Britany Riley ,  //  6/22/17  //  Daily Update

The Government filed a brief in the Supreme Court today in Trump v. Hawaii, one of several challenges to the President's executive order banning people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. Democrat Jon Ossoff lost by four percent of the vote to Republican Karen Handel in yesterday's special election for Georgia's Sixth Congressional District. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against two psychologists who helped develop torture methods for the CIA. And Minnesota officials released the full dashboard camera video of the shooting of Philando Castile, a black motorist shot by Officer Jeronimo Yanez last year during a traffic stop. Yanez was acquitted on criminal charges last week.

IMMIGRATION

The government argued that the Supreme Court should not second-guess the President’s national-security judgments, in its brief filed today.

The government also asked that the Court narrow one of the injunctions against enforcing the ban so it applies only to a few people. (SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston’s blog).

• The brief responds to the challengers’ recent argument that the Supreme Court should allow the injunctions against the ban to stand because the President has undercut his national-security rationale for the travel ban by initiating review of visa-issuance vetting procedures, which ostensibly necessitated the ban.
• Trump’s say-so is not a national security judgment, counters Marty Lederman at Just Security.

CIVIL RIGHTS

The ACLU and a private firm, on behalf of three former prisoners in Afghanistan, sued two psychologists who helped develop torture methods for the CIA, one of whom died in custody. (NYT) 

As disability advocacy groups fight cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, an eighth-grader wrote that stories about disability don’t have to be sad. (NYT)

DEMOCRACY 

Letting defense contractors hire their own auditors is a bad idea, argue Nick Schwellenbach and Daniel Van Schooten at POGO.

Democrats think about what lesson to absorb, if any, after Democrat Jon Ossoff lost a special election to Republican Karen Handel in Georgia’s sixth Congressional district yesterday. (Politico, NYT, WSJ, WaPo)

• In particular, Nancy Pelosi is taking heat (The Hill).
• This seat has been held by Republicans for decades, and the district’s previous representative, Tom Price, won by over 20%. (Handel won by 4%.) But President Trump’s approval rating in this district is only 35% and almost 60% of the electorate has a college degree. (The New Yorker)

JUSTICE AND SAFETY

Minnesota officials released the full video of the traffic stop when Philando Castile was shot yesterday

• David French argues in the National Review that it’s imperative that juries understand that not all fear is reasonable.

President Trump should clarify his strategy in Syria, argues Ilan Goldenberg at Slate.

• This comes amid three US strikes in the past two weeks that have brought down pro-Assad aircraft, although Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said that the U.S. focus in Syria is ISIS (WSJ).

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The Department of Justice’s narrow reading of the term “emolument” is at odds with the Founders’ vision of an Executive free of undue influence from foreign governments, argues Simon Stern on Take Care.                                                                                                 

REGULATION  

The secrecy surrounding the drafting of the Senate healthcare bill is an affront to democratic values, says Richard Primus in an open letter to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) posted on Take Care.

• Matt Ramsey of the Sunlight Foundation agrees. 

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will nominate Arthur Wayne Johnson, C.E.O. of a private student loan company, to oversee the federal government’s financial aid programs. (WaPo)

Renewable energy advocates released a report preemptively challenging claims that wind and solar energy negatively impact the reliability of the American electrical grid, in preparation for the release of a study recently commissioned by Secretary of Energy Rick Perry that is expected to undermine clean energy sources. (Reuters)                              

Senate Democrats urged the Department of Justice to keep President Trump’s campaign promise and block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, which could result in sharp rate increases for consumers. (The Hill)

• Here is the letter.                                                                                                                                    

RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE                          

The criminal law concept of “aiding and abetting” provides a useful framework to determine whether the Trump Administration violated campaign finance laws by offering “substantial assistance” to Russians tampering in the 2016 presidential election, suggests Bob Bauer at Just Security.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has composed a team of lawyers with experience in government prosecutions, counter-terrorism, and Russian foreign affairs, suggesting that he plans to conduct a wide-ranging and lengthy investigation, notes the Associated Press in a profile of the lawyers.   

In yesterday’s House and Senate Intelligence Committee hearings Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed claims that hackers linked to the Russian government attacked election computer systems in 21 states. (WaPo)

A timeline of Russian aggression since President Trump’s Inauguration, from Ryan Goodman on Just Security.