Elissa Slotkin Asks Trump Nominee Point Blank: Will You Comply With SCOTUS Court Orders?

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During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) spoke about the Supreme Court's court orders with the Department of Homeland Security.

Transcript

00:00to the next guy. Mr. Percival, you are going to be the general counsel of the Department of Homeland

00:05Security. The Supreme Court of the United States currently has a court order, multiple court orders

00:11with the Department of Homeland Security. John Roberts, the biggest guy in the land we have on

00:18the Supreme Court, has issued those court orders and DHS is not complying. If you want this job

00:24as general counsel, will you comply with the court orders from the Supreme Court of the United States?

00:30Well, thank you, Senator. I have some awareness of that situation in my role as senior counselor. If

00:34confirmed, as I said, it is this administration's policy to follow court orders. It's not this

00:39administration's policy. Can you agree that right now they are not implementing Supreme Court court

00:45orders? You can't say it's policy if they're not implementing them. I absolutely disagree with that.

00:49So there's multiple aspects to facilitating the return of somebody. One of them is the DHS side

00:53of it, which is, you know, we call it eliminating domestic obstacles to return. So if someone shows

00:58up at a port of entry, we'd make sure they get in the country. The second piece would be

01:02international negotiations because the individuals are in the custody of a foreign government. So

01:06that's a State Department piece. DHS doesn't do foreign policy, but obviously those are very

01:12complicated negotiations. Yeah, but you can't say we haven't negotiated with the country to get them

01:16back. The president of El Salvador, where one of these guys is being held, was in the Oval Office.

01:20So we have access to this president to facilitate negotiations. DHS is choosing not to adhere to

01:26court orders from the Supreme Court. And you're going to be a lawyer. I know I'm over time,

01:31but I would just ask that you please obey the Constitution and the separation of powers,

01:36not just Donald Trump. Senator Lankford.

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