6 Sep 2022

Trump-endorsed Diehl to face Democrat Healey for Massachusetts governor

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BOSTON — The race for governor in deep-blue Massachusetts is set to be a referendum on former President Donald Trump.

Trump-backed former state Rep. Geoff Diehl has clinched the Republican nomination for governor, setting up a clash between the conservative and Democrat Maura Healey, the state attorney general who burnished her profile by repeatedly suing the Trump administration.

Healey, who sailed through an uncontested primary after her last rival dropped out in June, is the overwhelming favorite to win in November — and one of Democrats’ two best hopes in the country to flip a governorship this fall.

While the former president’s endorsement played well with an increasingly pro-Trump Republican base, boosting Diehl over political newcomer Chris Doughty in the GOP primary, it’s poised to be a hindrance for Diehl in a general election. Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly rejected Trump and his brand of Republicanism in both of his presidential bids.

Trump endorsed Diehl to settle a score with popular Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who opted not to run for a third term.

After initially veering away from Trump when he launched his campaign, Diehl embraced the former president and his rhetoric. He brought in Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, as a senior adviser, and he campaigned over the summer with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Trump ally. And he has falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.”

That gives Healey, a progressive prosecutor who sued the Trump administration nearly 100 times, an obvious general election foil.

Healey signaled as much when, speaking before the Republican primary was finalized, she said either man would “bring Trumpism to Massachusetts.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the anger, the vitriol, the division,” Healey told her supporters at the IBEW Local 103 building in Dorchester. “That’s not who we are. That’s not what Massachusetts is about.”

She also, in a nod to the importance of reproductive rights even in a state where access to abortion is enshrined in law, said noted that Diehl “oppose[s] abortion rights.”

Healey will kick off her general election campaign Wednesday in Worcester, the state’s second-largest city, with her new running mate, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, at her side.

In a tele-rally a day before the primary, Trump spoke highly of Diehl, calling him a “proven fighter” who will “rule your state with an iron fist and he’ll do what has to be done.”

But Diehl faces a completely new challenge now as he ventures outside the GOP activist base.

Polls of the general election in Massachusetts have Healey — who easily won the Democratic nomination after clearing the primary field of major opposition — leading Diehl by double digit margins, 54 percent to 23 percent, according to a recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll. The Trump base won’t carry him, either: The former president only garnered 32 percent of the vote in Massachusetts the 2020 presidential election and around 33 percent in 2016.

Diehl and the Massachusetts Republican Party are now joining a small group of pro-Trump, far-right candidates who won primaries in the northeast but now find themselves at a disadvantage in the general election. That includes Trump loyalist Leora Levy who snagged the Republican Senate nomination in Connecticut over a local party-endorsed candidate, and far-right state lawmaker Dan Cox in Maryland, who beat a moderate Republican backed by outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan.

The combination has made the Massachusetts and Maryland governorships among the most likely to flip parties this year. Baker, the outgoing GOP governor of Massachusetts, has worked with Democrats in the legislature to pass laws fighting climate change, protecting abortion rights and even called for Trump’s impeachment following the Capitol riot.

Healey’s campaign for governor has put her current job as attorney general up for grabs. Former Boston City Councilmember Andrea Campbell won the Democratic nomination to face Republican Jay McMahon, pulling out a win in a heated primary against workers’ rights attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, a labor attorney who poured at least $9.3 million of her own money into her campaign to flood the airwaves with seven television ads. Campbell will be the favorite against McMahon, who lost his bid against Healey in 2018.

Polling by UMass Amherst released days ahead of the race showed a near-tie between both candidates, but Campbell pulled ahead comfortably Tuesday night.

Campbell campaigned on advocating for communities of color in the criminal justice system, which includes calling for a “police accountability unit” within the office’s civil rights division, enforcing gun safety laws and protecting people’s rights under the Affordable Care Act.

Campbell ran for mayor of Boston in 2021 and was previously president of the city council.

The Democratic primary had divided top Massachusetts progressives, pitting Healey, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Sen. Ed Markey, who backed Campbell, against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and former Boston Acting Mayor Kim Janey, who had come out with late-stage endorsements of Liss-Riordan. Quentin Palfrey, the third candidate in the race, ended his campaign last week and backed Campbell — after hammering her throughout the campaign over their stark policy differences and super PAC spending on her behalf.

Campbell is poised to become the first Black woman to be Massachusetts attorney general.

6 Sep 2022

DOJ’s setback in Mar-a-Lago probe could be profound … or merely a blip

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A federal judge’s order of an independent review of the materials seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home has roiled the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal probe into the matter.

It’s also raised profound questions about the power of courts to intervene in Executive Branch work.

“If a judge can tell a different branch of government, ‘I’m taking over your job,’ then how does the executive branch function?” said Orin Kerr, a University of California, Berkeley law professor and an expert on criminal procedure.

The direct impact of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon’s order appointing a so-called special master and barring DOJ from continuing its criminal probe is impossible to know at this early juncture. The government is likely to appeal the ruling and even if it doesn’t, the entire dispute could amount to a blip in the broader investigation.

“An appellate panel of jurists who prize precedent and reason would see the manifold flaws in Judge Cannon’s ruling — and that it isn’t supportable by precedent or custom and practice, and reverse it,” said David Laufman, who led the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section until 2018 and is now a partner at the firm Wiggin and Dana. Even so, Laufman acknowledged the Atlanta-based Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which would likely hear an appeal, is a wild card due to its conservative tilt.

Cannon’s ruling, nevertheless, set the legal world ablaze on Monday, as much for the details it omitted as the ones it included.

Cannon ordered a broad review that includes not just potential attorney-client privilege but also executive privilege, brushing aside the government’s concerns that such a review would be cumbersome and fruitless, given what they said was Trump’s weak claim to ownership of the documents in question. She also set no firm timeline for the special master to complete his or her work, raising the specter of a lengthy process.

While she said her ruling should not affect the intelligence community’s review of whether Trump’s possession of the documents presents any risk to national security, it’s not clear how that would work in practice. Even many conservative attorneys were baffled and convinced the ruling would be reversed on appeal.

“The opinion, I think, was wrong and I think the government should appeal it,” Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr said on Fox News Tuesday. “It was deeply flawed in a number of ways. I don’t think the appointment of a special master is going to hold up.”

While it was difficult to find legal scholars Tuesday offering an outright endorsement of Cannon’s ruling, some said it was a reasonable one given the circumstances.

“I’m not here to praise her order or condemn it,” said John Malcolm, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official who now heads up the Meese Center at the Heritage Foundation. “This is all uncharted territory, so what she’s basically saying is: let’s take a pause…. That strikes me as not being an unreasonable thing to do.”

Cannon set a Friday deadline for the Justice Department and former Trump’s attorneys to submit a joint proposal for the independent review, including potential candidates to lead it and an agreed-upon set of parameters to govern it. Here’s a look at the burning questions that will have to be resolved before any such review commences:

1. How does DOJ react?

So far, the department is staying mum. But that can’t last long. The most urgent question remaining is whether and when the Justice Department will appeal Cannon’s order. The department didn’t indicate its intentions immediately, but many DOJ veterans suggested that leaving the ruling unchallenged would set a dangerous precedent — not necessarily in this particular case but for the broader relationship between the Executive Branch and the courts.

2. Who could the special master be?

The most recent special masters in politically explosive cases have all been one person: former federal judge Barbara Jones. She was appointed as an independent reviewer in the matters involving former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the FBI’s seizure of devices from the leaders of Project Veritas.

But the search of Trump’s estate presents thornier issues. For one, the special master will be tasked with reviewing highly classified documents, which both Trump’s team and the government have indicated will require someone with an existing top secret security clearance.

“The type of special master this judge envisions doesn’t exactly grow on trees,” said Laufman. On top of the need for a top secret security clearance, Laufman cited the need for a person with a sufficient stature, independence and availability — let alone someone Trump would agree to.

The person will also need to be equipped to decide questions of executive privilege, should Trump assert it for any of the documents in question. DOJ has argued — and the Nixon-era Supreme Court has held — that a sitting president’s decisions on executive privilege nearly always supersede those of a predecessor. But until Trump fought the Jan. 6 select committee, there had never been a test case of the precise boundaries when an incumbent president and his predecessor differ.

3. How to decide those executive privilege questions and what will be the Biden White House’s involvement?

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the Jan. 6 select committee could obtain some of Trump’s White House records from the National Archives despite his assertion of executive privilege. In fact, the high court left untouched an appeals court ruling that found the committee would be entitled to access Trump’s records even if he were the sitting president, given the magnitude of their investigation.

Cannon appeared to acknowledge there’s a strong likelihood Trump’s executive privilege claims will be rejected. But she said he should have the right to make them and have them adjudicated.

The question is how? If Trump asserts privilege for a particular document, it would typically trigger a process requiring the incumbent president, Joe Biden, to determine whether to uphold or reject Trump’s claim. During earlier rounds of negotiation between the government and Trump, Biden delegated his power to waive privilege to the National Archives, which rejected his claims over 15 of the boxes recovered from Mar-a-Lago in January. Biden could potentially be asked to make a similar designation for items seized in the search.

4. The interaction between the intel and justice apparatuses

One of Cannon’s most unusual decisions was to permit an ongoing review by the intelligence community of the seized records to assess any risks to national security. This raised thorny legal questions about the feasibility — and legal soundness — of barring one wing of the Executive Branch (DOJ) from reviewing the documents while permitting another (the intelligence agencies) to comb through them.

The injunction could hobble the government’s investigation as DOJ figures out the boundaries of Cannon’s ruling, said Laufman.

”If I’m DOJ, I’m asking myself, what can I do clearly, without running afoul of this pending injunction with regard to additional investigative actions,” said Laufman. “Can I ask witnesses in additional interviews, questions that are derived from knowledge I have obtained as a result of my review of these documents or knowledge of these documents? Is that too close to the line? How much can we do that we can clearly do without running afoul of this order?”

This is further complicated by the fact that the FBI, which has already reviewed the documents in question prior to Cannon’s order, is a component of the intelligence community.

Whether Cannon has this authority at all is a question that has emerged in the wake of her Monday ruling and has raised questions about the separation of powers.

“It’s just something that the judge has no jurisdiction over,” said Kerr, the criminal procedure expert, who called the issue a “really fundamental constitutional separation of powers point.”

5. So, how does this affect the timing of broader criminal inquiry?

In its filings to Cannon, DOJ emphasized that a special master should be required to work in an expedited fashion to prevent any prolonged hindrance to the criminal investigation. In fact, the department wanted the entire review completed by Sept. 30, saying “the volume of material at issue is not large.” But that was based on a request that the review only examine potential attorney-client privilege.

An open-ended review for executive privilege could be far more protracted. There’s no rulebook for any of this, and it’s unclear how the as-yet-unnamed special master would conduct such a review. Regardless, the Justice Department is likely to resist any steps that could permit the review to become a months- or years-long delay.

“Nothing happens until the judge appoints a special master. There could be months of disagreement over who the special master should be,” said Kerr. “And then the special master could be extremely slow. So if everything has to wait for the special master, then this could take months or even years before it’s all resolved.”

6 Sep 2022

Judge who sided with Trump in Mar-a-Lago case had few high-profile cases

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The federal judge at the center of the dispute over documents taken from former President Donald Trump’s estate is a member of a prominent conservative legal society who has had brushes with other politically-sensitive cases during her short time on the bench.

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020 and confirmed just days after the presidential election, had faced criticism Monday for siding with the former president and his legal team in their request for a special master to review material taken from Mar-A-Lago during the FBI’s search in early August.

The Justice Department is expected to appeal her ruling.

Some legal experts had publicly chided Cannon for her ruling, claiming that she was overly-deferential to Trump’s legal team and was generally untested. Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr, for example, told Fox News that the ruling “was wrong” and “deeply flawed in a number of ways.”

“She is obviously very bright. Obviously very conservative. And obviously very inexperienced,” said an experienced South Florida attorney who was granted anonymity because he could have cases before Cannon in the future.

Cannon did not respond to a request for comment.

The court had randomly-assigned the Mar-a-Lago case to the 41-year-old Cannon. But in April, Trump had sought to get an unrelated racketeering lawsuit against Hillary Clinton before the Southern District of Florida, where Cannon is a judge. That case went to Clinton-appointee U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks instead, and Trump asked him to recuse himself from the case.

Middlebrooks took notice of Trump’s attempt to get a judge seen as friendly in that case and specifically mentioned Cannon in court documents.

“I note that Plaintiff filed this lawsuit in the Fort Pierce division of this District, where only one federal judge sits: Judge Aileen Cannon, who Plaintiff appointed in 2020,” Middlebrooks wrote. “Despite the odds, this case landed with me instead.”

“And when Plaintiff is in litigation before a judge that he himself appointed, he does not tend to advance these same sorts of bias concerns,” he added.

While the Mar-a-Lago case is by far the most high profile case before Cannon, she also oversaw a criminal case involving Paul Hoeffer, a 60-year-old Palm Beach Gardens man who threatened to behead Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a progressive who is a regular target for conservative criticism.

Federal prosecutors sought a three-and-half-year sentence for Hoeffer but Cannon gave him 18-months in federal prison.

Cannon’s background fits the profile of many Trump judicial appointees: She is young, which means she will serve on the federal bench potentially for decades, and is a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization that has huge sway over Republican-appointed judges.

Born in Colombia, Cannon attended Duke University and graduated from the University of Michigan law school. She worked from 2009-2012 in the Washington office of law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and then as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida.

She was approached about a position on the federal judiciary in June 2019, when Sen. Marco Rubio’s office sent an email indicating that the Florida Republican wanted to consider her for a vacancy in the district.

Her application was submitted that month to Rubio’s Judicial Advisory Committee for the Southern District of Florida. She later interviewed with that committee and GOP Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s general counsel before traveling to Washington to interview with the White House and Justice Department legal officials.

The Senate confirmed her on Nov. 11, 2020 by a 56-21 vote. A dozen Democrats supported her nomination.

Cannon’s only political contribution was $100 to Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ first campaign in 2018, according to campaign finance records.

6 Sep 2022

Ciudad de Nueva York ampliará el apoyo a los estudiantes que aprenden inglés en escuelas de transferencia

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El Departamento de Educación comenzará un programa para ampliar el tipo de ayuda que reciben los estudiantes de hogares no angloparlantes que están aprendiendo inglés (English Language Learners o ELL por sus siglas en inglés) en las escuelas de transferencia existentes, que atienden a los estudiantes que están atrasados en los cursos o necesitan un apoyo adicional para el aprendizaje.

Este artículo apareció originalmente en inglés el 1 de septiembre de 2022. Translated by Daniel Parra
Read the English version here

El Departamento de Educación de la ciudad de Nueva York (DOE por sus siglas en inglés) ha decidido a ampliar el apoyo a los inmigrantes recién matriculados en las escuelas secundarias de transferencia de la ciudad, con recursos adicionales para los estudiantes que reciben clases de inglés como segunda lengua (ELL por sus siglas en inglés) en seis programas existentes este otoño, según ha averiguado City Limits.


Pero la agencia aún no ha especificado cuáles serán las escuelas que recibirán esos recursos y programas adicionales este próximo año escolar, a pesar de que las clases ya comienzaronn.

Las escuelas de transferencia atienden a los estudiantes que están atrasados en los cursos o necesitan apoyo adicional para el aprendizaje. Aunque hay docenas en toda la ciudad, solo cinco atienden específicamente a los estudiantes ELL, cuatro de ellas situadas en Manhattan y una en el Bronx. Los defensores de las personas inmigrantes llevan años pidiendo que la ciudad amplíe ese número para que los jóvenes inmigrantes recién llegados tengan acceso a las escuelas de transferencia de los barrios más alejados.

“Las escuelas de transferencia apoyan a los estudiantes que requieren formas alternativas de educación y es absolutamente crítico que estas escuelas únicas tengan los programas necesarios para apoyar a todos los estudiantes, independientemente del idioma que hablen en casa”, dijo un portavoz del DOE.

Education Collaborative, una coalición de más de 30 organizaciones comunitarias, ha estado abogando por dicha inversión, afirmando que los estudiantes ELL a menudo hacen malabares con sus responsabilidades laborales y de estudio, tienen menos años escolares para ponerse al día con el inglés y tienden a batallar más que sus compañeros para encontrar escuelas secundarias que satisfagan sus necesidades académicas y socioemocionales. El grupo ha impulsado específicamente un programa piloto de tres años y $8.2 millones de dólares para atender a un máximo de 400 estudiantes inmigrantes recién llegados de entre 16 y 21 años, según informó Chalkbeat esta primavera.

El DOE no especificó cuánto costará el programa piloto que lanza este otoño, pero explicó que no hay un tope establecido para el número de estudiantes inscritos, ya que las escuelas de transferencia tienen matrículas abiertas.

La agencia dijo que habrá seis escuelas que participarán en el programa piloto: tres en Queens, dos en el Bronx y una en Brooklyn, pero no reveló los nombres de las escuelas, y no respondió a las preguntas de City Limits sobre esos detalles.

El DOE dijo que se espera que en cada una de las seis escuelas se inscriban un mínimo de 25 inmigrantes recién llegados durante el próximo año escolar, lo que significa un total de por lo menos 150 nuevos estudiantes para el año escolar 2022-2023. Hasta el 30 de agosto, la ciudad dijo que 25 nuevos estudiantes se han inscrito en todas las escuelas de transferencia, incluyendo cinco en las escuelas del programa piloto.

Si bien no es exactamente lo mismo que el piloto que los defensores propusieron, el DOE dijo que sus planes lograrán el propósito común de aumentar el acceso y proporcionar oportunidades a los recién llegados ELL en las comunidades fuera de Manhattan.

El DOE dijo que trabajó con los superintendentes para identificar las escuelas que consideraba que estaban bien posicionadas para ofrecer programas a los estudiantes de inglés recién llegados de mayor edad. Las seis escuelas seleccionadas proporcionarán apoyo adicional a los estudiantes más allá de su programación obligatoria de inglés como nueva lengua (ENL), así como proporcionarán formación profesional a los profesores y demás empleados sobre el apoyo a las necesidades académicas y socio-emocionales de los estudiantes ELL.

Los defensores acogieron la noticia con satisfacción y la consideraron un primer paso, pero esperaban más detalles.

“Mi reacción inicial es que me alegro de que vayamos a tener este programa”, dijo Andrea Ortiz, responsable de política educativa de New York Immigration Coalition, y quien trabajó en la propuesta del programa piloto presentada a la ciudad por la citada coalición de organizaciones.

“A mí me parece estupendo que haya escuelas en todos los distritos”, dijo Ortiz por teléfono.

“Estoy deseando conocer más detalles”, dijo Rita Rodríguez-Engberg, directora del proyecto de derechos de los estudiantes inmigrantes para Advocates for Children of New York.

Funcionarios de la ciudad dicen que el proyecto piloto ha estado en preparación desde el año pasado y no fue una respuesta al aumento del número de familias inmigrantes que ingresaron por la frontera sur y que buscan asilo en Nueva York en los últimos meses. El 19 de agosto, el alcalde anunció el plan multiagencial Project Open Arms (Proyecto Brazos Abiertos), que establece directrices para ayudar a estos recién llegados en el proceso de matrícula, aunque su plan no menciona las escuelas de transferencia.

Pero los defensores dicen que este programa llega justo a tiempo: entre los recientes solicitantes de asilo hay más de mil niños y niñas en edad escolar. El año pasado, el 43 por ciento de los alumnos de las escuelas públicas de la ciudad hablaban un idioma distinto al inglés, según cifras del DOE.

Solo entre 2015 y 2019, el Migration Policy Institute (MPI por sus siglas en inglés) calculó que 3.400 inmigrantes recién llegados, con edades comprendidas entre los 16 y los 21 años, no estaban inscritos en la escuela o aún no habían recibido un diploma o su equivalente, y podrían haberse beneficiado potencialmente de los programas de educación secundaria en los cinco distritos. El grupo más numeroso de jóvenes recién llegados sin escolarizar vivía en el Bronx, seguido de cerca por Queens y Brooklyn.

Dos años después de que la pandemia golpeara a la ciudad, los estudiantes de inglés siguen teniendo dificultades en el ámbito académico, y el hecho de haber estado fuera de la escuela para el aprendizaje presencial durante más de un año, en el momento álgido del contagio de COVID, amplió aún más esa brecha de aprendizaje.

Mientras que los defensores han presionado durante mucho tiempo para que la ciudad abra escuelas secundarias de transferencia completamente nuevas para servir mejor a estos estudiantes, tanto Ortiz como Rodríguez-Engberg acreditaron el último plan del DOE como un primer paso hacia esa expansión, en el que las lecciones aprendidas en los próximos años servirán para crear un modelo más sólido. Ambas reconocieron que la creación de nuevas escuelas es una tarea más complicada y que requiere más tiempo, especialmente ahora que los presupuestos escolares han sido recortados.

“Estamos centrados en ampliar y reforzar la programación existente diseñada para proporcionar un apoyo integral a los estudiantes de las escuelas de transferencia”, añadió el portavoz del DOE.