The Justice Department is fighting a legal attempt to obtain a campaign-trail document which may have served as the manuscript for Donald Trump’s executive orders on travel.
Politico writes that at the center of the maelstrom is a policy memo former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani helped craft for Donald Trump when he was still campaigning as a Republican Party candidate.
Giuliani, along with former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Representatives Mike McCaul (R-TX) and Peter King (R-NY), were called together by a Trump-led ‘commission’ trying to put the finishing touches on an executive order than could be signed into action after inauguration. According to Giuliani, the intent was to create a document which would carry out the president’s promised ban on Muslim immigration ‘legally.’
The legal action is being brought in a Detroit-based suit by lawyers for the Arab-American Civil Rights League, who say a draft of the memo could shed light on whether the signed executive orders were motivated by anti-Muslim bias and religious prejudice.
The first executive order failed after a series of courts ruled it most likely violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Since the second executive action was drafted and signed into effect, it has run into a slew of similar challenges. After a temporary injunction was upheld by district and federal courts, a Justice Department-led appeal is expected to occupy a space in the Supreme Court’s docket.
One of the primary arguments referenced by lower courts in their rulings has been the campaign-trail speech and rhetoric of then-candidate Trump, who made inflammatory and controversial remarks about Syrian refugees and other Muslim immigrants. They also pointed to comments the president made which indicated favoring taking in Christian and Yazidi refugees over their Muslim counterparts.
Given the importance of the document in establishing intent, attorneys of the Justice Department thrown up a vigorous rejection of the Arab-American League’s request.
“Searching for private, nongovernmental documents within the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Department of Justice constitutes an unwarranted disruption of executive operations,” wrote DoJ lawyer Katherine Shinners.
Shinners noted that the document could be more easily obtained through “third-party owners” such as the Trump campaign and the president himself. However, the Detroit-based lawsuit had specified neither the Trump campaign nor its head as defendants in the case.
According to the Arab-American Civil Rights League, the reason they’re pursuing governmental agencies before private entities is simply a matter of protocol: documents should be requested from relevant opposing parties before they’re sought from outside, third-party entities and organizations.
Government lawyers are still expected to defend the travel ban on grounds that its commands and wording should be judged solely on their content and immediate context, rather than against the backdrop of the president’s campaign and past comments.
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