Tag Archives: Court

Another U.S. appeals court refuses to revive Trump travel ban

FILE PHOTO - International travelers arrive at Logan airport following U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order travel ban in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Dan Levine and Lawrence Hurley

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump suffered another legal setback on Monday as a second federal appeals court refused to revive his travel ban on people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority nations in a dispute headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used narrow grounds to reject the Trump administration’s bid to undo a Hawaii federal judge’s decision blocking the temporary ban. It said the Republican president’s March 6 order violated existing immigration law. But the three-judge panel – all Democratic appointees – did not address whether it was unconstitutional discrimination against Muslims.

A second court, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on May 25 upheld a Maryland judge’s ruling that also blocked Trump’s 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The 4th Circuit had ruled that the ban, which replaced an earlier Jan. 27 one also blocked by the courts, “drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination” aimed at Muslims.

The 9th Circuit largely left in place a nationwide injunction by Judge Derrick Watson that stopped parts of the order, which Trump said was urgently needed to prevent terrorism in the United States. That ruling came in a lawsuit challenging the order brought by the state of Hawaii, which stated the ban would harm its universities and tourism industry.

Even before Monday’s ruling, the case was on the fast track to the Supreme Court, where the administration on June 1 filed an emergency request seeking to reinstate the order and hear its appeal of the 4th Circuit ruling. The Supreme Court could act on the administration’s request as soon as this week.

Trump has been on the losing side in all four court rulings on the March order. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the administration is reviewing Monday’s decision and expressed continued confidence that the order is fully lawful and ultimately will be upheld by the Supreme Court.

“I think we can all attest that these are very dangerous times and we need every available tool at our disposal to prevent terrorists from entering the United States and committing acts of bloodshed and violence,” Spicer told a briefing.

The 9th Circuit upheld the block on Trump’s three-month travel ban for the six countries and four-month suspension of all refugee admissions. But the court pared back part of Watson’s injunction in order to allow the government to conduct internal reviews on vetting procedures for these travelers.

The administration said the travel ban was needed to allow time to implement stronger vetting measures, although it has already rolled out some new requirements not blocked by courts, including additional questions for visa applicants.

Rather than focusing on Trump campaign statements as the Virginia-based court did, the 9th Circuit said the language in the executive order itself did not make a rational case for why a travel ban was needed.

“The order does not offer a sufficient justification to suspend the entry of more than 180 million people on the basis of nationality,” the court wrote, referring the combined populations of the six countries.

‘ATTRACTIVE WAY’

Under immigration law, the administration was required to make findings that entry of the people in question would be detrimental to the United States but failed to do so, the court said.

Stephen Vladeck, a professor at University of Texas School of Law, said the 9th Circuit provided an easier path for the Supreme Court to keep the travel ban on hold, because it avoided entirely the controversy over Trump’s campaign statements.

“It provides a very attractive way to leave the injunction in place without setting broader doctrinal rules about which they may have pause,” Vladeck said.

Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Monday was the deadline for the ban’s challengers to respond to the administration’s request that the order be allowed to go into effect. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents people challenging the ban in the separate Maryland suit handled by the 4th Circuit, filed court papers urging the court not to take up the case, saying the order will become moot on Wednesday, 90 days from when Trump issued it.

Lawyers for Hawaii called the order a “thinly veiled Muslim ban.”

Trump’s earlier Jan. 27 order also included Iraq among the countries targeted and a total ban on refugees from Syria. The March order was intended to overcome the legal issues posed by the original ban, but was blocked before it could go into effect on March 16.

The suits by Hawaii and the Maryland challengers argued that the order violated federal immigration law and a section of the Constitution’s First Amendment that prohibits the government from favoring or disfavoring any particular religion.

Hawaii’s court papers mentioned a series of Trump Twitter posts on June 5. Trump described the order as a “watered down, politically correct” version of his original one.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington and Dan Levine In San Francisco and Ayesha Rascoe in Washington; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

‘Trial of a lifetime’ plays out in tiny South Dakota town

The welcome sign is seen for the town of Elk Point, South Dakota, U.S. June 3, 2017. REUTERS/Ryan Henriksen

By Timothy Mclaughlin

ELK POINT, S.D. (Reuters) – In this rural outpost of just over 1,900 residents, a local college student has become a courtroom sketch artist, trailers on Main Street are ersatz offices for a major law firm and members of an agricultural youth club are puzzled by a new metal detector at the local courthouse.

The changes are part of Elk Point’s selection as site of a multibillion-dollar defamation case pitting ABC News against South Dakota-meat processor, Beef Products Inc. The company contends that ABC and reporter Jim Avila defamed it by referring to its signature product as “pink slime” in 2012 broadcasts.

BPI calls its product lean finely textured beef (LFTB).

The trial, scheduled to run eight weeks, opened on Monday. ABC is a unit of Walt Disney Co.

While BPI could face an uphill battle to show ABC intended to harm the company or knew its reporting was false, as required to prove a defamation claim, several Elk Point residents interviewed by Reuters this week were sympathetic to BPI and its founder, Eldon Roth.

“I used his products and they were good products,” said one longtime resident, Jim Cody, referring to Roth. “I couldn’t believe that people were saying this crap about them.”

Mark Turner, who owns LandMark Antiques & More, sells his own beef out of a small refrigerator in the shop. BPI is an industrialized meat processor with which he has little in common, Turner said. Even so, he felt ABC unfairly depicted LFTB.

Others, like Bobbye Wendt, who was hoping the trial would bring a boost in business for her coffee shop, were torn. ABC “could have just been reporting,” she said.

During jury selection last week a handful of potential jurors were dismissed because of criticisms of LFTB, BPI or the company founders, the Sioux City Journal reported. The company’s headquarters are not in Elk Point but some 20 miles (32 km) away.

Dane Butswinkas, an attorney for ABC, acknowledged the broadcasting company has no local ties during Monday’s opening statements, but asked that jurors look beyond this and examine the facts. ABC maintains its reporting was fair and accurate.

“No one that I will put on the stand is from here,” he said. “We’re all outsiders,”

BPI has claimed up to $1.9 billion of damages, which could be tripled to $5.7 billion. The local newspaper, the Southern Union County Leader-Courier, has dubbed it “the trial of a lifetime.”

BPI has moved four modular offices into town and purchased another building. ABC is renting Cody’s Homestead, Jim Cody’s shuttered, sun-faded steakhouse, the Leader-Courier reported. ABC declined to comment on the property.

While the trial has not caused a traffic jam on Main Street as some had predicted, the Union County Courthouse was unusually busy this week.

A parade of public relations staff, company officials and lawyers wheeled dozens of boxes of files under the court’s mounted elk head after making the 30-minute drive from hotels in Sioux City, Iowa. Elk Point has only one hotel.

On Tuesday, children sheepishly asked a security guard at the courthouse if they needed to walk through the new metal detector to drop off their farm club paperwork. They did not, he said.

(Editing by David Greising and Matthew Lewis)

Two charged in U.S. with providing material support to Hezbollah

By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) – Two men have been arrested and charged by U.S. prosecutors with scouting potential targets and providing material support to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Ali Kourani, 32, of New York City and Samer El Debek, 27, of Dearborn, Michigan, were arrested on June 1, federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced Thursday. Both have appeared in Manhattan federal court, according to prosecutors.

Lawyers for Al Kourani and El Debek could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday, prosecutors said Kourani attended Hezbollah-sponsored weapons training in Lebanon as a teenager in 2000 before lawfully coming to the United States in 2003. He became a U.S. citizen in 2009, going on to earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, the complaint said.

Prosecutors said Kourani worked for Hezbollah while in the United States, identifying potential weapon suppliers; identifying people affiliated with the military of Israel, Hezbollah’s adversary; and gathering information about U.S. airport security and about military and law enforcement facilities in New York City.

They said Kourani received additional weapons training, including on a 2011 trip to Lebanon.

In a separate criminal complaint, prosecutors said El Debek, a U.S. citizen, was recruited by Hezbollah in 2007 or 2008 and began taking a salary from the organization.

Over the years, prosecutors said, El Debek received weapons training, including in bomb-making. They said he carried out missions for Hezbollah in Thailand to clean up materials used to make explosives that had been left behind in a house, and in Panama, where he gathered information about security and the Panama Canal and Israeli Embassy.

Both men, who remain in custody, are charged with providing material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy, and illegal weapons possession.

Hezbollah, a Shi’ite group aligned with Iran and the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 1997.

The cases are United States v. Kourani, No. 17-mj-4151, and United States v. El Debek, No. 17-mj-4154, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Bill Trott)

U.S. intelligence contractor pleads not guilty to leaking charge

Reality Winner, the U.S. intelligence contractor charged with leaking classified National Security Agency material is shown in this courtroom sketch during her hearing at the U.S. District Courthouse in Augusta, Georgia, U.S., June 8, 2017. Courtesy Richard Miller via REUTERS

By Rich McKay

AUGUSTA, Ga. (Reuters) – A U.S. intelligence contractor accused of illegally leaking a classified report on Russian interference in U.S. elections to a media outlet pleaded not guilty on Thursday to an espionage offense, and a federal judge denied her request for bail.

Reality Leigh Winner, 25, is accused of passing the top secret National Security Agency report to The Intercept last month while working with Pluribus International Corp, which provides analytical services for U.S. defense and intelligence.

Winner was charged in a federal grand jury indictment on Wednesday with a single count of willful retention and transmission of national defense information, a felony offense under the Espionage and Censorship Act that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

A federal judge ordered that Winner remain held without bond after prosecutors argued during Thursday’s three-hour hearing that she posed a flight risk and public danger, citing what they called “disturbing” comments found in her notebook.

In one notation she wrote: “I want to burn the White House down,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Solari told the judge. The prosecutor said investigators also found the names of three Islamic extremists known to federal authorities listed in Winner’s notebook.

According to a probable-cause affidavit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Winner admitted to intentionally printing a copy of the intelligence report in her office and mailing it to the news outlet.

The NSA document in question provided technical details on what it said were Russian attempts to hack election officials in the United States and a voting-machine firm before the presidential election in November, two U.S. officials with knowledge of the case have confirmed to Reuters.

The FBI said unauthorized disclosure of the secret document “could reasonably result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security,” though the government has not alleged that Winner sought to share the report with foreign agents.

She is the first person charged with leaking classified information to the media since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who has called for investigations into leaks to the media.

A White House spokeswoman said at a press briefing ahead of Winner’s detention hearing that Trump believes anyone found guilty of unlawfully disclosing government secrets should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Winner, shackled at the feet and wearing an orange jumpsuit in court, said little during Thursday’s proceeding, except to reply, “Not guilty, your honor,” when asked for her plea, and to answer “yes” and “no” to procedural questions put to her by the judge.

Winner’s parents testified in support of her request to be released from jail on bond, describing their daughter as a church-going patriot who volunteered for the military and was never previously in trouble.

“Your honor, my daughter is a good girl. She will do whatever you tell her to do if you grant her bond,” her stepfather, Gary Winner, told the judge.

Solari countered that Winner’s political agenda mattered more to her than her oath to protect secrets entrusted to her, adding that she might be tempted to flee if further charges were brought in the continuing investigation.

(Reporting Rich McKay in Augusta. Additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; Writing by Jim Finkle in Toronto and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Grant McCool and Tom Brown)

U.S. lawmakers to press intel chiefs on Russia ahead of Comey hearing

FILE PHOTO - FBI Director James Comey waits to testify to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on "Russia's intelligence activities" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Patricia Zengerle and Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. intelligence officials will face questions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election and fallout from the firing of former FBI director James Comey when they appear at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s open hearing will feature officials closely tied to President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing last month of Comey, which sparked accusations that the Republican president had dismissed him to hinder the FBI probe and stifle questions about possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the second-ranking official at the Department of Justice who signed a letter recommending Comey’s dismissal, will testify, a day ahead of Comey’s own hotly anticipated testimony in the investigation of Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election.

Rosenstein’s public testimony will be the first since he appointed – in the face of rising pressure from Congress – former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel investigating possible links between Russia and the election.

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who took over after Comey was fired, will also be at the hearing.

The probe has hung over Trump’s presidency since he took office in January and threatens to overwhelm his policy priorities.

The Kremlin denies U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Moscow tried to tilt the election campaign in Trump’s favor, including by hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump has denied any collusion.

“I know that there are going to be members who want to hear from Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein about his involvement in the (Comey) firing,” Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told Reuters.

National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats will also be present at the hearing originally set to discuss a foreign surveillance law.

“My hope will be that Admiral Rogers and Director Coats won’t try to hide behind executive privilege … about the press reports about the president asking them to downplay the Russia investigation,” Warner said.

The Washington Post reported on May 22 that Trump had asked the officials to help push back against the FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Moscow, citing current and former officials.

The two refused to comply with the request, which they regarded as inappropriate, the Post report said.

The Washington Post separately reported on Tuesday that Coats told associates in March that Trump asked him if he could intervene with then FBI Director Comey to get the FBI to back off its focus on Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, in its Russia probe, according to officials.

The intelligence officials are also expected to defend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA — the stated topic of the hearing — which will expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress votes to reauthorize it.

Section 702 allows the NSA to collect digital communications of foreigners believed to be living overseas whose communications pass through U.S. telephone or Internet providers. Information about Americans is also sometimes incidentally gathered, such as when someone is communicating to a foreign target which privacy advocates have long argued evades Constitutional protections against warrantless searches.

U.S. surveillance practices have come under increased scrutiny amid unsubstantiated assertions by Trump and other Republicans that the White House under former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, improperly spied on Trump or his associates.

There is no evidence that political motives drove Obama administration officials to request the names of Trump associates in any intercepts. The requests underwent every required evaluation, and they produced nothing out of the ordinary, according to four current and former officials who have reviewed the materials.

(Additional reporting by John Walcott; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Lisa Shumaker)

Trump travel ban fight heads toward Supreme Court showdown

A picture of the travel advisory page of Qatar Airways advising passengers bound for the United States from seven newly banned majority Muslim countries that they need to have either a U.S. green card or diplomatic visa, January 28, 2017 in London, Britain. Picture taken January 28, 2017. REUTERS/Russell Boyce

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The fate of President Donald Trump’s order to ban travelers from six predominantly Muslim nations, blocked by federal courts, may soon be in the hands of the conservative-majority Supreme Court, where his appointee Neil Gorsuch could help settle the matter.

After the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined on Thursday to lift a Maryland federal judge’s injunction halting the temporary ban ordered by Trump on March 6, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the administration would appeal to the Supreme Court.

A second regional federal appeals court heard arguments on May 15 in Seattle in the administration’s appeal of a decision by a federal judge in Hawaii also to block the ban. A ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is pending.

The Justice Department has not made clear when the administration would make its formal appeal or whether it would wait for the 9th Circuit ruling before appealing.

If they take it up, the justices would be called upon to decide whether courts should always defer to the president over allowing certain people to enter the country, especially when national security is the stated reason for an action as in this case. They also would have to decide if Trump’s order violated the U.S. Constitution’s bar against the government favoring one religion over another, as the ban’s challengers assert.

Gorsuch’s April confirmation by the Republican-led Senate over Democratic opposition restored the court’s 5-4 majority, which means that if all the conservative justices side with the administration the ban would be restored regardless of how the four liberal justices vote.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Gorsuch was questioned about Trump’s criticism of judges who ruled against the ban. Gorsuch avoided commenting on the legal issue, saying only that he would not be “rubber stamp” for any president.

While the justices could decide in the coming weeks whether to hear the case, they likely would not hold oral arguments until late in the year, with a ruling sometime after that. A final resolution may not come until perhaps a year after Trump issued the executive order.

The justices are not required to hear any case, but this one meets important criteria cited by experts, including that it would be the federal government filing the appeal and that it involves a nationwide injunction.

The administration could file an emergency application seeking to put the order into effect while the litigation on its legality continues. At least five justices must agree for any such request to be granted.

While the court could split 5-4 along ideological lines, it also is possible some conservative justices could join the liberals in overturning the travel ban, libertarian law professor Ilya Somin of George Mason University said.

“Conservatives in other contexts often take a hard line against any kind of government discrimination (based) on race or religion or the like, even if the motivation may be benign. Also conservatives have concerns about government infringements on religion,” Somin said.

The 4th Circuit said the ban’s challengers, including refugee groups, in the case argued by the American Civil Liberties Union were likely to succeed on their claim that the order violated the Constitution’s prohibition on the government favoring or disfavoring any religion. In the 10-3 ruling, three Republican-appointed judges dissented.

The Republican president’s March 6 order, replacing an earlier Jan. 27 one also blocked by the courts, called for barring people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days while the government implements stricter visa screening. It also called for suspending all refugee admissions for 120 days.

KENNEDY’S REASONING

The travel ban’s challengers may take some comfort from the appeals court ruling’s reliance on a concurring opinion in a 2015 Supreme Court immigration case by Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who sometimes sides with the court’s liberals in big cases.

In the 2015 case, Kennedy wrote that in the immigration context, the government’s actions can be questioned if there is evidence of bad faith.

“As with any opinion by Justice Kennedy, I think the million-dollar question is just what he meant in his concurrence, and this may be a perfect case to find out,” University of Texas School of Law professor Stephen Vladeck said.

In Thursday’s ruling, 4th Circuit Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote that the plaintiffs had shown there was “ample evidence” of bad faith, which gave the green light to probe whether there were reasons for the order other than the administration’s stated national security rationale.

The administration has argued the temporary travel ban was needed to guard against terrorist attacks. Gregory wrote that the order uses “vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.” Trump during the presidential campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

Driver indicted in deadly Times Square attack, crash

FILE PHOTO: A vehicle that struck pedestrians and later crashed is seen on the sidewalk in Times Square in New York City, U.S., May 18, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Gina Cherelus

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A grand jury has indicted the driver charged with killing a young woman and injuring 22 people when he careened through three blocks in New York City’s crowded Times Square, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Richard Rojas, 26, is scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment on July 13.

Authorities say Rojas drove his Honda sedan down Seventh Avenue on May 18, made a U-turn and mowed down pedestrians on the packed sidewalk for three city blocks before crashing. Alyssa Elsman, an 18-year-old woman from Michigan, was killed.

The driver was subdued by onlookers and police as he tried to flee on foot.

The charges in the indictment were not immediately made public. Rojas, who did not appear at the Wednesday hearing, was previously charged with second-degree murder, vehicular homicide and multiple counts of attempted murder.

His defense lawyer, Enrico Demarco, declined to comment after the brief hearing.

Rojas, who served in the Navy, told the New York Post in a tearful jailhouse interview last week that he had unsuccessfully sought psychiatric care, and said he had no recollection of the incident.

He was believed to be under the influence of some intoxicating substance, a police source has told Reuters, while law enforcement officials told ABC News he was apparently high on synthetic marijuana.

Rojas has had numerous run-ins with the law over the past decade, according to Navy and public court records. He has had at least four prior arrests, two for drunken driving, and one earlier this month for allegedly threatening another man with a knife outside his apartment in New York City’s Bronx borough.

While serving in the Navy in 2013, he spent two months in a military jail in South Carolina, though records do not indicate why.

Of the 13 attack victims Bellevue Hospital received, nine have been released, the health provider said in a statement on Wednesday. One of the remaining patients is in critical condition, another is in serious condition and the other two are in fair or good shape, it said.

The last of six victims sent to Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai St. Luke’s hospitals was released on Tuesday, a spokeswoman said.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney; editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

In travel ban case, U.S. judges focus on discrimination, Trump’s powers

People protest U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban outside of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Seattle, Washington, U.S. May 15, 2017. REUTERS/David Ryder

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – U.S. appeals court judges on Monday questioned the lawyer defending President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban about whether it discriminates against Muslims and pressed challengers to explain why the court should not defer to Trump’s presidential powers to set the policy.

The three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel was the second court in a week to review Trump’s directive banning people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority countries.

Opponents – including the state of Hawaii and civil rights groups – say that both Trump’s first ban and later revised ban discriminate against Muslims. The government argues that the text of the order does not mention any specific religion and is needed to protect the country against attacks.

In addressing the Justice Department at the hearing in Seattle, 9th Circuit Judge Richard Paez pointed out that many of Trump’s statements about Muslims came “during the midst of a highly contentious (election) campaign.” He asked if that should be taken into account when deciding how much weight they should be given in reviewing the travel ban’s constitutionality.

Neal Katyal, an attorney for Hawaii which is opposing the ban, said the evidence goes beyond Trump’s campaign statements.

“The government has not engaged in mass, dragnet exclusions in the past 50 years,” Katyal said. “This is something new and unusual in which you’re saying this whole class of people, some of whom are dangerous, we can ban them all.”

The Justice Department argues Trump issued his order solely to protect national security.

Outside the Seattle courtroom a group of protesters gathered carrying signs with slogans including, “The ban is still racist” and “No ban, no wall.”

Paez asked if an executive order detaining Japanese-Americans during the World War Two would pass muster under the government’s current logic.

Acting U.S. Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, said that the order from the 1940s, which is now viewed as a low point in U.S. civil rights history, would not be constitutional.

If Trump’s executive order was the same as the one involving Japanese-Americans, Wall said: “I wouldn’t be standing here, and the U.S. would not be defending it.”

Judge Michael Daly Hawkins asked challengers to Trump’s ban about the wide latitude held by U.S. presidents to decide who can enter the country.

“Why shouldn’t we be deferential to what the president says?” Hawkins said.

“That is the million dollar question,” said Katyal. A reasonable person would see Trump’s statements as evidence of discriminatory intent, Katyal said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said at a news briefing that the executive order is “fully lawful and will be upheld. We believe that.”

The panel, made up entirely of judges appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, reviewed a Hawaii judge’s ruling that blocked parts of the Republican president’s revised travel order.

LIKELY TO GO TO SUPREME COURT

The March order was Trump’s second effort to craft travel restrictions. The first, issued on Jan. 27, led to chaos and protests at airports before it was blocked by courts. The second order was intended to overcome the legal problems posed by the original ban, but it was also suspended by judges before it could take effect on March 16.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii blocked 90-day entry restrictions on people from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, as well as part of the order that suspended entry of refugee applicants for 120 days.

As part of that ruling, Watson cited Trump’s campaign statements on Muslims as evidence that his executive order was discriminatory. The 9th Circuit previously blocked Trump’s first executive order.

Last week the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia reviewed a Maryland judge’s ruling that blocked the 90-day entry restrictions. That court is largely made up of Democrats, and the judges’ questioning appeared to break along partisan lines. A ruling has not yet been released.

Trump’s attempt to limit travel was one of his first major acts in office. The fate of the ban is one indication of whether the Republican can carry out his promises to be tough on immigration and national security.

The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to be the ultimate decider, but the high court is not expected to take up the issue for several months.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton in Washington)

Engineer in deadly 2015 Amtrak crash charged with manslaughter

Emergency responders search for passengers following an Amtrak train derailment in the Frankfort section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in this file photo dated May 12, 2015. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

By Laila Kearney

(Reuters) – The engineer in a deadly 2015 Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a statement on Friday, even though local prosecutors had cleared the engineer of criminal wrongdoing earlier in the week.

In addition to eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, former Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian was charged with one count of causing or risking a catastrophe and numerous counts of reckless endangerment, according to Shapiro’s statement.

The attorney’s general office did not say when Bostian will be arraigned. He is expected to surrender to make a court appearance but that will not likely happen Friday night, officials said.

The Philadelphia district attorney’s office on Tuesday said it did not have enough evidence to charge Bostian and closed the case.

But a Philadelphia municipal court judge on Thursday ordered the charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment against Bostian to be revived.

The district attorney’s office had said evidence indicated the derailment was caused by the engineer operating the train far in excess of the speed limit, but it found no evidence that he acted with criminal intent.

To avoid a conflict of interest, prosecutors referred the case against Bostian to Shapiro’s office.

Under state law, Friday marks the two-year deadline to charge Bostian in the May 12, 2015, crash, which killed eight people and injured more than 180.

In May 2016, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report that Bostian was probably distracted by radio traffic when the crash occurred.

A federal judge in October approved a record $265 million settlement for the accident victims. A lawyer for Bostian did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Leslie Adler)

Brazil on edge as ex-president Lula squares off with judge Moro

Members of Workers Party (PT) attend a march before former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's testimony to federal judge Sergio Moro, in Curitiba, Brazil, May 9, 2017. REUTERS/Rodolfo Buhrer

By Brad Haynes

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – When Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Judge Sergio Moro meet for the first time in a courtroom on Wednesday, the contrasts – and the stakes – could hardly be greater.

One is the country’s most popular president ever and the front-runner in next year’s election – a former union leader who still whips up crowds with his fiery and folksy oratory. The other, a soft-spoken law professor who represents Lula’s main obstacle to power.

The legacy and political future of Brazil’s first working-class president are on the line as Lula faces one of the five criminal cases against him, part of the biggest corruption probe in the country’s history.

While denying any wrongdoing, Lula and his lawyers have turned his defense into an attack on Moro himself, arguing the judge’s track record in overseeing the graft probe has undermined his impartiality. Lula’s supporters are traveling from across Brazil to the southern city of Curitiba to protest outside the court.

Local media has fed expectations of a confrontation with a breathless buildup to Wednesday’s hearing. One news magazine’s cover painted the two as masked wrestlers going head to head. On another, they are boxers “Settling Scores.”

Pollster Datafolha found Moro was one of the few public figures who could beat Lula in the 2018 presidential race – though Moro denies he will enter politics.

The 44-year-old judge has avoided addressing the electoral impact of his decisions and discouraged portrayals of him as David to Lula’s political Goliath.

Lula’s testimony is just one more step in a three-year-old operation, insists Moro, who has kept lecturing public university students on criminal law as he runs the probe.

“I’m a little concerned by this climate of confrontation, these heightened expectations about something that may be totally banal,” the judge said at a public event on Monday, regarding this week’s hearing.

Moro has already sentenced dozens of businessmen and money launderers for a bribery scheme paying billions of dollars to politicians in return for public contracts, political favors and deals with state firms such as oil giant Petrobras <PETR4.SA>.

Office holders in Brasilia must be tried by the Supreme Court, so prosecution has moved more slowly against alleged beneficiaries in the ruling Brazilian Democratic Movement Party and the Workers Party, which ran the country under Lula and his successor Dilma Rousseff from 2003 to 2016.

“CLIMATE OF CONFRONTATION”

Prosecutors say Lula masterminded the scheme during his eight years in office, but Wednesday’s hearing focuses on whether he traded influence for the refurbishing of a beach condo.

On Monday, Moro began hearing testimony in a second trial against Lula, regarding 12 million reais ($4 million) of land bought by a construction firm to be used for his institute.

A conviction in either case, if upheld in an appeals court before elections in October next year, would bar him from seeking office.

While Lula’s allies are calling for tens of thousands of partisans to convene in Curitiba, Moro posted a Facebook video discouraging a rival march by supporters of the investigation.

Yet even that call for restraint stirred controversy.

“Judge Moro, who ought to be impartial, is speaking directly to his supporters. That is not normal in a democratic system. In a democracy, politicians have supporters and adversaries – not judges,” said Lula attorney Cristiano Zanin in a video response.

The exchange underscored that while both Lula and Moro face public scrutiny, the judge may have more to lose if the interrogation devolves into a contentious exchange.

A courtroom spat would stoke complaints from Lula supporters who call the investigation a political witch hunt and bolster his lawyers’ demands that another judge try the case.

Attempts at such a legal maneuver are not uncommon, said Oscar Vilhena Vieira, dean of the law school at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. In Brazil, the same judge is usually responsible for overseeing an investigation and then ruling on a case.

Yet relations between Moro and Lula’s team are especially tense amid their campaign to discredit him, which included the lawyers’ complaint to the United Nations that the judge violated Lula’s human rights during the corruption investigation.

Moro often cites the value of public support for the task force he oversees, pointing to the lessons of Italy’s “Mani Pulite” graft probe in the 1990s to show the importance of popular opinion to sustain a major corruption investigation.

“From a political perspective, there is a greater risk for Judge Moro,” said Vieira. “His rhetorical options are far more limited. He has to take great care not to fall into the traps set by Lula’s lawyers.”

(Reporting by Brad Haynes; Editing by Brad Brooks, Daniel Flynn and Andrew Hay)