Donald Trump’s Muslim ban will get a hearing at 6 PM ET Tuesday evening from a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judges William Canby Jr., Michelle Friedland, and Richard Clifton will hear an hour-long oral argument by telephone, which will be livestreamed. The judges were appointed by Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush, respectively. The Justice Department, with its compliant acting attorney general freshly installed, is arguing for the ban to be reinstated after a district judge in Washington issued a temporary restraining order:
The administration’s brief largely tracked its earlier arguments that dismissing the ban outright would threaten national security and disregard presidential authority. But it also asked the appeals court, at a minimum, to reinstate at least part of Mr. Trump’s order — appearing to acknowledge the possibility that the government’s case might not be successful.
“At most,” the brief said, the court order blocking the ban should be limited to “previously admitted aliens who are temporarily abroad now or who wish to travel and return to the United States in the future.” That would allow the federal government to block people who have never visited the United States.
The Trump regime is arguing that not banning travelers—especially Muslims—from seven specific nations will cause irreparable harm to national security.
In response, lawyers for Washington and Minnesota said that was not plausible, because it would mean the nation had long been suffering “some unspecified, ongoing irreparable harm.”
“That makes no sense,” the brief said. “As this court has held, preserving the status quo against sudden disruption is often in the interest of all parties.”
The states are supported by an amicus brief from former secretaries of state John Kerry and Madeleine Albright, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and former secretary of defense and CIA director Leon Panetta.