Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of The Oath in the Office
Speaker 1: podcast starring Professor Corey Bretschneider. I am his obedient henchman,
Speaker 1: John Feugelsang, and it's a pleasure to have you with
Speaker 1: us today on the show. A fascinating conversation with filmmaker
Speaker 1: Andrew Glazer, and folks, for one brief shining moment. This week,
Speaker 1: the Constitution briefly cleared its throat and reminded all of
Speaker 1: us it is still technically employed. A federal judge looked
Speaker 1: at the Trump DOJ's treatment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and
Speaker 1: basically said, you idiots can't deport a guy my mistake
Speaker 1: and then lie about it in court and then reopen
Speaker 1: a dead case to punish the guy for noticing. And
Speaker 1: while all this is happening, courts are still wrestling with
Speaker 1: whether non citizens possessed the radical socialist luxury known as
Speaker 1: free speech, which used to be one of America's bigger
Speaker 1: selling points. Folks, please welcome the star of our show,
Speaker 1: so constitutional law professor and author of The Oath and
Speaker 1: the Office, Professor Corey Breschneider.
Speaker 2: Hello, sir, Thanks so much, John, And that's such a
Speaker 2: great frame I mean, we're talking every week about the
Speaker 2: ongoing struggle between the attempt to protect our rights, to
Speaker 2: protect our democracy and the assault on those rights by
Speaker 2: the Trump administration. We'll talk about what's happening here in
Speaker 2: the United States, and we have a special treat too
Speaker 2: in that Andrew Glazer is going to talk about his
Speaker 2: film about the drug war and about America's complicity and
Speaker 2: the violation of human rights abroad, particularly in Mexico. So
Speaker 2: it's an amazing episode both about our rights at home
Speaker 2: and our abuses abroad. And of course those two things
Speaker 2: are tied together through the office that we're focused on
Speaker 2: in this podcast, the office of the President of the
Speaker 2: United States. There's extreme deference paid to the president when
Speaker 2: he or she is acting abroad, and that's why you
Speaker 2: often see the kind of human rights abuses, especially tied
Speaker 2: to the war power or tied to the war on
Speaker 2: drugs and this. But unfortunately, you know, those abuses abroad
Speaker 2: are not just limited outside our borders. And so we'll
Speaker 2: talk about the assaults too on not just free speech,
Speaker 2: but as our first story will make clear, on due
Speaker 2: process itself.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it because we actually have a few
Speaker 1: tiny signs of life from due process this week, and
Speaker 1: from judicial independence, and from the old fashioned idea that
Speaker 1: rights aren't supposed to depend on whether the president's having
Speaker 1: a cranky day. Kill mar Abrego Garcia. We talked about
Speaker 1: him a lot last year. The judiciary is calling out
Speaker 1: these bogus charges after the Trump DOJ stopped claiming they
Speaker 1: could just evade due process. Our listeners will remember, this
Speaker 1: guy's twenty nine years old from Maryland. He's a citizen
Speaker 1: of bel Salvador, and the US government mistakenly deported him
Speaker 1: there and lied about it. So, I mean, Corey, Judge
Speaker 1: Crenshaw found the prosecution of Garcia for human trafficking was tainted, vindictive, selective,
Speaker 1: and in violation of the Fifth Amendment's due process clause.
Speaker 1: Professor how rare is that language coming from a federal judge.
Speaker 3: Oh, it was starting to get real pushback, you know.
Speaker 2: The just to kind of back up a bit and
Speaker 2: remind listeners, because, as you said, we have been this
Speaker 2: is one of those stories that we've been covering and
Speaker 2: it's so important. The administration is claiming that under the
Speaker 2: Alien Enemies Act, this was what they originally claimed that
Speaker 2: they didn't even have to present their case in court
Speaker 2: that it was really beyond the law and that he
Speaker 2: could be deported to a gulag in El Salvador and
Speaker 2: was sent there even though there had been court orders
Speaker 2: saying do.
Speaker 3: Not send this guy, that he was in danger for.
Speaker 2: His life if you send him to El Salvador. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, over time there was pushback by courts, thankfully,
Speaker 2: that said, you know, we have a right of everyone,
Speaker 2: of all people to do process and the administration can't
Speaker 2: just scrap that and treat people however they want.
Speaker 3: So what did they do.
Speaker 2: They backed up and tried to say, well, he's involved
Speaker 2: in human trafficking and to bring a case to use
Speaker 2: the courts. And you know, anybody with common sense see
Speaker 2: that what was going on was that they were, you know,
Speaker 2: having failed to deny the constitutional rights that are afforded everyone,
Speaker 2: the rights of due process that having been stopped there,
Speaker 2: that they were just trying to make something up and
Speaker 2: to use a normal legal process. But you know, in
Speaker 2: the service of something that was just a lie. And
Speaker 2: now they're being called out for that. You can't just
Speaker 2: make something up, and in particular, I mean just to
Speaker 2: get into the nitty gritty please, you know, they had
Speaker 2: a sort of sham case against him for human trafficking.
Speaker 2: He had been pulled over, for instance, in the car
Speaker 2: that had a lot of people, that's not evidence of
Speaker 2: human trafficking, and had decided not to move forward on
Speaker 2: those grounds.
Speaker 3: That's why they had to deny due process.
Speaker 2: So now that they've been blocked off from simply denying
Speaker 2: his rights, well they're raising this case again, and it
Speaker 2: looks like the courts are saying, I don't think so,
Speaker 2: we know what you're up to. This is a kind
Speaker 2: of selective prosecution. You're sort of manipulating the facts to
Speaker 2: meet your goal of seeing this guy in prison. Let's
Speaker 2: get down to brass taxstration is embarrassed and they're trying
Speaker 2: to cover this up with a.
Speaker 1: Lot exactly exactly so, so I mean, I also want
Speaker 1: to get to just be honest here. I think the
Speaker 1: bar is so low at this point. Corey in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six that the government may not retaliate against you
Speaker 1: for asserting your constitutional rights now counts as uplifting good news.
Speaker 1: You realize that, like we're accelerating us as great news
Speaker 1: that the government can't punish you for asserting your rights.
Speaker 1: But the court pretty much found that the government reopened
Speaker 1: this closed case only after Abrego Garcia successfully challenged his
Speaker 1: illegal deportation. So I guess my question is constitutionally, how
Speaker 1: dangerous is it if the White House appears to just
Speaker 1: punish people for asserting their legal rights.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the whole thing is so frightening, the
Speaker 2: idea that you're using this seventeen ninety eight law to
Speaker 2: deny somebody the rights of due process, a law that
Speaker 2: dates back to John Adams assault on democracy, and you're
Speaker 2: seeing it again here. Now that to begin with is
Speaker 2: way out there. There was pushback against that by Judge
Speaker 2: Bosberg and others saying, you know, I don't think so
Speaker 2: that the lower courts here, you know, and part of
Speaker 2: this episode will be a celebration of the lower courts
Speaker 2: pushing back, saying, you know, you need to charge him
Speaker 2: with a crime. You need to show even if he's
Speaker 2: not guilty of a crime, you know, you can't just
Speaker 2: deny him any.
Speaker 3: Legal process exactly. So what do they do?
Speaker 2: They try to come up with this alternative lie, And yeah,
Speaker 2: my worry is that, you know, there really is a
Speaker 2: question about how much of the rule of law, if any,
Speaker 2: is left that that might have worked in some world
Speaker 2: that the courts might have, you know, said, well, okay,
Speaker 2: now at least you're pretending to.
Speaker 3: Abide by the rule of law.
Speaker 2: And I think it is a real victory that they're
Speaker 2: you know, calling this out and saying, I don't think
Speaker 2: so this isn't this isn't legitimate. It's a make believe
Speaker 2: way of trying to avoid the fact that you're embarrassed.
Speaker 2: You said something too that I just want to pull
Speaker 2: forward for listeners. What the court is calling out is
Speaker 2: what's happening here, which is that the administration is embarrassed
Speaker 2: because he asserted his rights, as you said, and now
Speaker 2: what are they trying to do? Deny his rights with
Speaker 2: a lie? And it looks like that's not working.
Speaker 3: So that is you know, I don't.
Speaker 2: Want to say democracy saved. You know, we made it,
Speaker 2: but it's one of these many instances, and this is
Speaker 2: such an important case because it's really a test case
Speaker 2: for the wholesale denial of rights. And so as he's
Speaker 2: starting to win here, you know, I wouldn't say I'm
Speaker 2: feeling amazing about American democracy, but I'm feeling good.
Speaker 1: About I mean, we still live a bit of time
Speaker 1: when the government can deport somebody in error, and then
Speaker 1: if you challenge that error publicly, they will aggressively prosecute you.
Speaker 1: I mean, the judge did say that there's an absence
Speaker 1: of evidence of actual vindictiveness the government failed to rebut
Speaker 1: the presumption of vindictiveness. And I had never heard that
Speaker 1: expression before, but wow, presumption of vindictiveness sums up my
Speaker 1: entire feelings towards this administration at this point, professor, I
Speaker 1: do want to ask you about Mahmoud Khalil, because this was,
Speaker 1: I mean great, this guy we talked about a ton
Speaker 1: on our showan born pro Palestinian activist. He was a
Speaker 1: student at Columbia University at an expectant father. He just
Speaker 1: appealed to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court
Speaker 1: opened the door for the government to detain and deport him,
Speaker 1: and the Court of Appeals also sided with the federal government,
Speaker 1: determining that immigration court was the best place for him
Speaker 1: to argue his case rather than federal court, and he
Speaker 1: appealed that. So, I mean, his attorneys are saying, essentially,
Speaker 1: tell me if I'm following this, professor, that the government
Speaker 1: is claiming non citizens don't have meaningful First Amendment of protections. Right,
Speaker 1: that's what this is. I mean, has the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: recognized free speech protection for non citizens who are here legally.
Speaker 1: I kind of thought you taught me a while back
Speaker 1: that this is about what governments can't do to you,
Speaker 1: not what you can't do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the same way.
Speaker 2: I'll just tie the two cases together, and they're both
Speaker 2: cases that we've talked extensively about, and that's why we'll
Speaker 2: continue to update people on what's happening. There really are
Speaker 2: test cases for the strength of our democracy. In the
Speaker 2: first case, in the Bregio Garcia case, the question is
Speaker 2: whether or not, using this obscure eighteenth century statute, the
Speaker 2: government can just take away your doe process rights altogether.
Speaker 2: And there was pushback, and you know, we're rightly I
Speaker 2: don't know about celebrating, but certainly giving kudos to the
Speaker 2: courts for pushing back on the administration here. Now here's
Speaker 2: another story, you know, and it's why this push and
Speaker 2: pull is going on. A district court judge did heroically say,
Speaker 2: look just what you said, John, that the First Amendment
Speaker 2: applies here, not just to citizens. It's not what the
Speaker 2: text says. It talks about Congress shall make no law
Speaker 2: abridging the freedom of speech, and that isn't a limit
Speaker 2: on the protection just of the rights of citizens. It's
Speaker 2: a limit on government, regardless of who is being attacked.
Speaker 2: And so you know, that was a good moment. Now
Speaker 2: you know, these cases are subject to appeal. The government
Speaker 2: this time fought back, and so far it looks like
Speaker 2: they're winning.
Speaker 3: Now how are they winning.
Speaker 2: They're saying that this judge really wasn't the right place,
Speaker 2: the district court judge in New Jersey wasn't the right venue,
Speaker 2: the right place to consider this question at this time,
Speaker 2: and instead we've got to wait until the matter gets
Speaker 2: worked through immigration courts.
Speaker 3: Let me just break this down a little.
Speaker 1: Least, because this is this is really, this is shady, right,
Speaker 1: this is really.
Speaker 2: Say, immigration courts are you know, guests who controls the
Speaker 2: immigration courts? They are not that I hesitate to even
Speaker 2: call them courts because we think of a court as
Speaker 2: a judge. Immigration judges are within the executive branch. Who
Speaker 2: is the executive branch controlled by the within the Department
Speaker 2: of Justice. There's the Department of Justice controlled by we
Speaker 2: know that's Donald Trump. So what unfortunately has happened here
Speaker 2: is that a court of appeals, not within the administration,
Speaker 2: within the court court system. The Article three court system
Speaker 2: has pushed this back, at least for now, into the
Speaker 2: hands of the administration. And you know, good luck getting
Speaker 2: your rights of indicated with this administration. It's not the
Speaker 2: end of the story. Eventually we might get to the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: And that's what Khalil's lawyers are saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know the question you asked is eventually,
Speaker 2: I think going to be answered by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Does the First Amendment apply only to citizens or is
Speaker 2: it a limit on government? As plain as day, I
Speaker 2: think it says it's just a limit on government. But
Speaker 2: you know, once you get to that level, for all
Speaker 2: the heroism of the lower courts, including the district court
Speaker 2: judge here, this Supreme Court, well, you know, it doesn't
Speaker 2: do fantastically when it comes to the production.
Speaker 1: Oh really, when it comes to human rights and individual liberties,
Speaker 1: this particular Supreme Court. So Corey, let me just get
Speaker 1: this right because I want to get off of this
Speaker 1: topic because it hurts my brain. But they're both arguing
Speaker 1: that the government of the United States under the Constitution
Speaker 1: can crush free speech if you're not a citizen. But
Speaker 1: it seems like they're also saying that immigration law can
Speaker 1: override the Constitution.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm getting this right.
Speaker 1: I mean, my brain is brain small here, but is that?
Speaker 1: Is that roughly right?
Speaker 3: For now?
Speaker 2: That's you know, we're we're tracing these cases, We're following
Speaker 2: them closely. And one of the great things about this
Speaker 2: podcast is that we can go in depth, you know,
Speaker 2: on these specific cases that really are again test cases
Speaker 2: for democracies. So right, so, right now, where things stand,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court of the United States hasn't definitively said
Speaker 2: no to the administration. This district Court judge did try
Speaker 2: to say no, But the administration is saying, if you're
Speaker 2: not a citizen, no free speech rights.
Speaker 3: It's that simple.
Speaker 2: And they're claiming essentially that his protest activity, and of
Speaker 2: course they're lying about things that he said. They're accusing
Speaker 2: him of anti Semitism. I have been looking. I have
Speaker 2: not seen any evidence of Khalil's anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: But the bottom publicly antisemitism at no place in his movement.
Speaker 1: He said it more than once. Mark Rubio lied about
Speaker 1: this guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this administration cannot be trusted. Really on anything. And
Speaker 2: you know, but here's what they're saying in open court
Speaker 2: that if you're not a citizen, no free speech rights,
Speaker 2: and we have the right if we don't like we
Speaker 2: think that his views, essentially, his opinions, his speech is
Speaker 2: adverse to the public policy interests of this administration, that
Speaker 2: we can throw him out of the country, even though
Speaker 2: he's a permanent resident and you know, has been living here.
Speaker 2: He was a leader of the protest movement in Colombia
Speaker 2: negotiating with the administration. They're saying, we don't like your views,
Speaker 2: you're out of here. Now, what's the state status of
Speaker 2: the law? You know, I've said very strongly what I
Speaker 2: think the law says. But so far the judge who's
Speaker 2: agreed with me in this matter, has his opinion is
Speaker 2: for now been pushed aside. This has been thrown back
Speaker 2: into quote unquote immigration courts, which are really within the
Speaker 2: executive branch, and they haven't said definitively that's it. He's
Speaker 2: going to be thrown out of the country. There's a
Speaker 2: possibility that that could happen, that he's going to be deported.
Speaker 2: And really what we're going to wait, I think for
Speaker 2: is in the final analysis for the Supreme Court to
Speaker 2: get involved, and that that's where the appeals going now.
Speaker 3: From Khalil and his lawyers.
Speaker 2: And you know, they're to have to answer that question
Speaker 2: once and for all, because you know, it's not that
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court doesn't have the power to review this.
Speaker 2: They can, and I think there's a good chance they will,
Speaker 2: and they've got to answer that question. Is the administration
Speaker 2: right when they say non citizens have no free speech rights?
Speaker 2: You know on the law. No, but you know, we've
Speaker 2: got to be honest. This court can do all sorts
Speaker 2: of things.
Speaker 1: Well, Corey, before the break, we also, as we are
Speaker 1: all sitting here in shock from what has happened to
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act, and it seems to have just
Speaker 1: been reduced to a I don't know what a coaster
Speaker 1: for billionaires. Democracy actually punched back a couple of times
Speaker 1: this week. We just saw a federal court telling Alabama
Speaker 1: their congressional map was totally racially discriminatory and illegal. And
Speaker 1: then South Carolina Republicans, I think, just realized, wait a second,
Speaker 1: we already controlled the state. Why are we trying so hard?
Speaker 1: And they shocked the world by choosing not to pass
Speaker 1: the new map designed to vaporize the state's lone majority
Speaker 1: black district that was Jim Cliburn seat. They were going
Speaker 1: to just get rid of his entire district, and to
Speaker 1: their credit, they realized, wow, even we don't need to
Speaker 1: be that dickish.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I don't know in the end, if
Speaker 2: this goes to the Supreme Court what they'll say. I
Speaker 2: don't want to take away from what they did in
Speaker 2: this Louisiana case.
Speaker 3: They really did avis rate the Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 2: They made it very hard to show that the attempt
Speaker 2: to resist the dilution of black voting power through districts
Speaker 2: in which there are a majority of minority voters. It
Speaker 2: largely eliminated the ability to do that. Now, they left
Speaker 2: a way open, which is that if you could show
Speaker 2: that what you know, what you're doing is resisting intentional discrimination,
Speaker 2: then okay. And it seems like in this Alabama case
Speaker 2: that the lower court here, this isn't the Supreme Court yet,
Speaker 2: of course, but the Court is said, yeah, that there
Speaker 2: is intentional discrimination. So you know, they're trying to work
Speaker 2: within the very narrow limits that the Supreme Court is set.
Speaker 2: In the end, what's going to happen you know, it's
Speaker 2: anybody's guest, but you know it took a theme or
Speaker 2: that we're working, which is that you know there is
Speaker 2: a give and take, there is a pushback. The Supreme
Speaker 2: Court often disappoints us, sometimes they don't. But into the
Speaker 2: void is stepped intermediate courts and district courts and courts
Speaker 2: of appeals.
Speaker 1: But the Supreme Court didn't go out and say you
Speaker 1: can discriminate. They said, just don't discriminate by don't gerrymander
Speaker 1: by race, do it by ideology. Feel the free to
Speaker 1: cheat as much as you want that way. And yet
Speaker 1: a lower court is now saying, well, you did cheat then,
Speaker 1: because the Supreme Court never gave you license to discriminate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's a great way to put it.
Speaker 2: I'll say it again, just to clarify, the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: didn't get rid of the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 2: It preserved it, but in a particular way and said,
Speaker 2: you know, if you want to invoke the nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: five Voting Rights Act, if you want to show that
Speaker 2: people are being denied the right to vote based on race,
Speaker 2: it has to be intentional discrimination that we're talking about.
Speaker 3: So that doesn't you know, that's not nothing. It's very
Speaker 3: hard to show.
Speaker 2: But when you have actions as blatant as what's happening
Speaker 2: in so many of these states, actions of intentional discrimination,
Speaker 2: courts can call it out. They can say, you know,
Speaker 2: we're not blind, and you can call it, you know,
Speaker 2: party partisan jerrymandering, say this isn't about race.
Speaker 3: All you want that you're colorblind.
Speaker 2: If you're really engaged in discrimination, we can identify and
Speaker 2: call it out.
Speaker 3: And the Supreme Court did leave that open. And so
Speaker 3: you know, I don't want.
Speaker 2: To get too rosy about this. With the Voting Rights
Speaker 2: case Louisiana case, the Supreme Court really did avis errate
Speaker 2: the Voting Rights Tact, but they left a little bit
Speaker 2: and maybe that's a little bit something to work with,
Speaker 2: especially in the face of well, let's call it, you know,
Speaker 2: maga's overt and disgusting form of intentional discrimination.
Speaker 1: Folks, the guardrails of democracy are hanging on by duct
Speaker 1: tape and caffeine launay. They wave, all right, we got
Speaker 1: to know it's something. Yes, it could be worse at
Speaker 1: it just might well be. We got to take a
Speaker 1: quick break back in just a moment, and let's talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that Congress suddenly remembered they have power
Speaker 1: over war. This is the Oath in the Office. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John Fugel,
Speaker 1: Sang Professor Britch Nighter. I am very excited to welcome
Speaker 1: Andrew Glazer in the next act, the director of the
Speaker 1: very powerful drug war documentary Spring of the Vanishing. I'm
Speaker 1: equally excited to tell the folks that you are such
Speaker 1: a professional. Because I had to fly today. Corey Bretschneider
Speaker 1: is joining us to record live from Italy. At what
Speaker 1: time is it there? It's three in the morning, right,
Speaker 1: it's three am?
Speaker 3: No, No, not that bad little past midnight.
Speaker 1: Wow, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: You know I'm not going to miss this show.
Speaker 2: John. Talking to you every week gives me hope, gives
Speaker 2: the lessoner's hope, and I'm happy to do this show
Speaker 2: at midnight or anytime.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 1: Well, Hey, if you enjoy doing this show with me,
Speaker 1: then my work as a charming sociopath is complete. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about I think this is good news.
Speaker 1: I don't know anymore. What is but after twenty years
Speaker 1: of Congress treating the Constitution like the terms and conditions
Speaker 1: over the iPhone update that they're never going to read.
Speaker 1: The Senate seems to have finally remembered they technically have
Speaker 1: authority over war.
Speaker 4: Corey.
Speaker 1: Democrats have unsuccessfully been reintroducing all these measures since the
Speaker 1: assault on Iran began in the end of February, and
Speaker 1: the Senate, in a vote of fifty to forty seven,
Speaker 1: has now taken up a measure that could end the
Speaker 1: war in Iran. That would be the same war where
Speaker 1: we keep bombing them during cease fires. A few Republican
Speaker 1: senators have now joined Democrats to try to stop the escalation,
Speaker 1: including Senator Bill Cassidy, who apparently Corey discovered separation of
Speaker 1: powers the moment he discovered that voters separated him from
Speaker 1: his job. I mean, it is amazing how this constitutional
Speaker 1: courage shows up once the donors can't primary anymore, isn't.
Speaker 4: It, Corey.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like, you know, you're not running for reelection anymore,
Speaker 2: and the decency just starts popping it out. And I
Speaker 2: think when you have a president, if you've been part
Speaker 2: of Congress and you're watching a president just walk all
Speaker 2: over your powers, really declare war. And just to return
Speaker 2: to the theme, for listeners. The Congress has the power
Speaker 2: to declare war according to the Constitution. It says it
Speaker 2: in Article one, which creates the Congress gives it its power.
Speaker 2: The president under Article two is commander in chief, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't include the power to initiate a war. And
Speaker 2: in fact, the British King had the ability under the
Speaker 2: unwritten British Constitution, as they talk about it, to both
Speaker 2: initiate and carry out wars. And the Framers looked at
Speaker 2: that and they're like, that is way too powerful. We're
Speaker 2: going to divide these powers up, give the initiation power
Speaker 2: to Congress and give the power to carry out war
Speaker 2: to the president once Congress has acted. Now, you know,
Speaker 2: presidents for a long time, of course ignored that. But
Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies and the early nineteen seventies, at
Speaker 2: the end of Richard Nixon's presidency, as he was getting
Speaker 2: close to step down.
Speaker 3: The Congress start to reassert that power.
Speaker 2: Realize that the bombing of Camp, the incursions that were illegal,
Speaker 2: and arguably the whole war. There's an argument, of course
Speaker 2: about the Gulf of Tompkin, but arguably the whole war
Speaker 2: that was really an example of what Arthur's Lessener called
Speaker 2: the imperial presidency using basically the power of the president
Speaker 2: as a kind of dictator, initiating war, carrying it out,
Speaker 2: violating civil liberties abroad, violating them at home.
Speaker 3: That's really the theme of today's show.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about with Andrew Glazer, the violation
Speaker 2: of civil liberties abroad with the encouragement of the American government.
Speaker 2: But you know, the war power is really the core
Speaker 2: of all this. So to see at least a discussion
Speaker 2: and a recognition of members of the president's own party
Speaker 2: that this is dangerous, that this is how you walk
Speaker 2: right into dictatorship. It's not the end of the story,
Speaker 2: but it's at least something. And you know, I'm glad
Speaker 2: that the Democrats keep pushing back on this idea that
Speaker 2: this war is somehow legally it's not.
Speaker 1: No Somewhere the founders are screaming from their crypts. We
Speaker 1: wrote this down very clearly.
Speaker 3: This is one of the facility is clear.
Speaker 1: It's astonishing. But I guess I have to ask, then,
Speaker 1: since they're getting away with this, what constitutional mechanisms still exists, Professor,
Speaker 1: to stop a very determined president doing military escalation. If
Speaker 1: the executive branch really wants it. What guardrails do we
Speaker 1: still have.
Speaker 2: Well, we have this law in place, the War Powers Act,
Speaker 2: and it's pretty clear that the President of the United States,
Speaker 2: if he wants to engage in a legal war, has
Speaker 2: to within thirty or at most sixty days, then can
Speaker 2: get an extension, go to Congress and say declare war. Now,
Speaker 2: they can do it in a variety of ways through resolution.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be necessarily a formal declaration. But
Speaker 2: nothing like that has occurred here. There's been no debate,
Speaker 2: and so what members of Congress are doing is saying,
Speaker 2: you know, pull it back. There's another provision of the
Speaker 2: War Powers Act that talks about the ability of a
Speaker 2: vote to just simply legally demand the return of any
Speaker 2: forces outside of the theater of war. And you know,
Speaker 2: that's what they're doing here. I think that they would
Speaker 2: have the ability, even if they have declared war to
Speaker 2: pull back. That's a complicated issue, but to me, the
Speaker 2: straightforward thing that they're saying is very clearly, we did
Speaker 2: not declare war, and there is no authority in the
Speaker 2: first place to go out and carry out this war.
Speaker 2: And you know, they're not at fifty one votes yet.
Speaker 2: In the Senate, but hopefully they will be. You know, realistically,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about the next Congress. I think
Speaker 2: that should be the first vote that we see in
Speaker 2: the next Congress is a vote to make it very
Speaker 2: clear that there's been no authorization of war, and yeah,
Speaker 2: that the president has to cease all operations. Of course,
Speaker 2: he's going to make all sorts of arguments, including the
Speaker 2: fact that there's a ceasefire now so the sixty days
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, and well, courts get involved now. But a
Speaker 2: first step to reigning in a president is that Congress
Speaker 2: starts to assert itself.
Speaker 1: Okay, but let me asky. I know it's almost one
Speaker 1: in the morning in Italy and getting ready to go
Speaker 1: out now, but I got to ask you. I mean,
Speaker 1: this makes me think of this curse on America. Ever
Speaker 1: since Bush Senior had a really quick, easy war to
Speaker 1: restore the dictator of Kuwait, right a thirty five years ago,
Speaker 1: we had Operation Desert Storm, and ever since then, except
Speaker 1: for the two major conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, it
Speaker 1: seems like we've had so much low level warfare from
Speaker 1: democratic and Republican presidents alike that it sort of normalized
Speaker 1: this whole emergency executive power in the American psyche. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're just really used to presidents having their little wars
Speaker 1: that don't have tons of ground troops.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One thing you know that we've talked a lot about
Speaker 2: on this podcast with Sheldon Whitehouse with Ted lu is
Speaker 2: what once the Democratic Party retakes the Congress, how do
Speaker 2: you rain things back in? And one thing that I'm
Speaker 2: just insistent on, We've had a couple of moments like
Speaker 2: this the quarter presidents.
Speaker 3: He was one of them where presidents really acknowledged that.
Speaker 2: The power of the executive branch had gotten out of control,
Speaker 2: that it had to be rained in. And it really
Speaker 2: is both parties I think that have contributed to this
Speaker 2: imperial presidency.
Speaker 3: And that isn't just a.
Speaker 2: Matter of illegal action abroad, illegal war, but the civil
Speaker 2: liberties abuses that can come from him. And so you know,
Speaker 2: I think we've got to look at both parties, look
Speaker 2: at what presidents of both parties have done, and start
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that, you know, there's something wrong with the
Speaker 2: setup that enables at least beyond our borders.
Speaker 5: We haven't legally ever, hear she wants, we haven't legally
Speaker 5: declared war in eighty five years, correct, I believe it
Speaker 5: was December eighth, nineteen forty one, was the last time
Speaker 5: this country legally declared war?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Again, I mean, I think you could probably argue that
Speaker 2: authorizations of force themselves don't have to formally be declarations
Speaker 2: of war.
Speaker 3: But we don't have anything like that here. We don't
Speaker 3: even I'm just.
Speaker 1: You keep talking about it. Yeah, yeah, tells us Congress
Speaker 1: to Claire's war.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I guess.
Speaker 2: You know, ideally we'd return to a moment in which
Speaker 2: there was a formal declaration of war or not.
Speaker 3: And that's the idea.
Speaker 2: There are exceptions, you know, you could have defensive actions,
Speaker 2: for instance, that presidents engage in. And there's a famous
Speaker 2: case involving Lincoln where there was an accusation that the
Speaker 2: Union's involvement in the Civil War itself was illegal, and
Speaker 2: Lincoln said, look, this is a defensive war.
Speaker 3: It wasn't denying that it was a war, and the
Speaker 3: court there made an exception.
Speaker 2: So I would say, you know, there are instances in
Speaker 2: which you can engage in military action defensively. There are
Speaker 2: some actions that I think don't amount to war. I
Speaker 2: think that's true, But we're at the point now where
Speaker 2: we're so far beyond that we're engaged in a certainly
Speaker 2: an Iran case, in what has to be understood as
Speaker 2: a war, an aggressive war that was initiated by one
Speaker 2: person that that's clearly illegal. So don't you know, I
Speaker 2: don't demand that we go back to a time in
Speaker 2: which there are formal declarations of war that was true,
Speaker 2: I think close to the founding and you know where
Speaker 2: Congress had to debate that they could debate something short
Speaker 2: of it. We could also acknowledge that there are instances
Speaker 2: of defensive action short of war. But what we can't
Speaker 2: allow anymore are the kind of extensive involvements of the
Speaker 2: kind that we're having in Iran without any debate, without
Speaker 2: any Congressional action.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I'm not actually I don't feel
Speaker 3: like I'm asking even.
Speaker 2: For what you know, what you're talking about, which is
Speaker 2: probably what the Framers meant, just something.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm an originalist, Corey. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know that about being Okay, So before we
Speaker 1: hit the break and I talk about what might be
Speaker 1: the wackiest story of the week, except for the fact
Speaker 1: that it might be completely related to the President's ability
Speaker 1: to declare little wars when he feels like it. I
Speaker 1: want to laugh at this story, except I'm too terrified
Speaker 1: because I know what might be behind it.
Speaker 4: Corey.
Speaker 1: Nothing says rule of law to me like indicting a
Speaker 1: ninety four year old former dictator thirty years later while
Speaker 1: half of this country is terrified, we're going to have
Speaker 1: to sell bone marrow for gas money. Can we talk
Speaker 1: about Raul Castro. Man's ninety four years old and the
Speaker 1: DOJ has now charged him over the nineteen ninety six
Speaker 1: shooting down of civilian planes, which is evil and horrific.
Speaker 1: But boy, this timing scares me for very Cold War reasons,
Speaker 1: because I can already visualize Marco Rubio dusting off a
Speaker 1: bay of pigs power point and saying, gentlemen, this time
Speaker 1: it'll work. I mean, this seems like pretext for some
Speaker 1: kind of military involvement. And I noticed the same people
Speaker 1: who always think international law is tyranny it if applies
Speaker 1: to us, they're huge fans of military accountability when it
Speaker 1: involves a communist. What do you make of this? How
Speaker 1: significant and strange Jesus indictment thirty years later?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How weird is this to you?
Speaker 2: I think Marco Rubio really does have his eyes set
Speaker 2: on regime change in Cuba. Of course, we saw them
Speaker 2: in Venezuela swoop in and take out a sitting president
Speaker 2: and bring him to the United States, so we know
Speaker 2: that they're willing to do it. I think part of
Speaker 2: why they're trying to wind down the war in Iran
Speaker 2: is so that they can turn their attention to Cuba.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is part of how they did
Speaker 2: it in Venezuela two they indicted Maduro, they went in
Speaker 2: and grabbed him. Raul Castro, it's on the same thing.
Speaker 2: He's not the current president of Cuba. But the fact
Speaker 2: that they're using this as a way of starting to.
Speaker 3: Put pressure on Cuba. Who knows what's in their plan.
Speaker 1: But because the timing does seem that might.
Speaker 2: Be generated to his arrest, they might use as a
Speaker 2: pretext to jump in something like that. And you know,
Speaker 2: this all goes to We've been talking about the rule
Speaker 2: of law at home and its relationship to human rights
Speaker 2: abuses and abuses of the rule of law abroad, and
Speaker 2: that's what's going on here, a kind of ability of
Speaker 2: the American state to do whatever it wants.
Speaker 3: I've got it.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to history a little bit, because,
Speaker 2: as you know, I've been spending time in the Nixon
Speaker 2: Library and the archives and reading about those who are
Speaker 2: arrested and the Watergate breaking. They're reach involvement with the CIA.
Speaker 2: Some of them was involvement in the Bay of Pigs,
Speaker 2: and the organizer of the Bay of Pigs, one of
Speaker 2: the organizers was also the organizer of the plumbers unit
Speaker 2: the break ins in the United States, and that's Howard Hunt.
Speaker 2: And you know, all of it just feels eerie, this
Speaker 2: sort of a kind of obsession with doing whatever you want,
Speaker 2: both at home and attacking your enemies at home, and
Speaker 2: then also yes, the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker 3: You know, let's just go and invade a foreign state.
Speaker 2: And of course this won't come to tie to the
Speaker 2: last topic with any kind of declaration of war.
Speaker 3: They'll just do it.
Speaker 2: And it really is an example of why we are
Speaker 2: again talking about that imperial presidency that we're stuck with
Speaker 2: at this moment.
Speaker 1: Okay, first of all, I just want to say, you
Speaker 1: are the only man living in Italy right now who
Speaker 1: has spoken fondly of his time at the Nixon Library.
Speaker 1: Good god man, you're in Italy and you're talking about
Speaker 1: the Nixon Library that I'm stuck on that. But this
Speaker 1: is this is really keeping me up at night, Corey,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I think that we can balance accountability
Speaker 1: for genuine human rights abuses without turning prosecutions into like
Speaker 1: ideological theater or pretense for war. I mean, actions like
Speaker 1: this really seem to strengthen all the claims of other
Speaker 1: governments that our institutions are jokes and just instruments of
Speaker 1: political pressure for one guy, Like how does this make
Speaker 1: us look in the rest of the world that we
Speaker 1: waited till this guy was ninety four because we want
Speaker 1: to appoint Marco Rubio as viceroy to Cuba.
Speaker 3: Well, we're getting really deep in this conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, professor. We have even mentioned how we've been
Speaker 1: starving the island. I mean, we had a blockade on
Speaker 1: the island. They don't have gasoline, Like, things are really
Speaker 1: dire there. And this is another example of the pressure
Speaker 1: we're putting on this island that our media is not
Speaker 1: really dwelling on too much.
Speaker 3: You know, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2: And as we talked to Andrew Glazer in the next discussion,
Speaker 2: we're going to go so much more in depth into
Speaker 2: the ways that America claims to be supporting abroad the
Speaker 2: rule of law law, and at the same time is
Speaker 2: literally undermining it, really undermining human rights, being complicit and
Speaker 2: encouraging human rights violations. That's what our discussion will be about.
Speaker 2: And you see it here too, that you know, this
Speaker 2: is an indictment. It's about the rule of law, supposedly,
Speaker 2: you know, specifically, it's about these planes that were shot
Speaker 2: down during a conflict between the Cuban government and exiles
Speaker 2: in the United States, and the Cuban government's argument.
Speaker 3: Was that their airspace was being violated. This was essentially,
Speaker 3: you know, a military decision.
Speaker 2: Now the idea that was being framed simply as a
Speaker 2: kind of crime. You know, it looks like it's an
Speaker 2: assertion of the rule of law. But what's really going on,
Speaker 2: if we just pull back from all these details, is
Speaker 2: it's an attempt to use the rule of law as
Speaker 2: a subterfuge to engage in yet another attack on a
Speaker 2: foreign government, an illegal one if they invade. Because there
Speaker 2: is no congressional debate about this. And you know, again,
Speaker 2: the rule of law is the subterfuge. That's the rhetoric,
Speaker 2: and what's really going on is a kind of lawlessness
Speaker 2: and disregard for international laws certainly, and as we'll talk
Speaker 2: about in the next discussion, for human rights more.
Speaker 1: Generally, and of course, what always happens, Professor, when law
Speaker 1: and order talk becomes deeply entangled with nationalism and militarism.
Speaker 4: We already know.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break at when we come back,
Speaker 1: I am so excited to bring you our conversation with
Speaker 1: Andrew Glazer and talk about the amazing essential documentary Spring
Speaker 1: of the Vanishing. Don't go away. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Oath in the office. I'm John Fugel, saying Professor Bretschneider,
Speaker 1: I am very excited to welcome this next guest to
Speaker 1: talk about a really important film that every American deserves
Speaker 1: to know about and the members of Congress should be
Speaker 1: forced to know about. Spring of the Vanishing is an
Speaker 1: incredible new documentary from Emmy winning filmmaker Andrew Glazer, and
Speaker 1: it follows the family so forty nine people who disappeared
Speaker 1: in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, after a US trained Mexican military
Speaker 1: unit launched a really brutal anti cartel operation and at
Speaker 1: the center is an eighteen year old young man, a
Speaker 1: US born teenager, Jorge Dominguez, and his disappearance exposes the
Speaker 1: human cost of this militarized, never ending war on drugs.
Speaker 1: What a pleasure to welcome Andrew Glazer to the podcast.
Speaker 1: Hello sir, Thanks so much for having me. Thank you
Speaker 1: for making this film, Corey. This is a devastating movie,
Speaker 1: and it follows this young man's mother, as you know,
Speaker 1: and other relatives of missing people and their search for
Speaker 1: justice and accountability from both the US and Mexico. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the most powerful part of this film,
Speaker 1: mister Glazer, is that our American government is very much
Speaker 1: at the center of this atrocity that leads to a
Speaker 1: missing American teenager.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, I mean, I think one of the things that
Speaker 6: we were trying to make clear, both with the subjects
Speaker 6: of our film and people we were sharing it with,
Speaker 6: was that this is not another story about what was
Speaker 6: mexi Ago. This is very much a story that implicates
Speaker 6: US policy in Mexico and in Latin America that's very
Speaker 6: much alive right now in the news to some degree
Speaker 6: in recent weeks and months with our current President Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: One thing Andrew that I want to ask you about,
Speaker 2: you know, because it really leaps out at you as
Speaker 2: you watch this powerful film, and we were talking about
Speaker 2: this with our producer Wendy as well. Is the parallels
Speaker 2: with what's happening in the United States. You have an
Speaker 2: example of what should be law enforcement issues that are
Speaker 2: being handled by a military and what that results in
Speaker 2: the film shows us very closely and clearly is a
Speaker 2: total disregard for human rights, for civil liberties because the
Speaker 2: military is trained in war, not in policing. And the
Speaker 2: parallels anyway, they jumped out at me, and I'm just
Speaker 2: wondering if you have any thoughts about this as sort
Speaker 2: of a way in especially for the themes of this podcast,
Speaker 2: are the parallels between what happened in Minnesota with Ice
Speaker 2: and the killing of Alex Pretty and the total disregard
Speaker 2: for his civil liberties, including of course the immediate reaction
Speaker 2: that you know, this was of course justified that this
Speaker 2: was some sort of terrorists without any kind of information,
Speaker 2: and the kind of defensiveness that you see of the
Speaker 2: military intervention and the militaries, Mexican militaries as the film
Speaker 2: shows and argues, disregard of civil liberties and even basic
Speaker 2: rights against murder. So do you see those parallels and
Speaker 2: tell us about them.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, both, you know, in the way you described it,
Speaker 6: but also just in sort of the practicalities. The Mexican military,
Speaker 6: like the US military, is not trained to do police activity.
Speaker 6: What is the difference between what police and military do.
Speaker 6: A good cop knows who the good guys or bad
Speaker 6: guys are. They are part of the community, they're on
Speaker 6: the street, they might be from the area. This particular
Speaker 6: unit of the Mexican military was the kind of shock troops,
Speaker 6: special forces, guys who were trained to kill and they're
Speaker 6: armed and trained and provided intelligence by the US to
Speaker 6: do that. So when they came in to Novl Laredo,
Speaker 6: very few, if any of them, were from the area.
Speaker 6: It's an extremely dangerous part of Mexico, and Mexico has
Speaker 6: some very dangerous places, but at times Novl Laredo has
Speaker 6: been one of the most dangerous places on the planet.
Speaker 6: And that was during the kind of peak of the
Speaker 6: Afghanistan and Iraq wars in twenty two thousand and six
Speaker 6: thousand and seven, So that gives you some perspective. So
Speaker 6: it is a dangerous place, and they dropped these heavily armed,
Speaker 6: heavily trained, highly trained, lethal forces into Nova Laredo to
Speaker 6: pacify the cartel. And they didn't investigate, they didn't arrest,
Speaker 6: they didn't do stings and buy and bus.
Speaker 4: They went in and killed.
Speaker 6: And to put a highlight on it, John, you mentioned
Speaker 6: forty nine people. That's actually the low end of the
Speaker 6: cases that we know about. We documented forty nine, but
Speaker 6: there were probably at least three times as many as
Speaker 6: that people who didn't dare to come forward and make complaints,
Speaker 6: So that's a very real problem. People were all innocent.
Speaker 6: These were not extra judicially killed criminals. These were people
Speaker 6: who were in the wrong place at the wrong time,
Speaker 6: maybe looked the wrong way. And the kid, Jorge Domingos,
Speaker 6: who's sort of central to our film was from Texas,
Speaker 6: and we suspect he was picked up because his mom
Speaker 6: lived in a fairly nice neighborhood in NorVa Laredo, and
Speaker 6: as a Mexican American kid from Texas, he kind of
Speaker 6: dressed with baggy jeans and a shaved head that kind
Speaker 6: of suggested cholo and gangbanger.
Speaker 4: He was not. He was a good kid.
Speaker 6: And there were two other twelve year old kids who
Speaker 6: were killed, who were clearly not sophisticated gangsters, so innocent
Speaker 6: people were killed.
Speaker 1: The film opens with Porge's mother describing the moment her
Speaker 1: son vanished, and one of the most haunting aspects of
Speaker 1: the film really is how ordinary these families were. These
Speaker 1: people were not activists. These were ordinary people who became
Speaker 1: activists because the state gave them no choice. And it
Speaker 1: really captures this unbearable uncertainty, these families searching for years
Speaker 1: without answers. I'm curious and your experience making the film,
Speaker 1: how do people psychologically begin to survive that kind of disappearance.
Speaker 6: So interestingly enough, the mother of Jorge do Mingez vacillates
Speaker 6: between speaking of him and the present and past tense,
Speaker 6: so sometimes she doesn't even acknowledge that he is dead,
Speaker 6: although all.
Speaker 4: Evidence points to that.
Speaker 6: Part of the evil of making people disappear is that
Speaker 6: there's not that closure and burial.
Speaker 4: Site that the families get to visit or experience.
Speaker 6: So it really to answer your question, what would you
Speaker 6: do if your child went missing? I mean, it's the
Speaker 6: only thing you can do. And these were people who
Speaker 6: are sort of jostled out of their day to day
Speaker 6: existence of you know, These aren't wealthy people. These are
Speaker 6: working people, and they have, particularly the women, the wives
Speaker 6: and the mothers of the missing, have taken a real
Speaker 6: huge role in finding justice, and in this case they did.
Speaker 6: But there's you know, even in the New York Times
Speaker 6: this week, there's been stories about mothers elsewhere in the
Speaker 6: country in Mexico who were seeking their children's remains, and
Speaker 6: they're very they're very active part of it. There's an
Speaker 6: interesting law in Mexico where the federal prosecutors actually enable
Speaker 6: and bring the women out to look to be part
Speaker 6: of the search for the bodies. So it's really it's
Speaker 6: really an emotionally wrenching experience. And on top of that,
Speaker 6: it is so commonplace the disappearance of people that often
Speaker 6: these women will find remains that are not their child,
Speaker 6: just randomly fine remains of other people who were buried
Speaker 6: in these.
Speaker 4: These mass graves and locations outside of town.
Speaker 6: So it's really a horrible experience that these these mothers
Speaker 6: and wives have to have to go through.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious. I'm sorry, Corea. I mean, to the
Speaker 1: making of the film, did talking to these family members,
Speaker 1: did you hear anything that fundamentally changed your understanding of
Speaker 1: what we call the war on drugs.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, I mean there is lots of collateral damage, and
Speaker 6: that it involves ordinary people who you know, this Jr.
Speaker 6: Hi Dominguez, the kid who was featured in our film,
Speaker 6: was helping his mom get some water for their construction
Speaker 6: crew and he left the house and disappeared and was
Speaker 6: never seen again. So these aren't people who are sort
Speaker 6: of flirting with criminal lives.
Speaker 4: These are ordinary people.
Speaker 6: And the drug war which is very focused by the
Speaker 6: US and incentivizing military involvement in Latin America and the
Speaker 6: drug war, and that includes Mexico of course, but we've
Speaker 6: seen what's been going on in Ecuador and the bombing
Speaker 6: of the so called drug boats and in Colombia off
Speaker 6: the coast of Columbia, and this goes back. It's almost
Speaker 6: as if the kind of lessons that we thought we
Speaker 6: would have learned and in the Cold War massacres and
Speaker 6: the support of right wing militaries and does you would
Speaker 6: have thought that we would have learned the lessons of
Speaker 6: that and that kind of blunt instrument and support and
Speaker 6: the unintended consequences of giving arms and training, lethal training
Speaker 6: to militaries in places where.
Speaker 4: The militaries don't have a lot of constraints. Yep.
Speaker 2: I did want to follow up on that Andrew to
Speaker 2: ask about the complicity of the US, and that's of
Speaker 2: course a big part of the film. This isn't just
Speaker 2: a story about a tragedy that happened in Mexico or
Speaker 2: an abusive government or an overly militaristic response by the
Speaker 2: Mexican government. It's about the US involvement. So tell us
Speaker 2: how is the United States involved in this story and
Speaker 2: what are the details there?
Speaker 6: So to start with kind of the involvement on the ground.
Speaker 6: When the mother of Jorge Domingez went to the US
Speaker 6: consulate in Nuevo Laredo, which is what you're supposed to
Speaker 6: do when an American goes missing, and her son was
Speaker 6: an American teenager, and they told her they couldn't help.
Speaker 6: And when she asked why, she didn't get a clear answer.
Speaker 6: She met with the FBI, which has a presence there.
Speaker 6: She crossed the border one day to meet with them,
Speaker 6: and they told her the same thing. They blamed it
Speaker 6: on the cartel, and that includes the consul general at
Speaker 6: the time, a guy.
Speaker 4: Named Philip Linderman.
Speaker 6: He constantly was blaming it on the cartel and the
Speaker 6: local human rights defender who organized these wives and mothers.
Speaker 6: He said that the human rights defender was in the
Speaker 6: pocket of the cartel and that these wives and mothers
Speaker 6: who were missing loved ones were.
Speaker 4: Paid crisis actors.
Speaker 6: And that actually culminated in the day that my film
Speaker 6: was released, the US Treasury sanctioned this human rights defender,
Speaker 6: Drummond Ramos, who's featured in our film, for alleged ties
Speaker 6: to the cartel and for allegedly hiring these crisis actors.
Speaker 6: So it wasn't just a suspicion on their part. They
Speaker 6: actually leveraged that suspicion to something that will really affect
Speaker 6: his life and the credibility of his case, which he's
Speaker 6: been deemed very credible by international human rights organizations including
Speaker 6: Amnesty International, the United Nations, and ultimately, in the case
Speaker 6: that we looked at the military, the Mexican military, for
Speaker 6: the first time I think in Mexico's history, apologized for
Speaker 6: these human rights abuses. So there was no question ultimately
Speaker 6: that this guy, this human rights defender, and the case
Speaker 6: he was building was accurate. It was just a lot
Speaker 6: of attempts to discredit him. Of course, I'm sorry of
Speaker 6: dancing on your question, Corey, But to get to it,
Speaker 6: this unit, they're called no Base. They're the special forces
Speaker 6: of the Mexican Navy, at least their commanders, and some
Speaker 6: of them got training at a place in Fort Benning
Speaker 6: called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, and that
Speaker 6: used to be called the School of the Americas. And
Speaker 6: during the Cold War.
Speaker 4: During the Cold.
Speaker 6: War, School the Americas trained some of Latin America's worst despots,
Speaker 6: see guys who were leading the right wing militias or
Speaker 6: military death squads in Central America and El Salvador in Guatemala.
Speaker 6: Manuel Noriega famously trained there. Pinochet his apparatus got training there.
Speaker 6: So it has a long dark history. And when I
Speaker 6: draw the line between the lessons that we didn't learn
Speaker 6: from Cold War interventions in Latin America and to the
Speaker 6: drug war, it's not a dotted line. It's a pretty
Speaker 6: continuous line. And that's what's something we wanted to point
Speaker 6: out in the film.
Speaker 1: But I mean, this is why the film is so important,
Speaker 1: because Americans hear things like fight the cartels, and we
Speaker 1: are groomed to assume that more military force equels more safety,
Speaker 1: right we don't think about what happens when soldiers trained
Speaker 1: for combat are used for domestic policing. And your film
Speaker 1: suggests these killings weren't just corruption, it wasn't just rogue violence.
Speaker 1: But this was the very predictable result of militarizing policing.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and to this day.
Speaker 6: I mean, given the sanctions that were dropped on April fifteenth,
Speaker 6: the day my film was released. They're officials in the
Speaker 6: US government who.
Speaker 4: Don't want to believe Raymondo Ramos or want to.
Speaker 6: Discredit him because there are things that could be done
Speaker 6: to stop the funding of this lethal military unit. And
Speaker 6: I should mention this military unit in Mexico that was
Speaker 6: implicated in the massacre in Nuevo Loreedo that's the subject
Speaker 6: of my film.
Speaker 4: They're the guys who.
Speaker 6: Caught al Chopo, So they're really loved by the DEA.
Speaker 6: They're effective at healing bad guys or capturing bad guys.
Speaker 6: What they're not so effective at is what you said, John,
Speaker 6: that they're not great. In fact, they're very bad police
Speaker 6: because they kill a lot of innocent people. And there
Speaker 6: are laws in place that have been in place since
Speaker 6: I think nineteen ninety seven. The Leahy Laws. There were
Speaker 6: laws sponsored by former Senator Patrick Lahey that give the
Speaker 6: State Department and Department of Defense the ability to cut
Speaker 6: off funding for militaries that are implicated in human rights abuses,
Speaker 6: which this one clearly was. But that hasn't happened here
Speaker 6: and why. We talked to the former administrator of the
Speaker 6: Layy Laws for the State Department, and he says that
Speaker 6: it depends on the information they get. They're not on
Speaker 6: the ground investigating these claims, but they rely on the
Speaker 6: consul that they rely on local intelligence services and quote
Speaker 6: unquote credible human rights workers and press. Well, there's no
Speaker 6: press critically covering nobilarity anymore. They were killed into silence
Speaker 6: in the bad days of the early days of the
Speaker 6: drug war. The human rights defender that had compiled reports
Speaker 6: that were good enough for the UN and ultimately for
Speaker 6: the Mexican military itself to concede that they had done
Speaker 6: something awful, they did not deem him credible because the
Speaker 6: Consul General had accused him of being a fraud a
Speaker 6: leader of its disinformation campaign. And I believe those accusations
Speaker 6: are what ultimately led to the sanctions that were dropped
Speaker 6: last month.
Speaker 2: Yes, I wanted to ask about that through line that
Speaker 2: you interesting through line and disturbing one that you drew
Speaker 2: from America's support for right wing dictators in Latin America,
Speaker 2: for instance, for Pinochet, and the story that you're telling
Speaker 2: here and the militarization of Latin American societies at the
Speaker 2: behest in part.
Speaker 3: At least of the US.
Speaker 2: I mean, how much of this is a Trump story
Speaker 2: and aside from going back to the nineteen seventies, and
Speaker 2: how much of it is a story of the American
Speaker 2: government's militarization of Latin America generally. You know, I just
Speaker 2: don't know, So I was interested in that, given the
Speaker 2: through line that you're drawing, is it a Trump story
Speaker 2: or is it a story of militarization and the United
Speaker 2: States more generally.
Speaker 6: It's a good question because it's both and Trump in
Speaker 6: recent weeks. I don't know that it was as much
Speaker 6: of a fixation of his in his first administration. The
Speaker 6: border certainly was, and I think he animated a lot
Speaker 6: of voters by evoking this threat of spillover from the
Speaker 6: chaotic northern Mexican border, which is not true Laredo, Texas,
Speaker 6: which is directly across the Rio Grande from noither. Laredo
Speaker 6: is one of the safest cities in America.
Speaker 4: Same with al Paso.
Speaker 6: It's you know, this kind of spillover threat is manufactured,
Speaker 6: but it is very much a story that begins in
Speaker 6: the Cold War, which preceded Trump by decades. But he's
Speaker 6: been fixated on the quote unquote don Roe doctrine in
Speaker 6: recent months. And I think because of what you said, John,
Speaker 6: I mean, it sounds it sounds like it makes a
Speaker 6: lot of sense. There's a lot of bad guys, heavily
Speaker 6: armed bad guys right across the border. It's scary. The
Speaker 6: cops are corrupt, so let's get the military there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and sure, let's flood it with guns, unless it's
Speaker 1: Sarah Calder doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 6: And ironically, of course, the cart are armed by our
Speaker 6: guns as well, that come from straw purchases right across
Speaker 6: the border where it's very easy to buy guns. And
Speaker 6: you know, to circle back to something even more ironic
Speaker 6: is it's been reported, and I can't confirm this, that
Speaker 6: the cartel that is based in neuivl Loredo, which is
Speaker 6: an offshoot of the Zetas, has its roots at the
Speaker 6: School of the America slash wind sech It started. The
Speaker 6: Zetas cartel started with highly trained Mexican military forces that
Speaker 6: were trained for counter narcotics operations, and then they defected
Speaker 6: to the Gulf cartel where they were the sort of
Speaker 6: shock troops and security for them, and then they splintered
Speaker 6: off and became one of the most deadly cartels in
Speaker 6: Mexican history and in noibl Loredo and the state of Tamilipas.
Speaker 6: So there's a lot of muddiness and irony kind of
Speaker 6: mixed into it.
Speaker 1: Well, I just want to ask, I mean, my ultimate
Speaker 1: question is, after all the years you spent on this story,
Speaker 1: these stories, I mean, what do you now believe gov
Speaker 1: men' sphere most cartels or citizens demanding accountability? What is
Speaker 1: scarier to political leaders?
Speaker 6: That's a great question, and it's we're seeing this play
Speaker 6: out right now with the current President of Mexico because
Speaker 6: some of her close friends were just indicted, including the
Speaker 6: governor of Sinaloa, and that is unprecedented, and he was
Speaker 6: indicted for ties to the Sineloa cartel. So that is
Speaker 6: what's happening right now is kind of at the crux
Speaker 6: of that. And she's also been very much in denial
Speaker 6: and belittling and countering the numbers have disappeared in Mexico
Speaker 6: and the activists who have been trying to get accountability.
Speaker 6: I think the toll of the unaccounted for disappearances is
Speaker 6: one hundred and eighty thousands from two thousand and seven.
Speaker 4: That's a huge number of people.
Speaker 6: And the UN, a UN committee came out with that
Speaker 6: number and said it's probably even higher, and she said,
Speaker 6: oh no, no, no, that's people who have been moved,
Speaker 6: who moved to another zip. And you know that numbers inflated.
Speaker 6: So I'm sure her survival, our political survival, because politics
Speaker 6: are very much intertwined with the cartels there, but also
Speaker 6: our physical survival, and this physical survival of a lot
Speaker 6: of politicians there is dependent on not being killed by
Speaker 6: the cartels. But these women, primarily the wives and the
Speaker 6: mothers of the missing, have the courage. I face the
Speaker 6: same risks for more, many more risks, and they go
Speaker 6: out there every day and are protesting and going right
Speaker 6: to the presidential palace in Mexico City, and they're out
Speaker 6: on the street, and they're out in the ranches where
Speaker 6: a lot of these bodies are buried.
Speaker 4: That are owned by the cartels.
Speaker 6: So I think the fear is coming from all angles
Speaker 6: and everyone is kind of feeling it acutely in Mexico.
Speaker 1: So Mexican politicians fear the cartels, but American politicians, I
Speaker 1: think more fear citizens demanding accountability.
Speaker 6: Yes, and they know that. I think Americans fear the cartels,
Speaker 6: and they can leverage that for I mean, we have
Speaker 6: spent huge amounts of money both in the Plan Colombia,
Speaker 6: in Colombia arming Colombian military to fight the cartels, and
Speaker 6: in Mexico there was kind of a sequel to that
Speaker 6: called the Merida Initiative, which in part led to a
Speaker 6: lot of these troops that are implicated in my film
Speaker 6: to the human rights violations they committed.
Speaker 4: They were trained and armed at the same place.
Speaker 6: So I think there is a legitimate fear of the cartels,
Speaker 6: maybe somewhat in the United States, but that's also used,
Speaker 6: I think well to get people to support arms and
Speaker 6: training for these militaries and border enforcement, and also to
Speaker 6: vote for someone who stokes that fear, which is Trump
Speaker 6: and a lot of other people in office right now
Speaker 6: who you know, have made the immigration concern and conflating
Speaker 6: it with the drug cartels, that's a big thing, and
Speaker 6: they're not really that conflated at all.
Speaker 1: Indeed, that's why this film is just so important. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it would have come at the
Speaker 1: right time anytime in the last couple of decades, but
Speaker 1: it feels so prescient with all we're facing right now.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Andy, Before we sign on off on this
Speaker 2: amazing and extremely important discussion, to ask you about the
Speaker 2: connections to broaden out also by asking you about some of.
Speaker 3: The connections to other things that you've seen in the
Speaker 3: rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Of course, we've been friends for a very long time,
Speaker 2: and I followed your work for a very long time.
Speaker 3: And one of the things.
Speaker 2: That struck me as a parallel to this film is
Speaker 2: when you work for The New York Times. Of course,
Speaker 2: you covered Toque Turte and in the name of cracking
Speaker 2: down on drugs and crime, the violence, really political violence
Speaker 2: at the behest of the state that went on there.
Speaker 2: So can you talk a little bit about that work
Speaker 2: and any parallels that you see with what's happening here.
Speaker 2: Our podcast, of course is focused on authoritarianism at home
Speaker 2: but also abroad, and that seems to me to connect
Speaker 2: this story and other really important stories about authoritarian violence.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so President Utte in the Philippines, it's a huge parallel,
Speaker 6: and he's someone who at the time was somewhat fetishized
Speaker 6: by President Trump as.
Speaker 4: Someone you could get the job done.
Speaker 6: Job in his case was death squads of suspected drug
Speaker 6: traffickers and suspected in quotes, because anyone who had a
Speaker 6: dispute with their neighbor over a woman, over property, or noise,
Speaker 6: you could say, hey, he's dealing math out of his basement,
Speaker 6: and it wouldn't take much for these death squads, who
Speaker 6: were either police or Filipino military or sort of neighborhood
Speaker 6: villagilantes who had a license, could come in and kill
Speaker 6: them and they would leave them in the streets. So
Speaker 6: it was very similar in that ordinary people were inevitably
Speaker 6: getting swept up, and there was this culture and fog
Speaker 6: of complete fear in Manila and across the country where
Speaker 6: neighborhoods would just have bodies turn up and the cops
Speaker 6: would almost make fun of them by saying they were
Speaker 6: trying to flee, and the bodies were wrapped in duct tapes,
Speaker 6: so clearly they had been already captured and killed and
Speaker 6: wrapped in duct tape before they were fleeing, but no
Speaker 6: one had the power to say anything. And fortunately, right
Speaker 6: now Turte's facing war crimes or crimes in the international courts.
Speaker 6: But Mexico, I don't know if they're going to have
Speaker 6: the same accountability. In the case of our film, as
Speaker 6: I mentioned, the military actually apologized for this massacre. They
Speaker 6: came to the public square and spoke to the wives
Speaker 6: and the mothers of the missing and admitted culpability. And
Speaker 6: they arrested thirty of the Marines who were allegedly implicated,
Speaker 6: and then a few days later all but seven were released.
Speaker 6: And I got winned that a few weeks ago the
Speaker 6: other seven were released and none are going to face
Speaker 6: any kind of justice at all.
Speaker 4: So that's the.
Speaker 6: Parallel, I guess, is the impunity, the lack of justice,
Speaker 6: and the ordinary people who were swept up in this
Speaker 6: authoritarian furor. And what's also interesting is these people, at
Speaker 6: least in the Philippines, they elected du Tertue on the
Speaker 6: platform of him taking on this drug war.
Speaker 4: So there's this, I would argue, a parallel to.
Speaker 6: The current administration in America, where the people who are
Speaker 6: most unlikely to be served and most likely to be
Speaker 6: hurt by the authoritarian are initially seduced by their pronouncements
Speaker 6: of easy problem solving with always brutality, and it makes
Speaker 6: sense when your life is chaotic to want some sort
Speaker 6: of easy resolution.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll say you know, this podcast is all about accountability.
Speaker 3: Accountability for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Accountability for his minions, and accountability for authoritarians around the
Speaker 2: world who abuse human rights. And although accountability sometimes feels
Speaker 2: far off, I feel like the first step to accountability
Speaker 2: is transparency and that's what this film does so well.
Speaker 2: It tells a story that wouldn't have been told, it
Speaker 2: tells it in graphic detail with evidence, and you can
Speaker 2: watch what we're hearing about.
Speaker 3: So I urge listeners to check it out.
Speaker 2: And I really want to thank you Andrew Glazer for
Speaker 2: making Spring of the Vanishing and for joining us on
Speaker 2: the Oath in the Office.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for having me. It was really fun
Speaker 4: talking to you guys.
Speaker 1: Mister Glazier. I want to thank you as well for
Speaker 1: making the film and for joining us. What's the best
Speaker 1: way for our listeners to follow you and keep up
Speaker 1: with your work and Spring of the Vanishing.
Speaker 6: Thanks so Spring of the Vanishing can be rented, streamed
Speaker 6: on Prime Video and Apple TV. My Twitter handle is
Speaker 6: at Andrew Glazer g Lazer. I'm not super active on
Speaker 6: social media, but I will try to be more and
Speaker 6: fill people in on developments in this story which is ongoing.
Speaker 2: And of course we'll also link to the video in
Speaker 2: the show notes.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being so generous with your time.
Speaker 6: No, thank you for your interest. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 6: This is a huge help, and thank you both.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thanks Andy, we got to go.
Speaker 1: Professor Brett Sneider, what is the best way for our
Speaker 1: listeners to follow you and keep up with your brilliance
Speaker 1: together lonely six days of the week.
Speaker 2: Say, if you enjoyed this discussion, you should subscribe, of course,
Speaker 2: and you can watch us on YouTube or listen to
Speaker 2: us wherever you get your podcasts. You can find me
Speaker 2: on Blue Sky as Democracy prof and we have a substack,
Speaker 2: the Oath and the Office substack. And I'll just say
Speaker 2: a final word about the whole episode, which was you know,
Speaker 2: one thing that we're doing every week is talking about
Speaker 2: the danger to democracy that this president is posing, and
Speaker 2: today I think we really dug into that idea of
Speaker 2: the Imperial Presidency, that there is a connection between our
Speaker 2: human rights abuses abroad of the kind that we had
Speaker 2: in this amazing discussion with Andrew Glazer and the abuses
Speaker 2: that we're seeing at home in the Braio Garcia case
Speaker 2: and the other cases as well that we're talking about
Speaker 2: that are both threatening free speech for non citizens but
Speaker 2: also attacking voting rights at home. It's really part of
Speaker 2: a piece, and you know, it's worrying, it's upsetting, but
Speaker 2: it's such a pleasure John to be able to unpack
Speaker 2: all of this with you every week, and I think
Speaker 2: it gives usome the our listeners some sanity to get
Speaker 2: a grasp on what's happening, to be honest about it.
Speaker 2: But also that's part of the process of seeing hope
Speaker 2: in protecting our democracy.
Speaker 1: Corey, I want to thank you, and more importantly, my
Speaker 1: prole officer wants to thank you. This has been a
Speaker 1: very good experience for me overall and has kept me
Speaker 1: from relapsing in many ways. I also want to thank
Speaker 1: Wendy and Beowulf Fit all the brilliant people who put
Speaker 1: this podcast together. My God, the ratings for this thing, Corey.
Speaker 1: People love it.
Speaker 4: Folks.
Speaker 1: Please keep giving us reviews and sharing it and talking
Speaker 1: it up. We are so glad to be here. You
Speaker 1: can hear me five nights a week on Serious XM
Speaker 1: Progress one twenty seven. If you don't have Serious XM,
Speaker 1: it's called the John FUGELSINGH Podcast five days a week.
Speaker 1: And my book is called Separation of Church and Hate.
Speaker 1: Professor Breschneider thank you once again. We'll see you guys
Speaker 1: next time on the oath on the office