Trump Faces Late-Night Court Setback on Mail-In Voting

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1:56Talk to your doctor or pharmacist today. Sponsored by GSK. A Trump-appointed judge issued an order at 12.30 a.m. absolutely crushing Donald Trump's election scheme with the United States Postal Service. A federal judge by the name of Judge Carl Nichols, who Trump appointed during his first term, made a ruling at 1230 a.m. Monday morning, this morning, and he blocked the Trump regime's mail-in ballot plan, saying that the U.S. Postal Service lacked the authority to issue it. I want to explain to you why this was such a big deal and why I believe Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump-appointed judge, made this order so late at night or early in the morning hours.

2:54It was to send a message because here's the status of Donald Trump's attempt to have the U.S. Postal Service create a rule that would put a new barcode on all ballots in the various states that would match with Donald Trump's perception of who are eligible voters. And if you didn't match the Trump list of eligible voters, your mail-in ballot can get destroyed by the U.S. Postal Service and they could basically destroy entire batches of 5 ,000 or 10 ,000 ballots at Donald Trump's discretion. How horrible is that? Now, you may recall that there was lots of litigation trying to block this. The Supreme Court previously held that some of that litigation was premature because the U.S.

3:46Postal Service hadn't officially passed the rule, but the Supreme Court said, well, when the rule actually becomes official, that's when the injury occurs, then you can file lawsuits to the various state attorney generals. That's what happened. Then in a federal court in Massachusetts, a federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama, a judge named Judge Talwani, she ruled against the Trump regime and blocked the rule. But the Trump regime was saying, she's an Obama appointee. She's a left activist, Antifa, she's the worst. And the Trump regime was, in their typical whiny Trump fashion, attacking the judge.

4:32And then they sought an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to try to block what Judge Talwani did by blocking the US Postal Service rule to try to allow the rule to still be in place. And the Trump regime's like, she's an Obama appointee. So the Supreme Court is sitting on a ruling right now as it relates to Judge Telwani blocking the U.S. Postal Service rule. But then, and this is why I think this is a big deal, because you have this federal judge appointed by Trump during his first term. Judge Nichols issued the order that's basically an identical order to the Obama-appointed federal judge.

5:18And the reason that I believe Judge Nichols issued it right now is because what happened at the end of week? Something else important regarding elections, right? You had Justice Kavanaugh at the end of last week for the second time agreeing with the Missouri State Supreme Court that ruled that the MAGA-Trump gerrymandered maps in Missouri were unlawful and that you could only change the maps by a referendum. And the Trump MAGA crew tried to basically say, well, we already had the primaries. We got to use the unlawful map. And you had Justice Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court twice. He only had a one sentence ruling, so you didn't get to actually see his reasoning, but he seemed to basically be saying even a Trump appointed Supreme Court Justice, Justice Kavanaugh, seemed to be saying elections are states' rights issues.

6:15You can't trump it, pun intended or no pun intended, with your own perception of elections. It's what the states run the time, place, and manner of elections. And so Justice Kavanaugh rejected the MAGA attempt to do the unlawful map. So I believe this Trump appointed district judge saw, okay, this Trump appointed Supreme Court justice made a state's rights related decision as relates to this Missouri gerrymandering. So now on the United States postal issue, it's a state's rights issue. And before the Supreme Court ruled, then the Supreme Court may rule as early as this morning on the, and I think they'll probably rule today or tomorrow.

6:58So stay tuned for that. As the Trump regime is doing this emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to try to overturn Judge Telwani, the Obama-appointed judge who blocked the U.S. Postal Service rule. This Trump-appointed judge, Justice Carl Nichols, is like, I'm basically agreeing with that same reasoning. So you can't blame it on an Obama judge. I'm a Trump-appointed judge, and I think that this U.S. Postal Service rule is unlawful or improper. So I'm going to grant the injunction and block the postal service from doing this rule on the same grounds as judge Talwani did. So let me read for you what it was, um, that, uh, judge Carl Nichols ultimately ruled.

7:46And I think this is a big ruling right over here. Let me read it for you. He says less than three weeks ago, the United States postal service adopted a final rule requiring that all absentee and mail-in ballots in federal elections, including for the elections occurring in less than 60 days, be transmitted only in envelopes satisfying new design requirements

8:10Ben Meiselas:and be transmitted only to voters who are verified by the Postal Service to have been enrolled in a newly created, quote, federal ballot mail portal. As the government concedes, the Postal Service could issue and enforce the rule only if Congress gave it the authority to do so. But here, no statute grants the Postal Service the power to issue key parts of the rule. Plaintiffs have therefore demonstrated that they are likely to succeed on their claims that the issuance of the rule was ultra-virus, meaning out of bounds, and the record otherwise ways in favor of preliminary injunctive relief. Accordingly, and for the reasons discussed in more detail below, plaintiff's renewed motion for preliminary injunction against the rule is granted.

9:04And just to remind you, Justice Carl Nichols is a federal judge in Washington, D.C.'s federal court. So you have Judge Telwani in the Massachusetts federal court, and you have Judge Nichols in the DC federal court. So Judge Nichols, DC, Judge Telwani in Massachusetts. The order goes on to talk about the background of the rule and what was being done here and what the Postal Service was providing.

9:32Ben Meiselas:First, the rule establishes a new envelope design requirements for federal ballot mail. Outbound federal ballot mail is mail enclosing a federal ballot that is transmitted by an authorized ballot mailer. Second, the rule creates a new federal ballot mail portal through which state and local election officials must ensure that the individual voters who wish to receive federal ballots via mail have been enrolled with the Postal Service. So in other words, Donald Trump would basically use the Postal Service to have a Trump voter list. list. And if you do not meet the Trump voter list, you aren't on the portal.

10:13Ben Meiselas:So you get removed from the state list. Remember when Donald Trump was demanding that the states give him their lists. It was part of this plan. Do you see why he was doing it now? Because he wanted to look at the list and then take out people from the lists, but have some of the lists preserved. So then the postal service can deny the people that Trump wanted to kick off the list. That's what Trump was trying to do. Third, the rule requires the postal service to verify that each piece of outbound federal ballot mail both satisfies the rule's envelope design requirements and is being sent to a voter enrolled on the mail-in or absentee participant list.

10:55Ben Meiselas:The rule contemplates that this verification will be achieved in part by scanning the IMB on the outside of an outbound envelope and confirming that it corresponds to an IMB in the portal. So what Trump wants to also do, he's going to have his own list with his own barcode. And if you don't make his list, you get rejected. Even if you make his list, if he says you don't package it the right way when you gave it to the postal service, even if you're on the list, he can kick you out and it'll just be at his discretion. So remember the whole thing with like hanging chads, with George W. Bush. It was like, was it a hanging chat or was it not?

11:33Ben Meiselas:Trump basically is going to say, I'm going to now evaluate the way you literally mail your ballots, and I'm going to decide if it's a valid ballot if you had to follow all my bizarre rules. So anyway, that's the procedure. Then Judge Nichols goes on to say, is there standing? There has to be standing. And Judge Nichols says, plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits. At least some plaintiffs likely have Article 3 standing to sue. And it goes on to say, to establish Article 3 standing, a plaintiff must show that he suffered an injury, that the injury was likely caused by the defendant, that the injury would be redressed by judicial relief.

12:18Ben Meiselas:Then it goes on to talk about the different types of plaintiffs. Plaintiffs assert they have standing under at least five independent doctrines, political candidates, and it goes on, intervener, state defendants, state attorney generals, other voters, and it goes on to list the election officials, different categories of people and the court says they have standing. Then the court says, this is Judge Nichols, the Trump appointed judge, turning to the merits. Plaintiffs raise various claims against the final rule, but the court need only reach one of them. The issuance of the final rule was ultra-virus.

12:59Ben Meiselas:Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the claim. And it goes on to say, the key portions of the rule exceed any conception of the outer bounds of these authorities. Take sections 705.24.4 and 705.24.5, for example, Together, those provisions establish a federal enrollment and record-keeping system, the federal ballot mail portal, mandate that state election officials input voter and ballot identification information into the system, require the creation and dissemination of state-specific mail-in and absentee participant lists, and make the distribution of outbound federal ballot mail contingent on compliance with this entire regulatory regime.

13:47Ben Meiselas:Nothing in the Postal Reorganization Act authorizes the Postal Service to impose new election procedures on state election officials to create a data collection system for mail-in and absentee voters or to refuse the transmission of lawful mail because it fails to meet these data collection requirements. To be sure, the Act gives the Postal Service all other powers incidental, necessary, or appropriate to the carrying out of its functions, but the defendants have not shown how the creation of state-specific mail-in and absentee participant lists or the refusal to mail envelopes not registered on those lists are necessary or incidental to the specific powers delineated in the Act, all of which relate to the processing and delivery of mail.

14:42Ben Meiselas:So just to break it down in a very basic term, Congress gave the Postal Service certain powers, and if it was within those powers from a prior law that Congress passed that existed for some time, then the Postal Service can do that. Ultra virus, outside the authority. The Postal Service has never been given the authority by Congress to do these things. And ultimately, Donald Trump, if you want to do these things, have Congress pass a law. But clearly, Congress doesn't want to pass this law. You control all branches of government unless and until Congress passes a law. you using the postal service to put barcodes and to have all these different procedures, which you claim, hey, it's just a way we're going to try to organize things.

15:34Ben Meiselas:The court's saying, BS, you're not doing this in order to organize the mail. You're doing this to try to supersede, to try to preempt state election procedures, and that's not allowed. Now, a broader question could even be, does Congress ever have authority under the Constitution to even enact this? You would have a separation of powers fight at that point if Congress passed the law, because let's say Congress passed the law that enabled all of this to happen, the states would still make the argument, you're still infringing on states' rights. Time, place, manner of elections is still a state's rights function.

16:18Ben Meiselas:So you can't usurp. You can't take that authority, Congress, even if you pass the law. But you see what Judge Nichols is saying, we don't even have to get there. We don't have to even get into those issues. All we have to look at is what law is the U.S. Postal Service claiming this authority? Let's look at that law. That law doesn't say you get to do all of this and interfere with state elections, right? In the future, if there was a law that says you interfere with state elections, that could still be challenged on the basis of separation of powers. But we're not even there yet. We just know that there is no law that enables this ultraviolet outside the bounds.

16:59Ben Meiselas:So where does this basically take us at this point? It takes us to the point where this US Postal Service rule is blocked in a DC federal court. It's blocked in a Massachusetts federal court. A Trump-appointed judge, an Obama-appointed judge both agree the Postal Service rule to try to tamper with and manipulate the Postal Service and the election ballots is invalid. Now, I think this gives cover to the Supreme Court to basically say, look, a liberal and a right-wing judge both agreed with this. And what I suspect that what we'll see happen now, and I think we'll see it today or we'll see it tomorrow.

17:42Ben Meiselas:And that's why Justice, that's why Judge Nichols wanted this order. And I think we'll see from the Supreme Court justices, a one sentence, maybe a paragraph, just denying Trump's emergency appeal to enact the Postal Service rule. So big deal and a big deal that it was done at 1230 AM. Let me know what you think about all of this. Appreciate you for getting in the weeds with me on the law. Thanks for watching. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Hey, if you want the full story, how democracy got here and how we take it back, pre-order our new book, WTF America today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description.

18:23Ben Meiselas:Let's do this.

18:33Thank you.