This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/us/politics/trump-travel-ban.html

The article has changed 10 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Trump Doubles Down on Original ‘Travel Ban’ Trump Promotes Original ‘Travel Ban,’ Eroding His Legal Case
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump rebelled on Monday against his own advisers who “watered down” his original executive order barring visitors from select Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States and who insisted on calling it something other than a travel ban. WASHINGTON — President Trump has excellent lawyers. They have a challenging client.
Returning to one of the issues that animated the early days of his presidency and generated a court battle that has now gone to the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump argued that it was a mistake to revise the first order he signed and suggested that his administration should return to a “much tougher version.” In a series of Twitter posts Monday morning, Mr. Trump may have irretrievably undermined his lawyers’ efforts to persuade the Supreme Court to reinstate his executive order limiting travel from six predominantly Muslim countries.
In a series of Twitter posts just two days after a terrorist attack killed at least seven people in London, Mr. Trump seemed to reject everything his own administration has done to win court approval for restrictions on entry from countries that he designated, both in terms of vocabulary and in terms of its provisions. He also renewed his attack on London’s mayor. Saying he preferred “the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version” he had issued in March, Mr. Trump attacked both the Justice Department and the federal courts.
“People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” he wrote. There is a reason lawyers generally insist that their clients remain quiet while their cases move forward, said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston.
It was his own staff who insisted it was not a travel ban. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, spent much of one early briefing telling reporters not to call it that. “It’s not a travel ban,” Mr. Spicer insisted. “When we use words like travel ban, that misrepresents what it is.” “Talkative clients pose distinct difficulties for attorneys, as statements outside the court can frustrate strategies inside the court,” Professor Blackman said. “These difficulties are amplified exponentially when the client is the president of the United States, and he continuously sabotages his lawyers, who are struggling to defend his policies in an already hostile arena. I do not envy the solicitor general’s office.”
At the time, John F. Kelly, the secretary of Homeland Security, also rejected the phrase. “This is not a travel ban,” he said. “This is a temporary pause that allows us to better review the existing refugee and visa vetting system.” Even a lawyer with strong ties to the administration said Mr. Trump was hurting his own chances in the Supreme Court and undercutting the work of the Justice Department’s elite appellate unit.
Mr. Trump seemed to be reacting to a segment on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC on Monday that, just a few minutes before the president’s tweets, highlighted the administration’s past statements on whether the order was a travel ban. The issue was renewed on Saturday night when Mr. Trump responded to the London attack by arguing again for the order, which he called a travel ban. “We need the courts to give us back our rights,” he wrote that night. George T. Conway III, who withdrew last week as Mr. Trump’s nominee for assistant attorney general for the civil division and whose wife, Kellyanne Conway, is the president’s counselor, commented on one of Mr. Trump’s posts.
On Monday, Mr. Trump expressed frustration that his administration rewrote his original order, which was thrown out by the courts, in an effort to pass judicial muster. The second version was also rejected, and the administration last week appealed to the Supreme Court. “These tweets may make some ppl feel better, but they certainly won’t help OSG get 5 votes in SCOTUS, which is what actually matters,” he wrote in his own Twitter post, using acronyms for the Office of the Solicitor General and the Supreme Court of the United States. “Sad.”
“The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.,” he wrote. Last week, lawyers in the solicitor general’s office filed polished briefs in the Supreme Court. They urged the justices to ignore incendiary statements from Mr. Trump during the presidential campaign, including a call for a “Muslim ban.” The court should focus instead on the text of the revised executive order and statements from Mr. Trump after he had taken the inaugural oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” the briefs said.
He added: “The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court — & seek much tougher version!” Mr. Trump, his lawyers said, was now a changed man, alert to the burdens and responsibilities of his office.
Mr. Trump’s tweets may undercut the administration’s efforts to revive the revised executive order. His lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to ignore statements by Mr. Trump during the presidential campaign, when he called for a “Muslim ban,” in assessing the constitutionality of the executive order. They have also said that the revised order addressed any judicial objections to the earlier one by deleting explicit references to religion. “Taking that oath marks a profound transition from private life to the nation’s highest public office, and manifests the singular responsibility and independent authority to protect the welfare of the nation that the Constitution reposes in the president,” they wrote.
But in calling the revised order “politically correct,” Mr. Trump suggested that his goal was still to make distinctions based on religion. And in calling the revised order “watered down,” he made it harder for his lawyers to argue that it was a clean break from the earlier one. On Twitter early Monday, though, Mr. Trump appeared to say that the latest executive order was of a piece with the earlier one, issued in January, and with his longstanding positions.
Even a lawyer with strong ties to the administration said Mr. Trump was hurting his own cause. “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.,” Mr. Trump wrote.
George T. Conway III, who just withdrew last week as Mr. Trump’s nominee for assistant attorney general for the civil division and whose wife, Kellyanne Conway, is the president’s counselor, retweeted Mr. Trump’s post. In calling the revised order “politically correct,” Mr. Trump suggested that his goal throughout had been to exclude travelers based on religion. And in calling the revised order “watered down,” he made it harder for his lawyers to argue that it was a clean break from the earlier one, which had mentioned religion.
“These tweets may make some ppl feel better but they certainly won’t help OSG get 5 votes in SCOTUS, which is what actually matters,” he wrote, using acronyms for the Office of the Solicitor General and the Supreme Court of the United States. “Sad.” The Supreme Court has asked people and groups challenging the executive order to file their responses to the government’s briefs next Monday. Those responses will almost certainly rely on Mr. Trump’s tweets in arguing that the justices should not revive the order. The court will probably act on the government’s requests in the coming weeks.
His post came hours after Ms. Conway went on NBC’s “Today” show and chastised the news media for focusing too much on the president’s Twitter feed, calling it an “obsession with covering everything he says on Twitter and very little of what he does as president.” In his posts, Mr. Trump seemed to betray a misunderstanding of how two branches of the federal government work. His criticism of the Justice Department was misplaced, as it works for him. He could have insisted that it defend his original order. It was Mr. Trump’s decision, too, to issue the revised order.
Mr. Trump on Monday also assailed Mayor Sadiq Khan of London for the second day in a row, presenting him as soft on terrorism. Mr. Khan, the first Muslim mayor of the British capital, had said after Saturday’s attack that Londoners should not be “alarmed” if they see more police on the street. On Twitter on Sunday, Mr. Trump mischaracterized the quote to make it seem as if the mayor was telling his people not to be alarmed by terrorism; Mr. Khan’s office said that the “ill-informed tweet” deliberately took his remarks out of context. Mr. Trump also suggested that the Supreme Court could impose a “much tougher version” of his executive order. But the court’s role is limited to evaluating the lawfulness of the current order.
The president fired back on Monday. “Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement,” he wrote. Referring to the mainstream media, he added: “MSM is working hard to sell it!” Insulting judges is also generally a poor litigation strategy. But Mr. Trump also posted that “the courts are slow and political!”
Mr. Trump’s language suggested that the decision was somehow made by someone other than him, even though the Justice Department acts on the president’s orders in matters of policy such as this. The second version he criticized on Monday took Iraq off the list of countries that would be affected and made clear that the restrictions did not apply to those who hold green cards or valid visas. It also eliminated a provision that seemed to prioritize Christian refugees for entry. Mr. Trump’s adversaries certainly welcomed his tweets.
The revised version, like the first, barred all refugees from entering the country for 120 days and from Syria indefinitely. It barred entry for 90 days for any visitors from six countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. “It just adds to the mountain of already existing evidence that the government has had to ask the court over and over to ignore,” said Omar Jadwat, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents people and groups challenging the law. “Blinding the courts to a reality that everyone else is aware of is never an attractive position, but is especially problematic when you have to ignore in real time what’s being said by the president of the United States.”
“In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe,” Mr. Trump wrote on Monday. “The courts are slow and political!” Neal K. Katyal, who represents Hawaii in a separate challenge to the order, said there was a yawning gap between Mr. Trump’s tweets and his lawyers’ filings.
The administration said it chose those six nations and Iraq from a list of “countries of concern” identified in a law signed by President Barack Obama in 2015. But experts have said that since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, no one has been killed in the United States in a terrorist attack by anyone who emigrated from or whose parents emigrated from any of those countries. Most acts of terrorism inside the United States in the last 15 years were committed by American citizens or legal residents. “The president’s statements, before, during and after his inauguration, continually demonstrate what his so-called travel ban is really about,” Mr. Katyal said. “It’s not surprising his story and his tweets don’t match up with what the solicitor general has been trying to say in court.”
Mr. Trump did not explain on Monday why two of the elements of the order were still needed, as the original rationale was a pause for visitors and refugees of 90 to 120 days to give the administration time to review vetting procedures and put new ones in place. The administration insisted at the time that it was not meant as a permanent action, other than on refugees from Syria. More than 120 days have passed. There was also daylight between the president and his aides about what to call the executive order.
This was not the first time the president has expressed second thoughts about revising the original order. In March, after a Federal District Court in Hawaii blocked the revised version, Mr. Trump complained that it was only “a watered-down version of the first order” and told a rally of supporters that “I think we ought to go back to the first one and go all the way” to the Supreme Court, “which is what I wanted to do in the first place.” “People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” Mr. Trump wrote.
But his own staff members had insisted it was not a travel ban. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, spent much of one early briefing telling reporters not to call it that. “It’s not a travel ban,” Mr. Spicer insisted. “When we use words like travel ban, that misrepresents what it is.”
At the time, John F. Kelly, the secretary of homeland security, also rejected the phrase. “This is not a travel ban,” he said. “This is a temporary pause that allows us to better review the existing refugee and visa vetting system.”
Mr. Trump’s posts came as Ms. Conway went on NBC’s “Today” show and chastised the news media for focusing too much on the president’s Twitter feed, calling it an “obsession with covering everything he says on Twitter and very little of what he does as president.”
Mr. Trump on Monday also assailed Mayor Sadiq Khan of London for the second day in a row, presenting him as soft on terrorism. Mr. Khan, the first Muslim mayor of the British capital, had said after Saturday’s attack that Londoners should not be “alarmed” if they see more police officers on the street. On Twitter on Sunday, Mr. Trump mischaracterized the quote to make it seem as if the mayor was telling his people not to be alarmed by terrorism; Mr. Khan’s office said that the “ill-informed tweet” deliberately took his remarks out of context.
The president fired back on Monday. “Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement,” he wrote. Referring to the mainstream media, Mr. Trump added: “MSM is working hard to sell it!”
The revised executive order, which the president criticized on Monday, took Iraq off the list of countries that would be affected and made clear that the restrictions did not apply to those who held green cards or valid visas. It also eliminated a provision that seemed to prioritize Christian refugees for entry.
The revised order, like the first, barred all refugees from entering the country for 120 days. It limited entry for 90 days for visitors from six countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
“In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe,” Mr. Trump wrote on Monday.
The administration said it chose those six nations and Iraq from a list of “countries of concern” identified in a law signed by President Barack Obama in 2015. But experts have said that since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, no one has been killed in the United States in a terrorist attack by anyone who emigrated from or whose parents emigrated from any of those countries. Most acts of terrorism in the United States in the past 15 years were committed by American citizens or legal residents.
Mr. Trump did not explain on Monday why two elements of the order were still needed: The original rationale was a pause for visitors and refugees of 90 to 120 days to give the administration time to review vetting procedures and put new ones in place. More than 120 days have passed.
This was not the first time the president had expressed second thoughts about revising the original order. In March, after a Federal District Court in Hawaii blocked the revised version, Mr. Trump complained that it was only “a watered-down version of the first order” and told a rally of supporters that “I think we ought to go back to the first one and go all the way” to the Supreme Court, “which is what I wanted to do in the first place.”