge dropped or they would be entitled to a new hearing depending on the facts of their particular case. Now, if the court rules in favor of the government, then obviously those convictions stand and perhaps it sets a new precedent as to who can be charged under this particular law.

Either way, stay tuned for an update from me in a couple of months once we have that decision, because I will break it down for you. The House sent the articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate today, paving the way for a potential trial, though a trial is unlikely. So the reason that this is news is because once the Senate receives the articles of impeachment from the House, the Senate rules require that it takes up the matter very quickly. The reason that it doesn't particularly matter is because it's not going anywhere. In no world would the Democrat-controlled Senate convict Mayorkas. Not to mention, even when the articles passed the Republican-controlled House back in February, that vote was incredibly narrow. It was 214 to 213.

So it's just not going to pass the Senate if it even makes it to the trial, but it may not even make it that far. So now that the Senate has the articles which accuse Mayorkas of willful and systemic refusal to comply with immigration laws, as well as a breach of trust, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will probably move to table or dismiss the charges. And this only requires a simple majority, so it won't be too hard for him to get, you know, to pass that. And passing that type of motion would avoid a trial altogether, because ultimately, you know, they'd go through this whole trial only for the

conviction to fail down the road. So I see that as the most likely avenue here. But another option is that the Senate votes to send the trial to be heard by a committee rather than the full Senate, because if it's not the sitting president who's facing a conviction, as is the case here, Senate rules actually allow the Senate to designate a special committee of senators called a trial committee to hear the trial instead of the entire Senate. And then, of course, the other option is that the Senate does hold a full-scale trial with the entire Senate, which is what House Republicans have called upon the Senate to do, but we'll likely know which avenue the Senate decides to take either late tonight or sometime

tomorrow. Because like I said, Senate rules do require the Senate to act very quickly. Speaking of Congress, though, Speaker Johnson made clear today that he would not be resigning as Speaker despite a second GOP lawmaker, Thomas Massey, saying he will join Marjorie Taylor Greene's motion to remove Johnson from the speakership. So Massey said that he told Johnson in a closed-door conference meeting that he would be co-sponsoring Greene's motion, and he suggested to Johnson that Johnson pre-announce his resignation so Republicans can get to work finding a new speaker and avoid a lapse in leadership. Johnson, though, today was asked what his response

is to those Republicans that want him to step aside. And this is what he said. He said, quote, I am not resigning. And it is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs. It's not helpful to the cause. It's not helpful to the country. It does not help House Republicans advance our agenda, which is in the best interest of the American people. And it's not helpful to the unity that we have within the body, end quote. And of course, Greene's motion to vacate is because she does not agree with the way Johnson has been working with President Biden and Democrats. She said that despite Johnson being a Republican, he is very much working to advance President

Biden's agenda. The final story I have for you today comes out of the University of Southern California. So the University of Southern California announced today that it would be canceling the valedictorian speech at its upcoming graduation ceremony due to what it calls safety concerns, which stem from the valedictorian being Muslim. Obviously, this ties into what's going on in the Middle East, but in a letter to the student body, the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs wrote, quote, this decision is not only necessary to maintain the safety of our campus and students, but it is consistent with the fundamental legal obligation, including the

expectations of federal regulators, that universities act to protect students and keep our campus community safe. To be clear, this decision has nothing to do with freedom of speech. There is no free speech entitlement to speak at a commencement. The issue here is how best to maintain campus security and safety, period, end quote. Now, the 2024 valedictorian is a South Asian American Muslim, and in her response to the school's decision, she wrote in part, quote, Because I am not aware of any specific threats against me or the university, because my request for the details underlying the university's threat assessment has been denied, and because I am not being provided any increased safety to be able to speak at commencement, there remain serious doubts

about whether USC's decision to remove my invitation to speak is made solely on the basis of safety." And if you do want more on either of those statements, I've included both of them in the sources section of this episode, so feel free to check those out. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great night, and I will talk to you tomorrow.