Outside
a Manhattan courthouse, hundreds of protesters gathered to
criticize the Trump administration’s plan to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a
recent Columbia University graduate who helped lead protests there
against Israel. Inside, a judge said he would grant Khalil’s lawyers the
ability to speak with him privately for the first time since he was arrested and sent to immigration detention in Louisiana.
The
case is at the center of President Trump’s effort to expel foreign
students who took part in last year’s campus protests over the war in
Gaza. After months of threatening deportations, Trump celebrated the
arrest of Khalil, a legal permanent resident with a green card, as the
first of “many to come.”
Behind the scenes, federal investigators who typically focus on human traffickers and drug smugglers have been searching social media for posts showing protesters’ sympathy toward Hamas.
(is that a good use of government resources? Is it an example of Trump producing "fraud and waste"? Maybe we need to ask Elon Musk, the expert on this sort of thing.) The authorities have not accused Khalil of having any contact with the
terrorist group or providing material support to it. Instead, Trump’s
aides are arguing that he had organized antisemitic activities on campus, which makes him deportable under an obscure legal statute.
“This
is not about free speech,” Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said
today. “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United
States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a
right to a green card.” Trump’s critics argue that Khalil’s pending
deportation is a clear violation of the First Amendment.
The arrest put a spotlight on Columbia, which has been struggling with the competing demands of free speech and student safety. Last week, the Trump administration revoked $400 million in federal funds for the school.
First, let's examine the Forbes article, which begins with the following summary from senior news reporter Alison Durkee:
Topline
The Trump administration used a little-known provision of federal immigration law to arrest pro-Palestinian protester Mahmoud Khalil,
the White House confirmed Tuesday, giving Secretary of State Marco
Rubio broad authority to declare individuals “deportable”—though the
administration will still have to argue in court why Khalil poses a
threat.
Did someone in the administration pick a law that (they hope) will allow Rubio to do Trump's dirty work -- trying to justify actions that cannot be justified under U.S. law? That's how it appears, as Durkee reports:
Key Facts
The Trump administration arrested Khalil,
a permanent resident and graduate of Columbia University, on Saturday
after Khalil helped lead the university’s pro-Palestinian protests—with
President Donald Trump claiming he’s “a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas
Student” and his detainment is “the first arrest of many to come.”
Confirming reports from The New York Times and CNN, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Khalil’s arrest was justified under a provision
of the Cold War-era Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA), which
allows the Secretary of State to declare someone “deportable” if they
have “reasonable ground to believe” that the immigrant’s “presence or
activities in the U.S. … would have potentially serious adverse foreign
policy consequences for the United States.”
That allows the Trump administration to push for Khalil’s
deportation without formally charging him with a crime—which is
typically what’s required to revoke someone’s green card—but the
activist’s case will still have to play out in court, where the
administration will have the burden of proof in showing why Khalil poses
a foreign-policy threat to the U.S. and should be deported.
Confirming reports from The New York Times and CNN, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Khalil’s arrest was justified under a provision
of the Cold War-era Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA), which
allows the Secretary of State to declare someone “deportable” if they
have “reasonable ground to believe” that the immigrant’s “presence or
activities in the U.S. … would have potentially serious adverse foreign-policy consequences for the United States.”
That allows the Trump administration to push for Khalil’s
deportation without formally charging him with a crime—which is
typically what’s required to revoke someone’s green card—but the
activist’s case will still have to play out in court, where the
administration will have the burden of proof in showing why Khalil poses
a foreign-policy threat to the U.S. and should be deported.
Rubio will have to provide “clear and convincing evidence” in court
that Khalil “is this massive security problem,” Bill Hing, associate
dean for faculty scholarship at the University of San Francisco School
of Law and founder of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, told Forbes
Tuesday—which Hing predicted would be difficult to prove, given the
evidence that’s public about Khalil and his protesting activities.
Citing anonymous sources, The Times reports the Trump
administration intends to justify invoking the provision by arguing the
U.S. has a policy to combat antisemitism and “it would undermine this
policy objective to tolerate Mr. Khalil’s continued presence in the
United States.”
Hing and legal experts cited by The Times said this provision has
rarely been invoked in past immigration cases, with Hing suggesting the
administration may have had an easier time in court arguing Khalil
promoted or supported a terrorist group, which could also be grounds for
losing his green card and would have required a lower burden of proof.
Trying to prove Khalil is a national-security risk will be a tall order, one expert says. Durkee addresses a number of issues surrounding the standard Team Trump will have to meet. She writes:
What Has The White House Said About Justifying Mahmoud Khalil’s Arrest?
“Secretary Rubio reserves the right to revoke the visa of Mahmoud Khalil,” Leavitt said
at a press briefing Tuesday, adding that under the Immigration and
Nationality Act, “the Secretary of State has the right to revoke a green
card or a visa for individuals who … are adversarial to the foreign
policy and national security interests of the United States of America.”
What Has Marco Rubio Said About Mahmoud Khalil?
“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported,” Rubio said
on X Sunday, sharing a link to an article about Khalil’s arrest. He has
not otherwise commented on the case or explicitly said he personally
ordered the activist’s green card to be revoked.
Crucial Quote
“What they're doing is rare, but their burden of proof is high,” Hing
told Forbes about the Trump administration using the “foreign policy”
justification for Khalil’s arrest. “It'll be interesting to see what
they can come up with, because on the face of what's been public so far,
there's no evidence that he's a national- security risk or that he's
supporting a terrorist organization.”
Team Trump will have to clear several hurdles to make anything stick to Khalil. One wonders if the administration knew Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card before the arrest was ordered. A less hot-headed president -- one with more knowledge of, and respect for, the law -- might have decided going after Khalil was a bad idea. In my view, the only certainty at the moment is that Trump has gift-wrapped a strong civil-rights lawsuit for Khalil, one that could put a significant amount of money in the young man's pocket. The ACLU has agreed to represent Khalil, so he has the kind of legal firepower that might make Trump wish he had approached this situation with a cooler head. (Question: How much is Trump going to cost the U.S. government, and U.S. citizens, by taking ill-considered actions that produce defendants armed with lawsuits? Will Elon Musk and DOGE be able to identify enough savings to cover the costs of judgments against Trump in court? Heck, they might be lucky to break even -- and that assumes DOGE can find any actual fraud that, if stamped out, would lead to savings. If Trump follows through with his vow to order "many" protester arrests, which likely will be unlawful, the bill for you and me could get mountainous. )
What is coming in the Khalil case? Durkee takes a look:
What Will Happen To Mahmoud Khalil Next?
Rubio declaring Khalil “deportable” does not mean the Trump
administration can unilaterally deport him, as the activist is still
entitled to due process and the government must prove in court why he
should be deported. A federal judge has already blocked Khalil from
being deported while the case moves forward. It’s unclear how long it
will take for those legal proceedings to play out: The immigration legal
process could potentially take years, American Immigration Council
fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said
on X, though Hing told Forbes the government will likely try to
expedite this case and hold a hearing potentially within the month, as
they “don't want to look like they're dragging their feet.” Khalil’s
attorneys have also asked the court to release Khalil from detention and
have him moved back to New York from Louisiana, where he is now being
detained. Khalil is entitled to a bond hearing that would decide whether
he can be released from detention while the case over his deportation
moves forward, at which the Trump administration would have to prove
that there’s a risk of Khalil fleeing or that he’s a danger to society
in order to justify him remaining in detention. That could result in
Khalil being released from detention within a few days, Hing said.
What To Watch For
The Trump administration could continue to use the provision allowing
Rubio to order certain people “deportable” as it goes after more
protesters who aren’t U.S. citizens, which Republican leaders have vowed
to do. “If you are on a student visa and you're an aspiring young
terrorist who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you're going
home,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday when asked about
Khalil’s arrest, even though the activist was on a green card—which
grants the right to permanent residency, unlike a student visa. Hing
predicted to Forbes that the administration targeting Khalil will lead
to a “chilling effect” among other non-citizen student protesters, saying
the activist’s arrest has already “sent a message.” “The message [that
students are] getting and receiving is, I
better be careful,” Hing said. “And so I might want to restrain myself
from going out and doing what I did last spring.”
Key Background
Federal immigration agents arrested Khalil
at his Columbia-owned residence Saturday night, detaining him initially
in Elizabeth, New Jersey, before transferring him to a detention center
in Louisiana. There is no evidence of Khalil committing a crime or any
sort of violence, but he was one of the leaders and public faces
behind Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, which became an
epicenter for college demonstrations that took place across the country.
Those protests sparked a backlash from Republicans and some school
alumni, who argued the protesters’ rhetoric was antisemitic. Khalil’s
arrest came days after the Trump administration announced
it was revoking $400 million in federal funds to Columbia over the
school’s purported “continued inaction in the face of persistent
harassment of Jewish students,” and after Trump said
on Truth Social last week his administration would “find, apprehend,
and deport” students who engaged in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic,
anti-American activity.” The activist’s arrest has sparked protests and
widespread condemnation from civil rights organizations, Democrats and evensome
on the far right, who argue Khalil is being prosecuted for exercising
his First Amendment rights. “This arrest is unprecedented, illegal, and
un-American,” Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties
Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement,
arguing the Trump administration was “claiming the authority to deport
people with deep ties to the U.S. and revoke their green cards for
advocating positions that the government opposes.”
Civil
rights advocates are accusing the Trump administration of trampling the
First Amendment following the arrest of an immigrant who was involved
with pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly showed up at Mahmoud Khalil’s university-owned apartment
in Manhattan on Saturday and arrested him without telling him or his
pregnant US citizen wife why. They later informed his attorney that they
were revoking his green card, claiming that Khalil had “led activities
aligned to Hamas” but not charging him with a crime. On Monday, a
federal judge in New York temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation amid a legal battle over his future.
The
case may test First Amendment protections, especially for non-citizen
legal residents. But it could also have broad implications for every
American.
Unless
the government has evidence that Khalil committed a crime that it has
not yet disclosed, this appears an attempt at punitive action on the
basis of political expression, a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. The
Free Press reported Monday that, according to an unnamed White House
official, the administration sees Khalil as a national-security threat but “the allegation here is not that he was breaking the law.”
“If
the government has got anything other than just somebody who is saying
things they don’t like, they need to show it now, because otherwise, the
harm to First Amendment freedoms will be serious,” said Will Creeley,
legal director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
What rights does Mahmoud Khalil have?
Khalil’s
arrest raises legal questions about whether the Trump administration
can revoke his green card based on his role in the protests at Columbia.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X
on Sunday that the administration “will be revoking the visas and/or
green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” The
government has not offered evidence to back Rubio’s accusation that
Khalil is a Hamas supporter.
However,
the government’s authority to do so is limited, and civil-rights
attorneys say the Trump administration has overstepped in
Khalil’s case.
Immigrants
living in the US, including those on visas and green cards, have the
same right to free expression as any American under the First Amendment.
However,
the government can still detain and deport them if they are found to be
“inadmissible” on grounds of associating with or offering material
support to terrorism, according to Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at
the Migration Policy Institute and director of the think tank’s office
at New York University School of Law. (The United States designates
Hamas — the Palestinian militant group behind the October 7, 2023,
attack on Israel — as a terrorist organization.)
Under
federal immigration law, the bar for engaging in “terrorist activity”
is high: It can involve hijacking transportation vehicles,
assassination, kidnapping and threatening physical harm to those held
hostage if the government does not comply with their demands, or threats
or conspiracy to commit those acts.
A chilling effect on free speech
The
fallout at Columbia from Khalil’s arrest has been swift. Students and
faculty fear that they, too, could be targeted by the Trump
administration — and that the university, concerned about further
funding cuts, won’t even come to their defense.
“Many
of our faculty are, like Mr. Khalil, permanent residents of the United
States, and many of them have said things in the course of their
scholarship that the Trump administration finds noxious,” said Michael
Thaddeus, a mathematics professor at Columbia and executive committee
member of Columbia’s chapter of the American Association of University
Professors. “The attack on Mahmoud Khalil is intended to make them quake
in their boots and to make all of us quake in our boots.”
But
the implications of the arrest stretch far beyond the university’s
campus. Expressing opposition to the war in Gaza is protected by the
First Amendment so long as it does not involve criminal conduct. And
even if the speaker is accused of criminal conduct, they have the right
to a fair hearing and due process.
“You can’t be snatched off the street and arrested without knowing what you’re being arrested for,” Creeley said.
So
far, Khalil does not appear to have been afforded those legal
protections. And if he is being punished for merely expressing support
for Palestinians alone, then there is no telling where the Trump
administration will draw the line in targeting political dissent —
especially among immigrants, but also among American citizens.
“It
just seems like we’re entering a dangerous new stage where the
government is interpreting its power extremely expansively in ways that
sure look like they extend past the limits of the Bill of Rights,”
Creeley said.
Does Marco Rubio, U.S. secretary of state, have a tin ear? The answer seems to be yes after Rubio said yesterday that Ukraine will have to cede some of its territory in order to reach a peace agreement with Russia. Why would Rubio make such a statement when Zelensky said in November 2022 that a peace deal must include restoration of Ukraine's borders prior to the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Here are all the points included in Zelensky's 2022 proposal:
A ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian military forces from Ukraine
Restoration of Ukraine's borders prior to the 2014 annexation of Crimea
Security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent future aggression
A multilateral peace conference and peace treaty
That seems straightforward and, by any measure, fair. So why doesn't Rubio get it? My guess is that Rubio is little more than a trained parrot for President Donald Trump, who likely doesn't care if a deal is helpful to Ukraine. Trump has shown his main interest is in kissing the butt of Russia's Vladimir Putin, and that is not likely to change. Plus, Rubio and Trump probably know Putin is not about to accept Zelensky's terms.
This is from a New York Times report on Rubio's poorly chosen words:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that Ukraine would have to concede some of the land that Russia had taken since 2014
as part of any agreement to end the war. As he flew to Saudi Arabia for
talks with senior Ukrainian officials, Rubio told reporters, “The most
important thing that we have to leave here with is a strong sense that
Ukraine is prepared to do difficult things.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine also traveled to Saudi Arabia today
to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has emerged as a
mediator of sorts between Ukraine and Russia. Zelensky said he did not
plan on attending a meeting tomorrow with Rubio.
On the ground, Ukrainian forces have stalled the Russian offensive and started to win back small patches of land, according to Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts.
That Zelensky is not attending a meeting today with Rubio suggests to me that he does not trust the U.S., especially in the wake of the Oval Office blow-up with Trump and VP J.D. Vance, and he does not see Rubio as a serious part of any negotiations. Those positions seem wise on both points.
Donald Trump's unpredictable handling of tariffs has prompted many economists to take a dark view of the U.S. stock market over the next several months, according to a report last night from The New York Times (NYT). Under the headline "It was a bad day at the stock market," Matthew Cullen writes at NYT's The Evening newsletter:
The American stock market tumbled today
to its lowest point in several months. The S&P 500 dropped 2.7
percent, its worst single-day decline of the year. And the tech-heavy
Nasdaq slipped 4 percent, fueled in part by sharp drops in the stock
prices of some of the U.S.’s most valuable companies — like Tesla, which
fell by more than 15 percent.
Analysts
we spoke to said the economic angst was in part a result of the
uncertainty around tariffs. Over the past few weeks, President Trump has
threatened, imposed, suspended and resumed levies on America’s three
largest trade partners. Today, retaliatory tariffs by China on U.S. agricultural products
came into effect. And later this week, the Trump administration is set
to put in place a 25 percent tariff on all U.S. steel and aluminum
imports.
When Trump was asked this weekend about an economic slowdown, he acknowledged that there could be “a period of transition.” He declined to rule out the possibility of a recession, and instead insisted that, in the long run, his policies would bring “wealth back to America.”
Why did Donald Trump, after his speech to a joint session of Congress, thank John Roberts, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS)? No clear answer to that question has emerged, but the exchange was curious, especially given the Roberts court's tendency to issue dubious rulings in Trump's favor. Was Trump thanking Roberts for cutting him several breaks, some of profound importance, at the nation's highest court? Trump has denied that, but given the president's tendency to lie at a prodigious rate, a reasonable person could be forgiven for not putting much stock in that denial. So why did Trump make it a point to shake Roberts' hand, pat him on the arm, and thank him in about as profuse a manner as the usually ungracious Trump can muster?
Not only were Trump's words caught on a hot mic, they were picked up on a roving camera. A C-SPAN2 video on YouTubecan be viewed at this link. William Vaillancourt provides more details:
Donald Trump thanked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and added that he “Won’t forget it” after delivering a speech to Congress Tuesday night.
“Thank
you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget it,” he said, shaking Roberts’
hand and then tapping the George W. Bush appointee on the arm.
It
was not immediately clear what, exactly, Trump was thanking him
for—though there have been more than a few instances over the past few
years of Supreme Court intervention in favor of the president.
The questions of the moment? What is the "it" that Trump won't forget? And why is "it" so important that Trump twice said he wouldn't forget it."
The Fake ‘Play the Ref’ News, in order to create a divide between me
and our great U.S. Supreme Court, heard me say last night, loudly and
openly as I was walking past the Justices on the way to the podium,
‘thank you,’ to Chief Justice John Roberts. Like most people, I don’t
watch Fake News CNN or MSDNC, but I understand they are going ‘crazy’
asking what is it that I was thanking Justice Roberts for? They never
called my office to ask, of course, but if they had I would have told
these sleazebag ‘journalists’ that I thanked him for SWEARING ME IN ON
INAUGURATION DAY, AND DOING A REALLY GOOD JOB IN SO DOING! The Fake News
never quits," Trump posted on Truth Social.
A number of commentators were not buying that. Gee, I can't imagine why anyone would not take Trump's words seriously. From the Fox News report:
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes suggested that Trump was thanking Roberts for "paving the way" for him to return to the White House.
"Donald
Trump understands that John Roberts is his guy who sprang him and
saved him from prosecution with his ruling on presidential
immunity, which ultimately paved the way for Trump to be
elected president again," Hayes told MSNBC viewers.
MSNBC host
Symone Sanders asked New York University law professor Melissa Murray if
it was a "preemptive thank you for something that’s about to happen."
"There
is a lot Donald Trump could have thanked his court for, namely the
immunity ruling… big get out of jail free card," Murray responded.
Over
on CNN, political director David Chalian said he would "love to know"
what Trump was thanking Roberts for. He suggested it could have been for
the "inauguration," but another panelist quickly chimed in, claiming it
was "obviously immunity."
For the record, I'm not even close to buying Trump's explanation. For one, I can't understand why anyone would believe Trump, considering his history of looking Americans right in their faces and spewing rapid-fire falsehoods. I agree with Chris Hayes that this is about Roberts "paving the way" for Trump's return to the White House.
If you read Trump's words carefully, he thanks Roberts twice -- and by using the word "again," Trump suggests he already had thanked Roberts at least once. Trump is a transactional guy, a cold-blooded deal-maker, and he's not one to grovel like this unless someone has done him a favor, a big one -- one that might have kept him out of prison. Has Roberts done such a favor for Trump? He sure has -- on more than one occasion, and those rulings have nothing to do with the inauguration. Vaillancourt spells it out:
Last year, Roberts authored a decision
granting former presidents sweeping immunity from prosecution, in
effect helping Trump avoid facing trial for trying to overturn the 2020
election on Jan. 6, 2021. He had been indicted for offenses relating to his alleged
election subversion in Washington, D.C., and in Georgia.
Another case that the conservative-majority court decided in Trump’s favor last year was allowing him to be kept on the ballot after some states pointed to the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists from holding federal office.
And in another Jan. 6-related case, Roberts wrote
for the court that obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants had to
be narrower than what prosecutors had brought. Trump’s D.C. case
included two obstruction charges.
The ballot case, which originated in Colorado, produced an opinion styled Trump v. Anderson that featured a number of peculiarities. One, Trump
was a per curiam decision that was not signed. One gets the feeling
that Roberts shepherded the case through the SCOTUS process, but wanted
to maintain cover by not affixing his name to it. Perhaps Roberts did
not want to receive credit for an opinion that was based on jumbled, inconsistent legal reasoning, according to Lawfare. (Also, see this analysis from the Cato Institute.) In fact, large portions of the ruling do
not appear to be supported by precedent. It all adds up to a document
that Roberts seems to have pulled out of his fanny, simply because he
wanted Trump on the ballot -- whether he deserved to be there under the
law or not.
[The 14th amendment] — passed in
1866 and ratified in 1868 — is probably best known for its first
section, which stated that all Americans should receive equal protection
under the law. But the amendment’s third section took up a different
issue: what to do with former members of the Confederacy who had
“engaged in insurrection” — or had given “aid or comfort” to
insurrectionists — and now wanted to hold elected office in the
government they had fought against.
More than 150 years later, a
constitutional fix crafted with Jefferson Davis in mind is being used
to argue that former President Trump is ineligible to be president
again. There is no clear precedent in the case. The text of the 14th
Amendment’s third section is confusing and vague. The range of potential
decisions by the high court is vast. But whatever the court decides,
the ruling will have enormous implications for American democracy.
We classify a case as an “exoneration” if a person who was convicted of a crime is officially and completely cleared based on new evidence of innocence. . . . The report is limited to misconduct by government officials that contributed to the false convictions of defendants who were later exonerated—misconduct that distorts the evidence used to determine guilt or innocence. Concretely, that means misconduct that produces unreliable, misleading or false evidence of guilt, or that conceals, distorts or undercuts true evidence of innocence.
What kind of government misconduct draws the attention of the NRE? Here is a description from the report:
The report organizes the myriad types of misconduct into five general categories, roughly in the chronological order of a criminal case, from initial investigation to conviction: (1) Witness Tampering; (2) Misconduct in Interrogations of Suspects; (3) Fabricating Evidence; (4) Concealing Exculpatory Evidence; (5) Misconduct at Trial.
Most of the misconduct we discuss was committed by police officers and by prosecutors.
Do those words hit home for Richard M. Scrushy? The former chairman and CEO of Birmingham-based HealthSouth Corporation (now Encompass Health) stood in front of the Frank M. Johnson Jr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Montgomery yesterday and announced that he has launched a personal investigation, which he hopes will result in his 2006 conviction, along with that of former Governor Don Siegelman, being reversed.
Along with attorney Tommy Gallion, Scrushy said he has uncovered evidence that appears to match at least four of the five categories outlined above -- with No. 3, Fabricating Evidence, being the only one that might not be present -- yet. Scrushy, however, was quick to tell the assembled friends, family, and members of the press: "The prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence that caused the wrongful convictions and imprisonment of Don Siegelman and me. This is unconstitutional and criminal. At trial, Judge (Mark) Fuller told prosecutors they had to turn over all discoverable information, but the prosecutors said, "We don't have any more." We knew then they had lied to the judge, but now we have the evidence to prove it. If we had received the documents we were supposed to get, it would have changed the outcome of the trial. It resulted in denial of due process. The prosecution was corrupt, and the convictions should be reversed. I've lived under a black cloud for 20 years, and I want this off of me."
Documents show that the two lawyers were named co-liaison counsel, and our research indicates they were likely to take a much bigger chunk of the pie than most of the lawyers in the case. One of the lawyers was involved in the HealthSouth civil case while also representing Don Siegelman, Scrushy's co-defendant in the criminal case. Does that sound like a conflict of interest? No wonder Scrushy considers these guys to be "horrible."
On June 29, 2006, Scrushy was convicted of giving Siegelman $500,000 for an appointment to the
state's certificate of need board, which regulated health-care
companies. At the time, Scrushy was CEO of HealthSouth, a billion-dollar
health-care corporation -- one of three such companies he founded, including a Fortune 500 company.
The court convicted
Scrushy on six counts, including bribery, conspiracy to commit honest
services wire fraud, and four counts of honest services wire fraud. He
was given a $150,000 fine and a sentence of seven years in federal
prison. He served almost five years of that sentence.
Siegelman
was convicted on seven counts, including bribery, conspiracy to commit
honest services wire fraud, four counts of honest services wire fraud,
and obstruction of justice. He was given a $50,000 fine and a seven-year
sentence.
Scrushy alleges that
the government met with as many as 20 potential witnesses in his case,
but only disclosed contact with one witness who testified. By law, the
prosecution must disclose all evidence before trial. There is evidence
of "... corruption, widespread fraud, lawfare and weaponization of the
DOJ in the politically motivated prosecution brought against me," Scrushy said.
What was it like for Scrushy to go from CEO to federal inmate? Harsh does not seem to adequately describe it. "They took us out of the courthouse in chains and put us in the federal pen in Atlanta, which is the most awful place you can imagine. We were put in solitary confinement and placed behind a glass shield, as if we were hardened criminals. They ultimately sent me 600 miles to Texas.
Scrushy became emotional when talking about how the incarceration affected his family. “My little girl right here was
4-years-old, Gracie, when they put me in chains and pulled her out of my
arms,” Scrushy said as he pointed to his daughter who accompanied him
to the press conference. “He (1 of Scrushy’s sons also in attendance)
was 2-years-old, they sent me off to prison, 5 years they locked me up.
It states, if you read the information, they’re supposed to put me
within 500 miles of my home. They sent me over 600 miles away to Texas,
that was wrong.”
Scrushy and Gallion plan to file a motion to vacate the conviction, and Scrushy hopes the Trump administration, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, will see his case as an injustice that demands correction.
A reporter asked why Scrushy is pushing for justice at this point, given that he already has served his sentence. "What do you want to come from this?" was the question.
"I've served my time, but it has affected my family, my children, and it's affected my ability to earn
a living. I served on that health-care board under three governors. I gave Siegelman one year, and I got off. I didn't like
being on that board because it took too much of my time. Also, people don't want to deal with a felon. They are very careful about it, and I want to get out from under that cloud.
"It’s important because of my family. My children are living a life with a cloud over them that
their dad was a federal criminal. That’s a lie. That needs to be
overturned. It’s affected my ability to earn money, to make a living.
That needs to be off of me. Nobody wants to die with some kind of black
cloud and some kind of lie on them. I don’t want that marking on my back
because it’s just not true.”
"Over 15-20 years, I built three billion-dollar companies, two of them were Fortune 500 companies. I don't know too many people who have done that, yet I haven't been able to work since the conviction here. I'm not guilty on all the HealthSouth charges (in a case of alleged accounting fraud, brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; Scrushy was charged in 2003, and the trial was held in Birmingham). They started with 85 counts and got it down to 36. I was found not
guilty on all 36. Many believe that motivated the federal government to come after me again, and I believe that's probably
true. I think they said, "Let's get him with Don Siegelman."
As for Siegelman, he did not attend the press conference, but Scrushy said the former governor is supportive of his actions. Siegelman released the following statement yesterday:
Republicans apparently lapped up most everything Donald Trump was selling in his joint speech to Congress on Tuesday night. But the general public -- largely excluding right-wing types who are prone to rave about anything Trump says -- found the speech underwhelming, according to an article at The New Republic (TNR), focusing on post-speech polling. CNN conducted the poll, and the network's report indicated the speech received "modestly positive" marks, although viewers were not confident in Trump's ability to show leadership that would help everyday Americans. Oddly, viewers tended to approve of Trump's overall handling of the presidency, even though his approval ratings are underwater.
Donald Trump’s laughable
first address to Congress Tuesday night was his least popular ever,
garnering one of the least enthusiastic reactions for a president’s
first address to the chamber in the past two decades, according to a CNN poll,
Only 44 percent of viewers had a very positive reaction to the
president’s address. Twenty-five percent had a somewhat positive
reaction, and 31 percent had a negative reaction.
This is not only a low watermark when compared
with the first addresses to Congress delivered by previous presidents,
whose speeches are typically a victory lap to lay out their agenda, but
it’s also a poor showing when compared to Trump’s previous addresses to
Congress in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
Former President
Joe Biden received a very positive response from 51 percent of viewers
on his first address to Congress, while Barack Obama received 68
percent, and George W. Brush received 66 percent.
Trump’s
first address during his first administration received a very positive
reaction from 57 percent of viewers—a whopping 13 points higher than his
very positive reactions now.
Are many voters growing tired of Trump's bullying act? Are many turned off by his incessant cuts to the federal workforce and agencies? The CNN poll suggests the answers to both questions is yes. CNN, assuming the majority of viewers would be Republicans, weighted its poll to account for that -- and produce results that were more likely to be accurate than they otherwise would have been. Olmsted has more:
It wasn’t just Democrats who [had a negative reaction to the speech]. CNN’s sample group of viewers was weighted
to reflect that more people who agreed with Trump would likely be
watching, and was made up of 21 percent Democrats, 44 percent
Republicans, and 35 percent independents.
Roughly seven in 10 speech watchers said they had a positive reaction to Trump’s address, according to the CNN poll.
That number is slightly more in line with a CBS poll that Trump shared
on Truth Social Wednesday morning, which found that 76 percent of
viewers approved of Trump’s address, while 23 percent disapproved.
The Republican-heavy audience that tuned in to hear
President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday greeted it with tempered
positivity, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
Speech-watchers broadly said Trump’s policies would take the
country in the right direction, with majorities saying the same across
five issue areas that were the focus of the president’s speech. But
fewer expressed strong confidence in Trump to help people like them, use
his presidential power responsibly or provide the nation with real
leadership. . . .
Good marks from speech-watchers are typical for presidential
addresses to Congress, which tend to attract generally friendly
audiences that disproportionately hail from presidents’ own parties. In
CNN’s speech reaction polls, which have been conducted most years dating
back to the Clinton era, audience reactions have always been positive.
The pool of people who watched Trump speak on Tuesday was
about 14 percentage points more Republican than the general public.
The Trump-friendly audience reacted negatively to a protest
effort from a Democratic member of Congress. Eight in 10 Americans who
watched the speech said they saw Rep. Al Green’s interruption of Trump’s
speech as inappropriate, with just 20% saying the representative from
Texas acted appropriately. Green was ejected from the House chamber
after continuing to protest following a warning from House Speaker Mike
Johnson.
Roughly 6 in 10 viewers said in a poll conducted before the
speech that they approved of Trump’s handling of the presidency overall.
By contrast, Trump’s approval rating is underwater with the American
public as a whole, a CNN poll released Sunday found, with 48% of U.S.
adults approving of his performance as president and 52% disapproving.
Trump’s speech on Tuesday did little to further improve the
already-positive perspectives of his audience. In a survey conducted
prior to the speech, 61% said they believed his policies would move the
country in the right direction; afterward, 66% of the same people said
his policies would take the country down the right path. The share who
believed Trump has had the right priorities so far stood at 56% prior to
the speech and 59% immediately following its conclusion.
Half of speech-watchers said they held a lot of confidence
in Trump to provide real leadership, while 45% said they had a lot of
confidence in him to use his presidential power responsibly, and just 4
in 10 expressed high confidence in his ability to help people like them.
Majorities of 65% or more said they had at least some confidence in him
across each metric.
Trump scored his highest marks of the night for his policies
on immigration: 76% of speech-watchers said his proposed policies on
that issue would take America in the right direction, compared with
closer to 6 in 10 who said the same of his proposals to change how the
government works (63%), or his proposed policies on the economy (62%) or
tariffs (56%). That’s a shift from CNN’s polling on his first-term
speeches, when he consistently rated higher on economic issues than on
those related to immigration.
Most who tuned in said they thought his proposed policies on
foreign affairs would move the country in the right direction (61%).
Speech-watchers are also largely aligned with Trump’s approach to
Ukraine and Russia. Majorities said that based on what they heard in the
speech, the president’s policies toward Ukraine (63%) and Russia (58%)
offered the right amount of support for each country. Sizable
minorities, though, see Trump as too supportive of Russia (37%) and not
supportive enough of Ukraine (33%).
Annual presidential addresses rarely lead to significant
shifts in presidential approval among the broader American public,
particularly in recent years. Historically, first-year addresses to
Congress have tended to be better rated than later State of the Union
speeches and more likely than others to result in an approval rating
bounce. But Trump, the first president in the era of modern presidential
polling to serve nonconsecutive terms, isn’t new to the office — and
current levels of polarization may also curtail his speech’s potential
to affect public opinion.
The CNN poll was conducted by text message with 431 US
adults who said they watched the presidential address on Tuesday, and
are representative of the views of speech-watchers only. Respondents
were recruited to participate before the speech, and were selected by a
survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative
panel recruited using probability-based sampling techniques. Results
for the full sample of speech-watchers have a marginal sampling error
of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.
