Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern Report for Slate:
“On Friday, the Department of Justice filed an astonishing appeal with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to intervene in the Jane Doe case that seemed to have ended last week. Doe, an undocumented 17-year-old in a federally funded Texas shelter, was denied abortion access by the Trump administration, which argues that it can force undocumented minors to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. On Oct. 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Doe must be allowed to terminate her pregnancy, which she did the next day. Now the DOJ is urging the Supreme Court to vacate that decision—and punish the ACLU attorneys who represented Doe.
Make no mistake: With this filing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department has declared war on attorneys and groups who dare to oppose it in court.
Because Doe obtained her abortion, Friday’s appeal might seem pointless, presenting no live controversy for the justices to adjudicate. But the DOJ has three goals here. First, it wants the Supreme Court to punish the D.C. Circuit for issuing a decision that it believes to be egregiously wrong by wiping the entire ruling off the books. Second, the DOJ wants to eradicate a decision that sets a legal precedent it despises. Doe’s lawsuit was initially brought as part of a class action, and the ACLU will continue to litigate its broader claim against the Trump administration’s absolute bar on abortion access for undocumented minors. As long as the D.C. Circuit’s decision remains on the books, those lawsuits are almost guaranteed to succeed. The Justice Department wants it gone so that it can litigate this issue anew.
Third, and most importantly, Friday’s appeal is a flagrant effort to crucify the individual attorneys who represented Doe, and to terrify likeminded lawyers into acquiescence. The DOJ thus asks the Supreme Court to force Doe’s lawyers to “show cause why disciplinary action should not be taken” against the ACLU—either by the court itself or by state bars—for “material misrepresentations and omissions” designed to thwart an appeal.
In other words, the DOJ is using the full weight of a government agency to threaten professional ruin upon the lawyers who defended Jane Doe’s constitutional right to abortion access.
. . . .
The Justice Department’s crusade against the ACLU is especially galling in light of the fact that there was sanctionable misconduct here—on the part of the government itself. Scott Lloyd, the official who blocked Doe and other minors from abortion access, likely violated a long-standing federal settlement agreement in his anti-abortion crusade. Under this agreement, undocumented minors like Doe must be allowed access to family planning services, which Lloyd intentionally and repeatedly withheld. He even instituted his anti-abortion views as official government policy in obvious violation of the federal settlement.
If anyone deserves to be punished here, it is surely Lloyd, who flouted the law for purely ideological purposes. But instead of investigating its own employee for potential misconduct, the government is going after Doe’s ACLU attorneys for defending her constitutional rights. This is a shocking assault on the nation’s civil rights attorneys, and an unprecedented effort by the DOJ to slander and shame those attorneys who defend their clients’ rights against the government’s abuse of the law. After today, lawyers who question the Trump administration’s legal views should be aware that they have targets on their backs.”
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Read the entire article at the link.
Remember, it was only a couple of weeks ago that Gonzo took a “cheap shot” at immigration lawyers by implying that so-called “dirty lawyers” were responsible for widespread fraud in the asylum system. (There certainly are some unethical lawyers committing fraud — DHS, EOIR, and U.S. Attorneys do a very good job of ferreting them out and putting them in jail, sometimes with the assistance of other members of the immigration bar. Stripping asylum seekers — who sometimes are also victims of these fraudsters — of their legal rights while failing to recognize the great efforts to achieve due process put forth by the vast majority of immigration practitioners is a stunning dis-service to our justice system by someone who should know better).
Yeah, I get the writers’ point that Gonzo & his troops so far have gotten away if not with “murder,” then at least unethical and probably unconstitutional conduct. And, I also understand that Trump & the GOP have been able to shove some pretty reactionary judges into the Third Branch and will continue to do so. That’s what happens when you win elections.
It’s possible that they will get away with their scheme to dismember the Constitution and turn back the national clock to times when only fairly well to do White Guys had any real influence. But, even very conservative judges don’t like arguments that insult their intelligence, challenge their independence and integrity, and waste their time (this isn’t Immigration Court, after all).
I think that by the time the smoke clears there’s at least some chance that it will be “Gonzo the Forgetful” and some of his Legal Parrots (the Trump Version of a “Legal Eagle”) who will be defending their law licenses for their conduct in and out of court.
Abusing our justice system for partisan political ends and then disingenuously pontificating about the “Rule of Law” is “Prime Gonzo.”
PWS
11-03-17